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fool of sound posted:Roughly half, like I said a couple posts ago. Honestly I only was a USPol poster because I got asked to IK it specifically (and to a lesser extent the PoliToons thread because I was a regular poster there) after posting in the 2020 primary thread and the feedback thread at the time. Once I was made a full mod I stopped reading it regularly, since it's extremely difficult to keep up with. In general, a lot of mods ended up being USpol regulars because they were selected to be USpol IKs, since that what we needed the most of. I'll second that I didn't read USPol at all until I became a mod. I mostly only went in there to cover for when FOS and GJB were unavailable. I've always been much more interested in the subject-specific threads, which tended to have more interesting discussion and less peanut gallery bullshit. But over the past few years, most of them have either died off or driven out everyone who had any loving idea what they were talking about. A lot of subjects just don't get discussed outside USPol anymore. And of course it doesn't help that people now actively reject subject-specific threads on many subjects, and declare that the subject must be discussed solely in USPol and nowhere else.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:30
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fool of sound posted:
Ok, but do you see the contradiction here? You are asking people to post more while limiting what they can post about. If they want a 6 page derail about vaping just let them derail for 6 pages. People can post all sorts of interesting graphs about addiction or the horror of the tobacco industry or they can bond over quitting/trying to quit smoking or whatever. That's the natural flow of a conversation. Eventually some other topic will pop up that peopl want to talk about.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:30
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Ok, but do you see the contradiction here? You are asking people to post more while limiting what they can post about. If they want a 6 page derail about vaping just let them derail for 6 pages. People can post all sorts of interesting graphs about addiction or the horror of the tobacco industry or they can bond over quitting/trying to quit smoking or whatever. That's the natural flow of a conversation. Eventually some other topic will pop up that peopl want to talk about. No it's the conversation that 2-3 people want to have, while the other 100 regulars in USPol PM me 8 times and file collectively 30 reports about because they want to discuss breaking news in USNews, not vaping policy.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:34
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The confusing thing being: Nobody is stopping anyone from making a thread about any of these topics. And stuff like drug/vaping/smoking law has a lot of discussion potential. Why should it be entirely in UsNews?
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Oct 26, 2021 22:36
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In practice a natural freewheeling multipronged discussion is not how it shakes out. You get days long shoutfests about old poo poo over and over again that ends up overwhelming all else and the occasional fun derail. I get how ‘take it to a dedicated thread’ upsets the flow, but sometimes the flow is sewage. And it’s not like those threads were dead zones, devoid of discussion. Sarcastr0 fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Oct 26, 2021 |
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Oct 26, 2021 22:36
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fool of sound posted:No it's the conversation that 2-3 people want to have, while the other 100 regulars in USPol PM me 8 times and file collectively 30 reports about because they want to discuss breaking news in USNews, not vaping policy. I've seen this happen with something that was relevant recent news though - where people are still having a very productive conversation about say a news item that became relevant the day before and its just like BREAK IT UP BREAK IT UP TAKE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE and its like ... well poo poo. Like if vaping policy had a major change or a report about how policy changes to vaping policy changed behavior just came out, why not let people hash it?
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Oct 26, 2021 22:37
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fool of sound posted:Since none of you fuckwits can apparently abide by the "don't debate each other in this thread" rules, I'm putting down the red hammer: you will be probated for a week if you quote/subtweet a non-mod in this thread, or if you try to cutely circumvent this rule. This rule will go into effect 5 minutes after this is posted. If you're in this thread to wage ideological war with other posters, leave and don't return. If you're here because you love to join every bit of drama that appears on this entire website, autoban yourself and don't return. My mod feedback is i think we found the problem! CommieGIR was aggroposting so hard and causing the thread to get out of hand that greyjoy had to come in and make him stop and then shockingly the thread immediately settled down to people having discussions about various contentious topics. like adults. Not like children in sunday school who are so prim and proper all the time. .... but then that can't be allowed so you drop in hyper-aggro with this and welp so much for productive discussions where people are hashing out their differences. What was so terrible about the last few pages that it had to be shut down with extreme prejudice? Extend this moderation style to the entire forum and you get... D&D 2021 edition.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:39
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fool of sound posted:No it's the conversation that 2-3 people want to have, while the other 100 regulars in USPol PM me 8 times and file collectively 30 reports about because they want to discuss breaking news in USNews, not vaping policy. But they’re clearly not discussing breaking news or they’d drown out the 2-3 people, and it is vanishingly unlikely any breaking new of import is actually happening or the 2-3 people would almost certainly drop the slightly off-topic discussion to engage with it. So it sounds like your actual problem is (taking your word at face value) a meaningfully large group of D&D regulars who have been trained and conditioned to expect they can control and dictate the flow of conversation to their precise liking via mod intervention at their behest?
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Oct 26, 2021 22:40
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fool of sound posted:No it's the conversation that 2-3 people want to have, while the other 100 regulars in USPol PM me 8 times and file collectively 30 reports about because they want to discuss breaking news in USNews, not vaping policy. Then you're probing the wrong people. GJB said he wanted a chill place to relax and talk about politics, you're never going to get that by bending to tyrannosaurus dorkus. But at this point that seems to be the only people left in this forum so whatever.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:40
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fool of sound posted:Honestly I only was a USPol poster because I got asked to IK it specifically (and to a lesser extent the PoliToons thread because I was a regular poster there) after posting in the 2020 primary thread and the feedback thread at the time. That feedback thread was amazing - you were like “pro life people should be banned, conservatives are incapable of debate” and like the next page RG announced you were the new IK. I was so mad, but looking back on it now is hilarious.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:40
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What if you just made USNews insanely strict since it sounds like there is something really specific you want there. It's just got news, nothing else. You post the article, post your editorial, and if anyone wants to respond they can spin out a new thread if it doesn't exist and respond there. Or just something like that. It sounds like a bunch of goons use USNews like it's an RSS feed and it seems like you want to preserve that but it also flies in the face of what USnews is, a discussion thread.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:40
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CG, I do not think you should be participating in moderation of the climate thread in any way. You feel very strongly that nuclear build-out is the only path forward, which is a fine perspective for a regular thread participant to have, but it's led you to a place where you dismiss other similarly unlikely policies (e.g., planned degrowth, literally loving anything else) as "doomer-ism" and your moderation around this issue has had an obvious chilling effect. I speculate that this is probably related to the odd siege mentality you have adopted re: the CSPAM climate thread but I honestly don't know, because I've found it impossible to have a direct and honest conversation with you. I watched you run a new poster out of the thread because of your paranoia and ancient grudge with Rime, and when I tried to explain to the poor guy what was happening you decided it was too much conversation about Rime. When I tried to get you to explain the rules you were operating with you decided it was because CSPAM wants to plan terrorist activities in D&D and no amount of simple declaratory statements or direct questions could shake you from this perspective or get you to provide answers to the questions actually being asked. I've certainly been antagonistic in our interactions and for that I apologize - I find you extremely abrasive and am not good at policing my reaction to that. I am sympathetic because modding a politics forum is obviously an insane helljob and it's easy to see how it could lead to paranoia, but it has and you do not have the temperament to deal with it. Especially not in the context of an issue you feel so strongly about.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:41
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silicone thrills posted:I've seen this happen with something that was relevant recent news though - where people are still having a very productive conversation about say a news item that became relevant the day before and its just like BREAK IT UP BREAK IT UP TAKE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE and its like ... well poo poo. Because when those new threads are actually made not only does the quality of the conversation frequently improve, but the posters who did not want to discuss it at length don't get upset and whining in thread about it. Conversations aren't usually sent to their own threads unless they're pretty lengthy and other news is happening. Like again, let's say Afghanistan. That thread produced 1900 posts over the course of about six weeks, and was much, much faster at the beginning of that period. That's a lot of posts on that topic per day, enough to stymie a lot of other topics in USnews if it stayed there.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:43
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Irony.or.Death posted:CG, I do not think you should be participating in moderation of the climate thread in any way. You feel very strongly that nuclear build-out is the only path forward, which is a fine perspective for a regular thread participant to have, but it's led you to a place where you dismiss other similarly unlikely policies (e.g., planned degrowth, literally loving anything else) as "doomer-ism" and your moderation around this issue has had an obvious chilling effect. I speculate that this is probably related to the odd siege mentality you have adopted re: the CSPAM climate thread but I honestly don't know, because I've found it impossible to have a direct and honest conversation with you. Maybe that's true, as someone already said maybe we need to implement a "Mods cannot debate and discuss" policy. I am not going to address the rest of this because I have a personal opinion about it.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:47
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CommieGIR posted:The confusing thing being: Nobody is stopping anyone from making a thread about any of these topics. And stuff like drug/vaping/smoking law has a lot of discussion potential. Why should it be entirely in UsNews? because the discussion is transient and lives in the moment. the new thread might end up being really good! but it's also formally and informally a separate conversation.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:48
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CommieGIR posted:Which was part of why the Blow thread was started, the hope was people could work out their anxiety and some of their shitposting in there and it did work, briefly. Then it turned into everyone turning on one another and we had to close it.  fos you can't really think this is at all positively reflective on the D&D mods, right? you can't even get your own volunteer staff in order and you are trying to regulate a forum that reacts, almost pavlovianly (?), to the hourly news cycle. you issued one of your own a probation, and they almost immediately come off of it and jump right into the mud pit again. i guarantee by the time i finish typing this, he will have made another self-own post if you haven't re-probed him. cgir makes handsome ralph look good.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:49
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CYBEReris posted:because the discussion is transient and lives in the moment. the new thread might end up being really good! but it's also formally and informally a separate conversation. We can't control that though, but honestly if the argument is "Well, we just have one big general thread that every topic under the sun lives in" that's also not a solution. Not saying I have any answers about that, but splitting threads has worked before.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:49
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fool of sound posted:educational utility and accessibility of the forum in general It's come to the point now where it seems quite pathological and it seems like you're just inventing lurker profiles to justify whatever it is you already wanted to do. You've literally got little Baileys that you make up in your head, and who conveniently have needs that precisely match your stated goals for the forum and the actions you are undertaking to achieve those goals. But, otoh, you're apparently not happy with the state of The Discourse In D&D either, so maybe it's time to like pay some attention to what the people who actually post here are telling you? And maybe also people who used to post here and enjoyed it and occasionally made positive contributions, but eventually became fed up with you and either left or went crazy until you forum-banned them. And that would have to go, by the way, above and beyond appointing another mod that you think enough people will like that they'll shut up for a while, while doing nothing about leashing the existing moderators a bit, who are driving everyone else i.e. the "horrible goblins festering in their bile" as one of you put it, off the forum.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:49
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"Mods aren't allowed to participate" is not a viable policy unless Jeff starts paying people money to do it. People volunteer because they like participating in the forum they mod.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:49
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That sure is a lot of words to call me a patholical liar, MSDOS. It's funny that you would call anyone pathological when you've spent the entire last year of your posting exclusively complaining about D&D in other forums. Don't post in this thread again.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:52
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fool of sound posted:No it's the conversation that 2-3 people want to have, while the other 100 regulars in USPol PM me 8 times and file collectively 30 reports about because they want to discuss breaking news in USNews, not vaping policy. If 2-3 people are having a discussion and 100 other people want some other discussion to be happening it seems to me that the solution is "tell those other 100 people to  "If those 100 other people cannot themselves produce a discussion to drown out the discussion they don't like, it seems to me the discussion they don't like isn't actually drowning anything out.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:53
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I've had good interactions with CommieGIR over pms for what it's worth.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:53
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fool of sound posted:Because when those new threads are actually made not only does the quality of the conversation frequently improve, but the posters who did not want to discuss it at length don't get upset and whining in thread about it. Conversations aren't usually sent to their own threads unless they're pretty lengthy and other news is happening. I'd say afghanistan was fairly unique and because it is a huge topic it definitely deserves it own thread. But does a topic like "President calls to ban bubble gum flavored vapes" deserve its own full thread? ehhhh there isnt a ton to eek out of that stone.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:54
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silicone thrills posted:I'd say afghanistan was fairly unique and because it is a huge topic it definitely deserves it own thread. But does a topic like "President calls to ban bubble gum flavored vapes" deserve its own full thread? ehhhh there isnt a ton to eek out of that stone. Yeah its worth noticing the Afghanistan thread died almost shortly after the media coverage did  but there's a lot of that stuff, its difficult to tell when a USNews topic of discussion gets off the rails and becomes its own thing. Probably Magic posted:I've had good interactions with CommieGIR over pms for what it's worth. Same. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Oct 26, 2021 |
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Oct 26, 2021 22:56
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fool of sound posted:That sure is a lot of words to call me a patholical liar, MSDOS. It's funny that you would call anyone pathological when you've spent the entire last year of your posting exclusively complaining about D&D in other forums. Don't post in this thread again. 
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Oct 26, 2021 23:01
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silicone thrills posted:I'd say afghanistan was fairly unique and because it is a huge topic it definitely deserves it own thread. But does a topic like "President calls to ban bubble gum flavored vapes" deserve its own full thread? ehhhh there isnt a ton to eek out of that stone. Yeah for sure, but there are lot of news stories that kind of unfold over the course of weeks or months and deserve their own thread, or are just recurring. Speaking of which I need to post the general US Foreign Policy thread, cause there was some interest in discussing that kind of thing in depth towards the end of the Afghanistan thread.
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Oct 26, 2021 23:02
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I support the 'move it to it's own thread' policy. I get some people want to talk about gun violence, police reform, or voting strategy in USNews and get annoyed when they're sent to the other threads, but I personally find those conversations tedious with various posters stating and re-stating their positions with increasing stringency. I'll admit that I'm part of the problem, though. I'll respond to people in USNews, mods will tell everyone to take the discussion elsewhere, and I'll just drop the discussion. I don't think the solution is to turn USNews into the Gunchat and Voting Morality superthread though.
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Oct 26, 2021 23:02
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fool of sound posted:That sure is a lot of words to call me a patholical liar, MSDOS. It's funny that you would call anyone pathological when you've spent the entire last year of your posting exclusively complaining about D&D in other forums. Don't post in this thread again. MSDOS was kinda being lovely but this is out of line I think.
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Oct 26, 2021 23:02
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The thing about derails is that if other posters start to move on and there's words left unsaid then posters will start their own threads, on their own, without needing to be directed to do so by mods. I would say that getting people to talk about something if they want the thread to talk about it is the bare minimum absolute easiest thing you could do to change the posting culture for the better since it's bog standard IK behavior literally everywhere else in the forums.
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Oct 26, 2021 23:03
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fool of sound posted:That sure is a lot of words to call me a patholical liar, MSDOS. It's funny that you would call anyone pathological when you've spent the entire last year of your posting exclusively complaining about D&D in other forums. Don't post in this thread again. I find it extremely cool that the response to genuine, well posted feedback in this thread is making up what you think they are actually saying about you and then telling them to stop providing feedback. I have read all of MSDOS's posts in this thread and the QCS one and while I think he cares way too much about politics posting I also agree with basically every single point he's made and apparently so do a whole lot of other ex-D&D posters. If you don't want people to think that you're lying, when you've given them every single reason in the world to do so, then actually back up the things you're getting called out on.
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Oct 26, 2021 23:04
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fool of sound posted:Since none of you fuckwits can apparently abide by the "don't debate each other in this thread" rules, I'm putting down the red hammer: you will be probated for a week if you quote/subtweet a non-mod in this thread, or if you try to cutely circumvent this rule. This rule will go into effect 5 minutes after this is posted. If you're in this thread to wage ideological war with other posters, leave and don't return. If you're here because you love to join every bit of drama that appears on this entire website, autoban yourself and don't return. Things were mostly fine until CG decided to get in a slapfight about China and derail the thread. Just constant posting like an rear end in a top hat that would have gotten any regular poster way more than a 6er. I know he didn't start it but I think that mods should be held to a somewhat higher standard. This isn't the first time this has happened, he just can't avoid taking the bait. He should not be entrusted with the authority to probate people if he can't. And like others said, your response is perfectly emblematic of the overall problem with D&D. A mod is causing problems, and you come in here to yell at everyone else. You're acting like a nanny rather than a moderator. Whether you're aware of it or not, the impression I get from you and the other mods is that you think you're above the rest of us. I've never really had a problem with you FOS, you've been straight with me on several occasions. But this attitude that the posters here are unruly children who need to be brought in line is really toxic to the community.
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Oct 26, 2021 23:07
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30.5 Days posted:The thing about derails is that if other posters start to move on and there's words left unsaid then posters will start their own threads, on their own, without needing to be directed to do so by mods. I would say that getting people to talk about something if they want the thread to talk about it is the bare minimum absolute easiest thing you could do to change the posting culture for the better since it's bog standard IK behavior literally everywhere else in the forums. The problem is that doesn't seem to happen here as often. In fact most of the new threads were made by mods it seems like. Like I said: Its weird that nobody feels like they can open their own threads here.
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Oct 26, 2021 23:07
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fool of sound posted:That sure is a lot of words to call me a patholical liar, MSDOS. It's funny that you would call anyone pathological when you've spent the entire last year of your posting exclusively complaining about D&D in other forums. Don't post in this thread again. hmm so the mod who came in extremely aggressively and imposed new rules dictating people speak in exactly the manner they prefer (including only addressing posts to mods) is now issuing a threadban because they didn't like the content of a perfectly decorous post addressed to them, and misrepresenting both the contents of the post and how that poster behaves in other contexts to do so (a funny "response" to a self-invented charge of being a pathological liar!) this thread really is about the most concise microcosm of what is wrong with D&D moderation imaginable, and a perfect example of why the only rational response to these threads is an ever-increasing level of well-deserved mockery with each new iteration
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Oct 26, 2021 23:09
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CommieGIR posted:The problem is that doesn't seem to happen here as often. In fact most of the new threads were made by mods it seems like. Like I said: Its weird that nobody feels like they can open their own threads here. Yes in this forums where derails get shunted to a new thread by moderators, new threads are broadly started at moderator instructions. I do not agree that the outcome is weird.
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Oct 26, 2021 23:10
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I also think there might just be a high horse the mods need to get off of when it comes to what USPol and D&D is. There's a lot of ideas they keep throwing around about discussions and how to encourage more and the true purpose of USNews and making sure it's catering to the posters and the lurkers. And also the current discussion is a "Name the band" joke.
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Oct 26, 2021 23:12
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the real problem in USPol isn't the momentary derails like vapes or whatever. nobody really cares all that much about that poo poo, and they'll quickly drop it if something more interesting comes in it's certain endless circular arguments that people are addicted to enough that they will continue going back and forth all loving day, drowning out any of the day's happenings because those circular arguments are controversial, get people pissed off, and therefore draw way more posting. so even if something new comes in, it'll be ignored because everyone's still angrily banging out near-meltdowns about Hillary Clinton or whatever
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Oct 26, 2021 23:15
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I'm still curious as to the ballpark number of forum and thread banned posters in D&D. It might not be an effective strategy but some posters have made the forum bans sound like they're doing harm or mods have been too trigger happy with them. I guess I'd be surprised if there were much more than a dozen, fifteen forum bans. Could be wrong. Edit: guess we might get some idea when forum banned posters are allowed in here. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Oct 26, 2021 |
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Oct 26, 2021 23:19
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Main Paineframe posted:the real problem in USPol isn't the momentary derails like vapes or whatever. nobody really cares all that much about that poo poo, and they'll quickly drop it if something more interesting comes in And they seem to want to keep it in USNews because they want everyone to be forced to see their terrible opinions. If they actually wanted to discuss the matter seriously, they would be fine with a separate thread.
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Oct 26, 2021 23:19
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CommieGIR posted:The problem is that doesn't seem to happen here as often. In fact most of the new threads were made by mods it seems like. Like I said: Its weird that nobody feels like they can open their own threads here. Why would that be at all weird? D&D is widely perceived as having mods who are heavy handed, capricious, ideologically driven, and serve the preferences of a subset of regulars who are keen to mass-report anything they don't like. Starting a thread is a much more attention-getting and "serious" undertaking than mere posting (can't autoban with a post!), so it should be no surprise that people are disinclined to start new threads. Meanwhile, most threads started by mods are not actually a natural result of a conversation hitting enough critical mass to deserve a spinoff, but because mods feel they need to intervene to remove a derail (the precise motivations are left as an exercise for the reader). Indeed, the very fact that the mods so frequently intervene (relative to other forums) in the most-read threads to dictate how conversations should be "properly" sequestered in fact almost certainly heavily reinforces those impressions/tendencies.
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Oct 26, 2021 23:21
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Probably Magic posted:I've had good interactions with CommieGIR over pms for what it's worth. I have no trouble at all believing this and it's why my feedback is "step down" rather than "mods shouldn't participate in discussion." He is more knowledgeable than I am about some relevant topics and I do genuinely value having the pro-nuke voice in the climate thread discussion. It's just a poor fit of personality to role. And again there's no blame in that - I don't think a person exists who would really be good at moderating a politics forum.
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Oct 26, 2021 23:28
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