TRPG General Chat

5:00 AM

I think one of my first big discussions in chat was arguing with someone, kviiri I think, about how D&D is definitely a good game for ropleplaying. Something I have shifted views on considerably since actually playing other systems.

(I now think that most RP in 5e is in-spite of the system, not supported by it actively)

JohnP

Well, expletive. . Looks like kidlet #1 might have a broken foot.

Rubiksmoose

@JohnP oh no! that seems like more than a Lego injury.

(it seems much more like a Footo injury I guess)

BESW

8 hours ago, by BESW

...I just read an answer I wrote from seven years ago, in which I decried a particular GM tool for "encouraging metagaming."

Rubiksmoose

@JohnP (I hate to do this but watch the language?)

MikeQ

@Rubiksmoose Foot?

JohnP

5:09 AM

@Rubiksmoose yeah, he pulled something down onto his foot at a chaotic back room for his dance recital dress rehearsal.

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ [reports as offensive] /s

@JohnP oh no! Does it need a cast?

JohnP

@Rubiksmoose not sure. Might not be broken, it's hard to tell with the swelling. Have to repeat xrays in a week. But all his summer swim/sports classes were supposed to start next week.

Rubiksmoose

@JohnP :(

Ben

I hate arrays.

linksassin

@JohnP Poor kid, tell him a bunch of strangers on the internet wish him well. Or maybe don't...

Rubiksmoose

5:13 AM

Isn't that arraycist?

linksassin

@Ben What for? Language? Context?

Ben

C#. Doing some coding. I should be more specific in that I hate Multidimensional Arrays

Miniman

@Ben Wait, C# has multidimensional arrays?

linksassin

@Miniman int[ , ] myArray;

JohnP

@Miniman sort of yeah. Multi arrays I always thought were fun.

Ben

5:16 AM

@linksassin int [,] myArray

Miniman

Oh, right.

MikeQ

[laughs in numpy]

linksassin

@Ben Yeah whoops. I think you can use both in some circumstances. I get my languages mixed up these days.

@Ben Actually i think x[][] is matlab... too many things in my brain sometimes.

@Ben Anyway, it's not really on topic here but what's the issue?

Ben

Basically I'm searching for a match of a field in a csv to a field in the Array (CSV Col x:Array Index y - search each entry until you find a match). Then, using that match, I need to look for any all fields of that Index, and match another field (col a:Index b)

I think I might be going about it wrong, however.

MikeQ

C#/.NET has a query syntax that could be useful here

Miniman

5:20 AM

Linq, you mean?

JohnP

Why not load them into datatables and just run SQL queries against them?

MikeQ

@Miniman Yes. a Linq to the past.

Ben

@JohnP This is why I come to chat

MikeQ

I'm fairly certain .NET lets you go CSV -> Linq -> SQL queries to find matches

Miniman

Linq has a SQL-like syntax you can use, but if you want to use actual SQL you'd have to get the data into SQL.

JohnP

5:23 AM

@MikeQ Yes, and it also has native csv imports.

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose Hehe, I think we've been in agreement over that for so long I hardly remember we ever disagreed

I'm personally baiting much less flames about it since my RPG group's been all but disbanded anyway so it doesn't really concern me personally anymore.

MikeQ

@Ben If you're searching for multiple matches, then another approach would be to convert both CSVs to Dictionary<string,string[]> format, and then use key-value pairs to find entries with matching keys

Ben

@MikeQ The array is unfortunately 3 fields - <TMP>,<Tag>,<Field>

MikeQ

@Ben You could represent them as <field that you match on, other fields []>

Ben

@MikeQ ...you have my attention

MikeQ

5:27 AM

The downside is the overhead of converting CSV to Dictionary, plus splitting each row's array into a new array, so this is inadvisable if you have to call this functionality individually many times

Do the original formats need to be CSV? This whole business would be simpler if they were represented (and stored) as SQL tables instead.

JohnP

@MikeQ what about tuples or composites? But yes, having in dB or dt form would make it much simplerm

MikeQ

Tuples are good. The Dictionary class is basically like many Tuples with a unique indexable field.

Unless there's a better way of indexing a list of tuples by a given field?

JohnP

@MikeQ uhm... I'd have to look. I never used tuples much when I was still programming.

Ben

@MikeQ Ultimately, it will be. I'm writing a plugin for my EDMS program I re-sell. Problem is their SDK is a "catch all" and I'm pressed for time, so I only understand about 50% of it. So until I can get help from the dev team, I need to test it by writing in my own catches.

V2Blast

@BESW I got a bunch of alerts from Avast for those j-rpg.com links in that article

BESW

5:37 AM

Ew.

My blockers must be stopping the bad bits before Avast can notice them, sorry.

Rubiksmoose

6:06 AM

@linksassin I think Umbrie is going to be pretty disappointed to the answers to that darkvision question. The only disadvantage I know of is lack of color. And that would be pretty petty to make vital to a whole campaign

kviiri

@JohnP My research code is basically just nested tuples

linksassin

@Rubiksmoose Actually you have disadvantage on perception checks if relying on darkvision since it is "dim light". Just most DMs forget that.

Rubiksmoose

@linksassin as I just did!

I actually feel like the grudge against darvision stuff should stay in the question btw

Because I think it is something that answers should address.

linksassin

@Rubiksmoose I've never played with a DM that enforced it. And I don't run a 5e campaign myself only one-shots. I would likely enforce it for a campaign though.

Rubiksmoose

Eg, don't be a jerk to your players.

Ben

6:09 AM

@Rubiksmoose Seconded

linksassin

@Rubiksmoose Hmm... you have a point. I tried to make the sentences make sense. There was a few articfacts in a few places that didn't make sense.

Miniman

@Rubiksmoose Even more so by the answer that says "so your fellow players made the game less fun for you, and you are now asking how to make the game less fun for completely different people?"

Or even "the vision and light rules are a giant mess, and making them important in your game is only going to make it less fun for everyone".

Rubiksmoose

How does that look?

@Miniman Yeah I really don't get that part specifically.

linksassin

@Rubiksmoose They edited most of that out themselves and I don't want to put words in their mouth. Your edit is a good summary of what they said.

Miniman

@Rubiksmoose The generous interpretation is "...so that this doesn't happen to anyone else".

linksassin

6:14 AM

TBH it sounds like they need to have a discussion about multiple playstyles being valid

Rubiksmoose

Absolutely.

Ok I think I'm done.

Look...answerable?

linksassin

@Rubiksmoose Yep. I think I could answer it. Don't know if I will have time before someone beats me to it though.

Rubiksmoose

So, let's see options for forcing people to bring lights. Traps requiring perception checks every 15 feet?

Color based puzzles?

linksassin

Ambush encounters.

Rubiksmoose

Good one as well.

linksassin

6:25 AM

Tracking creatures in darkness.

Fighting any enemy that hides or uses darkness to its advantage.

MikeQ

Enemies that are light-sensitive. Switches and hazards that are activated by light/fire.

Rubiksmoose

This one would actually be one where I'd consider not answering the actual question at all and instead just frame challenging the whole thing

linksassin

@Rubiksmoose I think we can have both valid answers and frame challenges on this one.

Rubiksmoose

(just my personal take) I hate thinking that "help" I give is going towards making other people miserable.

linksassin

@Rubiksmoose If we are going to help, we should include the stipulation: "talk to your players about this ahead of time"

Rubiksmoose

6:27 AM

@linksassin Oh yeah absolutely. However, it is generally good practice to answer the question and then challenge the frame for better reception. I was just musing that, if I were answering, I would omit the "proper" answer completely and instead try to talk them out of it.

Which is not a judgement on how any of you can or should answer, just my take.

linksassin

@Rubiksmoose Hmm... talk them out of doing it for that sake of punishing them. Advice on how to communicate to the other players that this could be enjoyable would be useful.

I have nothing against the idea of wanting darkvision to be important. Just not for the sake of punishing people.

Rubiksmoose

@linksassin that's a good perspective as well and valid.

I have nothing against wanting to track darvision in general either fwiw (well, I kind of do since it's a PITA and I don't think it adds any fun to any game I would play)

though I recognise that is not true at other tables necessarily.

Anyways, I likely won't even get a chance to answer. I'm well past my bedtime and it doesn't look to be reopening any time soon.

linksassin

@Rubiksmoose Goodnight!

Night!

7:20 AM

8:50 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with a link in answer, bad pattern in url answer, potentially bad asn for hostname in answer (148): Making a mount out of an exotic animal by Jhon Snow on rpg.SE (@doppelgreener)

V2Blast

9:28 AM

Apparently Sardathrion took requests for more detailed citations as "abuse" and deleted their answer:

rpg.stackexchange.com/a/149328/33569

:/

BESW

I don't think we need to call out people in chat, especially those who aren't in chat, and especially when there's not something we can do to improve their experience.

Akixkisu

10:20 AM

@Miniman it would be nice if you could give me some feedback about why you rejected these tag edits rpg.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/57585 and rpg.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/57584 as by your edit the tag is still vaguely defined.

vicky_molokh

10:36 AM

@Akixkisu Tangential, but while the description looks OK to me on its own, the name of the tag worries me, as it doesn't make it clear that it refers to out-of-game logistics (as distinct from, say, using City Stats and related articles to handle the logistical side of events going in-game).

Akixkisu

@vicky_molokh I was confused by the tag the same way which prompted me to at least resolve that critical issue distinctively in the tag description. It has been used in 4 questions and all of those deal with out of game logistics.

@vicky_molokh it is one of those poorly designed 2010-tags which could be very useful if it was at least a bit descriptive as it could be great for distinct Good-Subjective questions that are on-topic. I don't see it being used in its current vague state.

@vicky_molokh I also see your problem with the name and rather would like to see it being migrated to logistics-out-of-game because logistics-in-game is a real thing.

2

vicky_molokh

11:15 AM

@V2Blast I must say I found the whole voting pattern in my thread hard to understand. An answer that went on a tangent and wasn't helpful got lots of upvotes; the first answer that at least tried to pursue the question got downvoted and slapped with the obligatory 'mention you actually tried what you suggest' notice etc.

Miniman

11:26 AM

@Akixkisu The moment you define something by a list of examples, people start seeing the list as the definition.

Also, no definition should contain itself.

Akixkisu

@Miniman The term logistical means is defined by said list, but that stance is insightful, thank you.

Miniman

And yes, the edit I made leaves the tag vague and ill-defined - I think maybe that's better than a very specific definition for a tag that is actually very vague and ill-defined, if you see what I mean.

Akixkisu

I would disagree that the term in itself is ill-defined in its places in operations, military, mathematics, statistics and philosophical symbolic logic. But that would be another tangent, I suppose.

@Miniman I would argue that this specific definition is more useful, which is the purpose of tags, but I understand your reasoning. "[T]ags are a means of connecting experts with questions they will be able to answer by sorting questions into specific, well-defined categories." and this an ill-defined category, possibly it should be deleted instead.

Miniman

11:50 AM

@Akixkisu I'd agree with that. Honestly, I wouldn't have edited it at all, but I wasn't comfortable with accepting or rejecting your edit. Maybe I should have just skipped the review.

Akixkisu

@Miniman That sounds sound, do you have the option to mark that as disputed in that particular queue?

nitsua60

(This seems nuanced/interesting enough that perhaps a meta would be worthwhile. Even when they're not necessary to make a tag better, they can be nice every once in a while to provide examples of how people think about tags. Here, for instance, the reasonable instincts of "provide examples and it'll be easier to use" and "leave it more nebulous so that tag describes rather than prescribes usage" are bumping into each other.)

KorvinStarmast

@Carcer agree with this position, thanks for expressing it so cleanly.

Carcer

12:08 PM

despite my best efforts I do occasionally say things that make sense

kviiri

@Carcer You seem quite sensible to me even if we don't always agree

Derpy

12:37 PM

@Carcer Making sense? What fun there is in making sense?

KorvinStarmast

@BESW That link led me to this link, and articulated a few points in the ongoing discussion I've been having with my son in law about current music. (He's in the music business). So thanks for that ... I had already sent them the bit on "the two people writing all of the popular hits" so this is a follow up.

@vicky_molokh we don't get to tell people how to vote. It's a feature, not a bug. I too sometimes scratch my head at some vote tallies that I see, but as has been explained to me, that's the system working as it is supposed to on the non professional sites.

vicky_molokh

@KorvinStarmast Actually the stack does tell people how to vote (though people are free not to listen, at least until a lock occurs). But my comment was meant to be focused more on my lack of understanding.

nitsua60

TIL: throwing-things exists and has 30 questions.

vicky_molokh

12:53 PM

@nitsua60 Which reminds me that I have a question about skills and throwing, which maybe I should ask one day . . .

nitsua60

@vicky_molokh You could tag it just-thowing-it-out-there

=)

(Speaking of which, I need to finish re-making a long-sling that I made too long. Summer's here: time to practice slinging!)

vicky_molokh

@nitsua60 Long as in staff-sling, or just like the Palestinian street sling?

KorvinStarmast

@vicky_molokh Only the voter gets to select a vote by pusing a button. No amount of you or me commenting, or even stack rules existing, can or will change that fact. What you linked to is guidelines. The actual behaviors are in the hands of each voter.

vicky_molokh

@KorvinStarmast Well of course the actual vote is in the hands of the voter. That's why I said that people are told but can mostly decide not to listen.

KorvinStarmast

@vicky_molokh Another thing I've been advised on in the past is to not bother complaining about voting given how the tools work in practice versus how they may have been intended. (And the system mostly works as intended, in the long run, or they'd have changed the system).

Carcer

1:03 PM

I get the impression it might be more apt to say that for stacks like rpg.se we've adapted to the system

nitsua60

@vicky_molokh Not a staff-sling. Just a long sling. (Long enough it would hit the ground if held out at elbow height.) I don't know how that relates to Palestinian slings.

vicky_molokh

@nitsua60 Like this. Some search results seem even longer.

KorvinStarmast

1:28 PM

@Carcer The thing about answers and votes on the professional stacks, particularly as people wrestle with some of the nuances of various coding problems: voting carelessly would seem to have a potentially greater impact (in terms of supporting wrong answers that can mess something up IRL) than on these more subjective stacks. But I guess that may be an oversimplification.

vicky_molokh

@KorvinStarmast What's interesting is that there seems to be a major disagreement about which questions/answers are correct/helpful/good between the main and the meta. E.g. this meta talks about the people voting wrong and the idea of letting people vote how they see fit gets downvoted. But clearly that's not representative of main, judging by the existence of a need to bring this up on meta.

Rubiksmoose

@V2Blast to be clear though I do think noting pushback from users might be useful in general though. I do think it's important to listen to how our messages are being received, so I appreciated the heads up (even though it wasn't me who messaged them)

Especially in this instance where we have essentially no power to affect answers beyond voting and urging more support with comments.

KorvinStarmast

1:52 PM

@vicky_molokh my comment under GcL's answer sums up a few of my thoughts on that particular dissenting point. (I am glad that point was raised). I also liked how Xirema answered that meta.

Rubiksmoose

@vicky_molokh Here's the thing, voting is a huge visible factor in how the system sees a question or answer as useful or not. However, this site also has systems in place such that humans can intervene to remove things that are upvoted, but should not be on the site. Votes are not considered to be infallible indicators of quality and the system recognises that. Because humans are the ones voting and voting patterns don't always fit the system goals.

It is why building strong community-wide standards is so very important. We can't force people to vote a certain way, but we can create an environment where we encourage voting patterns which feed positively into how the site should work.

vicky_molokh

2:10 PM

@Rubiksmoose It's an interesting balancing act between letting the community run things, and overruling it from above.

KorvinStarmast

@Rubiksmoose With the often unintended side effect of driving some productive users away by creating too many policies. That is a risk of making too many rules with questionable added value. I think seven's response is a point worth considering. I'll paraphrase my takeaway from his answer to that meta: do we really need a rule for this?

Rubiksmoose

@vicky_molokh I don't think overrulling it would be quite the right lense with which to view it. If we are talking about diamond mods, their job is to mainly listen to the community and enforce the normas they set except where actions are running afoul of site policies or causing explicit harm to the site.

KorvinStarmast

@Rubiksmoose causing explicit harm to the site ... And that's where a judgment call is made

Rubiksmoose

@KorvinStarmast I don't think creating rules is the solution. I think setting community standards that are widely accepted and promoted by the community is. In my mind there is a difference between those ideas.

KorvinStarmast

@Rubiksmoose I think it amounts to the same thing as a practical matter in re people ending their participation, but I can also see the distinction you are making.

Rubiksmoose

2:18 PM

@KorvinStarmast Yeah, for better or worse, whenever you have humans dealing with other human you're going to have to make judgements. I guess that is why elections are so important though, you want to be sure the person you are electing is one you trust to make those judgements and work with the community on ensuring that the judgements are reflective of the community.

@KorvinStarmast Yeah it really does break my heart when a community member in good standing leaves the site. It certainly something that should be avoided

goodguy5

speaking of which, I haven't seen doppel much lately, it feels like.

Or, it could be that I'm looking for his old Avatar

Rubiksmoose

Even looking back at older answers and seeing some of the top users of this site's (some of whom I never knew) answer makes me a bit sad seeing that they aren't around anymore.

KorvinStarmast

@goodguy5 the reports of doppel's demise are greatly exaggerated ;)

@Rubiksmoose We each have a finite amount of free time, and sometimes a "better offer" arises. Other times, it's a more negative thing. :(

goodguy5

@KorvinStarmast what a good movie. I still need to watch the last 20 or so minutes

JohnP

@Rubiksmoose Every site evolves for various reasons. I've seen site builders leave a site because certain mods got elected. Others just...have life happen. Our own Wax being an example of that.

Or Ash even.

KorvinStarmast

2:25 PM

@goodguy5 I was mostly riffing off of one of Mark Twain's witticisms ... According to a widely-repeated legend, one major American newspaper actually printed his obituary and, when Twain was told about this by a reporter, he quipped: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated .”

Which movie are you referring to?

JohnP

Over the past few years, I've seen a few dozen various moderators that were long standing, high rep peeps have to leave for one reason or another. Even pops and bill the lizard stepped down.

Rubiksmoose

@JohnP Oh yeah for sure. It is a fact of life that people enter and leave it. Still, sad.

Heck, Nautarch is still very active on the site, but I miss chatting with them here in chat.

vicky_molokh

@Rubiksmoose A thing to keep in mind is that elections amplify the impact of pluralities.

goodguy5

@KorvinStarmast Ah, I thought you were referring to Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which of course was referring to the same Twain reference.

JohnP

For reference Bill the Lizard LONGtime mod and 300k contributor on SO.

Rubiksmoose

2:32 PM

@vicky_molokh You are saying that a plurality of people that believes in idea X can elect mod that believes in idea X and thus reinforce that and build support for the idea that way?

goodguy5

@vicky_molokh ISNT THAT KIND OF THE POINT? (sry caps, 1handed)

vicky_molokh

@Rubiksmoose Let's say 70% of people believe A and 30% believe B (two contrary ideas/policies/interests/etc.), and each group wants to be represented. It is highly likely that the moderating body will consist of 100% people who support A and 0% who support B, particularly when the moderating body is small like ours. Which is non-representative of voting demographics and groups seeking moderative representation.

JohnP

@vicky_molokh I think you missed a word after "highly"

yay, today I get to write a quis custodiet ipsos custodes program.

vicky_molokh

* highly *likely* that moderating body will consist 100%/0%.

But the chat won't let me edit and the connection is unstable so I also lost the next sentence.

JohnP

fify

Rubiksmoose

2:40 PM

@vicky_molokh Gotcha. Yeah I think that might be true in really simplistic terms. However, I do think it is important to note that mods are people, not robots. Like any person they can be convinced to change their views and may (and likely do) naturally evolve their views over time. But I think what you point out is an issue with any kind of system that deal with majority voting.

vicky_molokh

@JohnP Huh, you haven't won yet and already get to edit the RPGSE chat. Wonder how that works. Anyway thanks.

Rubiksmoose

(which isn't to say it is not an issue of course)

@vicky_molokh (it's because he is mod in other stacks. Chat doesn't differentiate)

JohnP

@vicky_molokh I'm a mod on three other stacks.

Chat privileges extend network wide.

Anytime you see a name highlighted in blue in chat, they are a mod somewhere or stack employee

vicky_molokh

I may have read that before and forgot it.

Rubiksmoose

I'm actually really very interested to see how this election goes. There have been ~450 people who have voted thus far, the vast majority of whom I've never directly interacted with and thus don't know how they feel about this or that.

JohnP

2:45 PM

I have my personal expectation, we'll see how close I am.

Akixkisu

@vicky_molokh On the diversity of policy side, I'm slightly unhappy about the nominations, but not a single choice feels bad - so that is great.

Rubiksmoose

Can we get some help to this question? I think the edit brought up a lot more issues, but I'm not sure where to take this. (Or maybe I'm just seeing issues that aren't there)

And it has 4 votes to reopen.

vicky_molokh

@Akixkisu Oh? Would you be willing to expand on that?

Carcer

@Rubiksmoose how are you counting how many people have voted?

vicky_molokh

@Rubiksmoose Might be worth a social edit, but otherwise seems like a question worth trying to answer to me.

Rubiksmoose

2:56 PM

@Carcer Well obviously I have spies everywhere!

Carcer

ohhh

Rubiksmoose

(Really it is by looking at how many Constituent badges have been awarded)

Carcer

constituent can be awarded multiple times

I had assumed it was a one and done

okay, fair enough. That's a pretty safe indicator then.

Akixkisu

@vicky_molokh you have access to the decision-making and the post history, including meta posts, of nominees so you can get a fairly good impression of behavioural patterns. A decent number of the nominees are fairly homogenous in their policy-backing and approach to policies on meta this overlap is also true (the homogeneity) if you examine the already established moderators, it gets better when you look at ex-moderators who tend to have a lot of weight on meta.

Rubiksmoose

@vicky_molokh I definitely think it is a question worth answering, no doubts about it. I'm just worried there is too much there such that it is unfocused and not going to get good answers. But again, I'm not sure where to improve it or anything so I'm happy it looks good to you.

Carcer

3:02 PM

oof

the context provided by updates there makes it interesting, eh

JohnP

@Carcer Constituent, Caucus, Yearling, there are quite a few that can be earned multiple times.

Carcer

pretty classic problem of trying to use in-character punishments for metagame problems though

Hot RPG Questions

3:27 PM

3

Q: Can I use trees and other climbable objects to get on Tenser's Floating Disk?

I have been creating Tenser's floating disk next to trees and climbing them to get on the disk. I usually do this just so I can rain literal fire on bad guys. I did this twice and I was asked to do skill checks. I'm fine with it, because I can understand that it's a pretty cheese tactic. My mo...

vicky_molokh

@Akixkisu I'm having trouble understanding the unhappiness angle.

Akixkisu

@vicky_molokh that is diversity in policy representation.

vicky_molokh

. . . I must be even slower than usual today.

Akixkisu

¯_(ツ)_/¯

JohnP

3:47 PM

@vicky_molokh I believe Akix means that the current list of candidates all appear to be "toeing the party line" so to speak, and none have (at least apparent) differences in policy approach from the current moderator team.

Akix would like to see more diversity in approach, if I am reading correctly.

vicky_molokh

@JohnP On one hand, that would be at least interesting to see. On the other, it seems to be the case that moderators shouldn't be sources of policy, while the meta/community should be (again, with the sad fact that meta seems not to be accurately representative of the community in some fields).

Akixkisu

an issue is there that there are the identities of user and moderator and the weight of the moderator identity is commonly extrapolated to the user identity.
So the theory of moderation (moderators as janitors in the background who are exception handlers) is inherently at odds with the reality of identity perception.
An opinion on meta by a user who is a moderator has the weight of the moderator diamond on its back (and the up-votes of the community), likewise are comments by users who are moderators so much more impactful than comments by other users.

The Oracle

4:05 PM

1

Q: Can we save this question about an evil house rule?

This question has been closed, reopened, closed again, and is now on track to be reopened. I see a lot of issues with the question and it has gone through at least one major revision which doesn't seem to have helped much. However, I think there are some good stackable issues in there, but I'm u...

discussion specific-question closed-questions

Sir Cinnamon

4:19 PM

@Akixkisu But like he says - moderators are more focused on rule enforcement than on rule creation/removal/modification. For enforcement, a consistent approach and understanding is not only preferable but almost mandatory

Akixkisu

@SirCinnamon I'm confused by your reply, could you please elaborate on the point and the context you are making?

nitsua60

> So the theory of moderation (moderators as janitors in the background who are exception handlers) is inherently at odds with the reality of identity perception.

I feel this keenly, often.

Even in here: I was a regular daily chatizen long before election. Many in the room "know" me from before then, and I am sure that they have no problem reading things I'm writing as in my "nautural" voice. Then there are others, newer to the site, who have only known me as an elected mod. How do they hear what I write, when just hanging out?

On mainsite I try to be very moderator-like in my comments. So much so that I've dialed back my "normal" interactions--answering, editing--quite a bit. But I haven't been willing to do that here.

Rubiksmoose

@nitsua60 WRT the latter, I for one am glad for that. It's a pleasure having you around chat.

Sir Cinnamon

@Akixkisu My understanding is you have a problem with the lack of diversity of policy/opinion among the moderators? But in my opinion that's a positive. Consistent moderation is a good thing and policy change should be driven by the community voting democratically on an individual issue. If you feel that moderator opinions are given excessive weight in those conversations, that very well could be true and I think there are potential solutions to that problem worth discussing

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 You sound like WC Fields this morning. How did you do that? 8^D

Sir Cinnamon

4:30 PM

Or who knows maybe i'm totally misunderstanding whats being said and in that case just ignore me!

KorvinStarmast

I'd like to Second Sir Cinnamon's point up there. golf clap

Rubiksmoose

@SirCinnamon +1 I actually think a discussion about how much weight to give a diamond opinion in Meta would be a useful one to have. If I were a diamond I'd want the vast majority of my Meta posts to be read in the light of "Community member RubiksMoose is proposing X" versus "Diamond Rubiksmoose is dictating X" or even "Diamond Rubiksmoose is proposing X therefore we should give it more weight because of the diamond"

Carcer

it's a bit difficult when the design of the site itself is automatically adding more weight to everything you do, eh

Rubiksmoose

@Carcer Well the site only puts a diamond symbol next to the name and gives certain mechanical privileges. The community then decides what kind of additional authority to ascribe to that little symbol to some extent I think.

If that makes any sense at all.

MikeQ

@Rubiksmoose Thus mods have to be extra considerate about tone and phrasing. At least, in meta posts. In moderation actions (such as corrective comments) an authoritative tone is useful.

Rubiksmoose

4:41 PM

@MikeQ For sure!

Carcer

@Rubiksmoose and certain mechanical duties and restrictions, e.g. all your votes are binding forever, but we've hashed that one out a lot recently

I don't think that there's much useful discussion on the topic of "oh but it's the community that decides what that authority means"

the site says "these are special people here", humans are humans and have all the context of relationships with authority in their normal lives and in other places on the internet

they're even elected to this position of authority

I don't think there is a way you can get the community at large to stop treating it as a position of authority with associated weight

G. Moylan

the only way to help that would be to hide the diamond icon, and I don't think the site allows that, nor would it be part of site philosophy

Xirema

Coffee gives Advantage to Dexterity Saving Throws but Disadvantage to Dexterity Ability Checks. CMV.

Rubiksmoose

@Carcer In general, I agree. But I think there could be specific cases where things could be improved if the mods saw it as an issue.

JohnP

@Rubiksmoose - I've got a revision ready, you want to preview it somewhere?

Rubiksmoose

4:48 PM

@Carcer You don't think so? I do think there is some interesting conversation around what it means when a mod posts a comment or meta and trying to disambiguate when they are acting in one role or the other. But you could be right and it could be a fool's errand.

Or it could not even be something that is desired by the current moderation team.

I thought it was a good thought by @SirCinnamon anyways.

Carcer

@Rubiksmoose well I mean we can talk about the distinction between mod acting as mod and mod trying to act as not mod, and I appreciate that it exists

Rubiksmoose

@JohnP sure, where do you think?

Carcer

but what I'm doubtful about is that you will ever be able to effectively communicate that distinction to the community at large and have them agree about it and alter perceptions accordingly

Rubiksmoose

@JohnP Might be able to just do it in the meta I think.

@Carcer It would certainly be a struggle for sure.

JohnP

Eh, I created a room and superpinged you there.

Or linky here

Rubiksmoose

4:54 PM

@Carcer I'm not sure that it is so hard that it makes the discussion not worth having though.

Akixkisu

this is much like moderator identity a multilayered thing. On the front of presenting a unified body that cleans-up based on understanding site-policy homogeneity is indeed great. But behind that, you have users who have approaches to policies and stances on how things should be enforced. So as a user, you want to look at the moderators as users and see your approaches represented in them.

Moderators can all stand behind the decision that the monster should be dealt with before it lays eggs (homogeneity is indeed great), but exactly how would they want to achieve that?

Rubiksmoose

@Xirema CMV?

Akixkisu

Currently my view?

Change my view?

vicky_molokh

5:10 PM

@nitsua60 You give an impression of adhering very strongly to the ideals of moderation being moderate and exception-handling, so you're doing a great job.

Xirema

@Akixkisu ^

I know for a fact that in my new group of players there's a few players who, given the option, will attempt to abuse the fictional addictive substances in their world as much as what doesn't kill their characters, so I do need to have answers to those kinds of questions. XD

Rubiksmoose

@Xirema oooooh. I'm dumb. My eyes just glazed over on the link part assuming it was just the title of the coffee question. That makes a lot more sense now.

vicky_molokh

@Rubiksmoose Change My View. (It's a great community to prowl in search of people who are willing to discuss disagreements civilly on the Internet!)

Rubiksmoose

> discuss disagreements civilly on the Internet!

gasp is there such a mystical place of joy and wonder?

vicky_molokh

Shocking, right?

Sir Cinnamon

5:16 PM

IMO, moderators primary job is to moderate according to the rules laid out. Interpretation discussions and execution discussions, while mostly relevant to moderators and in some cases only interesting and valuable to moderators, are community domain and should be open to all.

My analogy would be in life there are police (executive branch) who enforce the law. while natural to have a difference of opinion, the more uniformly, consistently enforced the rules are, the better. To me this is the moderator role.

vicky_molokh

Regarding diversity in policies:

I think a much more important thing is recognising that there's such a thing as an *inconclusive community vote*, and that more drastic policies may need supermajorities rather than pluralities to be justified.

Rubiksmoose

@Carcer oh BTW sorry for kind of dumping semi-coherent thoughts on you. I've have a lot of these ideas bouncing around my head for a bit and it is interesting to talk about them, but clearly some of them need some more thinking about.

Akixkisu

@SirCinnamon Marvelous, now we have deciphered why "I'm slightly unhappy about the nominations, but not a single choice feels bad - so that is great."

Sir Cinnamon

@Akixkisu Yeah I suppose that makes sense! and we've raised a discussion about ensuring fairness of opinion weighting on meta

Carcer

5:31 PM

@vicky_molokh Absolutely not. 52% of my population voted to shoot ourselves in the feet and by god we're going to do it just as soon as we figure out how big we want the gun to be

/me goes home

vicky_molokh

@Carcer I'm talking more about fundamental stuff like changing internal constitutions (to the equivalent of which I'm comparing some of the more drastic RPGSE policies), not international relationships.

Rubiksmoose

5:42 PM

hey @AdmiralJota :)

JohnP

6:03 PM

@Rubiksmoose - After a final question suggestion from NautArch, I posted a revision to the question we've been working on.

G. Moylan

6:34 PM

I think I have a frustratingly good idea for that dance-off question but I have literally zero experience using it

Carcer

@vicky_molokh I would argue that leaving the EU is an extremely wide ranging and kind of fundamental change in the UK's relationship with the world not even withstanding the consequences that decision has on internal policy

it strikes me as a stellar topical example of why taking what is by any sensible interpretation an inconclusive vote and treating it as an absolute mandate to do a thing is often a very bad idea

vicky_molokh

@Carcer It's still less fundamental than, say, changing the definition of a person, or redefining which types of self-expression are protected from infringement. I'm not sure how write an analogy without getting banished into NAB.

Carcer

@vicky_molokh well, sure, but the existence of more serious issues does not preclude that particular issue from being serious enough

vicky_molokh

@Carcer The matter isn't that they're more serious (in terms of consequences), but that they're of a different level of being fundamental to the internal structure of an organisation.

I know you don't have a Constitution in the traditional sense so I was trying to work around that comparison.

But seems like I had to bring it up anyway.

Carcer

I guess I don't understand what the point of your point is

we're both saying that simple plurality votes on very important issues are usually a bad idea

also baldur's gate 3 what

vicky_molokh

6:47 PM

@Carcer Well, it's hard to define 'very important', but it's generally possible to regulate what counts as 'very fundamental' (such as replacing constitutions). I'd say that banning or unbanning a topic or tag would be the 'fundamental' part for RPGSE.

nitsua60

@Rubiksmoose Aww... thanks. #quadrupedssticktogether

vicky_molokh

(In this case, anything with 'hard' enforcement rather than just guidelines/vote-trends and/or where a thing which is found useful by group A is becoming or stopping being banned by group B.)

JohnP

@G.Moylan I posted a link about the GotG danceoff video in the comments, but deleted it.

Rubiksmoose

7:15 PM

@nitsua60 [hoof bump]

JohnP

phneh. Ruminants.

David Coffron

Even if it was a joke question, this was a fun puzzle

nitsua60

@vicky_molokh Thanks. I try to hold back, but I also know that impulsiveness and poor boundary-recognition are serious personality traits of mine!

GcL

@DavidCoffron That is an incredibly contrived question.

David Coffron

@GcL Very true, but it looked fun, so I gave him an answer (but downvoted his question)

GcL

7:31 PM

@nitsua60 Impulsively recognizing poor boundaries? Do you frequently find yourself staring at maps of the South China Sea or genomes of bacterial species? Does the difference between use and utilize pique your interest?

JohnP

@DavidCoffron That seems like a good candidate for a reversal badge, assuming OP doesn't delete it.

G. Moylan

@DavidCoffron your answer to that is hilarious and impressive. I'm having fun just visualizing the situation

nitsua60

@GcL I'm bonkers on a riding lawnmower--end up mowing half the neighborhood on a lark. (Something about ruminants, I think....)

@JohnP Can they, with the positively-scored answer?

GcL

@nitsua60 I can see how being in deep though while on a riding lawn mower could lead to that, however I'd have expected the birds to be scared away by the motor.

JohnP

@nitsua60 Isn't that precisely what the reversal badge is? I thought it was an answer of +20 to a question of -5 or more.

Carcer

7:43 PM

@DavidCoffron the question is obviously not a serious question but it's also clearly not in bad faith or anything. It makes me sad that people feel the need to downvote it so much

@JohnP nitsua's saying the OP can't delete the question because it's got a high-scoring answer on it

GcL

@JohnP Isn't that when you change who has to put a card down next? clockwise to anti-clockwise or vice versa? Really useful for when you know the person just prior to you has a draw four or something.

JohnP

@Carcer Oh yeah, forgot about that.

@GcL uhn... sure. You go, boy.

:p

(And I get the reference, just playing around)

nitsua60

@JohnP Yeah, sorry--that was it.

GcL

@Carcer Maybe falls afoul of not relevant to others? rpg.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask

Carcer

@GcL oh, you mean that rule that we actively discourage people from following?

:s/rule/guideline/

GcL

7:48 PM

@Carcer Which rules are actual rules on that page? and can we edit it?

Carcer

that help page is guidelines not rules

and we probably can't edit it

GcL

or who can edit that page to get rid of the ~~rule~~ guideline that we don't want anymore.

JohnP

@Carcer Such as the Ghostwise Halfling Druid being able to use silent speech while wild shaped?

Carcer

but we definitely, here in this stack, have the policy that your question should be about your problem and you should ask specifically about your problem, not try to genericise the question for broader applicability

JohnP

@GcL I believe any mod can edit it.

Carcer

7:50 PM

really? I thought like half of meta was about how we can't actually edit all the stuff in help centre etc. that we'd like to be able to change

JohnP

Ah, no, that isn't one of the pages we can edit.

@Carcer There are pages mods can edit, I've never really delved into which specific ones are editable.

GcL

@Carcer That's annoying. Makes it difficult to have a site specific central location for actual ~~rules~~ guidelines that the mods like and do not like.

G. Moylan

As it stands, this question is extremely niche, and I'm not sure we're going to find someone with the proper experience to provide a stackable answer: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/149423/…

what do we do, in this case?

Rubiksmoose

@Carcer huh. I forgot that was written there.

@G.Moylan We leave it and wait for someone to come along :)

If a question is on-topic and not causing issues, there's no reason to close. "Able to be answered right now" is not one of the factors that determines if a question remains open. Barring any closable issues we leave these open.

Carcer

@G.Moylan that particular question really looks like it should've been closed for being too broad. The community response I would've expected would be "we can't just come up with new game systems for you wholesale, propose how you'd do it and we can evaluate and help you iterate on that"

which I'm pretty sure has been the case several times in the past

GcL

7:56 PM

@G.Moylan I think that question could be made answerable, but I don't think it currently is.

Someone_Evil

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