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I mean, conversely why should the entire context of the thread shift to accomodate someone if nobody wants to do it? How could it do that, perhaps more importantly? What is the practical difference between everyone ignoring it and everyone saying it's dumb? Other than the former being fairly improbable behaviour. Either way the other person can't participate? You can't compel engagement, so punishing en-masse lack of engagement seems strange? Someone posts something inappropriate for the thread, gets called an idiot, the thread moves on. Seems self resolving? OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Apr 1, 2019 |
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Apr 1, 2019 21:33
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I think a lot of the issues boil down to 90% of the forum traffic being in chat threads and most current active threads in D&D being megathreads despite CSPAM being the ostensible casual shitpost/tweetdump repository that has existed for a couple years now. To compound this, there's now megathreads for so many things that the only subtopic on the first page is What is Wealth? Every single general purpose chat/megathread in the history of SA has developed its own tone and culture whether its about military history or RedLetterMedia and this is reflected in the megathreads of D&D where people, for whatever reason, do not feel it necessary to make that thread in the fast-casual forum. When a subtopic is created, or new events rapidly develop in an area overseen by one of the megathreads like Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Venezuela, an FBI investigation in DC etectera, the mods have to leave the supervision of chat threads where 90% of the posts happen and make decisions with their best judgement in the threads where 90% of the day's reports are coming from in threads that are utterly inscrutable without boatloads of context . They're absolutely hosed when this happens because --They action an awful post in a megathread full of categorically awful posts from someone going against the prevailing grain of that thread, so they gently caress off because there's lots of places to post, or do not and the shitstorm gains momentum and the report queue gets longer and longer and longer. --They do not action reported posts because people get necessarily heated about controversial stuff which results in passive-aggressive accusations that the mods are permitting genocide denial or whatever hysterical horseshit is definitely not happening in specific examples that are never ever cited because they're always promptly punished when they really do crop up. --They extend actions to people who posted in the megathread for a while and felt themselves somehow protected in its prevailing culture and within minutes there's a garment-rending QCS post that immediately kicks off the argument that got whoever probated and also closed every single Mod Feedback Thread. I think the mods are generally doing the best they can with what they've got, but what they've got is a forum that very fundamentally does not know what it wants to be on the spectrum of True Rational Debate Plane (which would be gross) and Generally Themed Chat Threads But We Use Our Shift Key When Retweeting (which is also just godawful) and I don't know how to address that short of redefining what kind of thread is appropriate for D&D, and I can't figure out a way to do that in a way that's not harmful to the established thread-communities where 90% of the posts in D&D happen. OwlFancier posted:I mean, conversely why should the entire context of the thread shift to accomodate someone if nobody wants to do it? How could it do that, perhaps more importantly? You make threads shorter term and topical. How do you do that? gently caress if I know 
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Apr 1, 2019 21:57
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WampaLord posted:You're assuming it's "performative" which is kind of a gross assumption to make. Like we're treading dangerously close to accusations of virtue signalling here. Personally I'm always virtue posting.
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Apr 1, 2019 22:24
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OwlFancier posted:I can't say I've ever found a DnD thread that was made worse by people being angry about the subject matter. I guess you only post in the threads where everyone agrees with each other, then. Whenever people who disagree are too angry, it ends up pretty miserable because they hate the opposing position so much that they're incapable of actually engaging with it. This also makes D&D the most easily trolled forum on SA by far, because it's so easy to get people seeing red. It's fine to care about poo poo, but when your response to a post is "even thinking that means you're a horrible monster who is literally destroying the world", that post better have some really awful poo poo in it. More often than not, though, that's not the case and the whole thing is just some petty disagreement about tax credits or health policy or something stupid like that. OwlFancier posted:What is the practical difference between everyone ignoring it and everyone saying it's dumb? Other than the former being fairly improbable behaviour. Either way the other person can't participate? You can't compel engagement, so punishing en-masse lack of engagement seems strange? Because the thread doesn't move on. They spend hours and hours calling the person an idiot over and over again until some sufficiently big news drops, a mod steps in to stop it, or the victim gives up and leaves (which can take quite a while). It completely shuts out any attempt to have any other discussion in that thread.
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Apr 1, 2019 22:53
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OwlFancier posted:I mean, conversely why should the entire context of the thread shift to accomodate someone if nobody wants to do it? How could it do that, perhaps more importantly? Because it’s only resolving if that poster stops posting. Often calling them an idiot isn’t as effective at ending the discussion as just ignoring them. Take that one poster who trolls threads by posting blatantly incorrect things, like making up science in the climate thread. Everyone replying how stupid they are doesn’t make them go away. Ignoring their posts does.
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Apr 1, 2019 22:55
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So would getting that poster removed for a longer basis, faster, to be clear. Then they wouldn't be able to float from thread to thread trying different things until someone bites.
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Apr 1, 2019 22:57
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It would help if people who blatantly do that were addressed.
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Apr 1, 2019 23:10
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Also, can we have it codified in the rules that Monster Munch is the best British crisp and everyone who disagrees is wrong
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Apr 1, 2019 23:15
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Idea: if, when presented with a chance for an update to the forum rules, your suggestions are wordier ways to say "probate and ban people that I beef with in megathreads" you should examine your motivations for posting ITT, posting in D&D generally, and posting at all.
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Apr 1, 2019 23:47
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Willie Tomg posted:Idea: if, when presented with a chance for an update to the forum rules, your suggestions are wordier ways to say "probate and ban people that I beef with in megathreads" you should examine your motivations for posting ITT, posting in D&D generally, and posting at all. is there another purpose to the rules
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Apr 2, 2019 00:19
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Thanks for the chance to provide feedback on this. I think this will, hopefully, make everything run smoother both on the mod side and the user side. Been crafting up this post for a bit because I want to try and get at a more cohesive thesis than a simple one line rule. This may not be everything but it's the most cohesive version I've got together. Apologies if anything is vague, I can clarify if need be. What we all need to fix here is finally burying the hatchet on over a decade of forums grudges. The whole reason there's so much posting animosity and why things go from 0-100 in seconds is because so many different groups have felt, rightly or not, slighted/aggrieved and that ends up building nothing but bitterness and resentment. It shuts down the ability to have a productive conversation because neither party is interested in actually having a conversation. They want to get in sick burns and dunk on people for being on the other side of an argument that in some cases happened in another decade. So long as people keep carrying that bitterness, no amount of new rules is going to change a thing. So what can we do? 1) I think we would all have to stop intentionally antagonizing each other. This forum's small enough that the people who post a lot can probably figure out what to do to piss each other off. We all have to make the conscious choice to not do that, as it just makes a complete mess of things. "No trolling" is a good first step, albeit hard to enforce. "Don't be an rear end in a top hat" is a good second one and much easier to see happening. 2) We also all have to get way, way better at meeting effort with effort. If someone writes up a good post with legitimate sources or draws on their personal experience to make a point, that post should be valued more than the drive-by poster putting in pithy replies to try and rile everyone up. It sucks to put a lot of time and effort into making a cogent argument only to see it drowned out by people insisting they obviously know better (without posting any proof). It disincentives useful contributions and leads to a circle-jerk-like culture. 3) To that end, we've gotta put and end to people thinking a useful/funny/interesting reply to someone's post is "shut up liberal/gently caress off tankie/go back to GBS" or other associated dismissal just based on what Posting Camp someone thinks the poster is in. There's no discussion to be had if every argument is a reductive "you're an [INSERT IDEOLOGY] ergo you are wrong and I do not need to engage". But this doesn't mean this place has to turn into an echo chamber. There are ways to criticize an argument without resorting to what's basically name calling. If you have someone posting some garbage, reply about why the content of the argument/post itself is garbage and not why the poster is garbage. Even slightly reframing things like that is going to make people a lot more receptive and less hostile. To use an example I've used earlier: If a poster is arguing about whether or not Soviet intervention into Hungary and Czechoslovakia was good/just/moral/whatever the counter-arguments should focus on things actually relevant to the topic at hand like self-determination, the use of physical force for ideological means, imperialism, cold war domino theory, etc. The reply should not be people dogpiling the poster screaming tankie/imperialist/whatever new pejoratives come into vogue. You can substitute in whatever other argument you want here, the point is to engage with the content of the argument not the messenger nor the ideological alignment of the message. 4) If people really want to get into it on ideology, maybe that discussion should be placed into its own thread rather than derailing other threads for pages at a time. While people might be interested in learning about the differences between pro and anti-skub philosophy, the middle of say, the Middle East thread is probably not the best place to hash that out. 5) The other thing we need to probably put a lid on is people deliberately making GBS threads up threads to get them closed. This has happened a whole bunch over the last 6-12 months and I think everyone can remember some threads that were poo poo up by people who probably were posting the way they were because they didn't like the thread existing. Off the top of my head we've got LK's socialism/communism in the US thread and the russia investigation thread and those were within I think the last 4 months. 6) Maybe another thing we should consider/encourage is making more threads. If there's lots of threads, it's much easier to just...not read the threads you don't like. People may not go for it at first, but having major topics get pulled off into dedicated threads, like for example splitting out the 2020 primaries from USPol in general probably makes both threads better to read and participate in. 7) Finally, a helpful thing would be more clear guidelines from what the mod team actually wants this place to look like. It's hard to get an idea of what behavior is/is not a problem when it's unclear what the guidelines and expectations are. Probe/ban reasons are one way this can get communicated, but not everyone reads the Leper's Colony and I don't think everyone religiously reads every thread here so it's easy to miss this stuff. And of course, none of what I said above about respect & tolerance should apply to Nazis because Nazis are fundamentally uninterested in having a debate/free speech and want to bend the rules so they can poo poo everything up with their hate. I'm talking actual Nazis/alt-right people, not a situation where people are accusing each other of being Nazis because they slightly disagree on healthcare policy or whatever.
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Apr 2, 2019 03:25
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I think discussion of the ideological underpinnings of a topic are essential to discussion of that topic. I don't think banning ideological critique from threads is helpful at all.
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Apr 2, 2019 03:39
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Trabisnikof posted:I think discussion of the ideological underpinnings of a topic are essential to discussion of that topic. I don't think banning ideological critique from threads is helpful at all. I'm not suggesting banning it, I'm suggesting banning dismissal based on ideology. "You're an imperialist and therefore wrong" is much less interesting than "You are arguing for imperialism. Imperialism is wrong because X,Y,Z."
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Apr 2, 2019 03:43
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axeil posted:I'm not suggesting banning it, I'm suggesting banning dismissal based on ideology. "You're an imperialist and therefore wrong" is much less interesting than "You are arguing for imperialism. Imperialism is wrong because X,Y,Z." Wouldn't that be covered by the meeting effort with effort rule? Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Apr 2, 2019 |
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Apr 2, 2019 03:57
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Trabisnikof posted:Wouldn't that covered by the meeting effort with effort rule? Probably, yes. I pointed it out specifically because it's a fairly easy example and I think we can get pretty much everyone around here to agree that style of posting is not great and makes everyone feel crappy.
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Apr 2, 2019 03:59
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axeil posted:I'm not suggesting banning it, I'm suggesting banning dismissal based on ideology. "You're an imperialist and therefore wrong" is much less interesting than "You are arguing for imperialism. Imperialism is wrong because X,Y,Z."
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Apr 2, 2019 05:59
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axeil posted:7) Finally, a helpful thing would be more clear guidelines from what the mod team actually wants this place to look like. 
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Apr 2, 2019 09:09
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Apr 2, 2019 09:12
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I guess this would be covered under "posting about posting" but i'd love to see a crackdown on one or two line posts requesting people return to a "containment thread" or "containment forum" - if a topic is actively forbidden from being posted about in the thread or the poster has been told off by a mod, hit the report button. Complaining people are using multiple threads/forums is the pettiest poo poo.
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Apr 2, 2019 10:30
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Just spitballing. New rule: Every post nets you a 6'er. Make the 1 post you get per 6 hours a good one.
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Apr 2, 2019 13:00
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tower time posted:I guess this would be covered under "posting about posting" but i'd love to see a crackdown on one or two line posts requesting people return to a "containment thread" or "containment forum" - if a topic is actively forbidden from being posted about in the thread or the poster has been told off by a mod, hit the report button. Complaining people are using multiple threads/forums is the pettiest poo poo. Mods aren't on all the time and reminding uspol to take primary chat to the primary thread routinely re-rails discussion.
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Apr 2, 2019 13:12
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Blue Footed Booby posted:Mods aren't on all the time and reminding uspol to take primary chat to the primary thread routinely re-rails discussion. yeah there's a meta problem which is that if we want to have very few explicit rules and depend on people reporting and lots of discretion, that increases the burden on the mods in the same way that having too many rules increases the burden. i think, as a whole, we probably could use one or two more if suitable people can be found, but i also understand that it's a thankless volunteer job that's likely to make crazy internet people want to dox you even if you do everything right
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Apr 2, 2019 13:20
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I only lurk here, but from observation I've noticed a good amount of "there's no way you're actually dumb enough to think <thing> is good, you know that <thing> is bad and support it because you want bad things to happen." It seems like useless antagonism on a discussion forum and generally just makes people angrier and dig in their heels harder. People are really stupid and/or misinformed all the time!
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Apr 2, 2019 15:01
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Bear Enthusiast posted:I only lurk here, but from observation I've noticed a good amount of "there's no way you're actually dumb enough to think <thing> is good, you know that <thing> is bad and support it because you want bad things to happen." Yeah, this is a really good point. There's been a lot of that lately due to the political environment. The problem with it is that even if you're right and they're just acting in bad faith, once you've assumed that someone is acting in bad faith you're no longer having a debate or a discussion with them; after that point it's just a struggle.
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Apr 2, 2019 15:12
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Yeah again, "post in good faith, assume others are also posting in good faith".
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Apr 2, 2019 15:35
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fool_of_sound posted:Yeah again, "post in good faith, assume others are also posting in good faith". Solid rule IMO.
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Apr 2, 2019 15:41
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Seems like a good idea, just have to remember the catch-all about lovely posts that technically don't break the letter of the rules.
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Apr 2, 2019 15:45
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, this is a really good point. There's been a lot of that lately due to the political environment. The problem with it is that even if you're right and they're just acting in bad faith, once you've assumed that someone is acting in bad faith you're no longer having a debate or a discussion with them; after that point it's just a struggle. Personally I primarily use this as a rhetorical tactic to avoid suggesting that the person actually wants bad things to happen. Because if you act under the assumption that someone actually has sat down and thought about it and come to the conclusion that say, private healthcare is good, that does actually make them fairly monstrous. That is an insulting thing to assume of someone. I would be personally insulted if you said that to me, it is far more charitable to suggest that maybe they haven't considered it fully. It cuts both ways. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Apr 2, 2019 |
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Apr 2, 2019 17:20
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eke out posted:yeah there's a meta problem which is that if we want to have very few explicit rules and depend on people reporting and lots of discretion, that increases the burden on the mods in the same way that having too many rules increases the burden. Honestly, the fundamental issue is that we can't just rely on the mods to wipe our metaphorical (or in some cases, literal) asses for us. We also need to have some basic posting discipline ourselves. When one particular poster is determined to poo poo all over the place, then yes, they ultimately need to be removed by a mod. But if everyone else immediately responds by pooping in our hands and hurling it wildly at the shitposter, they don't accomplish anything besides just rendering the thread unusable for everyone else and increasing the mess that the mod will have to clean up when they eventually arrive. If you're overly furious and you just have to sling some poo poo, go to C-SPAM, that's basically what it's for.
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Apr 2, 2019 17:50
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yeah, that should probably be some kind of rule "if an argument clearly isn't going anywhere, just roll your eyes and disengage rather than have a ten page slapfight"
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Apr 2, 2019 18:13
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Yeah but who gets to decide if an arguement is or is not going anywhere. Some of my favorite discussions here have gone on for years. Sometimes they even become more relevant years later, when most poster would have written them off as not going anywhere at the time they occured.
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Apr 2, 2019 18:18
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, this is a really good point. There's been a lot of that lately due to the political environment. The problem with it is that even if you're right and they're just acting in bad faith, once you've assumed that someone is acting in bad faith you're no longer having a debate or a discussion with them; after that point it's just a struggle. 1) Let them dominate the space by doing nothing 2) Pretend they acting in good faith and have a fake conversation (and what does that even look like? "Friend, you are posting lies to further your rhetoric, but I will pretend your lies are true or you are an idiot unknowingly posting lies for the purpose of conversation") 3) Acknowledge a real conversation can't be had and call them out I'm going to mash button 3 every single time. Like I understand having a presumption of innocence, but sometimes people are just loving liars, consciously or not.
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Apr 2, 2019 19:53
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twodot posted:If someone is acting in bad faith your options reduce down to: The problem IMO is that someone on one side of an argument is in a really bad position to to be objective about whether someone on the other side of it is acting in bad faith. And the more passionate someone is about whatever topic (or the less able to deal with disagreement), the less they're able to be objective.
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Apr 2, 2019 19:57
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wateroverfire posted:The problem IMO is that someone on one side of an argument is in a really bad position to to be objective about whether someone on the other side of it is acting in bad faith. And the more passionate someone is about whatever topic (or the less able to deal with disagreement), the less they're able to be objective.
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Apr 2, 2019 20:03
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twodot posted:Who cares? You're 100% correct and also irrelevant because the alternative is letting liars spread lies that work against your political objectives. Who can claim to care about a thing and also tolerate assholes telling lies about it? oh no the effect that lies in the something awful forums debate subforum might have on discourse...??? chill out and engage with people. if it's clear they're not posting in good faith after you interact with them in good faith, call in a mod.
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Apr 2, 2019 20:06
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wateroverfire posted:The problem IMO is that someone on one side of an argument is in a really bad position to to be objective about whether someone on the other side of it is acting in bad faith. And the more passionate someone is about whatever topic (or the less able to deal with disagreement), the less they're able to be objective. This idea you seem to have of an ideal perfectly rational D&D with no passion is completely unrealistic.
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Apr 2, 2019 20:08
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WampaLord posted:This idea you seem to have of an ideal perfectly rational D&D with no passion is completely unrealistic. Not without passion. But yes with a standard of civility that allows people who disagree to still talk. If a person can't chill the gently caress out enough to engage with people they disagree with then they shouldn't post.
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Apr 2, 2019 20:12
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fool_of_sound posted:oh no the effect that lies in the something awful forums debate subforum might have on discourse...??? Allowing other posters to believe lies? Like, you can't say this is all just bullshit on the internet so truth doesn't matter while simultaneously claiming civility and decorum are super important. I'm not suggesting people drop trou and start making GBS threads at the first sign of disagreement, but if you don't think there's a point where ceasing to treat someone as a good faith interlocuter is justified I don't know what to tell you. Blue Footed Booby fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Apr 2, 2019 |
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Apr 2, 2019 20:13
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fool_of_sound posted:oh no the effect that lies in the something awful forums debate subforum might have on discourse...??? fool_of_sound posted:chill out and engage with people. if it's clear they're not posting in good faith after you interact with them in good faith, call in a mod. Main Paineframe posted:Honestly, the fundamental issue is that we can't just rely on the mods to wipe our metaphorical (or in some cases, literal) asses for us. We also need to have some basic posting discipline ourselves. edit: wateroverfire posted:Not without passion. But yes with a standard of civility that allows people who disagree to still talk. If a person can't chill the gently caress out enough to engage with people they disagree with then they shouldn't post. twodot fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Apr 2, 2019 |
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Apr 2, 2019 20:14
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Blue Footed Booby posted:Allowing other posters to believe lies? it's not anyone's job to protect the fragile 'other posters' from lies. besides, if someone tells a lie and you want to engage with it, do so, but don't do it by calling them a secret conservative/imperialist/centrist infiltrator.
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Apr 2, 2019 20:16
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