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I'd like to put forward a framework for thinking big-picture about this subforum: https://depts.washington.edu/fammed/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/3d-HANDOUT.pdf  I would encourage posters and mods to give the above a glance and think about how D&D works right now: how are posters trying to use the space? How are mod efforts shaping posting? Other posters mentioned in the mod nomination thread and I agreed that D&D has something of a conflicted identity. Is it the serious effort-posting and debate forum? Is it the "venting about current events" forum where people get upset about the news or at each other? Something else? What is it now, and what should it be? To make significant changes the mods and admins need to have a clear vision for what the space should be for, then build rules, moderation guidelines, and thread/forum structures to reach that goal. I mean, look at the current D&D rules: quote:The purpose of D&D is educational. Posters are encouraged to ask questions, share knowledge, learn new things, and speculate, discuss, and argue interpretations and ideas. The hope is that participation here will make posters better informed, develop more refined personal ideologies, be better able to argue their positions in real life, and find ways to put their positions into practice with real world activism. Here's how "debating" in D&D usually plays out right now imo: Both sides argue back and forth. There is often a lot of bullshit and bad-faith which is very time-consuming or impossible to address. Often one or both sides don't actually want to engage in a debate on the facts, what they want is to rile up or gotcha others. The arguing continues until one of two things happens 1) One or both sides gets tired and gives up, stops posting 2) One or both sides gets too angry and posts something lovely, mods step in either by telling people to knock it off or issuing probes This leaves nobody happy, and arguments are very rarely actually resolved. This is also where you get a lot of the accusations of mods shutting down debate or not allowing certain ideologies. You rarely can actually "win" a debate in D&D, everyone goes home angry. Suggestion: rebrand D&D into what it actually is trying to be, which is the current events / politics discussion forum. It's not truly a debate forum. SAL has far more actual debate than occurs here. Instead, refocus on creating a space for good-faith and good-natured discussion of current events and politics. Call it "Current Events" or similar like it originally started out as 20 years ago. I'm not at all advocating for looser rules (except maybe in specific chat threads): a rebranded CE should still be strictly moderated to faciliate quality discussion. Just figure out a vision for what D&D should become and shape rules and moderation approach based on that. I have other thoughts but this is plenty long for now.
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Oct 23, 2021 19:27
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Following some of the discussion in QCS I'd like to reiterate and revise my earlier suggestion here: Rebrand/reboot D&D as a Discussion forum, ditch the notion that it should be a battleground for political debate. Maybe call it Current Events. Potentially make it part of GBS. Waaaay back in the early days of SA, politics chat was actually in GBS. It was spun off into Current Events after 9/11, then Current Events later became Debate and Discussion. I think what most posters want is good discussion of topics. Debate by nature is adversarial, there is one correct answer, and someone must win. In that situation mods are seen to be picking winners and losers based on who gets probed and such. The mod and admin crew need a clear vision for what D&D should become and to shape rules and moderation guidelines around that. I'm a fan of Cefte's post from the mod nomination thread re: fewer but harsher punishments with more community enforcement. Part of the reason I suggest making Current Events a subforum of GBS is it might attract GBS regulars who wanna discuss politics but don't read D&D or CSPAM. Having a broader community allows people who aren't constantly stewing in politics and news to weigh in and call bullshit when posters of any ideology are saying dumb poo poo or being assholes. A larger, more diverse posting community who aren't necessarily tuned into politics 24/7 would help with building and enforcing community norms. Posters could still do actual debates if they wanted to, just make a special thread for the topic and enforce whatever narrower rules there. That way posters who want to engage in debate club stuff could have a venue for it.
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Oct 26, 2021 00:55
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How many posters are actually forum-banned from DnD? I don't keep track but if I had to guess, maybe a dozen or a little more than that?
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Oct 26, 2021 04:02
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Re: posters leaving D&D, I'd make two points- D&D and CSPAM activity are both down because it's not a US election year. That's normal. I'd guess they're around half the active users as last year. People will come back next year and in '24 because those are US election cycles and posters who are not politics-engaged 24/7 will pay more attention. The question is how do we make sure there's quality politics and election stuff for them when they do come around again? D&D has lost some posters to CSPAM, sure. But there are a ton of posters that left the SA politics forums because of the drop quality and interforum squabbling or left SA entirely last year during the Lowtax Uncertainty. I know quite a few of them on various Discord servers. Lots of posters moved to Discord servers when it wasn't clear what was going to happen to SA, then realized they were much happier just not being on SA at all. You're not going to hear much from those groups. Mods might want to keep in mind that the feedback they're going to get here is from the self-selected group of SA posters who still care or are active in D&D and SA politics.
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Oct 26, 2021 19:31
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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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blow zone thread did seem to work somewhat as a place to blow off steam since I recall USNews improving while blow was open. But I also don't follow USNews super closely most of the time. Since Lib and let die was doing some number crunching earlier I'll return the favor. In case you weren't aware you can look at the top 30 posters in a thread by clicking the # of posts: https://forums.somethingawful.com/misc.php?action=whoposted&threadid=3979833 The 30 top posters in the blow zone totaled about three thousand of four thousand total posts (3019 / 4128) so it's pretty evident it was a small number of posters actually participating. I think the issue is there are a dozen other places to shitpost and chat and many D&D regulars don't look here for that specifically.
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Oct 27, 2021 03:09
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Thank you for making those graphs, I like graphs. My main takeaway is that Vilerat is not earning his paycheck.
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Oct 27, 2021 04:16
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My actual honest take is that D&D and USNews/USPol in particular has a massive volume of mod actions and cum probe time. GBS and CSPAM are also at the top but the actions/probe times are spread over more threads. The three most active D&D mods during this time frame (Handsome Ralph, GreyjoyBastard, fool of sound) are responsible for most of those. Handsome Ralph in particular has been active in enforcing forum/thread bans. It's worth remembering from the list posted earlier, the number of posters actually forum/threadbanned is relatively small (maybe two dozen combined). But some of them have violated it quite a bit. so imo these data show: 1) outsized number of actions and cum probe time in D&D, specifically USNews/USPol 2) forum/threadbans must be broken fairly often 3) if you look at the final graphic showing cum probes over time, fool of sound seems to be pretty steady in their contribution. GreyjoyBastard was very active in the winter/spring, but really dropped off when Handsome Ralph became highly active in summer/fall. Your conclusions from that will depend on your attitudes toward moderation in general. Does this show that the D&D moderation is ineffective? Is more/better moderation needed? Or is less moderation the answer? My suggestion is still for fewer but harsher punishments. I'd argue these data show the massive cum probe volume in USPol/USNews isn't effective.
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Oct 27, 2021 05:09
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enki42 posted:I think it would be useful to hear from the mods like a mission statement for D&D, in case you missed it, Jeff outlined his vision for D&D this morning at the end of the QCS thread on D&D moderation: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3982691&pagenumber=61#post518794082 Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Okay, so for me, the most useful part of this all was to just ask people to explain. I feel more than ever that what I described as my ideal D&D is what I ought to be pursuing. Here is a more brief version:
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Oct 27, 2021 19:34
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Herstory Begins Now posted:yeah it's this. what is the upside to accepting that offer for literally anyone? -Excellent salary and benefits -Beloved and respected by most posters -Ability to change avatars for free -Access to reports and mod forums which are where all the really good SA content is
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Oct 27, 2021 23:17
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unironically Ardennes seems like they'd be a good CSPAM mod, they seem moderately active there
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Oct 27, 2021 23:20
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fwiw I thought Epic High Five taking a mod position seemed notable as they were very (mostly?) active in CSPAM compared to D&D/USNews. I thought one of the goals of Athanatos' nomination thread was to get more diversity on the mod squad and assumed that was part of it.
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Oct 27, 2021 23:48
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Pamela Springstein posted:please spare epic high five and helsing before perma'ing all the d&d mods. thank you. helsing hasn't been a dnd mod for a while afaik
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Oct 27, 2021 23:55
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:The only person to ever pull it off was Ozma, and he sure did love the ban hammer. There's already a scheduled changeover, it's "when a mod inevitably burns out after a couple years."
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Oct 28, 2021 00:50
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:I still feel very strongly that the report button should auto probe the person submitting it. It would really cut back on the mashing of the report button. Or at least, if there are known problem reporters, they should get a couple warnings to knock it the gently caress off and then have action taken. There's imo no reason to allow people to abuse the system. Especially if D&D is generating 40-50 (?) or more reports on a typical day, most of which are bullshit. I forget who, was it fool of sound that said in this or the QCS thread that they tend to be more likely to push buttons (one way or the other, I forget if more likely to ignore or take action on) toward the end of a long report queue because their patience starts to wear thin?
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Oct 28, 2021 01:03
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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:At this point, there's such an incredible lack of trust in the moderation system that the only way to combat it is to make the system more transparent. this sounds absolutely miserable for mods to have to deal with other than the "make it so multiple people can report the same post" as fool of sound mentioned it might improve report review It sounds like there are already users that PM mods demanding to know why their reports didn't result in a probation. Why should that be encouraged by having a formal system and extended to include appeals? If it's a problem that users try to game the system and rules to get mods to take action to win arguments, this would just make that far worse
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Oct 28, 2021 02:02
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Kalit posted:I'll give you some satisfaction: I did report 1 post ITT. It was a prior post of yours for using an ableist phrase: Yeah "smooth brain" is an actual medical condition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissencephaly "Hug box" is also not great and refers to a therapeutic device for calming autistic people with hypersensitivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hug_machine
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Oct 28, 2021 03:29
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I don't feel like I really have a place in D&D, CSPAM or other places on SA. My ideology is saddled and reined in where most others aren't. Ultimately, I just want a place to post and facilitate international dictatorship of the proletariat. I'm a Trot.
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Oct 28, 2021 09:35
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Jarmak posted:IIRC the other reason "doom posting" was made actionable was because of its negative mental health effects on posters. It's technically a positive feedback loop in that it's self-reinforcing. The effects on mental health are negative. A negative feedback loop maintains something at a relatively constant level like a thermostat. Positive feedback is "spiral out of control." I know what you meant I'm just continuing the proud D&D tradition of internet pedantry 
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Oct 28, 2021 20:36
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Out of curiosity, are forum-banned posters allowed in here today and when do mods plan on closing the thread? Might be valuable for people to know the deadline for submitting feedback.
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Oct 29, 2021 18:08
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I forget, what were the issues with having a pure newsfeed thread (only posting tweets and links/excerpts of articles with little discussion) and a separate USNews chat/discussion thread? I know that was tried but I don't recall how well it worked.
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Oct 30, 2021 03:02
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Willa Rogers posted:What is the utility--or even the draw--of having a Newsfeed. If I just want an aggregator of what's going on and I don't have a Twitter account following a bunch of journalists and such to aggregate and curate my own feed. Twitter sucks and I personally am not going to maintain an account there. That's just me though. USNews right now is okay for that but for every bit of news there are a few pages of chat and discussion I'm usually not super interested in. The signal to noise ratio is pretty poor. edit: USNews/USPol moves too fast for me to actually read it most of the time. I mostly skim. Again that's just me though. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Oct 30, 2021 |
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Oct 30, 2021 03:12
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thread that precludes responses?
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fool of sound posted:If people want to give the no discussion newsfeed thing another shot they can I guess but the last one died a protracted death as only one person would regularly post things there and everyone else just hung out in USPol. The PPJ era, right? I mean, Discords often have news channels (relevant to whatever the server is) these days. I personally would prefer a pure newsfeed stickied thread where I could glance and see what's breaking, then hop to the discussion/chat thread if I had time and interest on commenting/discussing something. You might consider tossing up a poll to gauge interest in that option. Clearly there are a lot of posters that use USNews as-is, it's harder to gauge how many people would make use of and post in a separate newsfeed thread.
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Oct 30, 2021 03:19
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You might throw up a poll in USNews asking -I would read a pure Newsfeed thread -I would read and contribute articles/tweets to a pure Newsfeed thread -Nah and if you get a couple dozen people willing to contribute and a good number more wanting to read, try it out. I assume that response to this feedback thread is going to take a few weeks to percolate, imo no harm in gauging interest and if it's there, giving it a whirl. World Famous W posted:100%, I go outside my bookmarks maybe once a month, and only to see if there any new threads on the first few pages to add to said bookmarks yeah this is also something that's going to contribute to having one megathread. Posters may not glance at the actual forums page to see spinoff threads and then they don't get as much traffic as they otherwise might.
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Oct 30, 2021 03:33
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Deteriorata posted:You are correct. I misread your post and got a bit to high on my own farts. pls ban Deteriorata for breaking one of the most important rules of D&D: never admit you were wrong edit: astral posted:I'd like to once again emphasize that it would not be politically focused (though, by its nature, political news would be posted and discussed there). It would be a forum of a different nature and tone than D&D, C-SPAM, or modern GBS: think GBS 1.0. Ideally, it would capture the energy of people wanting to discuss specific topics without getting into the general sorts of discussion found in other topics in D&D or C-SPAM (or GBS). I don't know if all or even most of the news posting/reading energy lost or redirected when GBS 1.0 became GBS 2.0 could ever be recaptured; it's had eight years to slip away from us, but there is surely some amount of it still waiting for the return of a news-focused forum. Or maybe there isn't; who knows. It beats the heck out of most of the RSF suggestions I've seen, if nothing else. I think the problem with what you describe is structural. Because many users mostly check their bookmarked threads, this means a subforum with lots of threads on granular topics and individual news stories/articles is not going to be very active. Megathreads are largely an outcome of how the forums currently work. You've described some interesting additions that could encourage more users to pay attention to new/smaller threads in their subforums of choice but we don't have those yet. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Oct 30, 2021 |
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Oct 30, 2021 06:29
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Epic High Five posted:A little thing off to the side with like "hey you read a lot of D&D, here's some new threads there" or "hey you read a lot of CSPAM have you considered logging off lmao owned" would be neat with the caveat that we're all ancient by internet standards and hate change so the UI implementation would be a challenge. It'd either have to be perfectly done or aggressively and intentionally bad, I'm not sure anybody would respect it otherwise what's adbot doing these days?
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Oct 30, 2021 07:41
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Strep Vote posted:...have we managed to go the whole thread without mentioning that DnD was once.... CE? Because that was changed because things got too contentious in Current Events. Porque no los dos? A politics and philosophy and history forum, and one for the events of the day? I did mention that, yes. CE was a spinoff from GBS after 9/11 and then later became D&D. My suggestion remains to rebrand D&D as Current Events with clear goals and vision for what Jeff/admins want this to be, make rules and guidelines based on that. Jeff has articulated a vision in the QCS thread, the question becomes "how specifically do we make this happen?" IMO fewer and harsher punishments with clear Leper's Colony entries as to why users were hit, plus simple clear goals for what this forum should be. Also consider moving the new Current Events under GBS or at least advertising the rebranding through forums-wide announcement. That way we might attract some users and perspectives who might not be plugged into politics 24/7 or have avoided D&D because it has a reputation as the tedious debate pedant forum. Which that should still be available, but "debate" by nature is adversarial and must have a winner. The current situation where mods are usually forced to "pick" winners and losers in a debate based on who first gets pissed off and probated leaves nobody happy.
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Oct 30, 2021 08:17
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After the very level-headed and reasonable posts from user Koos Group and because they seem to represent a third-party to this circular argument, I would like to suggest that both D&D and CSPAM be made subforums of FYAD.
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Oct 30, 2021 23:00
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Regarding left vs. liberal, it's worth noting that a large proportion of the active D&D USPol mods identify as communists. I'm not gonna name names or ask that all mods state their ideological identification, but two D&D mods have recently made explicit statements that they are communists and a third mod stated they were a non-voting swing-state nojoe. I think it would be fair to ask the current mod crew: do you believe that (pretty hard-) left viewpoints are well-represented on the USPol mod crew, and are they participating in major moderation decisions including response to this thread?
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Oct 31, 2021 02:52
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Oct 31, 2021 03:31
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