Not a bar, but plays one on TV

Joshua Aslan Smith

2:46 PM

lol tip of the hat for the name

wish my office was cool enough that I could drink on the job

Lord_Gareth

^_^ I can only try.

Joshua Aslan Smith

nothing I do is terribly important or has the ability to cause harm to others

but its a combination of it being a university and the previous president went on a sort of anti-booze crusade before I ever came here that still has effected the university

what I was saying earlier about the optimiztion/4e/RAW mindset vs. RAI/narrativist/pro3.5 mindset that occurs is that while we can empathize with their situation (we can and have been in RAI games since they seem to be far more common) we just don't like them they can't ever seem to wrap their heads around why playing RAW is super important to us.

Lord_Gareth

@JoshuaAslanSmith And, see, the thing is this - nobody plays RAW in 3.5. Absolutely no one. People try and they have to go to therapy after because the RAW simply does not function.

What my side of the equation values is understanding RAW.

Know what you're going to change and then change it intelligently.

I don't care that other people have different play styles. More power to you, have fun with your group. What gets me upset/angry/throwing virgins over altars to Tezcatlipoca, the Enemy on Both Sides, the Smoking Mirror, He Whose Slaves We Are is when the other major competing paradigm is permitted to be as derisive, insulting, and aggressive as they want.

People like Myx and Zach run off at the mouth with total disrespect and aggression.

But the moment I so much as drop a PG-13 word the hammer comes down like the wrath of freakin' God

And here, on the Stack of all places

Joshua Aslan Smith

mxy was super un-professional on wax's meta question

Lord_Gareth

That upsets me

I can expect that from the Paizo forums, where the mods have no standards and no one expects them to. Paizo's forums have been unapologetically biased and hostile since their inception.

I can expect it from GitP, where the sarcasm is so advanced we have to color-code it.

But here?

Here?

This place is supposed to be better.

Joshua Aslan Smith

2:58 PM

yeah GitP forums for rpgs is super eye-rolly

I agree as well

its frustrating because the people with some of the highest rep and most activity on the site for 4e questions get swatted down on 4e questions by people with higher rep in general

who come to support people who don't seem to be playing 4e correctly

by the way if this was a bar what would you be drinking?

Lord_Gareth

@JoshuaAslanSmith Whatever the other people buy me 'cause I'm too poor to booze on my own cash

Joshua Aslan Smith

gotcha

slides Lord_Gareth an imaginary manhattan

Lord_Gareth

And the frustration continues and continues hard with the bit where user recourse in these situations is to invest a large chunk of our free time in gathering evidence and getting it all together and looking pretty before sending it to another mod.

I mean, it's not like Myx is secret. But the kind of rage it would take to get someone to do that in order to get 'im gone is the kind that makes you leave the Stack well beforehand.

So the toxicity never gets excised.

Which is...frustrating. GitP might be a cesspit (a glorious, awful, beloved cesspit) but when toxic posters show up we're able to band together and chain-report them until the mods see what we're seeing.

A few manage to stick around through base cunning (Giacamo and Pickford, for the longest time) but eventually the trash is taken out.

Y'know?

AFK

Joshua Aslan Smith

3:13 PM

gotcha

Is there a way not to elect him as a moderator next time that sort of thing rolls around?

BESW

@JoshuaAslanSmith Moderators are elected for life, though they may resign (or, in very rare cases, be removed).

Joshua Aslan Smith

thats not awesome

BESW

It makes sense, though. It'd be hard to make a good case for mod seats being up for grabs in a yearly popularity contest.

Moderation quality would decline for all sorts of reasons.

Joshua Aslan Smith

3:29 PM

@besw Right but short of a witchhunt to get a mod forced out, what recourse does the userbase have to meditate issues? In the case we're discussing Waxeagle went to the Meta and things quite possibly got worse from there, not better

BESW

Wax failed to actually address the problem at hand. His question was seriously flawed, if its goal was to address the situations you're now discussing.

He framed it as an issue of whether to delete or laud answers with dubious system mastery. The question could have been whether mods should declare on the quality of answers rather than just on whether they meet guidelines. Or it could have been about why the mod in question assumed flagging could only indicate a desire for deletion.

I don't have any suspicion that you intended it this way, but it's disingenuous to complain that meta isn't working to solve a particular problem, and then cite questions that didn't try to solve the problem.

And to be absolutely clear: Mxy has a very specific philosophy in how he approaches his duties as a moderator and his duties as a site citizen. He sees these as two separate functions which he fills.

When acting as a citizen, he considers it his duty to be biased and opinionated in order for truth to rise from the clash of differing opinions (my words, but he's expressed the sentiment to us several times in chat and on meta). This is, he believes, a vital part of healthy SE functionality.

When acting as a moderator--which is, to the best of my ability to discern, when he is actually using powers which only moderators have access to, or when he is speaking with the Voice of the Mods--he tries to act as an unbiased enforcer of the guidelines and policies of Stack Exchange and this site.

To him falls many of the ugly parts of moderating this site, and he is understandably weary of enforcing the same simple guidelines over and over again. His patience often wears thin when dealing with citizens who should know better.

I personally don't think it's possible to separate one's roles so clearly, nor do I think that his abrasive manner when wearing the "citizen hat" is really classy for anyone, mod or not.

But I can count on the fingers of one hand, with fingers left over, the times I've seen him actually use moderator-only powers in ways which seemed truly biased and self-serving, rather than as an impatient but impartial moderator.

And even then, I'd have to squint.

I disagree with him on many issues, including the way he divides his moderator and citizen roles, but I recognise his principle and dedication, I appreciate his service, and I think that if there is any case to be made for getting him un-moderatored --based on my personal observations-- it would have to be on the basis of activities which he regards as the duties of the citizen, not as the duties of a moderator.

Lord_Gareth

3:54 PM

See, that's part of it. He divides those roles, but no one else does. Like it or not he's got the blue name, the diamond, and the power.

When he acts people see him as a representative of Stack moderation

BESW

That's a conversation I had with him the first day we met.

Lord_Gareth

You don't just get to say you're not playing by those rules and ignore the citizens you're setting a poor example for.

For all future reference I never thought @waxeagle's meta question was meant to address the above complaints. It just sorta kicked the nest on them.

BESW

I have no idea whether other moderators feel the same way he does, or if there is any policy or precedent for such matters.

wax eagle

yeah... my meta question was shite and regrettably didn't address the real issues with the post or the moderation.

(it should have been downvoted to oblivion...not sure why it didn't get any)

BESW

Shall I go downvote it for you?

wax eagle

4:02 PM

If you'd like :). I would downvote it if I could.

BESW

Bwahahahah, I have downvoted you!

Lord_Gareth

:p

But, in all seriousness.

I really feel like this ongoing problem hurts RPG.SE. Mods are supposed to be the examples that others can follow. I cannot be the only person who keeps wanting to scream, "Why should I have to be better than him?"

BESW

It would sadden me greatly to imagine that a great many people merely aspire to relative excellence.

wax eagle

@Lord_Gareth So bring that up on Meta. Ask "What standards should our moderators be kept to?" and ask whether their participation as users should be held to different standards because they are moderators.

@Lord_Gareth If you get nowhere with that, send a message to SE, you don't need an exhaustive list of issue, a couple is enough.

Lord_Gareth

@BESW It's less about aspirations and more about weariness and frustration. Past a certain point it's just not worth it to bite your tongue any more.

BESW

4:07 PM

@Lord_Gareth [shrug] I guess that's a matter of why a person chooses to behave or misbehave.

I make no bones about the fact that I consider Mxy's role dichotomy silly, if not harmful.

But that doesn't change any of the reasons I try to be nice to people.

wax eagle

One of the things that we should point out in any discussion about moderators is that we haven't had an election in almost 2 years, and that 2 of our mods are far busier now than they were when they were first elected. So far I've been the only one whose broached the idea of a new election.

BESW

@waxeagle Potential candidates have to throw their own hats into the ring, right?

wax eagle

@BESW if/when they decide to hold one. Asking SE for an election is the first step

BESW

Good. [grasps hat firmly, places it under buttocks]

Lord_Gareth

You cannot escape, @BESW

You cannot run from the power

BESW

4:18 PM

I needn't; even power fears me.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I would definitely be party to trying to have a "the people demand it" mod nomination for BESW

BESW

Seriously though I'd be an awful moderator. You'd despise me more than you do mxy, through my sheer incompetence.

Ah, ah, don't feed the ego. It bites.

Joshua Aslan Smith

hahaha

BESW

I don't have the temperament for mod work.

Joshua Aslan Smith

im not saying you are the best person for the job but rather your more philosophical approach and reputation within rpg.se as a well-meaning and friendly individual could go a long way

wax eagle

4:21 PM

considering this community nearly elected me (of the aforementioned and ill advised meta rants)....

Lord_Gareth

AFK must go get my son

Joshua Aslan Smith

4:43 PM

haha

wax eagle

room topic changed to Not a bar, but plays one on TV: Yeah...It totally stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night (no tags)

(a little modabuse to liven things up)

Lord_Gareth

4:55 PM

@waxeagle I'm...not sure if I'm the right vehicle for this? I can't imagine a scenario where I pull off not making this seem like an attack, even if I manage professional wording.

The history makes the attempt a bit...complicated.

Would you not agree?

Joshua Aslan Smith

@Lord_Gareth the rpg main chat where things kind of devolved in relation to t his when it occurred is somewhat problematic

but I dont think anyone with a stake in this issue is really a paladin with regards to it

Lord_Gareth

Thing is, there are folks with, shall we say, less blood on their hands. This was not my first rodeo on complaining about Myx, and a couple of them became shouting matches when he showed up in chat.

Joshua Aslan Smith

things have gotten messy but that shouldnt preclude trying to solve it especially if you/we are trying to do it professionally and appropriately (inspite of said earlier chat meltdown)

Lord_Gareth

So while nobody can claim to not need an atonement I'm pretty sure I had the alignment shift :p

Joshua Aslan Smith

right but is setting up a literal poster-user worse than submitting yourself? I think it may be.

maybe not morally wrong in a black white sense, but disingenuous

mxy doesn't even necessarily need to be removed, but maybe add a new mod thats more active than C.Ross and Brian so its not Mxy being the only constant active Mod voice in rpg.se and also maybe get Mxy to not try to have the role seperation (but within the same account) that he currently has. If he had a 2nd account where he got very biased and subjective while his main current account was only for mod use

wax eagle

5:44 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith the first part is definitely an issue worth starting to make some noise about

Someone want to ask on meta if it's time for a new mod or two?

this isn't a bad template if someone wants to put it out there: meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/3420/…

Joshua Aslan Smith

sure I'll go post in meta

I'll avoid talking the more incendiary related issues and instead only focus on how more mods could only improve the site

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith yeah, there isn't a need to bring anything into it other than, hey, it's been nearly 2 years, lets get some new blood in and see if we can take some weight off these guys' shoulders

Joshua Aslan Smith

exactly

Ill write a draft and then post it here before posting

@waxeagle
First, no disrespect meant to our current moderators. C.Ross and Brian are not as active as they once were on the site, but when they are they are still extremely helpful and Mxyzplk is/has doing a lot of the work by himself and should be lauded for the time investment he has made in RPG.SE.

That said, I think he can get overworked, and that the site could only benefit from having more mods that were active. As a higher-rep user, I try to take as many review actions as I can to assist. That said, I still feel the addition of new moderators could help to spread the load.

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith I think that works well. Respectful and realistic. You might also point out that it seems like the site is growing and question volume is up, so we have an increasing workload as well.

Joshua Aslan Smith

yep ill add that and change the last sentence since its really not in my voice

@waxeagle do you know where on rpg.se I could see statistics on how weve grown?

wax eagle

5:59 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith quantcast.com/rpg.stackexchange.com?qcLocale=en_US

monthly traffic has effectively quadrupled

Also, these were frozen the day we graduated: area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/2208/role-playing-games

compared to current numbers: stackexchange.com/sites#traffic (you'll have to scroll, sorry)

Joshua Aslan Smith

@waxeagle thanks im being ridiculously lazy today Im honestly not trying to become a help vampire

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith no problem, I didn't realize how big of a jump it was, traffic, q/day and several otehrs tats of quadrupled in just under 2 years

Joshua Aslan Smith

did we basically have 3 mods when we became a real SE site?

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith we had 5

pro-tems.

scuse me, 4

mxy, C.Ross, Ace, and Pat

Joshua Aslan Smith

gotcha

wax eagle

6:04 PM

rpg.stackexchange.com/help/badges/108/constable has everyone who served, Bryant and RS both stepped down ( I think?, RS may not have stepped down...not sure)

Joshua Aslan Smith

hmmm wish I could sorta see a questions per day and avid vs. total users stats for us currently

wax eagle

researching, RS hadn't stepped down, so we did have 5 at the end of beta

Joshua Aslan Smith

I guess for uses I could just go to our user page and look at the total and then have a cutoff like they did

gotcha

ill toss that in there

wax eagle

(though to be fair, that was a bit of an accident, they offered it to Pat, and he took too long to respond, so tehy gave it to Ace, then when Pat responded they honored the offer)

@JoshuaAslanSmith yeah...wish that was on the SE page

@JoshuaAslanSmith q/day is on the SE site stats, we're at 12

Joshua Aslan Smith

ooh

this page or somewhere else?

stackexchange.com/sites#

wax eagle

6:10 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith that one

Joshua Aslan Smith

hmm when I expand it I dont see that

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith I've got questions, answers, answered%, users, visits/day, questions/day and site age

Joshua Aslan Smith

when I expand it I get questions # answers # answered % and user #

im using firefox if that matters at all

wax eagle

same....odd

Joshua Aslan Smith

maybe your rep matters?

AH

@waxeagle I was not using list view

wax eagle

6:15 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith I just figured that out :)

Joshua Aslan Smith

how did you see all the mods pro tempore ?

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith constable badge

plus: meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/1562/…

Joshua Aslan Smith

oh so 6 not 5

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith no. Bryant stepped down, then RS was added, then Ace and Pat were added because RS wasn't around much

so we finished beta with Pat, Cross, Mxy, Ace and RS

Joshua Aslan Smith

gotcha

draft2

First, no disrespect meant to our current moderators. C.Ross and Brian are not as active as they once were on the site, but when they are they are still extremely helpful and Mxyzplk is/has doing a lot of the work by himself and should be lauded for the time investment he has made in RPG.SE. That said, I think he can get overworked, and that the site could only benefit from having more mods that were active.

Our site traffic has grown a lot. If you look [here][1] you can see the dramatic increase compared to 2013 let alone the huge growth in comparison to 2012 and earlier. Another way to l…

wax eagle

6:29 PM

looks great to me

Joshua Aslan Smith

opinion on this question title

Expand Moderaters to meet RPG.SE's Growth?

wax eagle

seems reasonable

Joshua Aslan Smith

thanks for all the help

@Lord_Gareth meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/3433/…

Joshua Aslan Smith

6:42 PM

hey so I just read through the comments on the answers in the meta on the original issue

whew man did the dude who's answer sparked the issue not get the point at all about anything anyone was saying

8

Q: How should we properly handle answers that show an apparent lack of system mastery?

I'm sure this is a problem in other tags, but it seems to come up relatively often in 4e and I feel like most of the time we handle it well. However, today was an exception. A few questions about mounts Was asked and while there are some questions there that merit advice, but largely the quest...

discussion

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith no, but we had a long chat with him soon thereafter, very nice guy

Joshua Aslan Smith

thats good

problems with the medium of stack exchange I feel a lot gets lost in pure text not to mention the cultural differences

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith definitely. that was a clear case here, where he is, 4e is an MMO..with dice! isn't a bad meme, it's just the truth.

here where we saw that meme nearly kill the product and definitely divide the RP community...obviously a big difference

Joshua Aslan Smith

yep

like if you were simply discussing with me design influences for 4e I would acknowledge the role based design as derived from MMOs, but in the way it came up as we all felt, it came across as dismissive and right in line with all the terrible things said and heard about 4e in the past

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith yeah, and I should have focused my meta q on that...and on the moderator actions validating that. But hindsight is 20-20

Joshua Aslan Smith

6:51 PM

toats mcgoats

wax eagle

since this is a bar. New topic.

What would you do if you had to start developing in a new (very proprietary) product that doesn't have a lot of programming documentation on the web?

(like <200 questions on SO on the topic)

orders a scotch neat

Transcript for

Not a bar, but plays one on TV