First Quarter 2023 D&D Feedback.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > First Quarter 2023 D&D Feedback.

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

I've been a D&D user for twenty years and you guys have made it a sterile soulless shell of what it once was.

I greatly resent the debate-club style application and enforcement of rules that ignore any and all context. It's what people used to mock D&D for, and Koos and his team have ironically turned it into a reality. Or maybe it was cynically done on purpose.

Harold Fjord posted:

I think what's been lost is a fuckton of smart left leaning posters who got sick of being punished constantly. It's happened over years and not necessarily the fault of Koos and his team.

It's also possible that the smart left leaning posters got sick of those who merely cosplay as leftists constantly making GBS threads on them for not being pure enough.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2023 20:35

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 01:08

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

Discendo Vox posted:

At this juncture, one of the actions needed is to actively re-solicit the groups of educated users that were driven out of the forum over the past 6 or so years. The lawyers, the scientists, the people who used to make discussion viable in greater detail. Per Bar Ran Dun's comment, we now face an active negative stereotype of DnD, continuously reinforced elsewhere, whenever there's an attempt to have someone from anywhere else on SA participate.

I strongly agree with this.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 01:52

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

Turgid Flagella posted:

Lib and let died.

ETA: why would I post on LALD? It was made very clear by the last pre-bam probation on my rap sheet that my specific expertise as part of the Dem fundraising machine isn't as recognized as the credentials of other posters just because I'm a cranky, cantankerous rear end in a top hat.

Please do not insult cranky, cantankerous assholes by referring to yourself as one.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 01:57

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

Judgy Fucker posted:

But as you mentioned, Aegis, the War thread is drama-free, even if it's a terrible space to actually discuss the War.

I think this is the gist of the issue with D&D's new moderation scheme under Koos: the Prime Directive, if you will, has been to try to minimize conflict and drama, even if it comes at the expense of everything else, including good discussions and overall thread activity. This is why so many threads in D&D are mere shadows of their former versions: mods have cracked down on anything and everything that can remotely result in a large number of reports they need to sift through and adjudicate. As a result, most posters have stopped participating, because what they want to talk about has been deemed off-limits (due to drama potential) and they don't want to get probated. The baby has been thrown out with the bathwater.

This is a really good example of how optimizing policies to improve the metrics (i.e. reducing the number of reports) may not produce outcomes that are actually optimal.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Procedurally, however, mods are not required to assume good faith of every single post, to address that question as well, as in no mod is under an obligation to be naive.

Assuming good faith is part of D&D's rules (specifically, rule I.B.) , and mods should be required to follow them as well.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 16:51

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

Honestly cinci zoo sniper, you seem a bit too emotionally invested (and extremely strongly opinionated) in the topic of ChatGPT/AI and that makes you a poor choice for thread moderator.

Even before Koos took over, it was strongly frowned upon for moderators to actively moderate threads they were also participating in. The reasons should be obvious. I think if you continue posting in that thread, you should agree to do so without your mod hat on. Pick someone to IK the thread and stay out of any moderation decisions.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 18:00

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

socialsecurity posted:

This seems odd to me, everyone wants mods to be more part of the community but them to also not moderate threads they post in?

It sounds like the issue is that CZS appears to be moderating discussions in which they themselves are active participants in, and it comes in the form of probating/silencing their debate opponents. And yes, that has been frowned upon and discouraged for a long time now.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 18:05

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

Rosalind posted:

I am going to be so egotistical as to assume that I might be one of the people you're referencing here. To be honest, I am not going to return to posting in D&D probably ever. It's not fulfilling.

At the start of the pandemic, it felt good to be helpful with my small amount of insight as an epidemiologist. I was also glad to recruit so many goons into our COVID study we were running! Your data were super helpful. It was also great to have a group of educated laypeople to talk through the pandemic with early on--it was not a perspective I was getting at work.

But it's also exhausting to have every single word of my posts nitpicked and taken in the worst bad faith angle possible. Man I just want a place to relax and talk about health news and politics with people I mostly agree with but the amount of vitriol I would get for some of my posts was too much for me to handle. People questioned my professional judgment and called me bad at my job. I got anonymous emails questioning whether I actually was an epidemiologist (which made me afraid I was going to get doxxed). At least one person (who was also an educated user who no longer posts, ironically) wrote me like a thousand word essay PM about how na�ve and wrong I am.

I am a scientist. I know we're well-reputed for being terrible communicators and I'm probably not an exception to that. I'm aware that I've said some stupid things or presented an argument horribly or even got into a little heated feud on a bad day. But people here are just so mean.

I recognize it's the internet--people can be mean. I can handle it, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't want to have to handle it. There are other spaces now where I can have these sorts of conversations (Discords, subreddits, etc.) without feeling it being quite so mean.

Cocaine Mitch posted:

I posted here for years but finally about a year or so ago I gave up and left because I was sick of how people could be such massive jackasses all the time and there were absolutely no repercussions. It was exhausting and mentally draining. Leaving this site was the best thing I've ever done for my own mental health and I honestly advocate everyone else to leave too. This place is a shithole that can't be saved.

I generally tried to be informative and effortful and I was faced with multiple posters PMing me threats, buying me aggressive and racist redtexts, following me around to other subforums, posting weird fantasies about me in their little clubhouses, etc.. The response from moderation and administration varied between "you deserved it" and "wow, we'll look into it" while never actually doing anything.

The reason all these "experts" left is because they were basically chased off the site by an insanely toxic userbase that has complete run of the entire forum and will harass anyone they don't like. They are never coming back because honestly why the gently caress would they want to come back? Why would you want to make effort posts on a website where someone can "wink wink nudge nudge" threaten to doxx you based on the knowledge you've posted and then be cheered on for it by their sick little fanbases?

This site is the worst I've ever seen and honestly it's all at Jeff's feet for being a loving coward who wants too badly to be liked to actually enforce anything. He lets himself get led around by the absolute worst posters on the site and makes Helldump look like a hugbox.

Lowtax somehow was a better owner and god drat is that a low bar.

If you want to actually fix this place, start out by permabanning the 20-30 people who are the ringleaders of all the harassment. Everyone knows who they are.

These posts remind me of the poster who revealed that they had a PhD in economics, and within minutes they were compared to a cop and a drone bomber.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 22:55

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

Turgid Flagella posted:

'Debate' generally implies the presence of more than one opinion being presented - what it sounds like the most terminally academia-brained posters want is a strict form of discussion that only recognizes the validity of what can be validated through the accepted thoughtschools of "liberal" capitalist doctrine, elementary, high school, and college curriculum pumped out of privately-held textbook companies with a stake in upkeeping the capitalist order.

There are never going to be studies that meet whatever rigorous criteria these complainants would expect because the closest you could study is polling public perception on whether or not the gross accumulation and hoarding of housing is amoral but you can find plenty of rent-seeking apologia in academia to bury the moral argument in.

Just because people don't want to debate your frankly unhinged opinions doesn't mean they are "terminally academia-brained" � whatever the gently caress that means.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 00:21

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 01:08

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

Harold Fjord posted:

The essential problem is a bunch of posters conflating political opinions with assholery. You think you aren't just as big an rear end in a top hat as anyone else here?

Nobody is conflating political opinions with assholery.

The type of poster we do not want or need in D&D is the "cranky, cantankerous rear end in a top hat" (quoting Turgid's own description of themselves) who cannot conceal their contempt and vitriol for their fellow posters when they debate them.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 16:28

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