TG As An Industry - Past, Present, Future - The Something Awful Forums

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PST: Jul 5, 2012; If only Milliband had eaten a vegan sausage roll instead of a bacon sandwich, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Comrade Gorbash posted:

Basically, RPG.net's response so far is acceptable because it's a response so far. They're trying to avoid harmful speculation in a specific case where most of the people who would be commenting don't have any information.

Paizo making the same statement isn't acceptable because they're so much later in the process, and it's addressing not only specific accusations but how they deal with situations like this in general. It's pretty clearly about protecting Paizo, first and foremost.

Kai Tave posted:

Lisa Stevens meanwhile is where the buck stops, and like you point out her response is a conclusive one. There's no to-be-continued there, it's just "if there's a problem we won't discuss details, so you'll have to take our word for it." And that's coming on the heels of an apparent pattern of abuse and misconduct that's been going on for years and potentially being stifled by Paizo themselves. RPGnet and Skotos are in the process of doing something, Paizo has had numerous chances to do something and what they did do is why Stevens' statement doesn't hold water.

I agree, both on RPG.net doing the right thing very quickly, while also dealing with the WTF of it coming out of the blue for them like that, but also with how totally different Paizo and Stevens' response is.

Paizo are more concerned with image and cover-ups and appearing to do the right thing, than doing the right thing. Paizo's hiding malfeasance and harassment, not standing up to it. They might be dealing with it, might not, who knows, you just have to trust them. Only, we know of three examples where they didn't deal with it in a proper manner, and that their convention policy is utter poo poo, and in no way a reasonable and decent set of policies on harassment.

Ohh, and they mechanically incentivised child abuse, so they've got that as well.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 18:27

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 03:24

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
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2014-2018

If I may, I'd like to derail a bit into the child abuse demon cult. Because a thing I've seen a lot is 'this is to showcase true evil! it's for bad guys only and you kill them! it's a thing that exists in the world so they have to do it, it's not meant for use!'

Motherfucker no. An author chooses all of what they create. We do not create finished works of fiction by accident.

Someone chose to make a child abuse demon. Someone later chose to provide stats for it, to think about how to mechanically represent the magic of child abuse. Very obviously sexual abuse, given how they chose to do it. Someone decided this had to be put in a book for people to buy for their fantasy elfgame.

If the only way you know how to show true evil is to showcase child abuse at your table, something is wrong with you. If you make child abuse mechanics, you have chosen to enable and encourage the depiction of child abuse at the gaming table. The only purpose of a written mechanic is to be used. There's enough people that want to play "bad guys" that every mechanic in Pathfinder is for PCs unless they explicitly have no access to it - but even if it wasn't, the only purpose these mechanics have is for a character to abuse a child on camera, to use the abilities they have, which are for sexual abuse of children.

Maybe it's possible that a game could deal with topics of child abuse well. I don't really think any could actually be used that way in practice outside of very carefully controlled therapy sessions at best, but I will grant that it is not completely impossible.

Pathfinder is not and cannot be that game. This had to go through several layers of writing, editing and publishing. The original writer for the demon, that person's editors, the book developer, the writer for these mechanics, that person's editors, that book developer.

And not one of them stopped and said 'no, this should not be published and is a horribly bad idea.' I've seen a post by the original writer for the demon, who seems to have realized it was probably a bad idea and told Paizo they wouldn't mind if it was left out.

But they submitted it anyway, and Paizo published it.

Many people made the deliberate choice to include and publish this material, and that should never be forgotten just because Paizo has a fetish for giving mechanics to every drat thing they print.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 18:38

PST: Jul 5, 2012; If only Milliband had eaten a vegan sausage roll instead of a bacon sandwich, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Mors Rattus posted:

If I may, I'd like to derail a bit into the child abuse demon cult. Because a thing I've seen a lot is 'this is to showcase true evil! it's for bad guys only and you kill them! it's a thing that exists in the world so they have to do it, it's not meant for use!'

Motherfucker no. An author chooses all of what they create. We do not create finished works of fiction by accident.

Someone chose to make a child abuse demon. Someone later chose to provide stats for it, to think about how to mechanically represent the magic of child abuse. Very obviously sexual abuse, given how they chose to do it. Someone decided this had to be put in a book for people to buy for their fantasy elfgame.

If the only way you know how to show true evil is to showcase child abuse at your table, something is wrong with you. If you make child abuse mechanics, you have chosen to enable and encourage the depiction of child abuse at the gaming table. The only purpose of a written mechanic is to be used. There's enough people that want to play "bad guys" that every mechanic in Pathfinder is for PCs unless they explicitly have no access to it - but even if it wasn't, the only purpose these mechanics have is for a character to abuse a child on camera, to use the abilities they have, which are for sexual abuse of children.

Maybe it's possible that a game could deal with topics of child abuse well. I don't really think any could actually be used that way in practice outside of very carefully controlled therapy sessions at best, but I will grant that it is not completely impossible.

Pathfinder is not and cannot be that game. This had to go through several layers of writing, editing and publishing. The original writer for the demon, that person's editors, the book developer, the writer for these mechanics, that person's editors, that book developer.

And not one of them stopped and said 'no, this should not be published and is a horribly bad idea.' I've seen a post by the original writer for the demon, who seems to have realized it was probably a bad idea and told Paizo they wouldn't mind if it was left out.

But they submitted it anyway, and Paizo published it.

Many people made the deliberate choice to include and publish this material, and that should never be forgotten just because Paizo has a fetish for giving mechanics to every drat thing they print.

All of this, all of it.

The inclusion of the spells that being an abuser grants, which makes them better at directly copying real life abuse techniques and tactics only lead to the presumption that on some level they want to give GMs and players the ability to have a child 'roll a saving through against unnatural lust' 'roll a save against Modify Memory' because why give them the loving abilities unless they're to be used in the game.

Apart from the 'who's loving dumb idea was it to put a spell like unnatural lust in the game anyway', they chose to mechanise this, it was a concious, deliberate decision.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 18:42

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

Mors Rattus posted:

Maybe it's possible that a game could deal with topics of child abuse well. I don't really think any could actually be used that way in practice outside of very carefully controlled therapy sessions at best, but I will grant that it is not completely impossible.

I've brought it up recently, in this or another thread, but the original edition of Jason Blair's Little Fears had seven nightmare monsters each corresponding to one of the seven deadly sins, and so there was one based on lust, and it was very much exactly what you would expect it to be. By all accounts this matter was handled with taste and sensitivity given the topic, it wasn't done in an exploitative manner, and when Blair decided to make a new version of Little Fears down the line even he decided that it wasn't a good fit for the sort of game he was aiming to create and dropped it.

Wasn't the "it's only to showcase how evil the badguys are!" excuse also a real common go-to for Legends of the Flame Princess?

# ? Oct 23, 2017 18:48

unseenlibrarian: Jun 4, 2012; There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

Also for Carcossa, despite, IIRC, the spells with horrible requirements being mixed in with more normal ones in the spell list for PCs.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 18:50

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

unseenlibrarian posted:

Also for Carcossa, despite, IIRC, the spells with horrible requirements being mixed in with more normal ones in the spell list for PCs.

First, I got the name wrong, it was Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but actually it turns out that Carcosa was a setting for LotFP which is what I was thinking of anyway.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 18:51

PST: Jul 5, 2012; If only Milliband had eaten a vegan sausage roll instead of a bacon sandwich, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Kai Tave posted:

First, I got the name wrong, it was Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but actually it turns out that Carcosa was a setting for LotFP which is what I was thinking of anyway.

Carcossa felt to me like someone had read the Book of Ebon Bindings from Tekumel and gone 'hurr hurr, this can be made so much worse' it was just..crass and poo poo.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 19:09

Battle Mad Ronin: Aug 26, 2017

PST posted:

Carcossa felt to me like someone had read the Book of Ebon Bindings from Tekumel and gone 'hurr hurr, this can be made so much worse' it was just..crass and poo poo.

It�s even more baffling because Carcosa specifically states that PCs are not allowed to play magic-users. And a significant portion have extremely weird and specific requirements that make them more of a plot point than anything to be used as part of actually playing the game. So the pages and pages of rape and torture spells are presumeably not so much for use in game. They are just there for your reading pleasure.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 19:35

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Mors Rattus posted:

Many people made the deliberate choice to include and publish this material, and that should never be forgotten just because Paizo has a fetish for giving mechanics to every drat thing they print.

Yyyyyup. This is one of the natural end-points of 'everything needs mechanics!'

It's not enough to say 'this gross demon lord's followers get boons by being monstrous.' No, that lacks verisimilitude and also what if I want my character to learn these powers?

# ? Oct 23, 2017 19:36

PST: Jul 5, 2012; If only Milliband had eaten a vegan sausage roll instead of a bacon sandwich, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Paizo's thread on the topic has been closed for 13 hours now 'until our community team is available to moderate as needed'. Do their community team only work 12-6 PST?

# ? Oct 23, 2017 19:42

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

PST posted:

Paizo's thread on the topic has been closed for 13 hours now 'until our community team is available to moderate as needed'. Do their community team only work 12-6 PST?

They have no community team. The person who used to do it full time quit months ago and their webdesigner is the replacement.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 19:53

senrath: Nov 4, 2009; Look Professor, a destruct switch!

MadScientistWorking posted:

They have no community team. The person who used to do it full time quit months ago and their webdesigner is the replacement.

They have an in-house web designer? Could've fooled me.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 20:23

PST: Jul 5, 2012; If only Milliband had eaten a vegan sausage roll instead of a bacon sandwich, we wouldn't be in this mess.

MadScientistWorking posted:

They have no community team. The person who used to do it full time quit months ago and their webdesigner is the replacement.

WTF

This is a multi-million pound a year company

gently caress they have a listed community manager. WTF

# ? Oct 23, 2017 20:58

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

PST posted:

WTF

This is a multi-million pound a year company

gently caress they have a listed community manager. WTF

Yeah its a bit odd. Also, browsing RPG.net I'd hate to tell you about Evil Hat. Fred Hicks was one of the leading contributors for driving out on person out the industry and possibly another.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Oct 23, 2017

# ? Oct 23, 2017 21:10

Sion: Oct 16, 2004; "I'm the boss of space. That's plenty."

Mors Rattus posted:

If I may, I'd like to derail a bit into the child abuse demon cult. Because a thing I've seen a lot is 'this is to showcase true evil! it's for bad guys only and you kill them! it's a thing that exists in the world so they have to do it, it's not meant for use!'

Motherfucker no. An author chooses all of what they create. We do not create finished works of fiction by accident.

Someone chose to make a child abuse demon. Someone later chose to provide stats for it, to think about how to mechanically represent the magic of child abuse. Very obviously sexual abuse, given how they chose to do it. Someone decided this had to be put in a book for people to buy for their fantasy elfgame.

If the only way you know how to show true evil is to showcase child abuse at your table, something is wrong with you. If you make child abuse mechanics, you have chosen to enable and encourage the depiction of child abuse at the gaming table. The only purpose of a written mechanic is to be used. There's enough people that want to play "bad guys" that every mechanic in Pathfinder is for PCs unless they explicitly have no access to it - but even if it wasn't, the only purpose these mechanics have is for a character to abuse a child on camera, to use the abilities they have, which are for sexual abuse of children.

Maybe it's possible that a game could deal with topics of child abuse well. I don't really think any could actually be used that way in practice outside of very carefully controlled therapy sessions at best, but I will grant that it is not completely impossible.

Pathfinder is not and cannot be that game. This had to go through several layers of writing, editing and publishing. The original writer for the demon, that person's editors, the book developer, the writer for these mechanics, that person's editors, that book developer.

And not one of them stopped and said 'no, this should not be published and is a horribly bad idea.' I've seen a post by the original writer for the demon, who seems to have realized it was probably a bad idea and told Paizo they wouldn't mind if it was left out.

But they submitted it anyway, and Paizo published it.

Many people made the deliberate choice to include and publish this material, and that should never be forgotten just because Paizo has a fetish for giving mechanics to every drat thing they print.

what the loving poo poo

# ? Oct 23, 2017 21:26

PST: Jul 5, 2012; If only Milliband had eaten a vegan sausage roll instead of a bacon sandwich, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Sion posted:

what the loving poo poo

If you want the details, I'll give you all the details, but it's really lovely and will add to 'gently caress this hobby' tendencies

Seriously, you can stop now if you want, you don't have to keep reading:

...

...

...

Quite apart from the 'commit child abuse to gain +2 to charisma skill checks, they've actually given the child molestor the exact spells they need to replicate real, actual child abuse, rape and abuse in general

They make the victim take part in it against their will, so they can say they wanted it, just as real abusers do
They make the victim forget it, dismiss or have it be blanked out, just as real abusers do
They make the victim look perfect for them, just as real abusers often do.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 22:02

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Mors Rattus posted:

Maybe it's possible that a game could deal with topics of child abuse well. I don't really think any could actually be used that way in practice outside of very carefully controlled therapy sessions at best, but I will grant that it is not completely impossible.

Pathfinder is not and cannot be that game. This had to go through several layers of writing, editing and publishing. The original writer for the demon, that person's editors, the book developer, the writer for these mechanics, that person's editors, that book developer.

Well, I think one thing folks who develop D&D derivatives hate to admit is that they're working in the realm of a kid's power fantasy - the general activity is to beat up evil baddies and get powerful and rich doing so. And that's not to say you can't add depth through story or additional mechanics, or that there's anything wrong with power fantasies like that, whether played by kids or adults. But that's where its strength lies and developers need to be aware of that. In general, dilemmas in this game have to be the kind of dilemma you can solve with an sword. And so extreme transgressions only really exist to give you things to target with that store.

Add in the fact that RPGs have unique issues in dealing with traumatic content, and it's a real mess. Companies like Paizo think Pathfinder can be "everything for everyone" (their words), without facing up to that all of their stories have to have "and then I stabbed a bad thing and gained fabulous prizes" somewhere in the conclusion. Even if that content was somehow well-written, conceived, and properly implemented, you just have a structure that's not terribly supportive of adult material in general. That's not to say it can never be done, but it's just not to the game's strengths.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 22:03

Kurieg: Jul 19, 2012; RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20

PST posted:

I was abused as a child.

This makes me unnaturally angry.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 22:11

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Codifying it into mechanics seems to be the part that crosses the line for me and makes it weird and upsetting. If you want a villain who abuses children for your heroes to defeat then yeah, you can do that. Everything on the DM side is smoke and mirrors so you don't need to give it rules and form. The second you give it mechanics it opens it up to being something players can play and boy does that feel gross.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 22:16

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

MadScientistWorking posted:

Yeah its a bit odd. Also, browsing RPG.net I'd hate to tell you about Evil Hat. Fred Hicks was one of the leading contributors for driving out on person out the industry and possibly another.

I seem to recall this isn't the first time you've brought this up but I don't recall any of the details behind it.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 22:17

Lurks With Wolves: Jan 14, 2013; At least I don't dance with them, right?

Note that the creators said somewhere that they used Unnatural Lust for it's mechanics and didn't mean it in a sexual way. Also note that this is bullshit because they could have used literally any other level 1 enchantment spell and had the same effect.

Kai Tave posted:

I seem to recall this isn't the first time you've brought this up but I don't recall any of the details behind it.

Remember when Mike Mearls brought Zak S on as a consultant for 5e and how a lot of people came forward to talk about how he's a serial harasser? Fred Hicks is one of several big-name RPG creators that sided with Zak's side of the story, which helped the harassment continue, which means a lot of people aren't in the industry or on the internet any more.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 22:27

Megaman's Jockstrap: Jul 16, 2000; What a horrible thread to have a post.

I guarantee you the person who wrote Folca is a whitebread suburban dipshit whose most traumatic memory was opening a Christmas present and getting socks.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 22:27

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

Lurks With Wolves posted:

Remember when Mike Mearls brought Zak S on as a consultant for 5e and how a lot of people came forward to talk about how he's a serial harasser? Fred Hicks is one of several big-name RPG creators that sided with Zak's side of the story, which helped the harassment continue, which means a lot of people aren't in the industry or on the internet any more.

Thanks for the clarification, I wasn't sure if it was related to that or not because it was so long ago that a lot of the details of who said what are fuzzy.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 22:29

PST: Jul 5, 2012; If only Milliband had eaten a vegan sausage roll instead of a bacon sandwich, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Kurieg posted:

I was abused as a child.

This makes me unnaturally angry.

I wasas well. I still am about this.

I emailed 20 different paizo email addresses, going from the regular customer service through their entire creative and management team. Not one single reply on it.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 22:32

unseenlibrarian: Jun 4, 2012; There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

Hicks also later recanted and apologized and deleted the original reblogged link, but Madscientistworking still brings it up every time his name comes up.

https://archive.is/KY554

# ? Oct 23, 2017 22:38

Kurieg: Jul 19, 2012; RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20

Gumball Gumption posted:

Codifying it into mechanics seems to be the part that crosses the line for me and makes it weird and upsetting. If you want a villain who abuses children for your heroes to defeat then yeah, you can do that. Everything on the DM side is smoke and mirrors so you don't need to give it rules and form. The second you give it mechanics it opens it up to being something players can play and boy does that feel gross.

It's not just that, it's the specificity. It's not about rape, or violation, it's about making the safe unsafe. It's about ruining innocence and the violation of children.

It's crass in a way that Slannesh/most generic rape demons aren't.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 22:41

PST: Jul 5, 2012; If only Milliband had eaten a vegan sausage roll instead of a bacon sandwich, we wouldn't be in this mess.

unseenlibrarian posted:

Hicks also later recanted and apologized and deleted the original reblogged link, but Madscientistworking still brings it up every time his name comes up.

https://archive.is/KY554

That's a pretty upfront apology

quote:

The truth is I did gently caress up.

This is a little hilarious, given how clearly and plainly I've been saying that I think he's a toxic presence in gaming, and that the value he does offer is thoroughly drowned out by the bad behavior both by him and by those in support of him.

But that doesn't excuse my mistake at all. Being unaware that I was making the mistake doesn't lessen its magnitude either.

I've said it before (despite this article claiming to the contrary), and I'll say it again (even if it's thrown back at me as it has been previously): I am very, very sorry that sharing that article caused pain. That wasn't my intention at all, but my intention carries no real value here compared to the pain of those targeted by any hate I ended up supporting as a side-effect.

I can't expect or deserve forgiveness for that, of course, but I do hope that I can continue to do good things in the industry to someday earn it.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 22:42

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

PST posted:

I wasas well. I still am about this.

I emailed 20 different paizo email addresses, going from the regular customer service through their entire creative and management team. Not one single reply on it.

Yeah, for a company that prides itself on having public email addresses they are really bad at responding. I had a similar experience when I emailed them over the Kingdom Death thing.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 22:55

potatocubed: Jul 26, 2012; *rathian noises*

Hell, I emailed Paizo because I wanted to list a product on their store and they never followed through. It wasn't even a complaint!

(Like hell I'll be listing there now, though.)

# ? Oct 23, 2017 23:21

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Update on the Paizocon situation.

Unsure how to feel about this.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 23:43

Falstaff: Apr 27, 2008; I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.

Mors Rattus posted:

Update on the Paizocon situation.

Unsure how to feel about this.

That's good, definitely says that Paizo dealt with that particular situation according to the wishes of the victim.

Doesn't change any of the other shade that's been thrown their way, though. In particular, Price's accusation that she was pressured into not speaking up too loudly about harassment in the industry.

ETA: Just occurred to me, wasn't a volunteer also injured by Bill Webb during this incident when he attempted to intervene? I guess I still don't understand how this didn't end with a convention ban, regardless.

Falstaff fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Oct 24, 2017

# ? Oct 23, 2017 23:58

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

And there's an official statement regarding Matt McFarland per Shannon Appelcline:

quote:

This weekend, serious accusations were made against one of our moderators, BlackHat Matt, regarding inappropriate treatment of women.

Obviously, as an internet web site, we are not able to adjudicate the legalities of a situation like this. However, an accusation of this sort is of deep concern to us because it threatens one of the central missions of RPGnet. Though we are fundamentally a web site intended to support the roleplaying hobby, we have also taken inclusiveness as a core tenet of the site. That includes the aspiration to be a protective space for everyone � including women, who have historically been a minority within the hobby. We feel that accomplishing that goal requires strong trust in our staff.

As a result, we talked with several people about this situation, and we came to the conclusion that there was cause for concern regarding these accusations. Matt proactively offered his resignation, and we have accepted it. He has been permanently removed as a moderator at our site, and all privileged access has been revoked. Again, I want to underline that we are not an arbiter of truth, nor a court of law. However, we do feel that female victims are often inappropriately ignored and disbelieved, and so we've taken these accusations seriously.

We cannot speak to whether these 18-year-old issues are reflective of BlackHat Matt today. In his time at RPGnet, there have been no indications of problems of this sort, as a user or as a staff member. However, that will be ultimately his case to make, based in part on how he reacts to this situation. All that we ourselves can say is that upon hearing and following up on these accusations, we no longer felt that it was appropriate for RPGnet to continue its association with Matt as a moderator of our site.

Though we've removed Matt as a moderator, we hold different standards for RPGnet community members. For them, there are very specific rules of conduct that can be more easily evaluated based on what they have done here on the boards. Our every indication is that in his time at RPGnet Matt has upheld those rules of conduct, and so we have not revoked his access to the community. In the future, he'll be judged just like any other RPGnet community member, based on his conduct according to those rules.

Overall, the resolution of this situation was difficult for us, as we had to address a variety of social, moral, ethical, and legal issues. We've attempted to be as transparent as possible, subject to concerns for privacy for the persons who have spoken up, and also subject to those same important issues. We hope that whether you agree with our conclusions or not, you can understand the specific decisions that we've made, and our intent to maintain RPGnet as a protective community for all gamers.

# ? Oct 24, 2017 00:26

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Well...I think that's the best response they could take in this situation. Matt's not banned, but...well, we'll see how he reacts.

# ? Oct 24, 2017 00:34

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

I don't really know how to feel about that statement tbh. Like, it's obviously a step up from how other forums have handled this sort of thing in the past that the response has been "demoderate the person in question" instead of banning the accuser and deleting every post bringing it up, but it's a little weird to say "we're taking these accusations seriously enough to immediately revoke this person's mod privileges, but not seriously enough to remove them from the site" especially given the nature of the accusations. I don't know how it jives with a stated desire to make the forums an inclusive and protective space when you basically say that yeah this guy might have forced himself on an underaged girl, but until he causes any more trouble we're happy to let him continue to post here. It is a deeply unenviable position that Shannon, Skotos, and the mods are all in, but if I were a victim of something like this or knew someone who was a victim of something like this, I don't know how comfortable I'd be with that decision.

# ? Oct 24, 2017 00:38

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

Lurks With Wolves posted:

Fred Hicks is one of several big-name RPG creators that sided with Zak's side of the story, which helped the harassment continue, which means a lot of people aren't in the industry or on the internet any more.

Fred never liked Zak and reshared one of his posts about it (that outed and deadnamed someone with some bullshit DARVO excuse) because he wanted to seem fair by looking at ~both sides~. Still dumb and it's still good he apologised but definitely not siding with him. :shrug:

# ? Oct 24, 2017 00:44

LuiCypher: Apr 24, 2010; Today I'm... amped up!

MadScientistWorking posted:

Yeah its a bit odd. Also, browsing RPG.net I'd hate to tell you about Evil Hat. Fred Hicks was one of the leading contributors for driving out on person out the industry and possibly another.

Here's the truth - people are going to gently caress up. Does it excuse any of this behavior? Not at all. But whereas most fuckwads engage in a game of blame the victim or blame anyone but themselves:

unseenlibrarian posted:

Hicks also later recanted and apologized and deleted the original reblogged link, but Madscientistworking still brings it up every time his name comes up.

https://archive.is/KY554

This is the kind of behavior that you want to look for when people make gently caress-ups like the one you cited. It doesn't change the outcome, but at least the industry is now breaking even on the number of people who'll keep working at being decent (and not shitlers), instead of minus 2 two people. You're more than welcome to keep bringing him up for it, but just remember that everyone else is just as welcome to recognize his self-awareness and continuing work to make up for his mistake.

# ? Oct 24, 2017 00:46

LatwPIAT: Jun 6, 2011

To what degree actions outside a forum should be taken into account on a forum is a very difficult issue on multiple levels. Especially when the time scales involved are large. On one end of the spectrum it'd be rather harsh to ban someone who quit neo-Nazism 20 years ago and started working for After Hate because you found an old post of theirs on Usenet, but on the other end it's negligent and naive to allow a serial harasser back into the fold two days after their last assault because they swear they've quit this time.

I've been involved with this issue as a moderator on a forum and not an easy situation to deal with.

LatwPIAT fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Oct 24, 2017

# ? Oct 24, 2017 01:08

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

LatwPIAT posted:

To what degree actions outside a forum should be taken into account on the forum is a very difficult issue on multiple levels. Especially when the time scales involved are large. On one end of the spectrum it'd be rather harsh to ban someone who quit neo-Nazism 20 years ago and started working for After Hate because you found an old post of theirs on Usenet, but on the other end it's negligent and naive to allow a serial harasser back into the fold two days after their last assault because they swear they've quit this time.

I've been involved with this issue as a moderator on a forum and not an easy situation to deal with.

It really, really isn't. RPGnet moderation policy, and this isn't super-secret backstage stuff, is that in general stuff that happens off-forum isn't moderated for unless it's beyond the pale. One time some dude threatened to stalk someone to a convention and throw a bucket of dogshit on them. He did it on his livejournal or blog or whatever the gently caress people used back then, but he still got banned because seriously, gently caress that guy.

The timescale involved here is pretty big and so far there doesn't seem to be any evidence of continued and repeated wrongdoing, but on the other hand the accusations in question are a significant degree more severe than just harassment. Even "it's not as bad as it sounds" would still be pretty fuckin bad.

As selfish as it might sound, I'm super glad I don't have to be one of the ones to deal with this mess.

# ? Oct 24, 2017 01:17

LatwPIAT: Jun 6, 2011

Sorry, that was supposed to read "a forum" and pertain more to general policy-setting than RPG.net in specific. RPG.net has set a policy but whether it's a good policy is a question wrought with complications.

# ? Oct 24, 2017 01:28

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 03:24

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

LatwPIAT posted:

Sorry, that was supposed to read "a forum" and pertain more to general policy-setting than RPG.net in specific. RPG.net has set a policy but whether it's a good policy is a question wrought with complications.

Yeah no, I got that, I was just illustrating that in particular RPGnet tries to uphold a "we don't moderate based on stuff outside the forums" policy, but even that's been shown to have its limits in the past, and I'm not sure how that intersects with the situation with Matt and their decision to demod him but let him continue to hang around.

# ? Oct 24, 2017 01:32

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