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Hi, I'm a long-time reader, but infrequent poster in D&D these days, as this has always been my shitposting-focused account (which I found necessary to create as a result of sharing too many personal details on my older accounts). In my view, the problem with the "stale argument" rule is that it is antithetical to the Marxist approach to analyzing current events, especially in a setting with as much "posting history" as has grown out of American politics in a forum like D&D. As we all know, in order to think critically about a particular story in the news, Marxism teaches us that we must first identify the underlying material conditions that relate to (or led to) that event's occurrence. Furthermore, the tenets of fruitful discussion require finding a common ground among participants in the conversation in order to build a productive set of concepts; Marxists often will (and should!) find themselves starting from those aforementioned material conditions when forming their arguments, and (unfortunately for most of us) we all can agree that the class divide is the most impactful, if broad, set of conditions that underlies the behavior of our ruling class (and those downstream of their decisions). Given that our elected officials are the most signficant piece of our political superstructure, it's only natural that conversations about recent newsworthy events will converge back onto the topic of the behavior of those elected officials. Shutting down discussion of a broad topic such as their behavior under the pretense of being chock-full of "stale arguments" is therefore responsible (perhaps paradoxically) for the continued degradation of the discussion at hand, as it pushes conversation further away from a materialist view of the underlying sources of conflict that led to the event in question, which results (as we've seen) in clearly-frustrated, emotionally-driven posting that leads to ad hominem attacks and straw person arguments. Given the unpredictable application of punishments for the "stale argument" rule, I don't believe that it has had a true chilling effect, per se, on the broader class of American politics conversations, but I do believe the inability of the current suite of moderators to otherwise guide posters toward a more fruitful resolution of conflicting views is just as damaging to the longevity of a specific discussion. I've seen Koos attempt what I believe to be a steering in the vein I describe, but it often comes across as being adversarial to posters instead of something that more plainly aims to find consensus among participants about points of low-level material reality. So it's no surprise to me that when that fails, posters end up spinning in circles until the conversation dies or a big batch of probations needs to be given. Furthermore, these events just serve to breed more negative relationships between posters as attacks become more personal and folks are talking past each other or misinterpreting each others' words. So, in short, I believe that moderators should approach their role as posters (when not clearly engaged in the material as a typical "normal poster") as more of a committee chairperson steering a group toward productive ends, and less of a police officer looking for tickets to write or posters to threaten. Thanks for your time reading this, and the only other point I'll add is that while I think that Leon is a "bad poster", if his planned moderation philosophy (which has high-level points clearly in line with what I've just written) is truly given a shot, I predict he'll quickly become a more efficacious contributer to the overall positive health of D&D than any recent moderation style changes have produced. So I hope that he's given enough latitude and support to implement the sorts of policies he's shared in other threads as being in line with his goals.
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Jul 31, 2022 23:47
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500 good dogs posted:Hi, I'm a long-time reader, but infrequent poster in D&D these days, as this has always been my shitposting-focused account (which I found necessary to create as a result of sharing too many personal details on my older accounts). In my view, the problem with the "stale argument" rule is that it is antithetical to the Marxist approach to analyzing current events, especially in a setting with as much "posting history" as has grown out of American politics in a forum like D&D. As we all know, in order to think critically about a particular story in the news, Marxism teaches us that we must first identify the underlying material conditions that relate to (or led to) that event's occurrence. Furthermore, the tenets of fruitful discussion require finding a common ground among participants in the conversation in order to build a productive set of concepts; Marxists often will (and should!) find themselves starting from those aforementioned material conditions when forming their arguments, and (unfortunately for most of us) we all can agree that the class divide is the most impactful, if broad, set of conditions that underlies the behavior of our ruling class (and those downstream of their decisions). Given that our elected officials are the most signficant piece of our political superstructure, it's only natural that conversations about recent newsworthy events will converge back onto the topic of the behavior of those elected officials. Shutting down discussion of a broad topic such as their behavior under the pretense of being chock-full of "stale arguments" is therefore responsible (perhaps paradoxically) for the continued degradation of the discussion at hand, as it pushes conversation further away from a materialist view of the underlying sources of conflict that led to the event in question, which results (as we've seen) in clearly-frustrated, emotionally-driven posting that leads to ad hominem attacks and straw person arguments. Given the unpredictable application of punishments for the "stale argument" rule, I don't believe that it has had a true chilling effect, per se, on the broader class of American politics conversations, but I do believe the inability of the current suite of moderators to otherwise guide posters toward a more fruitful resolution of conflicting views is just as damaging to the longevity of a specific discussion. I've seen Koos attempt what I believe to be a steering in the vein I describe, but it often comes across as being adversarial to posters instead of something that more plainly aims to find consensus among participants about points of low-level material reality. So it's no surprise to me that when that fails, posters end up spinning in circles until the conversation dies or a big batch of probations needs to be given. Furthermore, these events just serve to breed more negative relationships between posters as attacks become more personal and folks are talking past each other or misinterpreting each others' words. So, in short, I believe that moderators should approach their role as posters (when not clearly engaged in the material as a typical "normal poster") as more of a committee chairperson steering a group toward productive ends, and less of a police officer looking for tickets to write or posters to threaten. Thanks for your time reading this, and the only other point I'll add is that while I think that Leon is a "bad poster", if his planned moderation philosophy (which has high-level points clearly in line with what I've just written) is truly given a shot, I predict he'll quickly become a more efficacious contributer to the overall positive health of D&D than any recent moderation style changes have produced. So I hope that he's given enough latitude and support to implement the sorts of policies he's shared in other threads as being in line with his goals. Sounds like we're ripe for a thread about analyzing current political issues from a Marxist perspective! This is more than enough words for an OP. I know it probably sounds like I'm being sarcastic here, given the context, but I'm not.
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Jul 31, 2022 23:49
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500 good dogs posted:Hi, I'm a long-time reader, but infrequent poster in D&D these days, as this has always been my shitposting-focused account (which I found necessary to create as a result of sharing too many personal details on my older accounts). In my view, the problem with the “stale argument” rule is that it is antithetical to the Marxist approach to analysing current events. Especially in a setting with as much “posting history” as has grown out of American politics in a forum like D&D. As we all know, to think critically about a particular story in the news Marxism teaches us that we must first identify the underlying material conditions that relate to (or led to) that event's occurrence. Furthermore, the tenets of fruitful discussion require finding a common ground among participants in the conversation to build a productive set of concepts. Marxists often will (and should!) find themselves starting from those aforementioned material conditions when forming their arguments, and (unfortunately for most of us) we all can agree that the class divide is the most impactful. The divide underlie the behaviour of our ruling class (and those downstream of their decisions). Given that our elected officials are the most significant piece of our political superstructure, it's only natural that conversations about recent newsworthy events will converge back onto the topic of the behaviour of those elected officials. Shutting down discussion of a broad topic such as their behaviour under the pretence of being chock-full of “stale arguments” is therefore responsible (perhaps paradoxically) for the continued degradation of the discussion at hand. It pushes conversation further away from a materialist view of the underlying sources of conflict that led to the event in question. The result of that, as we've seen, is clearly frustrated, emotionally driven posting that leads to ad hominem attacks and straw person arguments. Given the unpredictable application of punishments for the “stale argument” rule, I don't believe that it has had a true chilling effect, in and of itself, on the broader class of American politics conversations. However, I do believe the inability of the current suite of moderators to otherwise guide posters toward a more fruitful resolution of conflicting views is just as damaging to the longevity of a specific discussion. I've seen Koos attempt what I believe to be a steering in the vein I describe. Unfortunately, it often comes across as being adversarial to posters, instead of something that more plainly aims to find consensus among participants about points of low-level material reality. So, it's no surprise to me that when that fails, posters end up spinning in circles until the conversation dies or a big batch of probations needs to be given. Furthermore, these events just serve to breed more negative relationships between posters as attacks become more personal and folks are talking past each other or misinterpreting each others' words. So, in short, I believe that moderators should approach their role as posters (when not clearly engaged in the material as a typical “normal poster”) as more of a committee chairperson steering a group toward productive ends. Decidedly less so as a police officer looking for tickets to write or posters to threaten. Thanks for your time reading this. The only other point I'll add is that while I think that Leon is a “bad poster”, his planned moderation philosophy has high-level points clearly in line with what I've just written. Should it be truly given a shot, I predict he'll quickly become a more efficacious contributor to the overall positive health of D&D than any recent moderation style changes have produced. So, I hope that he's given enough latitude and support to implement the sorts of policies he's shared in other threads as being in line with his goals. Thank you for feedback! I hope you don't mind that I've taken the liberty to proofread and stylistically edit your letter, for improved readability.
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Jul 31, 2022 23:56
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500 good dogs posted:Hi, I'm a long-time reader, but infrequent poster in D&D these days, as this has always been my shitposting-focused account (which I found necessary to create as a result of sharing too many personal details on my older accounts). In my view, the problem with the "stale argument" rule is that it is antithetical to the Marxist approach to analyzing current events, especially in a setting with as much "posting history" as has grown out of American politics in a forum like D&D. As we all know, in order to think critically about a particular story in the news, Marxism teaches us that we must first identify the underlying material conditions that relate to (or led to) that event's occurrence. Furthermore, the tenets of fruitful discussion require finding a common ground among participants in the conversation in order to build a productive set of concepts; Marxists often will (and should!) find themselves starting from those aforementioned material conditions when forming their arguments, and (unfortunately for most of us) we all can agree that the class divide is the most impactful, if broad, set of conditions that underlies the behavior of our ruling class (and those downstream of their decisions). Given that our elected officials are the most signficant piece of our political superstructure, it's only natural that conversations about recent newsworthy events will converge back onto the topic of the behavior of those elected officials. Shutting down discussion of a broad topic such as their behavior under the pretense of being chock-full of "stale arguments" is therefore responsible (perhaps paradoxically) for the continued degradation of the discussion at hand, as it pushes conversation further away from a materialist view of the underlying sources of conflict that led to the event in question, which results (as we've seen) in clearly-frustrated, emotionally-driven posting that leads to ad hominem attacks and straw person arguments. Given the unpredictable application of punishments for the "stale argument" rule, I don't believe that it has had a true chilling effect, per se, on the broader class of American politics conversations, but I do believe the inability of the current suite of moderators to otherwise guide posters toward a more fruitful resolution of conflicting views is just as damaging to the longevity of a specific discussion. I've seen Koos attempt what I believe to be a steering in the vein I describe, but it often comes across as being adversarial to posters instead of something that more plainly aims to find consensus among participants about points of low-level material reality. So it's no surprise to me that when that fails, posters end up spinning in circles until the conversation dies or a big batch of probations needs to be given. Furthermore, these events just serve to breed more negative relationships between posters as attacks become more personal and folks are talking past each other or misinterpreting each others' words. So, in short, I believe that moderators should approach their role as posters (when not clearly engaged in the material as a typical "normal poster") as more of a committee chairperson steering a group toward productive ends, and less of a police officer looking for tickets to write or posters to threaten. Thanks for your time reading this, and the only other point I'll add is that while I think that Leon is a "bad poster", if his planned moderation philosophy (which has high-level points clearly in line with what I've just written) is truly given a shot, I predict he'll quickly become a more efficacious contributer to the overall positive health of D&D than any recent moderation style changes have produced. So I hope that he's given enough latitude and support to implement the sorts of policies he's shared in other threads as being in line with his goals. Well, I would agree, in the sense that I don't think it's a good idea to shut down discussion of the behavior of elected officials. That's certainly not what the rule is intended for.
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Aug 1, 2022 00:09
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Professor Beetus posted:Should I assume someone popping into the DND feedback thread to post about cool CSPAM threads is doing so out of good faith and generosity? The assumption of good faith does not need to be an endless font of naivete. Yes
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Aug 1, 2022 00:15
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500 good dogs posted:but I do believe the inability of the current suite of moderators to otherwise guide posters toward a more fruitful resolution of conflicting views is just as damaging to the longevity of a specific discussion. I've seen Koos attempt what I believe to be a steering in the vein I describe, but it often comes across as being adversarial to posters instead of something that more plainly aims to find consensus among participants about points of low-level material reality. So it's no surprise to me that when that fails, posters end up spinning in circles until the conversation dies or a big batch of probations needs to be given. Furthermore, these events just serve to breed more negative relationships between posters as attacks become more personal and folks are talking past each other or misinterpreting each others' words. So, in short, I believe that moderators should approach their role as posters (when not clearly engaged in the material as a typical "normal poster") as more of a committee chairperson steering a group toward productive ends, and less of a police officer looking for tickets to write or posters to threaten. It's not been enormously controversial in my several years moderating DND that productive engagement generally works better than doing all our moderation through buttons. It also takes a lot more time and mental and emotional energy. This is in turn one of the reasons having a good number of ikmod staff is good, because spreading the effort of Moderating Correctly around reduces the burnout it can cause.
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Aug 1, 2022 00:16
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Whoops. Didn't meant to unsticky. I set the duration to 2 days and thought that would be up for a few more hours.
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Aug 1, 2022 00:22
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Gros Tarla posted:I agree, it almost always devolves into threadshitting. Although I don't see either side being worse than the other, it's just 100% poo poo on all fronts. I just skip all that poo poo personally. And god drat, sometimes it does take over, pages after pages. Sometimes I load up SA, think something big happened because there's 900+ new posts but nope. Just two assholes talking past each other making GBS threads up the whole thread, and actual Current Events getting lost in their midst. And most of the time, that fight started around that topic. We had such a thread during the 2020 primaries/general election, when I was an IK here. Unfortunately, it quickly became a containment zone for basically any criticism of Biden and the Democratic establishment. There was good discussion, but not much debate, beyond a few alt-centrist trolls who would wander in occasionally and embarrass themselves before leaving. I enjoyed the thread, but again, it wasn't much of a "debate" thread. The sad reality was, centrist posters in DnD simply didn't want to discuss the bad things about Biden and the Dems anywhere, and they often still don't. Main Paineframe posted:Sounds like we're ripe for a thread about analyzing current political issues from a Marxist perspective! This is more than enough words for an OP. There was already a thread like this, too. Strangely enough, not too many non-Marxists showed up to debate, so it also became another chat thread. Majorian fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Aug 1, 2022 |
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Aug 1, 2022 00:28
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Professor Beetus posted:You know what, thinking on it for a minute, you two were right to call that out and I 100% should have just ignored that post, there was no need to jump on it regardless of whatever that poster's intentions may or may not have been. Mea culpa and if someone really wants me to fall on my sword, so be it. Honestly a really chill response, thank you and it's not a big deal it's just a style of posting I see here a lot and drives me nuts. I don't know what to call it and I don't really know how to explain it but I really do think that little interaction is a great example of one of the things I think really derails threads, starts fights, and gets very little attention. One person posts a belief or idea they have about a subject, the next poster reads it and picks up something between the lines that they find so offensive that this just has to be trolling and then reacts accordingly, and the discussion quickly goes off the rails as two people post earnestly at someone who they're absolutely convinced has to be trolling. And that poo poo when it's not caught and told to knock it off it just builds and builds because both posters become absolutely convinced they're not just right but the good guy in this position. I'm not even sure if there's a great way to make rules around it but if we're trying a softer touch I think mods and IKs need to push back on situations where posters read between the lines and then jump to conclusions instead of at least asking the other poster to explain their position. Part of civil debate is allowing people the ability to rephrase and explain their position since we can all really recognize that the written word is not perfect at expressing meaning.
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Aug 1, 2022 00:30
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Gumball Gumption posted:Honestly a really chill response, thank you and it's not a big deal it's just a style of posting I see here a lot and drives me nuts. I don't know what to call it and I don't really know how to explain it but I really do think that little interaction is a great example of one of the things I think really derails threads, starts fights, and gets very little attention. personally this is why i stopped reading d&d, the ratio of informative posts to combative posts is way too out of whack. some folks post about politics because they want to find and defeat posting enemies, or because they have anxiety and are blowing off steam, or because they want to convince themselves that they are right and good, and all of this stuff is just boring to read. it encourages people to develop imaginative headcanons about how the posters they don't like are clearly disturbed fascists who must be opposed at all costs, which is a really cringey LARP way to post if you're not interested in the mighty dialectical struggle of it all my entirely personal opinion is that too much social media consumption drives people into adopting a trendy mindset of extreme pessimism, which is really just a form of emotional self-harm. its like political flagellation and it infects a lot of internet discussion outside of the forums, but it exists here as well, and it undercuts discussion because failing to signal a sufficient level of emotional misery about the state of the world is itself morally suspicious to some
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Aug 1, 2022 00:37
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GreyjoyBastard posted:It's not been enormously controversial in my several years moderating DND that productive engagement generally works better than doing all our moderation through buttons. It also takes a lot more time and mental and emotional energy. This is in turn one of the reasons having a good number of ikmod staff is good, because spreading the effort of Moderating Correctly around reduces the burnout it can cause. This makes complete sense. One thing I keep hearing is that D&D's moderation burden and burnout rate is disproportionately high compared to viewers/posters. Any idea why that is? Adding and placing trust in IKs seems like part of a good solution (one I've advocated for myself). Is it also possible there are posting or moderation culture changes that would help things?
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Aug 1, 2022 00:41
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speng31b posted:This makes complete sense. One thing I keep hearing is that D&D's moderation burden and burnout rate is disproportionately high compared to viewers/posters. Any idea why that is? Adding and placing trust in IKs seems like part of a good solution (one I've advocated for myself). Is it also possible there are posting or moderation culture changes that would help things? The main reason is that US politics threads primarily are a jousting arena for people engaging in virtue signalling or ritual combat with their posting enemies. Very few seem to go there with candid interest of having a conversation with other people. For comparison, the non-American part of D&D produces at most 1/5 the reports that the American does, and the list of thread/forum bans attributable to people not knowing when to stop posting about the US is more than 10 times longer than the rest of it.
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Aug 1, 2022 00:49
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Gumball Gumption posted:Honestly a really chill response, thank you and it's not a big deal it's just a style of posting I see here a lot and drives me nuts. I don't know what to call it and I don't really know how to explain it but I really do think that little interaction is a great example of one of the things I think really derails threads, starts fights, and gets very little attention. Yeah, I think it's pretty crucial for mods to be able to take a step back and recognize when they've perhaps made a bad call or lashed out too quickly. Simply acknowledging "hey my bad" can do a lot to defuse tension and remind folks that we're all just human beings trying to navigate this poo poo as best we can. As to your last paragraph, that was pretty much the philosophy I used when I was more actively modding the COVID thread. My thinking was essentially "hey, no one is on the side of the virus, and pretty much all of the disagreement/debate in there is going to come from differing opinions on how to respond to it and deal with it most effectively." And for the most part this was true, although I did find myself dealing with the downside of a softer touch as well, which sometimes meant getting a little walked on or giving enough leeway that problem posters were able to come back and start making GBS threads things up as long as they could figure out how to keep on the mask a little bit longer. But I'm still proud of how well that thread did overall, particularly in the early days. It's also a case where we were certainly grateful for some of the resources offered by the CSPAM thread, particularly the ones focused on PPE. Anyway yeah, nobody's perfect and we can all strive to do better, especially mods. And I don't expect any high praise for this or anything, tbh this type of thinking should imo simply be the baseline for where moderating begins. e: Usually when I see reports outside of USCE it's reports from the Oceania posters enforcing their rather strict thread immigration rules against posters visiting from the US.
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Aug 1, 2022 00:51
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sounds as if there might be 10x more americans posting on here doesn't it?
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Aug 1, 2022 00:51
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Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:personally this is why i stopped reading d&d, the ratio of informative posts to combative posts is way too out of whack. some folks post about politics because they want to find and defeat posting enemies, or because they have anxiety and are blowing off steam, or because they want to convince themselves that they are right and good, and all of this stuff is just boring to read. it encourages people to develop imaginative headcanons about how the posters they don't like are clearly disturbed fascists who must be opposed at all costs, which is a really cringey LARP way to post if you're not interested in the mighty dialectical struggle of it all I find the combativeness exhausting though I'll admit it's because I'm also guilty of this and when I see it happening turn into my own form of combative poster about it. I'm not a not angry person. I don't think everything should be taken in good faith or read hyper literally but people should at least be given a courtesy "Do you really mean to say hug and kiss Hitler as your logical conclusion when you said everyone is a bit good and evil?" And then able to explain themselves.
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Aug 1, 2022 00:51
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Stringent posted:sounds as if there might be 10x more americans posting on here doesn't it? No, UKMT alone is about as active as the US threads combined. D&D on the whole is majority non-American, talking about non-American things.
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Aug 1, 2022 00:52
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cinci zoo sniper posted:No, UKMT alone is about as active as the US threads combined. D&D on the whole is majority non-American, talking about non-American things. that's p cool
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Aug 1, 2022 00:53
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Stringent posted:sounds as if there might be 10x more americans posting on here doesn't it? cinci zoo sniper posted:No, UKMT alone is about as active as the US threads combined. D&D on the whole is majority non-American, talking about non-American things. US Politics posting in D&D is a minority of its traffic, as cinci said, UKMT by itself is similar traffic to US CE. It's just that US stuff creates most of the reports and conflict. I compiled this data last December when I was snowed in, so it's a little bit old, but illustrates the general point. Here were the top 25 threads in D&D by traffic as of Dec 2021: 
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Aug 1, 2022 00:58
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Majorian posted:There was already a thread like this, too. Strangely enough, not too many non-Marxists showed up to debate, so it also became another chat thread. Just as a general rule, if the thread wants a debate between Marxists and non-Marists, I don't think it should start with "This is a thread for those who want to discuss Leftist theory and write long screeds" Speaking as a non-Marxist who doesn't want to read or write long screeds and who finds Marxist theory incomprehensible. The thread seems like it's intended for inter-Lefist discussion, which is fine. The name of the forum isn't just Debate. It's Debate and Discussion. Personally, I'd just sometimes like to be able to look at USCE and have a discussion on a current news event without it being derailed into how yhe US is a terrible country and part of an inevitable slide towards fascism, but I've come to terms that that won't happen, so....
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Aug 1, 2022 01:01
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For a comparative number, Ukraine thread in February/March spent a few weeks at 1600-3600 posts per day.
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Aug 1, 2022 01:03
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My feedback is unban the bot that was posting top 10 reasons to have a driving license as he was the most productive US CE poster
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Aug 1, 2022 01:11
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Epicurius posted:Just as a general rule, if the thread wants a debate between Marxists and non-Marists, I don't think it should start with what not reading theory does to a mf
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Aug 1, 2022 01:12
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Main Paineframe posted:Sounds like we're ripe for a thread about analyzing current political issues from a Marxist perspective! This is more than enough words for an OP. If you mean a thread discussing the set of skills used in applying a Marxist perspective to world events then I think that'd be pretty boring and there are better methods (i.e. textbooks or YouTube lectures depending upon personal preference.) If you mean a thread where people apply that perspective to world events as they happen, then I think USCE is already the thread for that, and often times if posters would more explicitly state their interpretations regarding the material conditions of a given event that it would be in a better place (hence my suggestion regarding moderators pushing discussion in that direction when there's unconstructive conflict). Sorry, I could elaborate more on either point but I'm kind of out of words for the day. But I will point out, at risk of "upsetting" Professor Beetus, that for me the CSPAM marxism thread was a great introduction to the intersection of Marxism and historic events. It's not really what you're talking about, but anyone broadly interested in "Marxism" should definitely check it out. (It's also probably the least shitposty/aggro thread in the entire subforum, for what it's worth.) cinci zoo sniper posted:Thank you for feedback! I hope you don't mind that I've taken the liberty to proofread and stylistically edit your letter, for improved readability. Good luck ever making it readable, lol. GreyjoyBastard posted:It's not been enormously controversial in my several years moderating DND that productive engagement generally works better than doing all our moderation through buttons. It also takes a lot more time and mental and emotional energy. This is in turn one of the reasons having a good number of ikmod staff is good, because spreading the effort of Moderating Correctly around reduces the burnout it can cause. Yeah, I definitely understand. I've been in that type of role for years as part of my day job and it's the least enjoyable part of the day. Koos Group posted:Well, I would agree, in the sense that I don't think it's a good idea to shut down discussion of the behavior of elected officials. That's certainly not what the rule is intended for. I don't want to type another huge paragraph, but to analyze the behavior of our elected officials is necessarily going to involve "stale arguments" because the same core "features" of our political superstructure stem from a limited set of historical events (and even more limited list of names -- our politicians have all been in office a billion years!), and those common threads weave through any news story about proposed legislature, posters generating ideas regarding solutions to problems, etc.. For example, "the Manchin problem" in the Senate is obviously relevant to legislature-related news story, and while I'm not proposing we discuss ad nauseum whether "one more Democrate Senator" can (or will) solve all of our problems, it can still be fruitful to incorporate that reality into a conversation even if it's been discussed in context of other events. So I'd like to see posters who make such "stale"-looking arguments "called out" in a more productive way. And if they turn out to have just been trolling, then ban them or whatever, but I've seen "stale argument" punishments (or threats) prematurely killed conversations that I think were still fruitful in a non-toxic way. I'm going to stop typing, though, because my family wants me to go Touch Grass, so this is a woefully inadequate response to what you've said, I just felt bad "ignoring" your post when I was answering others without saying anything. edit: I missed some posts while I was writing this so apologies if some parts were already covered by other people
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Aug 1, 2022 01:13
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Epicurius posted:Just as a general rule, if the thread wants a debate between Marxists and non-Marists, I don't think it should start with I think Cpt Obvious was being tongue-in-cheek with that comment. quote:The name of the forum isn't just Debate. It's Debate and Discussion. Right, and the sub's got the "discussion" part covered pretty well. The problem, at least as I see it, is that it does not encourage healthy, constructive debate.
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Aug 1, 2022 01:23
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cinci zoo sniper posted:For a comparative number, Ukraine thread in February/March spent a few weeks at 1600-3600 posts per day. When the war first began, as Fritz noted, D&D was the most heavily trafficked subforum for a couple weeks until it came back down. For all the talk about D&D dying, it is at worst, the 5th most popular subforum (with a casual glance now, the order of viewers is GBS, CSPAM, Games, PYF, then D&D.) Fritz has noted that over the past couple years, the posters in D&D have almost all turned over, but the amount of viewers is close to the same. I think (again, just my gut here, no data) more than other subforums, D&D has a higher percentage of lurkers, and not posters, which is also why things blew up after the war began - if you want to read someplace and get new information while not needing to contribute yourself, then come to D&D! When I read people saying that any discussion pushed out of general chat threads will make those topics die on the vine, I say...maybe threads are supposed to just fall off the first page. This happens in other subforums. At the same time, you shouldn't feel bad for posting in a topic that hasn't had a new post in 3 months - hey, something happened, please tell others about it. I get why people don't want to make new threads. I've been a poster here for 12 years and I think I can count the number of threads I have made on one hand (which includes the past 2 USCEs.) People post in larger threads because they think that is where other posters are. No one wants to make a new thread and see it only get a couple posts and end - why did I spent an hour writing this sweet OP to get no response? Maybe this topic is stupid...maybe I'm stupid. No one wants to feel like that. So better be safe to just keep posting where everyone else is. There have been a couple people here who have also said that they are afraid to post something because they think it will get a sixer - and I get that as well, but unless you're posting no-context tweets, usually the thing I like to see the most get posted is links to articles about something happening. There have been several discussions in the mod forum about the impact of megathreads and what is the best way for users to view the forums as a whole - there is no actual data for this, but everyone thinks that the growth of megathreads started when more users began only viewing the forums through their bookmarks instead of casually browsing everywhere. And if that is how you mainly view SA as a whole, then you wouldn't want new topics. For the most part, the mods/admin team have the opinion that viewing SA like this leads to more cliquey behavior and would rather have people looking at everything together - but the genie is out of the bottle on that one, and has been for a decade. Since I've been a mod, I try to get out of my bookmarks and read other threads in D&D and in other forums.
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Aug 1, 2022 01:27
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I think people who, after getting proven categorically wrong over and over, but who continue to post the equivalent of "well, nevertheless..." should be straight up banned. They're the worst people posting in any thread where debate is supposed to be supported with facts from reliable sources. This goes for anyone of any ideology. One of the reasons I don't post in D&D much anymore is because those people refuse to admit that they're wrong and continue to poo poo up every argument And I'm glad we're talking about "stale arguments" because that's the most bullshit rule that seems to have been invented completely at random recently. They're not "stale arguments", they're having to remind people who are Wrong that they're still Wrong and why they're still Wrong. If morons aren't going to change their minds or their posting based on factual, provable reality, then they should not be allowed to post here
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Aug 1, 2022 01:28
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Feedback on the UKMT, the only place I post in here: great, fine, a good place to post Feedback on the US part of D&D, where I occasionally tread by accident: if the posting or modding in the UKMT ever ends up like the US threads then I'll just stop posting here altogether. Whoever it was who said all threads should aspire to be like the Ukraine thread should be forum banned. See you in three months
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Aug 1, 2022 01:30
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cinci zoo sniper posted:The main reason is that US politics threads primarily are a jousting arena for people engaging in virtue signalling or ritual combat with their posting enemies. Very few seem to go there with candid interest of having a conversation with other people. For comparison, the non-American part of D&D produces at most 1/5 the reports that the American does, and the list of thread/forum bans attributable to people not knowing when to stop posting about the US is more than 10 times longer than the rest of it. It's not surprising that the US politics threads get that kind of, um, enthusiastic attention. It's probably a step in the right direction that you've dedicated some moderation there that hopefully doesn't actively hate the thread and view it as a battleground for ritual combat and virtue signalling and poor conversation etc. Whether that sentiment is true of the thread or not, it's certainly not great that anyone who feels that way about it is encouraged to moderate it. That's not a healthy environment and will lead to burnout.
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Aug 1, 2022 01:31
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Not sure what’s the problem with creating a thread for a very valid and major issue, and letting all interested individuals participate in it. Jarmak posted:This is the issue. People don't want their pet issues put into topical threads because they know there's not enough interest to actually sustain them. So they want to be able to force it. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" isn't a terrible maxim to hold as you're trying to guide discussion, but it breaks down when people can't agree on what the extraordinary claims are. Currently "the Democrats do not have an ideological project and their primary and perhaps sole purpose within our political system is to prevent leftward movement - thus as a party they are uninterested in acquiring and wielding power" is something of an extraordinary claim in USCE while "the Democrats are an ordinary political party" is not. If you react to current events in D&D while holding the former view, you will catch probations frequently as other posters (who don't agree with many of your premises) will force the discussion to drill down to that belief. Over and over. You probably won't be allowed to merely assert that the Dems are bad for the sake of argument by the person (or people) you're debating with, and neither will you be able to debate whether the Dems are bad (rightly, of course, as it's the USCE thread not the Dems Are Bad thread) by the moderation team. So you're stuck, and you can't really participate as a peer in USCE. (Note that the inverse doesn't apply, however: since "the Democrats are an ordinary political party" is not treated as an extraordinary claim, you can freely react to current events in USCE while taking that as a given. If you're challenged on it you're free to insist that the terms of discussion be that your debate partner prove that they aren't (which very quickly turns into the situation previously discussed), or you can refuse to engage at all thereby "winning" the argument since the underlying assumptions that support your argument can never be challenged, while your partner's can.) I don't know if there's a good way to square this circle for what it's worth, but I know that "create a thread about it" isn't the answer since the question isn't "how can I debate whether the Democrats are bad?" Most of the people having trouble with D&D don't really want to do that, I think - they want to react to current events in a social context that is actively hostile to basically the entire ideological framework that informs how they react to those current events. I don't know what compels them to desire that but it'd probably be better for most of them if they just stopped.
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Aug 1, 2022 01:49
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Main Paineframe posted:If you want to make a data-driven case for D&D 4th Edition being the best D&D flavor ever, with a heavily-sourced comparative evaluation of each edition, are you going to post that in the Trad Games Chat thread or in the Dungeons and Dragons thread? You’d do it in the trad games chat thread as it’s a settled topic in three of the FOUR D&D edition specific threads and banned as a topic in the last (the 5e thread). Bad example 
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Aug 1, 2022 02:00
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MSDOS KAPITAL posted:You're both conflating two very different things: posting in a thread about whether the Dems are bad, and posting in the current events thread while thinking the Dems are bad. ("Dems are bad" is just an example of course.) This is a good example of why it's more important than ever to keep things grounded in facts and sources in D&D. As social media and irresponsible journalism have encouraged the growth of conspiracy theories across the ideological spectrum all over the internet, US political discussion has been more eager than ever to line up a few factual and verifiable pieces, build a trampoline out of them, and then bounce their conclusion way out into a totally unfalsifiable stratosphere where the argument floats around on conjecture and speculation rather than being supported by unambiguous direct evidence. It's frankly an enormous pain in the rear end to argue with that kind of stuff. yeah, the analogy is halfassed, bite me  Arivia posted:You’d do it in the trad games chat thread as it’s a settled topic in three of the FOUR D&D edition specific threads and banned as a topic in the last (the 5e thread). Bad example Sounds to me like you could do it in the D&D threads, but that a mod or IK would likely probate you for dragging up arguments that most of the thread is sick of.  Maybe it's not such a bad example after all.
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Aug 1, 2022 02:07
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Main Paineframe posted:As social media and irresponsible journalism have encouraged the growth of conspiracy theories across the ideological spectrum all over the internet, US political discussion has been more eager than ever to line up a few factual and verifiable pieces, build a trampoline out of them, and then bounce their conclusion way out into a totally unfalsifiable stratosphere where the argument floats around on conjecture and speculation rather than being supported by unambiguous direct evidence. It's frankly an enormous pain in the rear end to argue with that kind of stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REWeBzGuzCc
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Aug 1, 2022 02:12
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The stale arguments rule is idiotic because it privileges gross, bad opinions. Because the only thing that triggers it is responding. You can express the same disgusting opinions however many times you want, but people only get to refute you once. Someone says the same gross poo poo again, in a slightly different way? Thats fine. Refute that, the same way you did before? Now you're arguing, stale-style. also itd be cool if any of the eight mods addressed the text of the post that got cat bothered probed, that flaming stink has posted about multiple times in this thread about, and everyone has politely ignored.
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Aug 1, 2022 02:18
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studio mujahideen posted:The stale arguments rule is idiotic because it privileges gross, bad opinions. Because the only thing that triggers it is responding. You can express the same disgusting opinions however many times you want, but people only get to refute you once. Koos Group posted:Yes, I've been speaking to flaming stink in private and now believe I should have hashed it out in the thread rather than a probo. The reason for it is that poster personalities are de-emphasized in D&D and we shouldn't tell anyone not to participate in a discussion. Miss stink has clarified what she intended and asked me to post it, which was to communicate the gravity of the arguments Leon was making, which she believes are supporting rhetoric that can lead to dead queer people. She felt the best way to make Leon understand was to ask him to stop posting for a moment and consider. Koos addressed the Leon post and unnecessary probe several hours after they occurred.
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Aug 1, 2022 02:28
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Most of that post is Koos explaining something everybody else figured out already, and apologizing for a bad probe. The meat of the post lies unaddressed: that mods posting opinions like that is loving gross, and creates a space that's hostile to certain classes of people. Mods are posters, and I know the new style sees any kind of horrific view as valid to post if you link to a study, but the people in power saying poo poo like that means more to the lurking reader than if I say it. Should it not? Probably, but anyone saying it doesn't, well, lol.
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Aug 1, 2022 02:35
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Main Paineframe posted:This is a good example of why it's more important than ever to keep things grounded in facts and sources in D&D. What you're attempting to do here is to declare one set of premises "ordinary" and another set of premises "extraordinary" and justify this arbitrary arrangement with "take it to another thread." Of course, what happens in that other thread would have no bearing on what happens in USCE, and anyway even if it did, only the people whose premises are currently labeled "extraordinary" would have any incentive to participate. You are manifestly attempting to steer discussion in the direction that you, personally, desire, but you insist that everyone play along with you in this fantasy that you are grounding everything in "facts and sources" when the issue at hand is precisely what framework to use when discussing these facts and sources and drawing conclusions from them.
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Aug 1, 2022 02:42
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MSDOS KAPITAL posted:You're both conflating two very different things: posting in a thread about whether the Dems are bad, and posting in the current events thread while thinking the Dems are bad. ("Dems are bad" is just an example of course.) Calling something not ordinary is literally what extraordinary means. You don't get to decide extraordinary claims are just tenants of your ideology as a cheat code to having them be accepted by fiat. Having them be accepted as uncontroversial by a small number of people you chat with online does not make them them ordinary. It's like arguing with someone who believes the bible is the literal word of god and won't stop using that fact to justify every position despite the people they're arguing with not being Christian. You can't talk about anything without it instantly becoming about whether god is real.
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Aug 1, 2022 02:45
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It seems like every regime of DnD has been a steady uptick in probes per day from the start of the regime to the eventual end of it. It'll go from the most laissez affair style of moderation to full authoritarianism thought police level probations for effort posts that are definitely in good faith. I mean there was a literal Holocaust denier going around probing anyone who posted anti Russia statements for a month at a time. The whole ramp bullshit that ended up having people probated for a month at a time every 3 posts. It's been said a bunch but it absolutely feels like positions are moderated as a standard. Expecting people to serious post in threads that are discussing horrible topics is just awful. And the whole 'then don't post' thing is just more of the same. Lightening up the mood or attempting to do so is sometimes nice to see in a thread discussing the destruction of women's rights or some other example. WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Aug 1, 2022 |
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Aug 1, 2022 02:46
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:It seems like every regime of DnD has been a steady uptick in probes per day from the start of the regime to the eventual end of it. It'll go from the most laissez affair style of moderation to full authoritarianism thought police level probations for effort posts that are definitely in good faith. the big thing is that it's just stupid to have multiple politics forums because it means that each inevitably is forced into some kind of identity as opposed to just being a place where you can enforce 'make good posts, don't post like poo poo and don't be an egregious rear end in a top hat' Feedback threads are always going to cover the same ground as long as SA is set up this way because as long as the forums have to have some kind of identity, people are going to be at eachothers throats about what that identity should be. Personally I think that a ton of what gets talked about as subforum specific problems isn't really in the scope of stuff that can be addressed at the subforum level
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Aug 1, 2022 02:56
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Jarmak posted:Calling something not ordinary is literally what extraordinary means. You don't get to decide extraordinary claims are just tenants of your ideology as a cheat code to having them be accepted by fiat. Having them be accepted as uncontroversial by a small number of people you chat with online does not make them them ordinary. It's like arguing with someone who believes the bible is the literal word of god and won't stop using that fact to justify every position despite the people they're arguing with not being Christian. You can't talk about anything without it instantly becoming about whether god is real. "Extraordinary" of course always carries with it the social context in which the word was used. What is "extraordinary" in one place is ordinary in another, in my example as well as yours. What I'm getting at here is not that I disagree with D&D over what is extraordinary and what is not (I do, but it's beside the point) but rather that "discuss the extraordinary things in a separate thread" misses the mark because most of the people involved don't want to debate that exactly: they want to discuss current events in a context where their basic assumptions of how the world works are held to be "ordinary" both by the people enforcing the rules and most of the people involved in the discussion. Not everyone's going to be able to get that in one place, I don't think - there is some room for differences of opinion of course but past a certain point incompatible systems of belief are incompatible. I think the current moderation team actually gets this to some degree but I wanted to explicitly call it out because I think it's important to recognize. The reason I think it's important is well-illustrated by Main Paineframe's post actually: there is a world of difference between "we are holding these specific beliefs systems to be ordinary here because we've arrived at that conclusion via some kind of social consensus" and "we are holding these specific belief systems to be ordinary here because they are the ones supported by 'facts and sources.'" The former recognizes that social consensus exists (and thus, that it can change) while the latter does not. The former is more likely to react to a new consensus, should one appear, with acceptance (and, more likely to allow one to appear), while the latter would, oh hell I dunno, probably exercise its power to harass people it doesn't like, for years, before finally melting down, quitting, and moaning about how much better things used to be.
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Aug 1, 2022 03:10
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