basically -- I'm running into a situation where I'm willing to have bad things happen to my character, but only if someone else actively inflicts them -- the idea of something terrible happening to my character with no malicious forces involved just is making me very uncomfortable, but in a "that's the cheap way out" sense (I'm in the curious position of building a RP around deleveling a character.)
@Shalvenay does every unfortunate incident in the history of the world revolve around malicious actors performing deliberate action? if not, why should stories involve that?
it doesn't matter how relatively easy or not it is to suggest something unfortunate happens because of circumstances beyond your control.
@doppelgreener I think a lot of the problem has to do with the character's own agency around their surroundings -- the degree of control they have over the circumstances around them.
@doppelgreener I think it's an issue where the power/control level of them and their context is too high for such an explanation to make sense -- (i.e. "the people around him could fix something like that before it ever got that bad")
@Shalvenay you seem to think anyone reasonably has much control at all over an environment around them involving a world full of irrational people.
or, in fact, over themselves. (do you have total control over yourself if you have no control over your initial subconscious reaction to my saying these words, and you have no control over me saying them?)
(do you have control over that you'd even have found an environment to ask questions like this in?)
You're also confusing "they have the potential capacity to resolve the situation" with "they actually could" and furthermore with "they actually do". There are lots of things I could do, but various necessities or personal priorities draw my attention and memory certain ways such that I do not do, or forget about completely, certain things I could or should do. Including very important things.
I have the potential capacity to do a lot of things. I couldn't do all those things though. It's unlikely I would do a lot, in practice, let alone think to do them.
Certainly we can all envisage situations where everything gets sorted out perfectly and everyone does the right things and it works exactly as we expect. But, how often do things ever work out to our expectations? Very rarely. Hence that very often-spoken line by people who had a master plan that fails spectacularly: "I kinda pictured that going differently in my head."
Life is not a game of chess where you can think several steps ahead and predict the narrow possibilities and adjust for those too. Life is a game of chess with cats running across the game board and sometimes stealing the pieces.
@doppelgreener The idea of potential capacities is something I had a very interesting talk about last night, but that would be a pretty major tangent that would get into deeper "nature of existence" stuff I can't really get into now because brain.
If you wanna get into it some other time, though, I think you might find it interesting.
It is common in American English and culture to refer to one's lover or significant other as "baby" or "babe", for example:
Come on baby, light my fire! 1
or
I got you, I won't let go. I got you to love me so. I got you babe! 2
Where does this usage come from? What's the history behin...
Someone else needs to use NAB, so I'm gonna call this conversation done for now / on pause. Shalv, if we need to speak further about the above, we can do so later or in one of your own rooms.
That's the sort of thing I couldn't say in an active chat dialogue--it took me three hours and the help of a third party to workshop them to say exactly what I meant and nothing more.
@Smurfton [shrug] Grace Note knew the important information in the scenario, you gave it to her, she could've asked for more if she felt she needed it.
@Smurfton To this more general issue, I've been in this situation loads of times when I'm either supportive of, or against, the comment I could respond to. The question I ask myself is this: what's it going to achieve, is it actually going to help things move forward here? Nitpicking a small portion of a good comment could just hamper the ability to move forward discussing it. Heck, it could make someone feel vindicated not responding properly when I very much want to see a response.
Not every message in a conversation is bulletproof but if we spent all our time going "well actually" conversations would be a lot more confusing and frustrating and time-consuming.
In this case, I think the gist is clear enough, and we're best serviced by letting a mod soak it in and respond how they will. If they think such an objection is worth mentioning, they can do that themselves.
Full disclosure, I'm by no means unbiased over these comments - I share besw's concerns. I'm comfortable saying the above because I know I'd give the same advice were the situation reversed - I don't need to fight other people's fights for them.
Were things reversed I'd rather see that person give a measured response than poke at the comment in a way which doesn't help movement forward significantly more than silence.
@Smurfton If you're not neutral over something, best not to try to be. Just be authentically yourself.
@Smurfton Being neutral doesn't entail necessarily having to poke at everyone equally. Also, this particular comment discussion may have nothing to do with the neutrality over the issue as a whole you may have.
@Smurfton Even if that were an iron-clad reason to dismiss her suggestion (which I don't think it is), the mods' response also says that they aren't sure there's enough of a problem to merit any sort of action at all: so far as they're concerned it's just a handful of rude people on the Internet.
And that? That's the pattern of dismissiveness that underlies the whole problem.
Explaining away significant concerns shared by a noticeable number of citizens by saying that if it's "just a few people" and "they're being rude about it" then the concern itself magically disappears.
But a glance back through the history of meta shows at least five people actively concerned with this pattern of moderation, and at least a dozen more folks who don't instigate discussions but upvote it whenever it comes up.
If we consider meta to be a fractional representation of the mainsite population...
It's been the same handful of people visible over and over for years now. Posting in meta, trying to engage in useful dialogue in chat, flagging behaviour.
And frankly, if the mod team doesn't bite on this one, I'm afraid the next step is formalised escalation to the Stack Overlords, and nobody's gonna come out of that unscathed.
The mod team isn't wrong that some citizens get seriously out of line when this topic comes up.
@Smurfton On our chat room, if someone comes in asking about the main site, we've regularly continued the same subject - while someone on the side interacts with that person, temporarily making a second conversation go in parallel. We may sometimes drop the current subject out of courtesy or because we don't need to continue it.
Many chats were full of profanity, bullying, and generally offensive attitudes and practices.
The RPG.SE chat actively chose to create a different sort of space for itself.
We've had to explain this to people who come in from other parts of the Stack, and often they leave disgruntled at being "censored" by "political correctness" and whatnot.
I honestly can't remember exactly when you were here last, in relation to chat room policing, but the most recent Stack-wide crackdown was about six months ago.
RPG.SE chat's attitude, however, has been evolving for two/three years.
TL;DR?
Meta is where consensus happens.
Questions and answers, have to be good questions and answers without chat.
Any Stack Exchange site has three realms for interaction, Main, Meta, and Chat.
Main is where the business of the site happens, in our case we ask and answer questions abou...
@BESW Yeah, mainsite action is the heart of the site, but I'm not very good at attaching usernames to personalities. I wouldn't have noticed this if Lord_Gareth hadn't just returned from a hiatus from rpgse so that he could spell out to me that there's a problem
@SevenSidedDie We've been told repeatedly that meta is a poor format for meta itself but we need to suck it up and use it anyway because it's all we've got. I, for one, am losing patience with all the reasons why the mods won't do anything about a problem that's festered for so long. So, Let me be clear:
RPG.SE has a moderator who's gone on record in chat and meta defending his right to insult citizens, and repeatedly invoking "they started it" as if that somehow made it okay to behave that way. If the mods are really so averse to "recrimination" and want a "positive experience" for the site, those priorities would have kicked in years ago in response to that moderator's actions.
That these values are being cited now as reasons for inaction is earning no good will--especially since the very announcement of this continued inaction says "aggrieved" in quotations to imply our concerns are, indeed, beneath your notice. This passive-aggressive trivialising of folks' concerns is exactly what the aggrieved have come to expect, and it lies at the root of all my concerns--and so far as I can tell, KRyan's and Lord_Gareth's.
I personally have no suspicion that any moderator has used their moderator features improperly, which is an accusation I've seen levied frequently. But I can certainly understand why any hint of impropriety would be interpreted as active malevolence.
And yes, I do think it's reasonable to wonder whether a mod team that's so ignorant, or so ambivalent, or so cowed, or whatever it is that's let a moderator continue his name-calling, denigrating, straw manning, behaviour for so long, is really the group of people who should be moderating the site. Again, it's not an accusation I would level, but I certainly can see where it's coming from.
But when we dig through all the reactionary shit-slinging, we come down to the fact that the first time Mxy ever left a comment on one of my posts, it was to call me a name because I wanted to understand the literal implication of rules before I changed them.
This is the kind of thing that goes to Community Managers. KRyan has gone on record saying that he refuses to use the recourse he has available until he can guarantee it's "good enough" to get the result he wants. You might understand why we have no patience for that kind of nonsense.
Oh, I'm working with a few other people on compiling a collection of evidence. It's going to take a while. Comments are long gone, and Mxy's recent actions have mostly been reduced to micro-aggressions which require more volume to make a point.
And no, I don't know why you think it's nonsense that he'd think he needs to make a very good case in order for it to be taken seriously.
Because he hasn't said that he won't because it won't be taken seriously; because he has said that he won't until he can be sure it will get the result he wants.
That's hair-splitting. Obviously he thinks that if it's taken seriously, it'd get the result he wants, so there's no functional difference between the two statements.
Besides, CMs have access to all the evidence necessary, deleted comments and even, if necessary, direct dabase access. If there is evidence that needs retrieving, it can be got. It's not like it's a fire-and-forget process that needs all the i's dotted and t's crossed or it gets rejected like a bad passport application.
We don't know all of that. We don't know if they're going to crawl through the thousands and thousands of comments he's made on main and meta to see emergent patterns of passive-aggressive behaviour.
'cause this isn't just "He's using bad words." He's actually usually very careful to not use standard profanity, and that's one of his defences. Like calling me a "shmoo" instead of a "[snip]" somehow makes it less of a negging.
That would be highly appreciated. The continual disruption of the site in favour of avoiding the processes explicitly in place for this is not very effective or useful.
Also, I'd started this years ago with the hope that it could be dealt with in-house and not have to call in the police. I don't think Mxy is the only person at fault here.
Reactions (including mine) have been irrationally heated and poorly controlled across the board.
Also, while I have you here, I've got a tangential observation about the moderation team's choice of presentation techniques.
The mod team's long-standing policy to discuss their stance privately and then present a united front to the citizens pre-dates your election, I know. But please review it.
If someone disagrees with a moderator stance, there's no impression of room for discourse. The discussion's already happened behind closed doors, so the instinctive response is that argument is the only option left to us.
I won't say that his behaviour has been ideal either. I've locked horns with him before, publicly prior to my diamond. But avoiding the channels specifically made available for this has just resulted in the avoidant parties engaging in a guerrilla war that continues to cause significant collateral damage.
I do see the difficulty with that. The flip side is that moderators in open conflict would be Very Bad, and to that end working out disagreements in private is necessary. I'm not sure how to keep that necessary goal while avoiding the result that we do discuss things until we can act together, not treading on each other's toes.
I hope this can get worked out at a less... drastic... level.
I do honestly think he's doing a good job overall and I doubt very much that he's abusing his mod powers or doing any of the other nefarious things folks are frothing about.
It's good to have mods with varying opinions and personalities.
Thanks for hearing me out. I'll work with folks on going forward.
If you're okay with it, I'd like to link to this in the meta at the end of the comments.
My most significant frustration is that what to do about a tag is inherently a matter of examination and application of boring site management principles. Those most opposed to the recent proposals have not said anything about site management though.
@SevenSidedDie Those opposed to the recent proposals have mostly been opposed to the moderation proposed alongside the examination, I think.
I share their trust concerns. I don't think it's appropriate for a team of 3 moderators who themselves dislike RAW to be aggressively moderating RAW, especially when the aggressive moderation has no basis in the stated data-gathering goals.
@SevenSidedDie I didn't consider myself as being caught in that, but I'm thinking right now of KRyan's own answer saying he doesn't trust you to perform the moderation in question. The data-gathering proposal is a mixture of data gathering measures and new moderation measures that don't currently exist (and I don't actually see why they need to happen).
It's important to recognise the proposal contains both those two things, because when you look at it that way, all the complaints seem directed at the moderation half, not the data gathering half.
> The moderation team is not competent to perform the policing that they propose
and then he continues to talk about policing, in response to a proposal that comes with a lot of additional policing measures we don't currently engage in (like aggressive moderation, removing the tag in certain circumstances we do not currently, etc).
There's no charity necessary. That opposition is to who is behind what is being proposed. It's not a one-or-the-other thing. Yeah, he's objecting to you doing policing. So don't do the policing. Do the other bit, the bit we all want, which is data gathering. Yes, there's substantial complaints about the people behind it, but that doesn't mean it's all about you the people.
Interpreting it as being all about you takes another form of charitable reading.
Or filtered reading maybe? Whatever the right term is.
@SevenSidedDie I would agree with that completely. Nevertheless, his words are plain and clear, and they're not "I don't trust you to take bullet-point notes," they're "I don't trust you to police". All of that dialog came before any notion of intention of public logging got conveyed as well.
The trouble with that post is that it contains nothing to work with. "You're all incompetent. The only possibility is vive la révolution! *guillotine*." Even one mention of what could be improved in the proposed process would have been a vast improvement over what that post contains. It basically says KRyan's way or the highway, and frankly, he hasn't got the means to make that ultimatum stick.
@doppelgreener Oh, sure. As a proposal it's dead in the water. We have no further intention of attempting it, not with such a profound demonstration that important stakeholders have pre-emptively rejected any data gathered by anyone else.
@doppelgreener Generally we are frustrated with the logical impossibility that we've been presented with, yes. We can't leave an entire segment of the site unseen and ignored, so KRyan's assertion that we're not competent to judge the tag (and his post is about our judgement, not just the proposed policing) leaves us few good options.
Basically we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. So we're currently looking at what is the least damning, or at least the kind of damning that is best for the site despite whatever pillorying it attracts.
@SevenSidedDie What part of the proposal requires you to judge the tag? We'll be recording data against some clear-cut criteria, in the open where other people can weigh in.
@SevenSidedDie That sounds sincerely alarming to me.
@Lord_Gareth hey, I volunteered, it's quite all right if you want to blame me. But I'll say this, if the tag kept going the way it was, it was going to get deleted.
@doppelgreener You're very focused on the proposal. But I would ask you to re-read his post: it directly calls into question our ability to even judge the application of the tag. Elsewhere he has also stated that even asking for clarification of asker intent is rude. So: logical impossibility.
Wax Eagle appears to indicate the exact opposite there.
This is not a point where you need to speak for the whole mod team, also, so I don't know whether to interpret that as a mod team sentiment or a SevenSidedDie sentiment.
@doppelgreener That's been considered: just going forward with the questioning and categorising. Given the amount of work involved and the expected low sample size though, there's not much desire if we're just going to be back at square one.
@doppelgreener Ah, that. That is the voice of frustration speaking. Basically, yes: if we did the stupid thing and just let [rules-as-written] be a wild west with no diamond-badged sheriffs involved, it would eventually devolve into a synonym of [rules] and be removed. As much as it would be a satisfying way to prove the point, it would be disrupting the site immensely to prove it and that's a terrible idea.
But yeah, if we allowed it to become the Shield Against Mxyzplk that KRyan has said he kinda feels it needs to be, it would degenerate and be removed. That's another reason why KRyan's assertions about how it needs to be handled aren't being taken particularly seriously; they're actively self-defeating.
Here's my stance: the original proposal gets at perfectly good data gathering. However, it's tainted by: (a) misunderstanding what's OK behaviour in the RAW tag, (b) proposing extra moderation and changes to be undertaken by the mods who performed mistake (a), and also (c) conveyed nothing about public data logging so who knows, presumably it'd all be done in private by the mods who were also committing mistake (a).
If we remove (a) and (b), and make it public, we scrub off a lot of problems and are left with a data gathering proposal that doesn't even really need moderators to do anything special. Their involvement would be the same as any other user.
Further, the mods wouldn't be "judging" the tag during this. Data has no opinions. Afterwards, we get to discuss it.
@doppelgreener Yeah, there are some valid concerns about the method proposed. And that would probably get more response from us, except that we're somewhat sure, in our judgement of KRyan's responses, that the data-gathering results would not be accepted by those fighting so hard to keep us out of the tag. So we're loathe to do work that we have a high suspicion won't be worth anything.
Possibly. But then I run into the other conflicting priority: KRyan and company are valuable contributors. And them blowing a fuse and leaving, to (continue to) warn people away from the site because we're, I don't know, overbearing RAW-hating dictators, would damage our ability to help those who do engage with RAW equally badly as if we just blew up the tag today. So, talking KRyan out of his tree is somewhat important.
Or we could throw our hands up and just cut to the end, and blow up the tag. That's mostly joking, to highlight the absurd and self-defeating catch-22 that I feel they've put us in, but we are just volunteers and the idea of doing pro-level diplomatic balancing acts for months only to have it all fail anyway does make the notion of taking the easy way out morbidly tempting.
Mhm. Given that KRyan has already issued an ultimatum, it's reasonable to at least be aware of what other extreme conclusions are waiting in the wings.
I'll say that at this point it's vanishingly unlikely that the tag would get the axe. I think too firmly that it's a real thing that questions can be about, which is the essential point of tags.
Even if it did, at some point it would just be re-created in a different guise, since that real thing would keep getting questions asked about it and members would invent something to categorise that element of the questions.
So anyway, instead of pro-level diplomacy for months on end with possibly futility as the reward, we're looking at other ways to walk gracefully out of the corner surrounded by paint. Expecting that KRyan either poop or get off the toilet regarding his beef with mxyzplk is ironically one of those more-graceful things. Just use the process already. Not quite sure how to handle it if he keep lobbing grenades with disregard for the woodwork, but that's for later to sort out I guess.
Yes. And we can't force anyone to file their paperwork, we can only ask politely and then with increasing exasperation, that they do so instead of throwing grenades. Or just stop throwing grenades if the paperwork is too onerous, either way is better for the site than this.
@doppelgreener Read all the books, though only bits of the radio show.
…Guide to the Galaxy, I'm assuming you mean. :)
@BESW I do hope that he doesn't actually think that burning the site down would be preferable to the current situation. He'd get himself suspended for increasingly lengthy periods before that happened.
The problem with suggesting someone just file the paperwork is that part of it is buried in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard. The substantiation is gone. But using my power of Asking People Things I have reached out to the community management "human" "people" as you suggested.
@doppelgreener I am almost certain it's in their power. I do think though that it is something they won't devote much energy to until there are multiple complaints, or fewer very serious complaints; all the more reason I throw my hands up at KRyan dragging his feet as if that someone improves his chances of being heard.
@BESW He does.
I'm far overspent on my wakeful time, so I have to dash.
I just wish everyone actually involved in this whole thing could cool off for a second and talk to each other like reasoned people, not that some people aren't doing that
but it's obvious even coming from not knowing much about this whole thing that it has not happened in full just because people are talking about it like it is still a problem
and maybe someone or multiple people on either or both sides are in the wrong somehow, I don't know, but that isn't in my authority or within my personal knowledge to say or judge on
I only say any of this because seeing a few people sooooooo vocally upset over the issue and the actuations and whatnot that have flown around really scare me a bit :(
I like this site and would like everyone not to be like,... mad at each other
@BESW <- @SevenSidedDie By the way I agree completely with this message and those just above it. If data gathering will help us move forward, and we have a good proposal that will help free us of any perception of personal biases (which I think I've accomplished in my own proposal), things will be good. Then we can talk about whether there's any meaning and do so relatively sanely and decide where to go. I foresee us keeping the tag but knowing better how to handle it in general.
If anyone cries bloody murder that we're collecting data, I won't care. Collecting data on its own is likely to be harmless.
I'm not okay with the present state of the site, and it's a conversation I would like to be a part of, but I also don't have much faith that I will be taken seriously or that there will be any impact in doing so. If that is the case, it's not really worth the anxiety that results from trying. I see that things are kind of, sort of starting to move, and I'll probably keep an eye on them.
I am glad to see @BESW's comments above, though. Moderation being dismissive of user concerns is a pattern I have noticed myself, and it's one of the biggest sticking points for me right now.
But I didn't feel comfortable bringing it up, in part because I wasn't sure what the best way to go about it was (in order to avoid inviting unfair attacks rather than the constructive discussion we vitally need to be having), and in part because, well... I feared it would be another concern dismissed.
How this gets addressed (or doesn't) could determine whether I continue to use the site at all. I'm not saying that because I expect my presence, specifically, to matter to anyone involved. It's not something I'm holding over anyone's head. It's just -- that's how important these things are to me.
And I do believe it's vital. What I've seen in my time here has been disheartening. What @BESW has described of past incidents is many times worse. There is serious bad blood here. If it's ever going to heal, it's going to take open acknowledgment and a sincere improvement effort from the moderation team.
There are going to have to be "diplomatic balancing acts." That's not an option moderation gets to take or leave if it's really serious about fixing this. The tightrope has already been rolled out. It's there, and it's not going away. If we're not going to attempt to cross it, the show will not go on.
7
Or, rather, it technically will, but there's going to be a big tight rope getting tangled up in everything else we try to do.
This whole thing is not a new argument. I tried looking into this last year when there were warhorns blowing about moderation issues. The people I spoke with had an awful lot of opinion on how things were wrong and a handful of evidence. Some people were a little too torch and pitchfork for comfort, so I decided to simply avoid the site and hope you guys would figure it out. But here we are again, bickering over what is and isn't correct behavior and action for operating and using the site.
Again, all this tells me is that the site isn't worth getting involved in, because there's just going to be bickering about how things should be run. I have no useful comments to add to the current argument, I just find the fact it is even happening, immensely disappointing.
And yeah, I'm not sure I buy this whole "the mod team can't do anything, it's for the CMs" line; why hasn't the mod team escalated it to the CMs if they're aware of the problem and think it needs fixing? That seems like a horrible gap in Stack protocols if a moderation team is unable to call on the CMs for help.
Whatever the CMs do, the bad blood isn't going to magically go away. The mods need to be thinking about what they can do to extend a hand to the community, and it needs to start with acknowledging that there IS a problem beyond "five guys" being angry "on the Internet" and messing things up for everyone else.
from the sound of things, at least one mod has done at least a little to agitate them
not saying it was necessarily enough by itself to trigger a whole war/shouting match, but the fact that no mods want to even address it is distressing to me
I don't have all the facts, but the things I have heard about this whole thing distress me
I don't feel like it is all the mods fault, but it sounds like they also could have been doing something more to at least make it look like they cared about this situation
I don't want to raise any complaints, and I don't want to take sides here, but in cases such as this mods should be taking the high moral ground, not (as is apparently happening) more or less ignoring the issue or brushing it aside like it isn't a big deal
At this point, for the ability to go forward, laying blame doesn't really matter. I don't think anyone can usefully say "It wasn't my fault, so I shouldn't have to help heal the site."
and maybe certain people should not have started acting like this was always a personal vendetta or a war
@BESW exactly
I don't intend to say "this is all the mods fault"
I don't know whose fault it is, and getting bogged down in trying to figure out whose fault it is is petty and a waste of time
I think there are hurt feelings on the part of people on this site, mods most likely included, and no one should be acting like the other side is made up of monsters
or people without feelings
I have heard some disquieting things about Mxy, but none of that means anything if everyone treats Mxy like some kind of monster with no feelings of it's own
that being said, the mods also should not dismiss anything Mxy may or may not have done that wasn't Kosher offhand
this whole situation seems to have been treated in the wrong way by both "sides" of this argument
there shouldn't be two polarized "sides" here
everyone should have started by listening to each other and being reasonable and rational. instead some people dismissed feelings while other people started shouting
2
end of story, doesn't matter who anyone involved in any of that was, I do not, and don't care to, know who started this
The whole affair distracts from the goal of the site to provide meaningful, useful answers to questions posed about roleplaying games. Some people want solid by the book answers, others are open to flexible solutions. Unfortunately, this seems to create schisms enough for people get upset and flare tempers.
me running into the middle of it and shouting "BE RATIONAL!" is just going to be one more person running around and yelling nonsense
this is not a thing I even know half a thing about
I have just heard distressing things, and the fact that people are still talking about it in present tense tips me off that it hasn't been resolved yet
and yes, for all I know it might never be resolved, but that would be truly horrible
if that happens I may even leave the site
what a waste of my time that would be
I have not been here nearly as long as some people, but I have been here for,......2 years and 9 months apparently
that would be such a waste of all that time I have spent hanging out with the awesome people here
@BESW I had this thought, too. We could spend forever trying to nail down exactly what percentage any given person is responsible in this. That will only increase tensions and distract from what needs to be done. At some point, things went wrong, and they've never been fully addressed.
It is common in American English and culture to refer to one's lover or significant other as "baby" or "babe", for example:
Come on baby, light my fire! 1
or
I got you, I won't let go. I got you to love me so. I got you babe! 2
Where does this usage come from? What's the history behin...
TL;DR?
Meta is where consensus happens.
Questions and answers, have to be good questions and answers without chat.
Any Stack Exchange site has three realms for interaction, Main, Meta, and Chat.
Main is where the business of the site happens, in our case we ask and answer questions abou...
