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Darwinism posted:Communities; not actually a thing? More seriously, we systematically undervalue social and emotional work, which community moderation will inevitably involve in great gob-loads, while privileging certain other forms of work - in this case, the august gamesmith toiling in the dice mines maps pretty closely to The Author. What would seem to be ideal is that people in a community would take turns, with maybe one volunteer who works persistently to allow for some continuity of information. There are certainly people who are quite satisfied and delighted by that kind of work, but they are rare, and they should not be taken for granted.
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May 26, 2021 03:31
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Kai Tave posted:Eventually Brian's response to this was to delete all of these tweets and post a dismissive non-apology which his fans also flocked to like and adore, until even later he decided to (or it was decided for him) purge his entire twitter account leaving about 50 tweets behind. I'm sure the answer is "listen to your heart" but do Mercer et al ever even make blanket statements condemning this sort of thing? Like anything at all?
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May 26, 2021 03:42
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Dawgstar posted:I'm sure the answer is "listen to your heart" but do Mercer et al ever even make blanket statements condemning this sort of thing? Like anything at all? Yes, but always coached in terms of "Aw shucks we're just a bunch of friends having fun, sorry if we made a goof again" as if they're not the single biggest media property in tabletop with their own publishing arm. Brian Foster's behavior has always been just short of undeniably unacceptable, and taking a hard line risks killing the golden goose - their success is in large part having a fanbase which is almost, but not quite, unhealthily obsessed.
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May 26, 2021 03:54
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matt mercer has a vested interest in never alienating a single fan. if he has to alienate anyone, he'd rather alienate the LEAST invested people and let the "critters" run wild.
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May 26, 2021 03:55
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I would make the argument that this stupid poo poo does have something to do with obsessive parasocial relationships run amok, and that it still doesn't explain away BWF's behavior. The "Criticism" was mostly based around people in that fandom being real weirdos to the cast and online in general about the announcement that the campaign was coming to an end. Parasocial relationships are double edged swords that almost by necessity require you to remove yourself in order to keep your own sanity once you reach a certain scale. On the other hand, you can sell a bunch of poo poo to the marks. That being said gently caress BWF, just an absolute lovely edgelord
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May 26, 2021 04:19
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Community management is a skill and basically any game worth a drat has somebody where their job is community management. Ideally they do almost nothing but community management for the game, but that's for large budget operations. Games Workshop straight up turned off comments on all of their videos on youtube. Been this way for a couple years too, apparantly. I found out about it because someone on steam was spamming the n-word (spaced so it wouldnt get filtered) on their curator or publisher page.
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May 26, 2021 04:27
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:Games Workshop straight up turned off comments on all of their videos on youtube. Been this way for a couple years too, apparantly. At some stage it becomes impossible to "manage" a huge community or large parasocial following. You still try of course, but yeah. You can only really manage the people who work for you, and the platforms that you have some amount of control over. Other than that you can only ask really nicely, or eventually less nicely for people to chill the gently caress out. But once it grows past a certain size words from the person or people who are being put up on that stupid pedestal don't even register to a number of the "fans".
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May 26, 2021 04:40
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Nessus posted:What would seem to be ideal is that people in a community would take turns, with maybe one volunteer who works persistently to allow for some continuity of information. There are certainly people who are quite satisfied and delighted by that kind of work, but they are rare, and they should not be taken for granted. What's worse is that this isn't really a situation where you can allow the work to go un-done if you don't have any suitably inclined volunteers; an undermoderated online space will inevitably become host to hate and abuse and be a net negative to the world. It may very well be better to have no community at all if you can't afford the significant emotional expense of policing it. Which is an incredibly depressing thing to say, given how much of my life I have spent amongst online communities. But here we are.
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May 26, 2021 04:43
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kaynorr posted:What's worse is that this isn't really a situation where you can allow the work to go un-done if you don't have any suitably inclined volunteers; an undermoderated online space will inevitably become host to hate and abuse and be a net negative to the world. It may very well be better to have no community at all if you can't afford the significant emotional expense of policing it. I tend to fall under the umbrella of one or two heavily moderated and controlled community places(i.e a Twitch Chat and a Discord), with people who are paid to moderate it, other than that, you are on your own. It's why twitter is the loving worst, I like Discord and I miss forums. Because man if a forum started to get sketchy and weird, you could talk to a mod, or you could just bounce, and never have to really worry about running into those people again. On twitter and other social media everyone is just always put into the same pool of poo poo, and there are always more bad people to tweet at you.
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May 26, 2021 04:54
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Dexo posted:I would make the argument that this stupid poo poo does have something to do with obsessive parasocial relationships run amok, and that it still doesn't explain away BWF's behavior. Yeah to be clear a huge amount of this is just "BWF fuckin sucks poo poo apparently" so you could place it largely on him and him alone, but the way the Critical Role fandom is willing to uncritically be aimed in some internet rando's direction and let loose like a firehose and apparently nobody involved in Critical Role who could at least issue some sort of apology or ask their fans to not do that is pretty offputting, and I think it loops back to what was mentioned earlier about how if you don't do anything to sort of manage your fanbase early on when it's maybe possible to do so then it becomes exceptionally difficult to do so if/when it gets really big and unwieldy, if not outright impossible (but also yeah gently caress BWF, I would not want to be associated with that dude professionally or otherwise).
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May 26, 2021 05:03
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:Games Workshop straight up turned off comments on all of their videos on youtube. Been this way for a couple years too, apparantly. Part of that was the pushback from the worst parts of their fandom over their improvements of the last few years. It got bad enough that they flat out issued a statement that they didn't want people like that buying their product. 
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May 26, 2021 06:10
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Liquid Communism posted:Part of that was the pushback from the worst parts of their fandom over their improvements of the last few years. It got bad enough that they flat out issued a statement that they didn't want people like that buying their product. That was a pretty wild week, since Arch made an angry reaction video to it and was outed as a nazi on the same day.
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May 26, 2021 07:25
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I now, it was great. 
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May 26, 2021 07:38
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And then the head mod of his subreddit defected to sigmarxism. It's good now.
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May 26, 2021 07:42
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kaynorr posted:Yes, but always coached in terms of "Aw shucks we're just a bunch of friends having fun, sorry if we made a goof again" as if they're not the single biggest media property in tabletop with their own publishing arm. I think the 'aw shucks' angle is a major problem for them with BWF because he's a complete shitbag -- but because he's engaged to a main cast member they can't just give him the unceremonious boot.
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May 26, 2021 09:21
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Leperflesh posted:loving ouch lol I say in all seriousness that your sacrifice is genuinely appreciated, because god knows I wouldn't want to do it. Been there, would not mod again, zero stars. Darwinism posted:Communities; not actually a thing? If your goal is to make the best games you can make, then yes, managing an internet community is a huge waste of time and energy. Even from a playtesting perspective, it's not worth it: playtester feedback is notoriously of... let's call it questionable utility, outside of groups you're playing with in person. Which is why these posts: Sodomy Hussein posted:Community management is a skill and basically any game worth a drat has somebody where their job is community management. Ideally they do almost nothing but community management for the game, but that's for large budget operations. Nessus posted:Mere scutwork to clear the ways so that the blinding genius can emerge more directly! ... are on point. If your ambitions as a creator require community management, you get someone else to do it for you, either a passionate fan or a paid moderator or both, because managing communities is work. Especially since it is, as Nessus pointed out, social and emotional work - which is to say, the kind of work that the vast majority of game designers I've interacted with find exhausting because they are classic introverts. Community management is work that is absolutely going to diminish your creative output unless you're the kind of person who thrives on that environment for whatever reason. Kestral fucked around with this message at 09:29 on May 26, 2021 |
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May 26, 2021 09:25
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Kestral posted:If your ambitions as a creator require community management, you get someone else to do it for you, either a passionate fan or a paid moderator or both, because managing communities is work. It's not made any easier by the fact that there's no quicker way to get a line-up of everybody in your community who should under no circumstances be granted authority over anything more complex than a Rubik's Cube than by saying "Hey, who wants to have some free authority over this community?"
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May 26, 2021 10:16
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90s Cringe Rock posted:And then the head mod of his subreddit defected to sigmarxism. And yet they let him keep his Patreon. hm
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May 26, 2021 11:00
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potatocubed posted:I think the 'aw shucks' angle is a major problem for them with BWF because he's a complete shitbag -- but because he's engaged to a main cast member they can't just give him the unceremonious boot. Oh, wow, that's unfortunate. I didn't realize BWF was more than just an employee.
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May 26, 2021 12:17
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Kestral posted:... are on point. If your ambitions as a creator require community management, you get someone else to do it for you, either a passionate fan or a paid moderator or both, because managing communities is work. Especially since it is, as Nessus pointed out, social and emotional work - which is to say, the kind of work that the vast majority of game designers I've interacted with find exhausting because they are classic introverts. Community management is work that is absolutely going to diminish your creative output unless you're the kind of person who thrives on that environment for whatever reason. It's basically a variation on the principle from software startups that it's virtually impossible to launch a product as the creator of that product alone - there is always an essential skillset outside of coding that you'll crash and burn without. So if you aren't a one-in-ten-million savant who is a top tier programmer AND a marketing/human networking/financial expert, you have to find a partner. Which in the world VC-funded business just means you need to be enough of a minimal human being to get along with another minimal human being, the second salary/equity lottery ticket isn't a deal breaker. But in the world of indie RPGs that means a second mouth to feed from a product that desperately struggles to feed one.
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May 26, 2021 15:53
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Kestral posted:... are on point. If your ambitions as a creator require community management, you get someone else to do it for you, either a passionate fan or a paid moderator or both, because managing communities is work. Especially since it is, as Nessus pointed out, social and emotional work - which is to say, the kind of work that the vast majority of game designers I've interacted with find exhausting because they are classic introverts. Community management is work that is absolutely going to diminish your creative output unless you're the kind of person who thrives on that environment for whatever reason. Okay but my main point is - why is the 'creative output' of elfgames more important than a community that isn't insanely toxic and harmful? Also let's be real the problem isn't single indie game-hermits who often do not even have their own communities even if they wanted to police them; it's the bigger players for which this excuse is hollow as gently caress because they're corporate entities whose 'creative output' is entirely separate from the concept of moderated communities.
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May 27, 2021 00:19
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https://theop.games/2021/05/monopoly-dungeons-dragons-available-now/ "The Bugbear, Demogorgon, Beholder, and more awaiting you to buy, sell, and trade them" Monopoly: now with slavery?
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May 27, 2021 00:20
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UrbanLabyrinth posted:https://theop.games/2021/05/monopoly-dungeons-dragons-available-now/ Mike Mearls, in the licensing meeting: "BUGBEARS.AREN'T.PEOPLE."
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May 27, 2021 01:53
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Darwinism posted:Okay but my main point is - why is the 'creative output' of elfgames more important than a community that isn't insanely toxic and harmful? It's not - but if you're an indie RPG creator with no institutional support, having a community is one of the only way you can try and increase the engagement and revenue of your game. I don't think that "write game in isolation on a mountain peak, descend to upload it to itch.io in a single afternoon, then return to your hermitage to begin again" is a viable business model for 99% of aspiring creators. Darwinism posted:Also let's be real the problem isn't single indie game-hermits who often do not even have their own communities even if they wanted to police them; it's the bigger players for which this excuse is hollow as gently caress because they're corporate entities whose 'creative output' is entirely separate from the concept of moderated communities. Which creates the terrible dynamic wherein those who need a community to make a living cannot afford one, and those who can don't need it and usually can't be bothered. A situation that is probably mostly only manifested in the last five years or so.
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May 27, 2021 04:03
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kaynorr posted:It's not - but if you're an indie RPG creator with no institutional support, having a community is one of the only way you can try and increase the engagement and revenue of your game. I don't think that "write game in isolation on a mountain peak, descend to upload it to itch.io in a single afternoon, then return to your hermitage to begin again" is a viable business model for 99% of aspiring creators. That's what I mean, though. I feel like we need to stop with this idea that the community aspect of games is separate from the other parts, especially since these are almost always games with a social aspect - even if it is just getting a half-dozenish people together. And especially when it's poo poo like streaming, ignoring the health of the community becomes even more egregious because you purposefully made this community for profit. The least you can do is try and make sure it's not made of anthrax. kaynorr posted:Which creates the terrible dynamic wherein those who need a community to make a living cannot afford one, and those who can don't need it and usually can't be bothered. A situation that is probably mostly only manifested in the last five years or so. Oh, yeah, the financial side is completely hosed. But part of that is absolutely wrapped up in how little we apparently value social effort compared to whatever the gently caress 'creative' effort is. I sure as poo poo don't have any actionable solution or anything, but it grates on me to be told that 'creative effort' is more important to people in a hobby where that 'creative effort' usually just boils down to tables and charts. I get that people have that idea but goddamn is it at odds with reality.
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May 27, 2021 05:00
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I just literally think it's impossible to control any wider community once it grows past something that is just on platforms you control. At that stage it just feels like the only thing you can do is not platform the assholes who have made their way in, call out that behavior as bad, and keep control on your platforms. But like @AssholeFan13 is still going to be able tweet at someone for daring to criticize or not like their fav. And once you get large enough the number of @AssholeFan's just keeps getting higher. And this is all outside of any type of moderation or control structure outside of twitter(lmao). You could put someone on blast, but that's extremely bad even if someone is being a dick online to suddenly leverage hundreds of thousands of people to dogpile on one small follower account person. You can subtweet(the usual method), but people generally find out anyway as it's not hard to sleuth on twitter. I do think at some level of popularity or whatever, you should ween off the parasocial nonsense, "we love you very much" etc etc. But then again literally all pop culture poo poo is being pushed in that style via like absurd tribalism and stan culture via attachments to brands and poo poo. So the brands are working back towards twitch streamer engagement stuff now.
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May 27, 2021 05:28
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Dexo posted:I just literally think it's impossible to control any wider community once it grows past something that is just on platforms you control. At that stage it just feels like the only thing you can do is not platform the assholes who have made their way in, call out that behavior as bad, and keep control on your platforms. But like @AssholeFan13 is still going to be able tweet at someone for daring to criticize or not like their fav. And once you get large enough the number of @AssholeFan's just keeps getting higher. And this is all outside of any type of moderation or control structure outside of twitter(lmao). You could put someone on blast, but that's extremely bad even if someone is being a dick online to suddenly leverage hundreds of thousands of people to dogpile on one small follower account person. You can subtweet(the usual method), but people generally find out anyway as it's not hard to sleuth on twitter.
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May 27, 2021 06:22
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I've seen a fair bit of toxicity in my time playing FF14. But also I'm a WoW player too so it washes over me as it's light work compared to that mess. And here I've literally like experienced bullshit toxicity from the dude who used to own this dumb forum. Not to mention some mods in other subforums. There is some poo poo that has happened that went ignored despite pleas. It's better than twitter sure. But it's very much a pick your environment and what threads to gravitate to type of situation. Like I just don't post in D&D anymore outside of the Illinois Politics thread. Which is the benefit of forums is like man it takes so much more effort to be an rear end in a top hat on forums and in more sectioned off parts of the internet than it does in the melting pot of twitter and other social networks. Dexo fucked around with this message at 06:51 on May 27, 2021 |
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May 27, 2021 06:47
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I've got what's probably a really stupid question. That BWF guy is clearly a real shithead, but why is the tweeter considering him having (he/him/dude) in his profile a micro-aggression? Is it because he's actually transphobic and so is taking the piss, or are people only supposed to be flagging themselves as (she/her)?
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May 27, 2021 09:52
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Angrymog posted:That BWF guy is clearly a real shithead, but why is the tweeter considering him having (he/him/dude) in his profile a micro-aggression? Is it because he's actually transphobic and so is taking the piss, or are people only supposed to be flagging themselves as (she/her)? presumably because "dude" isn't really a pronoun and putting it in there like that could be interpreted as making light of something that's very important and very personal to a lot of people.
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May 27, 2021 10:45
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Comrade Koba posted:presumably because "dude" isn't really a pronoun and putting it in there like that could be interpreted as making light of something that's very important and very personal to a lot of people. Fair point, thanks for replying.
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May 27, 2021 10:53
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Angrymog posted:I've got what's probably a really stupid question. So not a micro-aggression (in my eyes, and I'm not trans), but privileged, blissfully ignorant dipshittery.
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May 27, 2021 10:54
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Wizard Styles posted:So not a micro-aggression (in my eyes, and I'm not trans), but privileged, blissfully ignorant dipshittery. I was under the impression that the latter is more or less the definition of the former. If there were malice behind it instead of callousness, it'd just be a plain ol' aggression. Have I misunderstood a term?
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May 27, 2021 11:25
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That seems like a way to say pronouns are NBD, because it would say "attack helicopter" if he were making light of it. Because they know exactly one joke. I'm wary of microaggressions in general. It's already easy to let a bad feeling crystallize into something tangible, then project motivation behind it. But here's a concept to makes that all sound like an academic pursuit.
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May 27, 2021 13:00
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Comrade Koba posted:presumably because "dude" isn't really a pronoun and putting it in there like that could be interpreted as making light of something that's very important and very personal to a lot of people. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 14:26 on May 27, 2021 |
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May 27, 2021 14:19
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In UK boardgame industry news, Coiledspring Games launched a promotion in conjunction with Mumsnet on their Twitter- https://twitter.com/coiledspring/status/1396058393287213056 If you're unaware, Mumsnet is big transphobe outpost on these cursed islands, and so there's been a lot of pushback. Coiledspring responded to the outcry, and also shared Mumsnet's response. https://twitter.com/coiledspring/status/1397643793248161795 It is not going well, and now stores are announcing that they won't be using Coiledspring as a distributor any more.
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May 27, 2021 16:37
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Whilst
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May 27, 2021 16:44
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Splicer posted:Whilst What's wrong with whilst?
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May 27, 2021 16:44
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whilst terfing, i
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May 27, 2021 16:48
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moths posted:I'm wary of microaggressions in general. It's already easy to let a bad feeling crystallize into something tangible, then project motivation behind it. But here's a concept to makes that all sound like an academic pursuit. This is an aside, but I legitimately once had a dream that included a store selling 6mm wargames that was called "microaggressions" (in seriousness, my perspective is that the issue you're raising is more of an effect of microaggressions than a cause. If somebody gets the "but where are you *really from* poo poo five times a day, it gets really easy for them to look at a typical normal issue that everybody has and wonder if it was racially motivated. I'm sure that sometimes people interpret just regular rear end in a top hat or thoughtless behavior as something racially motivated when it's not, but based on both survey research and just my own observations of day-to-day life, that's in large part because of how many explicitly racially motivated ignorant poo poo they get on a regular basis. Ask a Black woman and a White woman how many people want to touch their hair on a regular basis and you'll be shocked at what you hear).
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