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buglord posted:I’m a timid poster lol, but also I thought it was redundant. Unrelated, fingers crossed Finland gets in. I hope the door isn’t shut forever for Sweden, though im curious if they are at the same level of danger Finland is is despite not sharing a land border with Russia. It's a bit different for them but nothing drastic seems to be about to come. For the time being Russia has little leverage outside sabotage and hooliganism because everything is tied in Ukraine. Also, USA and UK gave security guarantees at the beginning of the process, so Sweden wouldn't be left alone and Russia knows this. Finally, Sweden's air force and navy were not defunded the same way that ground forces were, so there's not much of a likelihood of Russia trying to confront them in the Baltic Sea. In a different situation the Russian threat to Sweden in the Baltic would be a lot more formidable (if Putin's war happened in the Baltic area instead of Ukraine). But for other reasons it would be best if the Turkish blackmail ended quickly. The July NATO summit is important for making agreements on mutual plans, and it'd be a bit awkward if Sweden is left outside of the important tables there, as well as because NATO plans for support of Finland would have to be drawn around Sweden somehow. Like said, Russia is unlikely to start any new direct confrontations as their T-62's are needed elsewhere, but it's better to get this done while it lasts.
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Mar 30, 2023 20:18
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Antigravitas posted:That is deepl. It does okay with German German, but Austrian German plus lots of Konjunktiv produces results that need to be touched up a lot. It's hard to see Armenia thriving while being in conflict with Turkey and Azerbaijan. In the long term, moving closer to the west is probably the best option for Armenia. With a weak Russia and a somewhat reawakened west, now would probably be the time to make that transition, but it will be difficult. Georgia will be interesting for similar reasons. If Ukraine is wildly successful we might see major changes in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Not sure what capacity Russia has for reacting to those changes anymore.
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Mar 30, 2023 20:23
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aphid_licker posted:There's srsly nothing to be scared of, worst case you can't post for 6h. You can even continue to read all the posts. Some people don't want to deal with it especially if they are active in other threads on the forum. The heavy moderation for sure hinders discussion and drives away engagement. I know I have disengaged because of it myself and only check when something happens which the discussion has become worse over time. I think there is room for things to be a bit looser without ruining the thread. I know in the past there was good discussion going on about subjects and Cinci has came in and squashed it because they felt it had "run its course". I think the lack of levity hurts too because the subject is so heavy often sometimes it is nice to have a joke or two to lighten the mood. Like it shouldn't be a comedy thread and I don't think anyone engaging ever would confuse it with one. I think the current moderation tools given is insufficient for what you are trying to do with the thread as well. Tossing out Sixers for minor infractions that literally a "Hey don't do that" would suffice. I think maybe a popup warning and a 30-60 minute probation might be better tools if you are trying to keep discussion on a certain track. Granted this has been a complaint on these forums for eons and for whatever reason has never been implemented. If you are looking for more engagement then you will have make things much more welcoming for people to engage without fear of moderation for the slightest thing. If you are not interested in anyone new joining then you have a regular group of people involved which again you can likely take a step or two back and let things go with the flow unless there is a fire that you have to deal with.
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Mar 30, 2023 20:28
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HonorableTB posted:Cinci I feel like a lot of the reason you have a reputation for being iron fisted in moderation here, and why people might not be posting as much, is that you often come across as unnecessarily abrasive when dealing with people. You sometimes add unnecessary threats to your warnings, you're brusque and short in responding to people, and when you disagree with someone's points it can feel like the atmosphere is crowding out any room for people to disagree with you or your points for fear of catching a sixer or more due to the first two reasons I mentioned. I don't want to dogpile you personally Cinci and fwiw I think you've done a good (unpaid, thankless) job moderating this thread and keeping it on the rails overall. I also realize that no matter what you're always going to have people who think you're either too strict or too lax on enforcement. But this basically sums up why I don't post and "be the poster who steps up and makes the post with that link" as you replied to me. What if it was posted and I missed it? Abrasive reply or Sixer. What if it breaks a new rule, or a rule that I didn't catch in the wall-o-text rules page? Abrasive reply, sixer, or even a ban? What if you just decide it's not worthy of discussion in this thread? Abrasive reply or maybe a sixer. You may feel (and even be correct) that questionable admin actions in this thread are few and far between, or that your terse replies are perfectly reasonable and justified. But they do stand out in people's minds when they happen and my assertion was that it dampens activity in the thread because I know it has kept me personally from posting here. And a few others have since spoken up and expressed similar sentiments. Again I have personally considered posting things in this thread but I avoid it because why bother? It would be nice to share with others but I already know the information, and while a sixer or pithy reply isn't a big deal why risk limiting my ability to be involved elsewhere? I may only have time to engage for a few hours a day on SA and if I'm probed I can't participate in discussions in other threads. Again not a big deal and it's not like my world ends if I can't shitpost for a night on SA. But why potentially make it an issue when I could... just not? I'd rather this thread have a more open feel that encourages random people to join in and post content even if there's a risk of it being repetitive or ultimately not of interest. Frankly, the posting environment in this thread feels a bit stifled (subjective, I know). As it stands now I'd rather just extract what useful information there may be and go about my business elsewhere.
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Mar 30, 2023 20:29
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WarpedLichen posted:There is a video, as far as I saw it freeze framed before impact, I apologize if that is in error. This is something I expect tagged as  , since it shows act of violence, even if contact is never made.
cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Mar 30, 2023 |
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Mar 30, 2023 20:34
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A question on the ICC. How did guys like Slobedan Milosevic etc eventually end up there? Are they basically extridited by the current government of whatever country to the ICC?
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Mar 30, 2023 20:38
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Storkrasch posted:It's hard to see Armenia thriving while being in conflict with Turkey and Azerbaijan. In the long term, moving closer to the west is probably the best option for Armenia. Armenia can't really cozy up with the west due to both geography and because the west cares about Turkey 100 times more than it could ever care about Armenia, which closes a lot of doors.
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Mar 30, 2023 20:41
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I concur that the current moderation feels like it's too far on the strictness side. Though it sounds like some of that is the admins' doing, which is unfortunate.
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Mar 30, 2023 20:43
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Hakarne posted:I don't want to dogpile you personally Cinci and fwiw I think you've done a good (unpaid, thankless) job moderating this thread and keeping it on the rails overall. I also realize that no matter what you're always going to have people who think you're either too strict or too lax on enforcement. The bold part is interesting in that you suggest that it's unfair to expect you to read the thread rules, and that you suppose that you are unable to talk to people at all in this thread, in that you do not seem to allow a possibility that you, you know, just make a post and talk about it to someone. In addition to plainly overstating “what if I missed the link” angle, I have literally that 1 probation that was mentioned for thousands of reposts, as it was simply not practical to do so when the thread was faster and events were moving quicker. Also, what does “What if you just decide it's not worthy of discussion in this thread?” even mean – do you often go around threads and make random “this is too bad of a thread for me to participate in” posts? Don't do that, if you do so, is my advice for making friends online. In general, the whole vibe of this post, much like the previous post, is that you've made up your mind that this is not a thread that you're interested in posting. Which is perfectly fine, I also have threads where I decide that I simply am not interested in participating. What I'm curious to understand, though, is why then bother making that original post, that prompted me to eventually run this feedback session? If you're convinced that the thread is, well, not worthless, but clearly not good enough to either read or participate in it, what prompted you to make that initial post? Also, do my replies to that post factor into this post? Edit: Like, if this is supposed to be a “thread rules are unreadable” piece of feedback, then you're going about the worst way possible to deliver it.
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Mar 30, 2023 20:45
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Burns posted:A question on the ICC. How did guys like Slobedan Milosevic etc eventually end up there? Are they basically extridited by the current government of whatever country to the ICC? Pablo Bluth fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Mar 30, 2023 |
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Mar 30, 2023 20:48
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Burns posted:A question on the ICC. How did guys like Slobedan Milosevic etc eventually end up there? Are they basically extridited by the current government of whatever country to the ICC? After Milosevic was ousted following a lost election and subsequent strikes/protests when he refused to acquiesce he was originally arrested by Serbia under suspicion of corruption and abuse of power but the new government was pressured to turn him over to the ICC under threat of cutting off financial aid and they transferred him.
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Mar 30, 2023 20:48
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Haystack posted:Armenia can't really cozy up with the west due to both geography and because the west cares about Turkey 100 times more than it could ever care about Armenia, which closes a lot of doors. Aligning with Russia hasn't really worked out either. A west-aligned Armenia could potentially give it some diplomatic way out if its geographical issues, whereas a Russia-aligned Armenia probably can't. The CSTO doesn't seem to exist anymore since Russia went whole hog into Ukraine. Armenia seems to be making westward moves lately(Nancy Pelosi visit, anti-Russian protests, ICC statements), but NK will be a problem. Having the position that South Ossetia, Abkhazia, LNR and DNR are illegitimate while arguing that NK is 100% legitimate is tricky.
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Mar 30, 2023 21:00
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Storkrasch posted:Aligning with Russia hasn't really worked out either. A west-aligned Armenia could potentially give it some diplomatic way out if its geographical issues, whereas a Russia-aligned Armenia probably can't. The CSTO doesn't seem to exist anymore since Russia went whole hog into Ukraine. The OP's point is that Armenia isn't worth pissing off Turkey from the West's perspective, regardless of whether or not it's a good geopolitical strategy for Armenia itself.
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Mar 30, 2023 21:02
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Djarum posted:Some people don't want to deal with it especially if they are active in other threads on the forum. Edit: To avoid misunderstandings, this post is a (poorly phrased) reflection on how we got to the rules the thread has since the last summer. Neither meme spam nor digital frontline of war stuff are have been of any notable concern in at least half a year now, and really the problems that are being discussed in the post are best placed to late spring/early summer of 2022. Appreciate this, thank you. Lack of levity is a pickle, in that I'm not opposed to it in principle – I just have my own sense of humour, and don't find posting random 9gag-tier NAFO memes to be a humorous activity. Which then leads to this self-reinforcing effect where GBS-brained, not as an insult, joke posters feel targeted (since they are), whereas other posters get away with making almost every single joke they have ever posted, as they actually workshop their things and end up funny more often than not. I'm not opposed to humour, I just don't find low-effort humour, as well as anything repetitive, as particularly useful. And this is one of a few moderation stances that I have which I know to have a fairly clear engagement cost – since I'm not actually juicing numbers. Hitting an arbitrary target of 5 or 10 pages of posts per day would be relatively trivial, since I can drop rules well into the low end of what modalities of enforcement are possible on D&D – the thread's survival requires only adequate attitude to stuff and an active exclusion of posting about posters elsewhere.As for probations, “Hey don't do that” is what I normally do, in fact, i.e., simply asking people to wrap up a derail that might be interesting to someone, but is otherwise muddying up the thread – if they manage to last more than half a day. The reality is that some things simply have to be zero tolerance (trying to do cross-forum drama, which a lot of people really love, to an extent that it sometimes feels that they really believe they're on the frontlines here and 1 Ukrainian live will be saved if they own 1 poster in C-SPAM), and for some things, like tagging content, I do expect people to actually know the rules, and I only have so much patience or time to what was earlier happening, logging in and manually editing an untagged post and 30-50 quotes of it. We went through a very specific moderation arc on that, for example, where I kept posting thread warnings for a prolonged period of time that I'll start simply probating ff the hip for it, since, volunteer as I am, I didn't quite sign up to wipe anyone's butt here, when it comes to ignoring the rules and making posts that can actually affect someone in the thread, i.e., violent imagery shoved in one's face.
cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Mar 30, 2023 |
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Mar 30, 2023 21:10
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I'll try to address these as best as possible.cinci zoo sniper posted:The bold part is interesting in that you suggest that it's unfair to expect you to read the thread rules I believe you said the thread rules work out to what, 3 pages long? Is it really so far-fetched to think someone may read through 3 pages and overlook, forget, or not understand/misinterpret something? Or have a reasonable fear that they might, especially in an environment with stringent moderation? cinci zoo sniper posted:you suppose that you are unable to talk to people at all in this thread, in that you do not seem to allow a possibility that you, you know, just make a post and talk about it to someone. The whole point of this feedback is that I and others have expressed that we don't feel free to just "make a post and talk about it to someone" here. cinci zoo sniper posted:In addition to plainly overstating “what if I missed the link” angle, I have literally that 1 probation that was mentioned for thousands of reposts, as it was simply not practical to do so when the thread was faster and events were moving quicker. It's not just about that specific example but as I and others have said instances have stuck out that give the impression that moderation is strict and we risk subjective probations and bans for posting. I don't remember exactly where and when it has happened so it's hard to go back and find it. And maybe that's not fair and totally not the case but that's how it can be interpreted to stifle discussion. cinci zoo sniper posted:Also, what does “What if you just decide it's not worthy of discussion in this thread?” even mean – do you often go around threads and make random “this is too bad of a thread for me to participate in” posts? Don't do that, if you do so, is my advice for making friends online. I could see how that might be unclear, the "you" in that was supposed to be referring to you. What if you (Cinci) decide it's not worthy of discussion? That's the concern. Now you may feel that's not fair and that you don't do that, but as HonorableTB mentioned sometimes the way you respond to people... cinci zoo sniper posted:do you often go around threads and make random “this is too bad of a thread for me to participate in” posts? Don't do that, if you do so, is my advice for making friends online. ... like this, comes off as sanctimonious and condescending. Maybe you misinterpreted my post or maybe I was just entirely unclear and it's all my fault. This is admittedly a very mild rebuke and I'd normally just brush it off, but you do this type of thing a lot to people who don't meet your high posting expectations and it's a convenient example. It's not like you're being incredibly mean or anything, but when people see a mod making terse, harsh replies and constantly talking about and using their probe buttons it's going to stifle discussion. cinci zoo sniper posted:In general, the whole vibe of this post, much like the previous post, is that you've made up your mind that this is not a thread that you're interested in posting. Which is perfectly fine, I also have threads where I decide that I simply am not interested in participating. What I'm curious to understand, though, is why then bother making that original post, that prompted me to eventually run this feedback session? If you're convinced that the thread is, well, not worthless, but clearly not good enough to either read or participate in it, what prompted you to make that initial post? No, it's the exact opposite! I have very much wanted to post in this thread and have discussions. I'd also like to see other people post more in here because it was a useful aggregator of information on the war. I'm very interested in this thread and I would like it to have as much content as possible! I made the original post because a piece of information was removed (due to a site rule and not a thread-specific one, granted) and it was kind of a straw-that-broke-the-camels-back situation for me. Plenty of times I'd wanted to jump into a discussion but ultimately decided it wasn't worth the hassle or potential consequences due to the heavy moderation environment. Plenty of times I'd be reading and think "Why the hell was this person probated for such a minor or negligible issue? Why was this piece of information removed or dismissed with a condescending post by the moderator?" I offered additional feedback because you requested it. I tried to be as diplomatic as possible as I realize this can very easily be construed as a personal attack or dogpile. But Cinci, you've now had multiple people come out of the woodwork to express sentiments that maybe the moderation is a little too heavy or even just directly say that your responses in particular are off-putting to discussion. That's kind of what I'm dancing around here without trying to be an rear end in a top hat.
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Mar 30, 2023 21:38
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FWIW, I hardly ever see people get banned in here, especially after the admins implemented anti-inter-forum drama rules. Are there thread statistics for that?
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Mar 30, 2023 21:46
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Quixzlizx posted:FWIW, I hardly ever see people get banned in here, especially after the admins implemented anti-inter-forum drama rules. Are there thread statistics for that? There are no (literal) bans for inter-forum drama, GBS and C-SPAM threads are just under an admin warning that they'll get permanently closed if they return to it. This thread has never been involved in any of those conversations, thanks to my reputation going both way at least.
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Mar 30, 2023 21:48
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Quixzlizx posted:The OP's point is that Armenia isn't worth pissing off Turkey from the West's perspective, regardless of whether or not it's a good geopolitical strategy for Armenia itself. Indeed. For what its worth, I get the impression that Turkey is perfectly happy with Armenia shifting to the west, so long as Turkey's interests aren't harmed. A humiliated and dependant Armenia suits them fine. The fact that Russia loses out is a nice cherry on top.
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Mar 30, 2023 21:51
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Appreciate this, thank you. Lack of levity is a pickle, in that I'm not opposed to it in principle – I just have my own sense of humour, and don't find posting random 9gag-tier NAFO memes to be a humorous activity. Which then leads to this self-reinforcing effect where GBS-brained, not as an insult, joke posters feel targeted (since they are), whereas other posters get away with making almost every single joke they have ever posted, as they actually workshop their things and end up funny more often than not. I'm not opposed to humour, I just don't find low-effort humour, as well as anything repetitive, as particularly useful. And this is one of a few moderation stances that I have which I know to have a fairly clear engagement cost – since I'm not actually juicing numbers. Hitting an arbitrary target of 5 or 10 pages of posts per day would be relatively trivial, since I can drop rules well into the low end of what modalities of enforcement are possible on D&D – the thread's survival requires only adequate attitude to This is a weird as hell post and it feels like you're projecting a ton of condescending poo poo onto people that afaict has almost zero grounding in the reality of how people have actually been posting in here for months now. I don't think any of the regulars are looking to make 'gbs brained' '9gag-tier NAFO memes' jokes, people just want to not get probated for a joke post. there's an element of hypocrisy here, too, because you make (imo unfunny, but whatever, who really cares) joke posts in here while probating other people for doing the same thing and it's just a weird look. tbh you're the only person I see in here regularly making joke posts. I don't post much in here anymore, but I do read it all still and I feel like we're reading literally different threads. There's basically zero forumswar bullshit in this iteration of the thread for the last couple months and while I agree that having a generally zero tolerance policy towards it is the only sane approach, it feels like you're dragging a ton of baggage onto that and have ended up with an extremely us-vs-them attitude towards the people who post here. Personally I think the thread itself is mostly doing pretty well and largely self-manages. Occasionally some insane person wanders in and posts something utterly inappropriate, but there's nothing really to be done about that beyond just tossing those people out as they turn up, same as is done on the entire rest of the forums. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Mar 30, 2023 |
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Mar 30, 2023 21:55
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cinci zoo sniper posted:There are no (literal) bans for inter-forum drama, GBS and C-SPAM threads are just under an admin warning that they'll get permanently closed if they return to it. This thread has never been involved in any of those conversations, thanks to my reputation going both way at least. That's not what I meant. Once the moderation started tightening a bit in various places site-wide, there were fewer situations in this thread where people were getting wound up enough to lean toward ban-worthy posts.
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Mar 30, 2023 22:05
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https://news.yahoo.com/russia-puts-...WklwRBWvm4XdpG6 I guess Vova also did not appreciate Hungary’s comment yesterday that Russia should leave Ukrainian territory for peace talks to be realistic, so their friendship has ended. Remember that the one thing maffia bosses demand is loyalty, and nothing is worse than betrayal - no matter how small the transgression.
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Mar 30, 2023 22:09
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Hakarne posted:I'll try to address these as best as possible. Thank you, I actually appreciate the blow-by-blow responses. And no, I don't feel like getting dogpiled, since the only feedback that's not mine to take is for the admin rule, which was the subject of like 2 posts (+ the feedback overall is not bad, people saying that the thread is heavily moderated means that they're simply reading it, it's kind of has been the point so far). The reason why I may be coming off less forthcoming to your feedback than to others is that the 2 of your 2 posts in my interpretation look like plausibly taking an issue with other posters, and that is not welcome. Concerning your post on the subject matter of it, the sum of your 3 posts is actually digestible for me now, and broadly fair. A few notes on this specifically: 1) “rules long” : I don't think that they're difficult to remember, in that almost none of it leads to instant probations, and many of them overlap or target very specific things, i.e., how often do you find yourself like posting about DSA-aligned YouTubers in this thread? In general, when people say “what if I misunderstand”, I tend to default to assuming that they haven't read the rules at all, because there's no good explanation as to why such a goon hasn't actually asked me what rules this or that means. As common sense would imply, is permissible to do so both in the thread and by reaching out to me via PMs. 2) “high posting expectations”: I'm curious how would you define the posting expectations for participation in this thread, in your own words? 3) “information removed plenty of times”: This is not something that actually happens with any notable frequency, just so we're clear. The only two posters who I remember outright deleting the posts of in the recent half a year or so both fell under site-wide rules. As a rule, mods are under a fairly strict protocol for deleting posts, because there's no edit history for posts available on admin end. So when I'm like banning someone for content prohibited on SA, I'm copying their whole post into admin notes, and only then editing the post out/banning/etc.
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Mar 30, 2023 22:10
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Quixzlizx posted:That's not what I meant. Once the moderation started tightening a bit in various places site-wide, there were fewer situations in this thread where people were getting wound up enough to lean toward ban-worthy posts. Sorry, I'm not following the original question in this case, could you rephrase it?
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Mar 30, 2023 22:12
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Sorry, I'm not following the original question in this case, could you rephrase it? I was just wondering if you had mod tools available that could trend how many bans have been handed out over time for posts in this thread, since some people have claimed that they are afraid of breaking some rule and getting banned, while I was mentioning that I anecdotally rarely see bans handed out in here.
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Mar 30, 2023 22:27
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My meta feedback is that the thread itself isn't a great venue for discussing at length how the thread should be moderated since it makes it more difficult to reach actual content about the events of the war. Other than that, I'm generally in favor of a bit more openness in terms of allowing discussion but overall I think the moderators have done a good job keeping out the less desirable stuff (wild speculation, obvious propaganda/fake news from either side, and the flood of NSFW imagery).
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Mar 30, 2023 22:34
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Herstory Begins Now posted:This is a weird as hell post and it feels like you're projecting a ton of condescending poo poo onto people that afaict has almost zero grounding in the reality of how people have actually been posting in here for months now. The time frame for that post to make sense is spring 2022, since the thread is coasting on rules from early summer last year – the reply I'm making there is “how we got here”. I am not talking about the current set of regular or semi-regular posters of it, and it does describe basically no posters in this thread in at least the last half a year, although there were some flameouts to the tune of “digital front of the war” around Kharkiv and Kherson counter-offensives, and the Kerch strait bridge attack. Much of it did happen in PMs, however. There were also more recent public displays of it elsewhere on SA, but that's not really of concern for this thread. As for your griping with my jokes, funny rule is subjective to the mod reading it, and so the logical conclusion for not finding my jokes funny is to not make joke posts free of other content here. The conditions to get probated for making a joke were always that – it's either a 1/10 joke that's offensive in some way (rare), or it's not a 9/10 or 10/10 joke, and it is being posted with no other content in the post (very often). This definitely is not a thread for making joke posts only, so if you want to do that you'll need to be at least as funny as Staluigi, BIG FLUFFY DOG, or the posters familiar with post-Soviet humour. Definitely not just posting Simpson gifs, whhich is a recent example of someone getting probated for a joke – I haven't seen the Simpsons, and there's little to no chance of me finding some Simpsons reference funny.
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Mar 30, 2023 22:36
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Vox Nihili posted:My meta feedback is that the thread itself isn't a great venue for discussing at length how the thread should be moderated since it makes it more difficult to reach actual content about the events of the war. I do apologize for that, but this has been on backlog for some time already, and with the work-in-progress admin end changes that may force me to significantly alter the rules in the thread, this is basically the best opportunity we'll have to end up at something more controlled. I tried having this conversation in the recent D&D feedback thread initially, but my invitation in this thread to do so was neither clear nor compelling enough, and so here we'll do it.
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Mar 30, 2023 22:40
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Burns posted:A question on the ICC. How did guys like Slobedan Milosevic etc eventually end up there? Are they basically extridited by the current government of whatever country to the ICC? Other posters already explained what happened, i.e: that Serbia extradited him, but it was the ICTY, not the ICC. What happened in Yugoslavia was so bad they created a special court for it. (Both are in The Hague).
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Mar 30, 2023 22:43
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A good example of how the thread has changed and evolved over time is that the conditions are no longer present which would allow for the creation of the Ghost of Kyiv gangtag that many of us are using here, which came from posts in one of the original war threads in D&D before the Ukrainian charity sticky thread got spun off. If we posted the Ghost of Kyiv type posts now, for example, we would be probed or chided for posting rumors or the like. It's not that it's all a bad thing, the early threads were a very chaotic place to post in and generated dozens of pages per hour sometimes. I only bring it up to highlight the difference in posting cultures allowed in this thread's iterations over time, and maybe to suggest that the pendulum should swing slightly back in the other direction to allow for more free-feeling discussion
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Mar 30, 2023 22:48
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On the current topic, I don't have much to add other than a few remarks: I've always appreciated your moderation of this thread cinci. It's a thankless job and this thread wouldn't have survived without it. Even though I haven't always agreed with all of your decisions and caught a few sixers myself, I'm not sour about it. I'll keep on trying to make a little clever joke here and there and I'll take the sixers if they bomb. Lastly, I am concerned about the path the admins seem to have taken wrt. posting about this war. It seems to me there's a definite bias there and it would be devastating for this community as a whole to become a total echo chamber.
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Mar 30, 2023 22:49
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HonorableTB posted:A good example of how the thread has changed and evolved over time is that the conditions are no longer present which would allow for the creation of the Ghost of Kyiv gangtag that many of us are using here, which came from posts in one of the original war threads in D&D before the Ukrainian charity sticky thread got spun off. If we posted the Ghost of Kyiv type posts now, for example, we would be probed or chided for posting rumors or the like. It's not that it's all a bad thing, the early threads were a very chaotic place to post in and generated dozens of pages per hour sometimes. I only bring it up to highlight the difference in posting cultures allowed in this thread's iterations over time, and maybe to suggest that the pendulum should swing slightly back in the other direction to allow for more free-feeling discussion I think so as well, especially having had the conversations with you, Hakarne, and everyone else participating. As in, one of the actionable takeaways I've made is that rules are more ossified/culturally distant than I've considered them to be, and that I'd like to generally have a much more readable OP. To that end, there's going to be a new, smaller, set of rules, with stuff removed from them to be assumed as starting from a blank slate. Another change I'll be making is more boring probation reasons – internal mod guidelines recommend that in general, but for this thread I've tried adopting a slightly more casual approach to that, which is now occurring to me as not necessarily comprehensible for a would-be lurker/fresh poster not familiar with the thread or my sense of humour at a longer time span. That said, this is the current conclusions, so there's room for further feedback. I'll announce the end of the feedback session with a post and a title, and it's still scheduled for Saturday noon-ish.
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Mar 30, 2023 22:57
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I think so as well, especially having had the conversations with you, Hakarne, and everyone else participating. As in, one of the actionable takeaways I've made is that rules are more ossified/culturally distant than I've considered them to be, and that I'd like to generally have a much more readable OP. To that end, there's going to be a new, smaller, set of rules, with stuff removed from them to be assumed as starting from a blank slate. Another change I'll be making is more boring probation reasons – internal mod guidelines recommend that in general, but for this thread I've tried adopting a slightly more casual approach to that, which is now occurring to me as not necessarily comprehensible for a would-be lurker/fresh poster not familiar with the thread or my sense of humour at a longer time span. Thanks a ton for being receptive to the feedback. I think this is a good step in the right direction for sure
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Mar 30, 2023 23:04
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Moon Slayer posted:is an absolutely nutso opinion to have. This was your response to ""It's coming from the admins and I can't do anything about it" makes us mad because you're in a much stronger position to do something about it than the rest of us". I don't know if it's so nutso when I've seen posters (not a reference to cinci) go to mod and then to admin, along with the usual attitude and behavioral changes that go along with people suddenly getting a lot of power in a community. Somebody must have heard these people. You'd have a point if recruitment would only happen from outside of SA. In addition to that, mods could go on strike or relinquish their positions if they really don't like something. I think it's gotten close to that on some occasion. So don't give me that "mods are powerless" crap.
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Mar 30, 2023 23:19
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Storkrasch posted:Aligning with Russia hasn't really worked out either. A west-aligned Armenia could potentially give it some diplomatic way out if its geographical issues, whereas a Russia-aligned Armenia probably can't. The CSTO doesn't seem to exist anymore since Russia went whole hog into Ukraine. NK is... North Korea?
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Mar 30, 2023 23:26
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Haystack posted:Armenia can't really cozy up with the west due to both geography and because the west cares about Turkey 100 times more than it could ever care about Armenia, which closes a lot of doors. You are right about the West caring more about Turkey, but its not just them. With Europe divesting from Russian gas, several countries turned to Azerbaijan as an alternative supplier. Baku now has a lot more economic leverage over Europe than it did before the invasion. Armenia is in an abysmally bad position - geopolitically, economicly and militarily. I personally think its quite likely the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will flare up again once Baku feels the time is right, with Armenia being pushed further back, if not out of the territory completely. EDIT: Small White Dragon posted:NK is... North Korea? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakh Tigey fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Mar 30, 2023 |
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Mar 30, 2023 23:27
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Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:This was your response to ""It's coming from the admins and I can't do anything about it" makes us mad because you're in a much stronger position to do something about it than the rest of us". What Moon Slayer is saying is not that mods are powerless, but that admins don't work with mods even 1/10th as closely as I suspect most goons think. As an example, mods will typically have a brawl about some subject for a few weeks, and then an admin will come in and post “well actually, we've decided that”. On this specific subject, a mod forum discussion thread for finalizing this rule was started by an admin 94 minutes ago, to give you a very specific example of where in the conversation mods interested in this are placed.
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Mar 30, 2023 23:29
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I think the "(I'll regret this)" in the thread title already sums up what's wrong with this thread and the underlying moderation pretty nicely. I realize it's some kind of attempt at humor, but it just serves to vaguely downplay the quality and relevance of the feedback, or any actions taken in response to it. Overall, it implies that moderation should be impervious to any feedback. Thread mod cinci is doing this for free, does an overall good job and is very responsive. One of the main problems is their annoying style that has been criticized by others already. Even if one is 100% correct about something, it's not conducive to a great discussion to constantly come across as condescending and butthurt. I am still in the process of learning this myself. From what I gather about posting war footage, it seems to be a ploy by someone to make these threads unworkable. You can't post it and you can't talk about any specific piece of it, so I suppose the next logical step is that you can't even say that a major event can be proven by recorded footage. Reminds me of what messed up HAL 9000 or Robocop in Robocop 2.
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Mar 30, 2023 23:35
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cinci zoo sniper posted:What Moon Slayer is saying is not that mods are powerless, but that admins don't work with mods even 1/10th as closely as I suspect most goons think. As an example, mods will typically have a brawl about some subject for a few weeks, and then an admin will come in and post “well actually, we've decided that”. On this specific subject, a mod forum discussion thread for finalizing this rule was started by an admin 94 minutes ago, to give you a very specific example of where in the conversation mods interested in this are placed. Right, kinda like the distance between most mods and users (not a veiled dig at you, you're very responsive and seem to take things to heart).
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Mar 30, 2023 23:37
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Tigey posted:
Well, they have been blockading it for months, at least. I feel like there were reports of some Azerbaijani incursions as of a few days ago, but I can't find them at hand, and those sorts of reports are often inaccurate.
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Mar 30, 2023 23:39
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The Turkish vote on Finland joining NATO went through about an hour ago - just before midnight Ankara time! Unanimous support for their application. So, Finland is all set to join NATO now that it has unanimous formal approval from every country.
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Mar 30, 2023 23:56
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