@BESW @NautArch @Miniman @kviiri I've added you as RO's here since you are in main chat as well. If anybody wants not to be let me know.
This is our new room for opt-in conversations. Not A Bar has transitioned fully into what it was evolving into: a place for off-topic, pleasant conversations that don't belong or aren't preferred in the main chat. This room is for conversations that don't belong in the main chat for other reasons and will be opt-in only.
@ThomasMarkov Yes. I'm rather proud that the community in general presented such a clear and well reasoned response. But as you say, there isn't much more to say without repeating ourselves.
@ThomasMarkov Yes, mods have mod powers in all chat.SE rooms. You might occasionally notice other users with blue usernames in chat that aren't mods of rpg.se.
lol. The thing about trying to flex is that it isn't really ever going to work against a mod. I'll never get why people get worked up over being told to act like an adult.
@Rubiksmoose I find its about a 50/50 chance of it happening when you go into another sites room from a chat flag. People seem to really resent "other mods" telling them to behave.
room topic changed to Here There Be Dragons: For topics that should be opt-in, not opt-out. Please respect the room's purpose and treat it as a meeting room more than a casual general-purpose hangout. Good and respectful conduct is expected of all visitors, exactly as in the main chat. (no tags)
Is it good? I made the conduct expectation thing a bit more verbose because it was so succinct it was feeling a bit too much like jargon to me
@ThomasMarkov rpg.se absolutely needs to have some very heavy conversations about its complicity in silently supporting Wizards of the Coast and D&D. But the current prompt is not a productive one for those conversations, so I'm okay with leaving that meta to be what it is and not trying to make it more.
But I don't think banning D&D is a serious contender for the outcome of such discussions, nor really what was suggested. The most obvious, to me, thing to address is the "silently" aspect
@GcL I haven't really got any proposals to make. I'm mostly thinking in terms of how to start that discussion, and frame that, because framing it towards throwing out most of the site and activity, isn't going to be useful either
I'm trying to think of sticks or carrots or links to information kind of approaches. The questions I have is what is the goal of such approaches, and how does one measure the efficacy of the approach of attaining that goal?
@Someone_Evil yeeeah, banning D&D is a wildly extreme interpretation of a very mild statement, and one I've explicitly spoken against myself in the past.
[baffled]
It's a big, complicated conversation that can't be boiled down to "thing good" or "thing bad."
Wizards is undeniably comfortable with upholding an exploitative and permissive work environment.
That doesn't mean we should demonize people like Orion Black who recognize that it's one of their only paths to a sustainable full-time career, or the creators in places like Indonesia and the Philippines who don't have ready access to other platforms for reasons of international finance policies, or the many marginalized people who have found joy and empowerment through the consumption of its products.
We can't go "You hate capitalism and yet I see you have a job" on this thing, that's so obviously ridiculous it shouldn't even be part of the conversation.
But we can't be precious about this site either; the viability of rpg.se isn't very important alongside the scope of the industry's major issues. The site's existence cannot be treated as its own justification.
I'd love to see a conversation about whether/how there's a way rpg.se can be more supportive of the ways people empower and uplift each other through D&D, and more explicit about navigating the major problems that come with it, and less friendly to Wizards apologia and racist dogwhistles.
There's a lot of auteur theory that needs to burn, for example.
I'd hope that such a conversation focused on what can be done, more than what can be not done: helping the site be better about uplifting, empowering, and encouraging. Part of that is learning how to identify problems without kicking out the people who have to live with them.
It's been my experience that principles of action are much more useful and sustainable than principles of inaction.
What I'm hearing as goals are: - be more supportive of the ways people empower and uplift each other through D&D - be more explicit about navigating the major problems that come with D&D - be less friendly to Wizards apologia and racist dogwhistles
What are some ways of measuring that those things are accomplished or how well they're being accomplished?
(My personal goals are almost entirely devoid of D&D influence, being more about prying open spaces where marginalized creators can thrive without being subject to Wizards and its ilk; my goals also don't include giving the Stack Exchange more content value. But I'm somewhat invested in this side alley of the rpg.se space, and I'm always curious to see how communities curate themselves.)
As less D&D centric version of that would be: - Be more supportive of the ways people empower and uplift each other through TTRPGs - Be more explicit about navigating the major problems many existing TTRPGs - Be less accepting of publishers apologia and racist dogwhistles
I think principles of action can be generalized to a certain extent, yes.
But Wizards is, specifically, a problem, and I think that any action which talks around D&D as if it's not the elephant rampaging through the house, will be timid and insufficient.
Here There Be Dragons
Here There Be Dragons