Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

fool of sound posted:

Yeah I'm increasingly convinced that this is the actual big problem facing D&D. Quite a few posters seem to view probations as an official marker of losing a debate; the larger the punishment, the worse the loss. As such, people try to play the refs, and lure the people they're debating into posting something punishable, then yelling bloody murder about it at the mods (frequently when the infraction is minor at worst). Alternatively, if they can't get that to work, they gather up their posting posse in a discord or whatever and pile into a thread in the hopes that the mods will refrain from punishing their shitposting and cheerleading because they don't want to toss out a dozen probations at once. This isn't specifically a "cspam invaders" issue either, it's an issue with people who have decided that they're only interested in discussions if they can win them, and mod intervention is the most common win condition when there isn't an overwhelming consensus of thread regulars to run them out on a rail.

Every new rule just gives people a new angle from which to play this stupid little game. Being wrong isn't a reason for being punished in D&D. Your debate opponent being probated is not an indication that you are correct. Ultimately most debates and discussions aren't going to have a neat, satisfactory ending in this subforum. It's an asynchronous, open medium; a single thread can have a half little mini-debates spanning hours or days, and people run out of time or energy to keep participating. The hope is that a productive dialogue develops, and that even if the poster you're arguing with doesn't come around to your viewpoint, the people reading the debate have come away learning something and refining their own knowledge and worldview.

I don't know. I'm tired and feeling poor because of my vaccine booster so my thoughts are a bit jumbled.
You are totally right about this, I just hope you can take the thought to its obvious conclusion: You mods need to actively combat that tendency, going so far as to probating people who are obviously trying to play the ref. A clean break will cause some waves, but it'll send a clear signal that the moderation approach has changed, and will allow the forum to settle into a new reality much faster than if you phase it in gently. A new reality that probably even a lot of the people playing the ref will prefer, the current dysfunction being something that has built up over time rather than something actively chosen.

MonsieurChoc posted:

Yeah, I remember when I showed that the Media Criticism Thread OP had not read an article I posted at all and I was probed for pointing that out, kicking off a bunch of other probes for other people who found that funny. I also remember getting a 24 hour probe while other posters got a week or even a month. That doesn't seem like fair and balanced moderating to me.

I used to post in D&D all the time before it became a toxic place where you'll be probed or banned for pointing out the Emperor has no clothes. I have no idea how to fix it, but the current mod team are 100% part of the problem and have to go.
Yeah, the way that thread was moderated made me kinda reticent about agreeing with fool of sound on his post. Like, it sounds good, but I can't entirely discount the notion that their understanding of who's playing the ref is entirely wrong.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Eletriarnation posted:

OK, let's call it "changing the subject" then? Is it not changing the subject to swerve from talking about Xinjiang to the US's wars or is there some substantial connection between the two? No one said that the US's wars aren't bad. But oh look, they used the 'W' word so they must be an imperialist shill, we'll just call them that and now we won the argument! JFC.

e: This is the problem with D&D, btw. Not bad mods, posters who are devoted to scoring points on any little thing they disagree with over making an actual insightful contribution to the topic at hand. If anything this kind of poo poo gets too light a touch. Just don't loving post if this is all you have.
An obvious connection is the Pivot to Asia, the US warmachine trying to get the public behind a new Cold War against China. That, and the "But what are we gonna do about it?" point. The only way the US can realistically do anything about the situation is going to war, which I doubt many people think is a great idea, given that we're talking nuclear powers. It's certainly an extreme direction to go in even ignoring nukes, more so when you have a problem of equal magnitude at home that doesn't require a war. Anyway:

I can't believe I'm saying this, but the forum might be well served by people actually typing a few more words for poo poo like this. Like, put your effort into expanding your thinking on the most "controversial" parts of your post, rather than just summing it all up in a word whose meaning there is no consensus on/is used to imply more than the facts can support. Like, take the whole genocide discussion. If some people use genocide to mean "Extermination camps" and others use it to mean "assimilationist policies backed by force", then it becomes really hard to argue the topic just using the word genocide. When C-SPAM had the discussion there were a lot of "Obviously it's not a genocide, there are no extermination camps" replies, with most of those switching to "Oh, I didn't realize the definition of genocide was a lot broader than that, yeah, not gonna fight anyone on that definition being applicable".

Obviously it didn't convince everyone, but if you could get 80% of the posters who'd normally react poorly to your post to at least see your side if not agree with you, then that'd massively deescalate discussions. Hell, get one of them to see your point and acknowledge it, and others might be convinced to give your post another read. Another thing people can do in that vein is trying to ask people to clarify, perhaps giving a good faith shot at trying to interpret a post and asking if that is what they meant, rather than just going on the offensive. I feel like that's something that used to happen kind of regularly, and I certainly also had quite a bit of success with it. It also seems like something the mods might be able to facilitate, and is certainly a place where mods taking part in the discussion would be very natural.

Killin_Like_Bronson posted:

They seem to be adding to the list of reasons to consider that mods are playing to their faves or just like super dumb.
I mean, if it was removed by the mods then yeah, the mods were playing to their faves against the explicit wishes of the site's owner. (Depending on what the red text said at least.)

Mellow Seas posted:

I think the most important thing to come out of the QCS thread is that a lot of people seem to take the idea of "Debate and Discussion" very seriously, and some people do not. To the former group, it establishes not just that there should be concrete rules, but that the rules should allow for debates to be "won" or "lost". I'm not really sure how somebody would know whether they "won" or "lost" a debate, but apparently it's what some people have been trying to do - it's no wonder they've been frustrated.
I mean, not all of them. That's where fool of sound's argument that people "play the ref" comes from, that some people have found a way to "win" (defined as their opponent being unable to retort due to being probated), which is why they react strongly to suggestions of "fixing D&D". I suspect most of the people who want to "win" but aren't posting in D&D are happy to stay in C-SPAM and dominate their chat threads or whatever, while the ones who want discussion in D&D are forced to go up against the current winners - the D&D regulars who care more about "winning" than discussion. Discussion-type D&D regulars just sorta get rolled up into the latter group because the "competitive debaters" don't target them, but they probably have more in common with the discussion-type C-SPAM regulars when it comes to posting styles.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Mellow Seas posted:

I get salty with people because of personality issues, not because of policy issues, and I'm not really interested in having to-the-death debates about policy issues. I really just want to talk about the news, and I don't want people expressing schadenfreude at my expense. I don't really read CSPAM so this is an honest question - how do people who are, for lack of a better term, "pro-AOC and Bernie Sanders", get along with the posters who are constantly making GBS threads on them? How do you keep that disagreement from spiraling into hostility? Is one side dominant over the other? Does it come down, thread by thread, to just who can shout the loudest?
Can't speak to that really, since I generally don't participate in USpol threads. I feel like those megathreads are more divided along posting styles than topics though, given how strange the posting style of Trump thread regulars is. You can tell almost immediately when they start posting in a non-Trump thread, it's uncanny. Which I suppose is sort of what you're saying here:

Mellow Seas posted:

Maybe part of the reason CSPAM works better than D&D is because there is no "one" megathread, and so people can go post in a thread that is more their speed. (I know that a lot of CSPAM hates the succzone thread, and a lot of the succzone thread hates most of CSPAM, for example.) In D&D, people feel like they're missing out on eyeballs if they're not posting in USNews, so everything ends up in there trying to please everybody and pleasing nobody.
I'm not sure you're wrong. Making USChat a continuation of USNews as it is now, and then a USDiscussion thread where the mods don't touch their buttons outside people using slurs and poo poo might ease up tensions a lot. You can even flitter between threads depending on the mood, just like people do between D&D and C-SPAM.

lobster shirt posted:

Maybe a good way to improve the whole "working the refs to win arguments" thing is... well, it has been said in the past that there are people who max out their number of daily reports here in D&D (and also in CSPAM but this is a thread for D&D moderation so please let's stick to the topic at hand). Maybe those people should be punished for it? Or in general, if a mod spots an instance of "ref working", or people reporting posts while actively engaged in an argument with those post(er)s, maybe punish that as well?
I would definitely be appreciative if I saw "Tried to work the ref" as a probation reason. Obviously the burden of proof shouldn't just be whether the reported post was probation worthy, but if you have like two pages of tensions building up between two posters with no attempt to deescalate from the person reporting, then it should be a pretty slam dunk case.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

yeah people will always have issues with mods but ever since Flavius was booted C-SPAM modding has been infinitely better
Yeah, it really is just the unjust exile of Larry that remains as a forum-wide issue, but that seems to be out of the hands of the mods at this point.

Mellow Seas posted:

People who prefer CSPAM to D&D, but still want to post here: what do you think D&D can do to incorporate the things you like about CSPAM while still maintaining its own identity as a distinct subforum? What should the differences between D&D and CSPAM be?
People actually assuming good faith, people being disinclined to run to the mods, and pretty much no consequence for "losing" a discussion*. As Gumball Gumption said, posters in CSPAM generally just take you at your words, and since they're unlikely to run to the mods and there's no real consequence for "losing" a discussion, people can get to the point much faster and have more of a back-and forth flow to the discussion rather than trying to deliver a coup de grāce with every post.

*Your posting brand isn't destroyed by getting owned, unless that's like all you do.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Mellow Seas posted:

"People assuming good faith" isn't really something the moderators have control over (and I kind of reject the idea that people in CSPAM are any better than people in D&D about it, but whatever, not the point).
It is. Or at least they have control over whether someone posts like they assume good faith, by probating people who don't.

As for your second point, perhaps it depends on the thread. I am not gonna defend all of CSPAM, and given your interest in US politics you're likely reading completely different threads than I am in CSPAM.

Mellow Seas posted:

I don't think there are consequences for "losing" a debate in D&D, either - plenty of people "lose" debates without getting probations all the time, you just have to be a good sport. So it seems like your main complaint is that the mods are too active - but if you remove the different moderation standards, what's left?
I was talking more about the "social" impact of losing. I feel like "being a respected prestige poster who gets special big boy treatment by the mods" is something D&D posters care more about. (Not universally, but if your posting brand demands you win consistently because you've got credentials to defend, you're not gonna be discussing things like someone being entirely open about their position and seeing how it holds up.)

Mellow Seas posted:

What makes D&D different from CSPAM? When people give an answer to that question which is just, "it's worse, and everybody there is stupid, and they tattle to the lunch monitors" then they should just stop posting in D&D because I'm not really seeing what they're getting out of it that they're not getting out of CSPAM, except the ability to yell at some specific posters who won't do them the favor of going into their preferred space.
Actual D&D, or the D&D people are trying to nudge us towards? The latter would be higher effort/more serious discussion, a distillation of the great discussions that do happen in CSPAM in-between the jokes and white noise posts. It'd make far more sense that the D&D/CSPAM divide was over posting style/focus, rather than ideology. Like, the way you describe it, the USNews thread you want is basically a CSPAM thread.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

fool of sound posted:

The admins have made very clear that they do not want us to do this unless the poster is a really egregious case. We've had a few people get warnings in D&D, a even fewer get punished for them.
Who determines what is an "egregious case"? Have you tried to push harder and then had admins admonish you for it? Based on how they post in QCS, it seems like they'd really rather not be involved at all, so from the outside looking in it doesn't look like it'd be that hard to tighten the reigns on that poo poo.

If they're actually more involved behind the scenes, I'd present the admins with a plan for getting it under control. Basically "We've come to the conclusion that some posters have learned to abuse the report button to play the refs, so we'd like permission to be slightly more trigger happy with reversals of fortune for a couple of months until people stop doing that poo poo." I don't think it'd be the first time the mods crack down on a certain kind of posting, and hell, it's not like the people likely to be hit have a lot of support outside their own little group. If you mods decided to do a little crackdown they'd find basically no support in QCS at the very least.

If the admins aren't up for it, you should just go on strike and stop modding.

e: Actually, it's not like you need it to be like a total reversal of fortune with like 3 day probations or anything. "Trying to play the ref. User loses posting privileges for 6 hours." would get the message across eventually.

A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Oct 26, 2021

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

fool of sound posted:

Let just say there's a lot of tension about policy in regards to the politics forums. Hopefully we'll get the refined sitewide rules and published mod guidelines at some point.
Appreciate the transparency, we've definitely been getting weird signals forever at this point. At least there being tensions behind the scenes explains some of it.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

thatfatkid posted:

Others in this very thread have argued the point I've made and not been probated.
Have they? I don't think anyone else in this thread has actually called it not a genocide, people have just discussed/addressed the implied/explicit exterminatory genocide accusation vs. the broader definition of cultural genocide. That it has been downgraded to "not a genocide" by some organizations, now that the accusations are basically "they're treated like black people in the US" , isn't really much of an argument for it not being a genocide. Though I suppose your point there does touch on the issue of legitimate sources and media analysis issue, since you'd usually not expect to be punished for regurgitating something from AP in D&D.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

fool of sound posted:

Ok could you just clarify for me: do you believe that the western reports of ethnic cleansing are sometimes sensationalized, exaggerated, or poorly research OR that some level of harm is being directed at the Uyghurs but the benefits of Chinese occupation outweigh those harms OR that the harms do not exist at all?
I haven't paid much attention to the various claims, but is that a thing? Ethnic cleansing is about removing a population from a territory (whether moving them internally or forcing them entirely out of your country), which is not an accusation I've seen made against China. I've seen the words used, but not claims fitting the definition.

Asking because ethnic cleansing is up there with genocide in terms of things that could cause drama, so we should be attempt to be precise in our language. Especially the mods.

TipTow posted:

Someone brought up earlier in this thread (or was it the other one? I don't know) that even after there's turnover with DnD mods and IKs the same problems persist. Really thinking one of the primary issues is mods having to deal with a cadre of keyboard warriors who think using slurs and calling people names is either going to bring about the revolution or make themselves feel better, or both. I'd get tired of dealing with the bullshit, too, and would probably resort to some heavy-handedness.
You're ignoring the keyboard warriors on the other side. There are two groups of assholes, they just have different posting styles, but both of them make the experience of reading D&D worse.

Mellow Seas posted:

Did it ever occur to you that maybe what you want to happen is not happening because a lot of other people don't want it to happen? Did you read the posts in this thread and in the QCS thread saying that people didn't want to deal with angry, antagonistic posting? Maybe the moderators have an obligation to consider those voices, too?
Getting rid of the rape apologia and genocide threats* poo poo doesn't mean opening up for that "angry, antagonist posting". Like, there is an option of "Crack down on the weaselly assholes too", which wouldn't hurt people who don't want angry posting. In fact, it would help them, because a lot of angry posting is a result of people getting super pissed off about people being allowed to post abhorrent poo poo. No, it wouldn't stop the people who want to be angry, but it'd make the people who are right to be mad happy, and that should make everyone but the assholes happy.

*Fishbone precedent

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Best Friends posted:

The post is literally and explicitly denying that genocide is happening. Genocide denial is the specific red line that has been brought up over and over. You are changing the rules to say that now genocide denial is allowed and mod authorized, and the new rule is you can't deny that forced assimilation is happening.

I think that's a good rule change, personally, but rule changes happening by mod decree deep in existing threads without the mods even acknowledging it's a rule change is part of the core problem why d&d is so hostile to anyone in the out group. It's complete Calvinball.
Forced assimilation is genocide, just not the exterminatory kind. Letting people use another term to describe what is happening in China, the meaning of which overlaps with variants of genocide, isn't really a rule change. Now if what had been enforced was that it was genocide denial to claim that China did not have extermination camps, and now it's alright to describe it solely as forced assimilation, then it obviously would be a rule change.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Gumball Gumption posted:

The problem isn't even that it's Calvinball it's they if you point out it's Calvinball D&D has to launch into

Instead of just going "Yeah, it's is Calvinball. Deal with it" like the rest of SA does when it comes to rules.
What? I'm definitely not on the "D&D side" of this, I just think it trivializes the many reasonable complaints about the moderation to try to own fos on that poo poo. I've called for the resignation of every single one of the D&D mods, that doesn't mean I'm gonna back every argument in favor of that end. People badly arguing for your position sucks.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

GreyjoyBastard posted:

anyway it probably deserves a real effortpost but I am very interested in How Do You Solve A Problem Like Usnews and every solution we've tried so far hasn't worked

I had high hopes for "try and get people to split off discussion into separate threads" and it did occasionally generate good side threads, but it didn't un-usnews usnews and here we are
It arguably belongs in CCCC, as a political chat thread, given that what its regulars want doesn't fit the paradigm the site's owner has laid out.* CCCC is built around custom rulesets for any given thread, with "invasions" being explicitly against the rules, which would allow its regulars to define whatever rules they find appropriate. I am 100% serious with this, I truly think it is the best solution for everyone. I don't actually want to ruin what the people who really like USnews have, so putting it in the explicit "No harshing anyone's fun"-zone seems ideal to me. Whatever USpol discussions that happen in D&D after that might flourish in a very different way without existing in the shadow of USnews.

*Not saying the paradigm matches what every critic wants either, just to be clear.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Deteriorata posted:

Minimize drive-by shitposting by 1) banning Twitters and 2) requiring all links to include a summary of the content so people can know what it is before they click it.
I'd add "A summary and your opinion on the article/video and the subject covered".

If we're not going as far as banning Twitter, I'd reiterate an earlier suggestion I've made in QCS: You're responsible for your twitter links. That means the content in the twitter is treated like yours, so if it's deleted you can get dinged for a post with no content, if it's misrepresenting an article (this includes headlines of the article itself being misrepresentative) then you get dinged for that, and if it's some racist/sexist/ableist poo poo you're on the hook for that too. Unless of course you take the time to actually address all those possible issues, that is, laying out why you're linking that tweet.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

UCS Hellmaker posted:

Honestly cccc needs to be looked at as a whole for what the admins want to use it for, because there's likely a ton of threads site wide here cspam games gbs that all could go there. Tossing uspol there however won't fix anything and arguably just tosses some of the issues into whoever is forced to mod that thread in cccc, and if it's an Ik feelings of mod bias or abuse would be even worse.

Tossing the thread into what amount to an isolated island is likely to make issues worse in that thread and island, and not really fix anything here.
A CCCC version of the thread would be explicitly biased in favor of the regulars, is the point. It would be the USnews Crew Chat, not USnews Chat, so any bias in favor of that crew would be built in and expected. That's literally what that forum is for, carving out a little piece of SA for a group of posters to run without taking into consideration how the rest of SA feels about it. (Outside a crew venturing out and loving poo poo up elsewhere or breaking the core rules of SA.)

As for not fixing things here, it'd remove the giant vortex of eyeballs that apparently prevents people from splitting discussions of the US up into more focused topics. On top of that, it'd remove a thread that twists the entire discussion of moderation in D&D, though it does fall to the mods to ensure that no thread in D&D grows into the "main US thread" that sucks up all the attention.

fool of sound posted:

Also, and this is more of a personal bias, I tend to be more dismissive of reports filed by direct major participants in an debate; I am generally of the opinion that if it's worth reporting, and observer will do so instead.
But a post can only be reported once. Even if an observer wanted to report a post, they can't. Unless you're supposed to choose a previous/later post and refer to the other one, within the extremely limited report field. I'd also add that this approach favors the side with enough numbers to fill both discussion and reporting spots. Not saying that it's not a good thing to have in mind, but you should account for the structural advantage of representing the majority (within the thread) view when using that heuristic.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

fool of sound posted:

Denying atrocities will get you in trouble in much the same will that denying accusers will.
This seems like a dodge. Not sure if you meant to do it, but the question was about people calling others genocide deniers, not doing genocide denial.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

astral posted:

Naturally.
You should make a bunch of unnecessary changes, on top of the ones you want to make, then "compromise" by rolling back to just the ones you wanted in the first place.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Main Paineframe posted:

Instead, it gets muddled by an argument over the definition of "intel agency", because the person who wanted to talk about the CIA's crimes distracted everyone by hyperbolically trying to redefine words instead of just loving talking about the CIA's crimes.
I mentioned earlier how it sucks having people "on your side" argue badly, and that's definitely where my head is in regards to that whole thing. I'm sympathetic to the opinion I'm reading (the primary work of the CIA is poo poo that is purely criminal), but the presentation does no one any favors. Like, I don't have a problem with "taking them seriously but not literally" in this case, but given that D&D is the pedant forum you probably should be expected to write your posts in a way where people can take them seriously and literally.

That all goes back to the idea that people should be putting more effort into explaining their position, rather than just using shorthands whose meaning there's no consensus on. This goes for everyone, from people going "We agree on 90% of things, I'm a leftist too!" to "I'm a communist and you're all libs" actually explaining what their positions are. How is their ideal political system structured, and how do they believe we can get there (if we can), for starters. Those two questions alone would probably do a lot to clarify people's position.

How do the mods feel about people asking those questions? Or should the question only be asked if it's strictly relevant to the discussion at hand?

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Panzeh posted:

Yeah, trying to be strict with rules results in a bunch of "i'm not touching you" type posts like the 'CIA is not an intelligence organization' and then 'sources' even though the former is basically a twitter shitpost that can't really be proven or disproven the way it's explained. I've read the sources, they're not proof that that shitpost is an absolute truth.
Why does it need to be? An absolute truth is a big ask, I feel like presenting enough evidence that people can see how someone could arrive at that conclusion from the evidence should be enough. Obviously not all evidence is equally worthwhile, but I don't imagine it's hard to construct an argument that the CIA is bad enough at intelligence work and prolific enough in criminality to say that in their estimation the organization as a whole is more a criminal syndicate than an intelligence agency. Accepting that they hold that position is not requiring you to accept their conclusion, so there shouldn't be an expectation that they'll produce enough evidence to convince you of their position - merely enough to convince you of their earnestness.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Cease to Hope posted:

Leftists annoying other leftists by labeling them as liberals is a phenomenon as old as leftism.
The fact that the "D&D clique" is failing to do this calls into question their leftist credentials.

But seriously, instead of dancing around this subject for months(/years?), how about people just lay out their political views in a concise manner so people can interrogate those? Being evasive about your actual views just results in a bunch of innocent strawmen getting massacred.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

fool of sound posted:

Believe me I hate the "we agree on most things" argument too, but the solution in that case is to interrogate those differences instead of just declaring an insurmountable gulf exists. State your beliefs clearly, argue with other peoples' stated beliefs. Don't let labels do the talking.
Gonna ask again, since it seems relevant: How hard do you think it's appropriate to push people on this? Some people wear their ideology on their sleeves, while others seem a bit more cagey about theirs. It's hard to argue someone's beliefs if they don't want to make them clear.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply