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On the topic of moderation, I left the same feedback the above posters mentioned about the probation policy feeling too arbitrary in the last feedback thread. Almost identical to what some people are saying now, and also the main reason I've entirely given up on trying to post in d&d. On a semi related topic, I saw this particular probe yesterday in the Leper's Colony, and I've been on the fence about saying something or PMing someone. It's probably not worth a QCS thread or whatever but since there's a feedback thread, here it is. The probation reason just seems kind of hosed up and casually contemptful if not meant seriously, which is certainly how it comes across in context. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=3993516&pagenumber=1759&perpage=40#post525182307 quote:Go to a therapist. User loses posting privileges for 1 day. If a moderator is sincerely suggesting that a poster seek therapy I'm hoping there's something more going on behind the scenes than what it appears at a glance. Just my 2c.
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Jul 31, 2022 00:33
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cinci zoo sniper posted:That poster has a long history of posting with the sole purpose of receiving reassurances that whatever they’re worried today - in context of the U/R thread it’s global nuclear war usually - is not about to pass. They’ve received repeated written warnings and probations for it in the thread, and other mods have told me that they post similarly in other threads at times as well. Yeah, before I posted this I checked the user's rap sheet so I am aware of the history to some degree. Regardless, the post doesn't seem insincere, so a probe reason of "get therapy" still seems especially callous and not especially appropriate. Just my feedback.
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Jul 31, 2022 00:56
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Oh, I’m fairly sure they’re not a gimmick account, which is why they got a sincere recommendation. It’s absolutely not healthy to be concerned with dying in a hellfire on a weekly basis. Hahaha, alright, if you feel like that response was appropriate and sincere I'll leave it there.
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Jul 31, 2022 01:06
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FistEnergy posted:In my opinion D&D's ever-expanding rule list and routine probes-without-warnings absolutely stifle discussion and I no longer have any interest in posting in what (years ago) used to be my favorite subforum. Now I just keep up with a few interesting/amusing threads and do my posting in subforums that don't make me feel like my boss is watching over my shoulder the entire time. I guess just empty quoting this is probably discouraged so I'll reiterate -- similar to feedback I left in the last feedback thread -- this matches my experience as well. On the "moderate positions" stuff-- it seems like we're taking for granted that an acceptable consequence is occasionally humoring someone's bigoted thought experiments or devil's advocacy session as long as it doesn't seem to be insincere bigotry. I'm personally not down for that. I find it stressful and just have to kind of look away from it when it does happen. The risk of this kind of policy is that the people tasked with educating others on why their bigotry is bad will understandably burn out, and then we're just left with a toxic posting environment. I think it's pretty close to that now. Not being required to even casually humor that kind of lovely posting is otherwise a nice benefit of SA. I also agree that the litany of rules and especially thread specific subjective rules about what topics are "stale" make it difficult to want to post in most other threads around here, especially long running threads. I haven't been posting in SA for 20+ years but definitely a long time, and I'd agree that in my personal opinion the combination of "shoot from the hip" probe stuff without the part that adds "this isn't a place for your thought experiments about bigotry" makes it an undesirable sub to post in, but I'm also willing to contrinue to accept maybe this sub just isn't "for me" anymore and treat it accordingly.
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Jul 31, 2022 17:26
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Anonymity in primary chat is a weird thing and affects communities in ways that are mostly predictable but still chaotic. The biggest effect it would have is make the meta-community (discord or whatever) much more powerful than the primary one. What I'm saying is, the results would be funny but I can in no way seriously recommend it.
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Jul 31, 2022 18:02
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Koos Group posted:If the former were my reasoning, I would have no problem saying it or incentive not to say it. The idea of D&D having an educational purpose is traditional according to the prior generation of mods, and accords with what I myself want from such a board. I'd ultimately just like a place where I can read more sophisticated analysis of relevant issues and events than elsewhere on the internet, where people are intellectually creative, where different ideologies are tested in-depth, and where common arguments are examined critically when there wouldn't be the time or good faith to do so elsewhere. In short, I'd like it to be interesting. Every guideline is geared toward that one way or another. Well, right now it's interesting, but mostly as a game of chance to figure out whether you'll be able to post here on some topic without eating a probe, or respond to someone espousing a bigoted viewpoint without eating a probe. To be fair I think the probes overwhelmingly target poo poo posts, but the net also catches people who are just trying to break into a topic, and whether that's a worthwhile tradeoff is a matter of perspective. I think you can probably figure out how to mostly post in between the lines, but by doing so the culture is pretty insular and I don't think I'd agree it raises the quality of discussions at the end of the day. speng31b fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Jul 31, 2022 |
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Jul 31, 2022 19:03
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XboxPants posted:There is another side to all this. I started posting again in D&D this year after avoiding it for several years, and I'll agree with feeling unsure about what topics are okay, and individual threads feeling like a minefield. That can encourage people to just leave, or come in and make a post and get bopped and leave. But, if you're not one of those, it can also encourage new posters to spend a few days/weeks/months mostly lurking and gradually getting used to the tone of the board, and encourage them to spend time carefully weighing their arguments or whether they even need to make a post at all. If those things are priorities to the mod staff, then this environment actually makes sense. Like, OH NO, you have to actually consider whether your post is a bunch of poo poo before posting. Yeah, at the end of the day this is why I can only present my feedback here as one past-DnD poster's opinion of the current state. I think the arbitrary and heavy handed nature of the punishments, and the way they're designed to enforce insular and thread specific cultures, is not for me. But, if that's working as designed and a significant chunk of posters like that design, I can't argue against it in principle. All I can say is that it stops me, personally, from wanting to post in such an environment, and I don't find it enjoyable. I don't personally love the combo of "here's your probe for this post that I thought was boring or stale and didn't add to the discourse, but feel free to sincerely debate whether gay people are the plague horsemen or trans people deserve basic human dignity."
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Jul 31, 2022 19:58
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I don't think it's going to lead to anything helpful to turn the d&d feedback thread into a cspam vs d&d thing, so I genuinely don't want to pile onto that dump, but one thing I will say is that the discussion on the last few pages does a pretty good job of highlighting how subjective decisions regarding what kind of topic is "stale" or "off topic" (the two being used interchangeably to shut down discussion), and the given solution being "create a new thread for this topic," clearly and systemically will create an insular thread and sub culture that pushes differing points of view into different threads or subs, and that does seem to be what's happening. The reason is that the decision about what is stale or boring isn't purely rational and non ideological on behalf of moderation.
speng31b fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Jul 31, 2022 |
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Jul 31, 2022 22:16
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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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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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