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And speaking of forums! In the last few years a lot of major communities have stepped up their game when it comes to showing assholes the door. That's a huge deal, because in this hobby you straight-up cannot ignore them if you want optimum sales. Take RPGnet (this is an easy one for me to dump  on for some reason). Some banned designers cry that RPGnet isn't relevant and they know designers who totally don't go there any more, but they are full of poo poo. Raggi bragged to G+ that he'd "already stopped advertising on there a year and a half ago or so because of how they behave and what they allow to go on", but the truth is he was panhandling there literally right up until his perma. GMS pushes the same "designers don't go there!" line, then unironically asks people to post in Adamant threads for him. I've heard several people (Old Geezer for example) proclaim that they're done with RPGnet and are going to flame out ... once they're done advertising. Even people with actual, real problems with RPGnet (usually people who left of their own accord) often look for workarounds that let them keep getting that sweet RPGnet cash.It won't destroy their business, but every time some dweeb is removed from a big forum, it directly impacts their influence in the industry. They know it, you know it, feel great about it. (Hi Darren!) This is partly why G+ is popular with some groups; it's really easy to set up a big ol' circle jerk where nobody can kick you out, and a lot of people who run communities there like to wring their hands and talk about free speech or "vigorous debate" when the topic of actual moderating comes up as though that and banning pricks are mutually exclusive. It can be a great place if you know how to use it. Like, 80% of the G+ DW community is great. That's not bad! That's above average. Ettin fucked around with this message at 16:05 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 16:01
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So how many people have successfully destroyed RPGnet? Taken away its users, made discussion totally better in their own forum, totally owned the mods/admins in a way that really totally smarts, and so on?
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May 6, 2014 16:35
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Tangentially related to that, Comic Book Resources just did an entire purge-and-reboot of their forums and instituted a zero-tolerance policy regarding things like sexist/phobic behavior, threats, and acting like a terrible dipshit after Janelle Asselin contributed a guest article critiquing the cover to the latest Teen Titans issue and was then subjected to a deluge of rape threats and apparently an attempt at getting into her bank account. That's not to say that CBR didn't allow its forums to become a toxic cesspit in the first place, but at least they're doing something about it now so there's that.
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May 6, 2014 16:39
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Being accepting of people and not kicking them out of real or perceived slights or wrongthink is a circlejerk? I thought that the objective of a forum is to foster debate and to discuss about things. I'm not defending Skarka or Pundit or whatever, but I don't think someone should be kicked out of a community unless he's like, a child rapist or a murderer or doxxed someone (Then again I brought that up on these very own forums before...).
Plutonis fucked around with this message at 16:42 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 16:39
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Ettin posted:And speaking of forums! In the last few years a lot of major communities have stepped up their game when it comes to showing assholes the door. quote:Take RPGnet (this is an easy one for me to dump I seem to recall Skarka being very upset at not being able to rules-lawyer (as in "I'll just have a non-banned user repost everything from my blog and twitter feed on RPGnet! It's the perfect crime!" or something similar) his way around his ban.
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May 6, 2014 16:43
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Being accepting of people and not kicking them out of real or perceived slights or wrongthink is a circlejerk? I thought that the objective of a forum is to foster debate and to discuss about things. I'm not defending Skarka or Pundit or whatever, but I don't think someone should be kicked out of a community unless he's like, a child rapist or a murderer or doxxed someone (Then again I brought that up on these very own forums before...). "Being accepting of people" is usually considered a laudable goal, but that's because it usually refers to not being a prejudicial rear end in a top hat towards people with different lifestyles and beliefs; e.g., gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, political party, and so on. However, tolerating homophobes, sexists, bigots, rape apologists, etc. is not that kind of "tolerance." It's a different kind, where you allow a (usually tiny) minority of assholes to run out of your group anyone who is (rightly) offended by their behavior. It's a form of intolerance because it creates a hostile environment for those groups of people that you're supposed to be accepting of. "Real and perceived slights" kind of suggests that you're actually talking about not kicking out people who maybe use harsh language or occasionally point out someone else's shitposting (which in some communities is a real problem). Here on SA we're accustomed to a pretty good set of rules and moderators who manage to let us point out when other goons are assholes without overreacting and calling that "ad hominem" and kicking out the person who is complaining, while also actually kicking out the assholes when they step way over the lines delineated by the rules. The objective of forums is to allow for people to chat about stuff. "Fostering debate" is not always the goal. Nor is a forum a public place where Americans' first amendment rights have to be upheld; nobody has a right to say anything in particular on a forum that is owned and operated by a private individual or company. We're using Lowtax's servers here, and if he decides we're not going to discuss Ponies here, then this is a no-Pony forum and that's fine. It's not like that decision discriminates against an historically-marginalized population. So yeah, obviously rapists and murderers get kicked out, but we can support and be enthusiastic about forums that make the decision that they're not going to "tolerate" assholes who poison the discussion with their personal bigotry. Even if they're not breaking any laws, and even if we support their rights to speak about their beliefs in public places.
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May 6, 2014 16:53
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Rulebook Heavily posted:So how many people have successfully destroyed RPGnet? Taken away its users, made discussion totally better in their own forum, totally owned the mods/admins in a way that really totally smarts, and so on?  TheLovablePlutonis posted:Being accepting of people and not kicking them out of real or perceived slights or wrongthink is a circlejerk? I thought that the objective of a forum is to foster debate and to discuss about things. I'm not defending Skarka or Pundit or whatever, but I don't think someone should be kicked out of a community unless he's like, a child rapist or a murderer or doxxed someone (Then again I brought that up on these very own forums before...). Eh it depends, you don't have to be Aatrek to ruin a forum. IMO it comes down to whether your posts stifle debate. Like, one of the main reasons Zak S was banned (for example) was because he was so loving dense every debate he weighed in on became a clusterfuck labyrinth of people trying to engage with his floor-to-ceiling walls of text while he tried to discover what everyone else's secret right-wing conspiracy theory was. Ditching that guy actively improved every discussion he never got to post in. One of the reasons we boot people for bigoted bullshit is to foster debate too, because it makes otherwise good posters avoid the community. Like if we didn't ban people for being like "haha gently caress trannies" a lot of posters wouldn't feel comfortable/welcome showing up. Obviously you've got to be careful (I am fine with differing opinions if it's not like, hugely racist or something) but you can really improve debate by keeping out the people that just fart in it!
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May 6, 2014 17:11
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Being accepting of people and not kicking them out of real or perceived slights or wrongthink is a circlejerk? I thought that the objective of a forum is to foster debate and to discuss about things. The problem is that prejudice is rooted in irrationality. I can't compose a coherent argument about why women aren't as smart as men or any other dumbfuck belief, because it's, you know, not true. It is therefore pretty much impossible to actually debate with someone who is prejudiced, because their beliefs are rooted in emotion, not logic. If you read those sorts of threads and "debates", you'll notice the same anti-arguments coming up again and again. Someone arguing from the position of "women are or should be equal to men" is impossible to factually prove wrong, so the only way you can engage with them if you're a shitheel is by doing everything in your power to make the argument about something else. This is obviously not super-great for discussions, so what's the point in keeping those sort of people around?
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May 6, 2014 17:38
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So apparently Fred Hicks deleted an entire website that was important to his business. How does that happen? 
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May 6, 2014 19:46
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MadScientistWorking posted:So apparently Fred Hicks deleted an entire website that was important to his business. How does that happen? You answered your own question: MadScientistWorking posted:Fred Hicks
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May 6, 2014 19:50
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Ettin posted:This is partly why G+ is popular with some groups; it's really easy to set up a big ol' circle jerk where nobody can kick you out, and a lot of people who run communities there like to wring their hands and talk about free speech or "vigorous debate" when the topic of actual moderating comes up as though that and banning pricks are mutually exclusive.
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May 6, 2014 20:49
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I felt like I had taken a tiny step forward for all of humankind when I made the initial mistake of mentioning cosplayer consent problems around my token right-wing friend, but then took the time to try to turn it around at least a little. He initially got furious about how "bullshit" "it" all is, and rather than rolling my eyes (which, you know, I have probably done in the past) I was like "no, hold on. There is no way you are THAT evil" and talked to him about it. I was like "dude nobody is saying you do not have the right to stare at the hot girls in costume or take pictures of them if they are posing, they are arguing that you should not be able to take pictures up their skirts or grab them." He said "does that actually happen?" and I was like "yes, enough for the movement I mentioned at the beginning to come up," and he said "well, gently caress those guys. They should be happy that the T&A is there at all." And I was like "well that is not how I would think of it but I THINK WE CAN LIVE WITH THIS"
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May 6, 2014 23:21
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MadScientistWorking posted:So apparently Fred Hicks deleted an entire website that was important to his business. How does that happen? which site?
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May 6, 2014 23:32
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clockworkjoe posted:which site? Bits and Mortar.
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May 6, 2014 23:47
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Yeah, a toxic forum atmosphere can make a lot of people uncomfortable about posting. Me included--I'd probably leave for a forum where I felt more welcome. As is, I know here I won't get people tossing rape threats or transphobic comments or whatever my way. At least not without getting probated and/or banned. Basically, this sort of pollution can suppress discussion when people can freely harass others over stuff like that. The harassed people or groups begin feeling afraid to speak up, and it turns into a vicious cycle where a lot of good posters leave while bad posters stay, leading to the forum turning into a cesspool. And I don't have to deal with people constantly using "fag" or the like as an insult, thank gods. (Seriously, it gets tiring when you do enough online gaming.)
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May 7, 2014 02:06
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Kaja Rainbow posted:As is, I know here I won't get people tossing [...] transphobic comments or whatever my way. At least not without getting probated and/or banned. I take it you avoid the rest of the forums then? 
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May 7, 2014 04:31
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Trad games is very much it's own insular island in the larger take of Something Awful, though it has a few bridges to D&D.
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May 7, 2014 04:45
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If you are paying ten bucks to post on those forums, make it a full experience...! Post wherever you like, whenever you want. The world is your playground.
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May 7, 2014 04:47
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Joke's on you then, I got someone else to pay for my account.
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May 7, 2014 04:56
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Ettin posted:Things are getting better! Some reminders: Uri Kurlianchik used to write columns for WotC's website and was booted when it came out that he was an apologist for domestic violence, Gareth-Michael Skarka is mostly known these days as an internet tough guy who doesn't finish things on time, Trollman was never rehired by Catalyst for Shadowrun and has basically been reduced to posting homebrew his own forum, and every RPG forum that matters (RPGnet and ENWorld in particular) has been revising and updating its rules to cover sexist bullshit. It's been a while since I checked EN World, so how recent was this? Last time I posted there (addressing "Sexism in Table-top Gaming" thread), I pretty much encountered a lot of opposition and terrible sexist arguments from a few posters (who were all long-time posters and not newcomer trolls), only one of whom got banned for it. There were some people who called them out on their poo poo and gave me "kudos" point for the thread, though. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 05:10 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 05:02
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Kai Tave posted:Joke's on you then, I got someone else to pay for my account. We're all paying for it, we know.
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May 7, 2014 05:57
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To be fair, the webcomic side of BSS isn't too bad either.
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May 7, 2014 06:10
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Let's Play is fun. And I've gotten good mileage out of the Military History thread in Ask/Tell, the Aviation thread in the cars forum and (I know this is going to be weird) the Airpower/Cold War thread in The Firing Range. Lots of cool information there.
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May 7, 2014 06:12
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Tollymain posted:To be fair, the webcomic side of BSS isn't too bad either.
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May 7, 2014 06:33
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BSS in general is a cool forum, post more in BSS.
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May 7, 2014 06:34
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Comic book nerds look down on table top nerds for being a tier below in nerdom.
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May 7, 2014 06:37
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Rulebook Heavily posted:So how many people have successfully destroyed RPGnet? Taken away its users, made discussion totally better in their own forum, totally owned the mods/admins in a way that really totally smarts, and so on? Elaborating while I'm not on my phone: To my knowledge, 0. Most people with an actual problem with RPGnet are adults who don't go for that poo poo, they either avoid RPGnet and work around that or agitate for change (like part of the reason I said yes to being a mod, I guess). Also, if you're big and influential enough to call a community out and have it mean something, trying to ~destroy RPGnet~ instead is kind of a PR problem? You don't see anyone at, say, WotC writing angry blog posts about how "RPGNet chooses peace over both truth and justice, just like school districts all over the United States, and unlike my experiences of this sort that were commonplace throughout my childhood I know now how to show how wrong these petty despots are in their actions and I have no qualms in doing so if I'm pushed," because big-name peeps and the companies they work for care about not looking like a huge baby. Libertad! posted:It's been a while since I checked EN World, so how recent was this? Last time I posted there (addressing "Sexism in Table-top Gaming" thread), I pretty much encountered a lot of opposition and terrible sexist arguments from a few posters (who were all long-time posters and not newcomer trolls), only one of whom got banned for it. There were some people who called them out on their poo poo and gave me "kudos" point for the thread, though. Well, back in 2011 some dude posted a bunch of setting fluff that was basically a "women totally want to be raped" wank fantasy, and the staff left him alone while moderating the people who called him out, but they changed their minds on that one pretty quick and I'm pretty sure that'd cop you a ban now. Progress is progress!
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May 7, 2014 06:43
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Honestly topics that ever COULD go into that sorta thing just doesn't even come up in ENWorld anymore. They're too busy whinging about skills and how many feats a fighter can have until they lose verisimilitude.
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May 7, 2014 06:46
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ProfessorCirno posted:Honestly topics that ever COULD go into that sorta thing just doesn't even come up in ENWorld anymore. They're too busy whinging about skills and how many feats a fighter can have until they lose verisimilitude. Oh oh I know the answer to this one. Winson taught me: two.
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May 7, 2014 07:18
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Tollymain posted:To be fair, the webcomic side of BSS isn't too bad either. Lo, the sweet summer child who knows not the true meaning of Ronnieposting.
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May 7, 2014 08:40
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Quarex posted:I felt like I had taken a tiny step forward for all of humankind when I made the initial mistake of mentioning cosplayer consent problems around my token right-wing friend, but then took the time to try to turn it around at least a little. An analogy I've used IRL and really should make something like a blog post is that some people (mostly men but not always) are griefers - as in MMOs. Who pick on targets of opportunity - and do their level best to escape notice. And if you hadn't seen griefers at work would you believe half of what they got up to?
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May 7, 2014 13:51
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stoutfish posted:Comic book nerds look down on table top nerds for being a tier below in nerdom. I make myself feel better by thinking "gently caress, at least I'm not a train fan".
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May 7, 2014 14:21
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I used to think that until I found myself buying train buildings for cheap terrain.
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May 7, 2014 14:29
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I will admit that model train setups do seem kinda fun while you are building/crafting them but the idea of putting on an engineers cap and watching them go round and round is kinda depressing.
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May 7, 2014 14:47
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Worse than that is the advertising image of some 1980s grandpa with kids that are loving thrilled to watch the train go in circles with him. It's the cruelest lie. Your grandkids find no joy in your hobby, either.
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May 7, 2014 14:52
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stoutfish posted:Comic book nerds look down on table top nerds for being a tier below in nerdom. Where do you come from, backwards land? I'll be over here playing with friends in a social setting while you read your baby books by flashlight 
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May 7, 2014 15:43
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moths posted:Worse than that is the advertising image of some 1980s grandpa with kids that are loving thrilled to watch the train go in circles with him.  They'll grow out of it eventually, but my 4 year old thinks they're the coolest thing.
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May 7, 2014 15:59
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Ettin posted:Well, back in 2011 some dude posted a bunch of setting fluff that was basically a "women totally want to be raped" wank fantasy, and the staff left him alone while moderating the people who called him out, but they changed their minds on that one pretty quick and I'm pretty sure that'd cop you a ban now. Progress is progress! neonchameleon posted:An analogy I've used IRL and really should make something like a blog post is that some people (mostly men but not always) are griefers - as in MMOs. Who pick on targets of opportunity - and do their level best to escape notice. And if you hadn't seen griefers at work would you believe half of what they got up to?
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May 7, 2014 17:31
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I'm glad that at least somewhere the model railroad experience has delivered as promised, that made me smile to think about.
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May 7, 2014 17:38
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Quarex posted:
I think you may be overstating things a bit here. The analogy is an excellent one though.
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