First Quarter 2023 D&D Feedback.

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

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

This whole conversation happens every time there is a feedback thread but there is never any examples shown, makes it hard to believe/have any real change.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2023 00:31

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 00:26

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

silence_kit posted:

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4020995&userid=155796

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4020995&userid=220511

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4020995&userid=101945

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4020995&userid=115386

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4020995&userid=41629

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4020995&userid=125208

edit: Not trying to sic the mods on these posters. This kind of posting is what the people want. Who am I and/or the mods to be at odds with that?

Well some of these links have no probes at all, a few others have maybe 1-2 out of hundreds I am very unclear as to your point? If it was about ideology wouldn't they be probed 99% of the time?

# ¿ Mar 26, 2023 00:56

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

Is �Joe Biden sucks� and �there are more than zero assholes who live in Ukraine� supposed to be scandalous?

Like everyone already knows, literally everyone agrees

I�d vote for all DND mods if I never have to read those exact things over and over and over forever

Yeah it kind of highlights the exact kind of posting that has been tampered down lately, there's posting WITH people in order to discuss or debate a topic then there's posting AT people in order to attempt to antagonize them because you just want to troll or you've decided they are all dirty libs and you want to rile them up for some syq or some nonsense.

I will also go ahead and agree with everyone about the Ukraine thread I feel it needs to be overly modded just to keep it from becoming a mess, although the USPOL/other threads have probably gotten way too stale from that same kind of over modding.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2023 17:05

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

Some of the China posting died down due to accusations of racism if one questioned the official Chinese Government line on things.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 08:32

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Please purge cinci from moderation as he has no understanding of how people communicate and stifles anything that he deems unworthy.

Between him and Vox this place is an evaporating puddle that gets saltier and saltier with each passing day.

Loosen the rules, let people post and discuss. Moderation should be loose guard rails to prevent people from being too big of an rear end in a top hat, not because you don't like what they are saying. Stop trying to have a space where only the Poindexterest Poindexters get to determine what is discussed and how.

This mostly started with Koos and the huge rule changes that came with him, it almost feels intentional to just drive people away from D&D.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 14:24

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

Thorn Wishes Talon posted:

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.

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?

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 18:01

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

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.

Yeah it's not as bad as it used to be like it was at the heights of when the_steve and Majorian were mods. the_steve especially used to quote me in the succ thread then ask them how long he should probe me for then I'd get a dozen messages from those weirdos gloating about how owned I was. I'm a generic white noise poster, the fact that I was some crazy villain in their eyes worthy of that amount of attention showed how both toxic and boring that entire thing just was.

The Koos era started by punishing anyone who wouldn't take some jackass who'd been trolling for years doing SYQ poo poo at good faith immediately and it drove away a fair bit of whatever regulars are left. So we took a problem of a group of posters on another forum harassing D&D regulars and punished the D&D regulars until most left, I mean this status quo I think is better then the old one I guess, it's hard to tell it just feels lovely in a different way it took all the soul out of D&D. At this point I don't think there is any fixing it and it will just dwindle till probably the next big election in 2024.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 23:30

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

Deteriorata posted:

You're not looking for a debate or a discussion. You want a Kindergarten playground shouting match.

Yeah I don't see how the Ukraine thread would be better by someone reposting Russian Propaganda endlessly about how poor Russia was forced to invade Ukraine and wipe out their culture, the people looking to post it aren't doing so they can debate the merits of said propaganda or post evidence one way or another they want to yell at the libs, be a toxic rear end in a top hat then complain about how their viewpoint is being silenced when they get a 6er after breaking a dozen rules.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 00:56

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

Timmy Age 6 posted:

I also don�t think probations are as ideologically driven as is sometimes claimed. Like, Discendo Vox gets hit semi-regularly, as did Evilweasel when they posted in D&D a few years back. I just don�t think that �don�t be a dick� is, or should be, an insurmountable ideological barrier to posting.

Yeah it's this and people mostly know it, it's why the people who claim it keep refusing to post any sort of receipts. I mean I don't even post that often anymore and still get hit all the time.

There is room to disagree without being a complete fuckstick, I've had my mind changed here on all sorts of topics. Hell if you go back 15ish years you will find posts made by me supporting the Death Penalty and thinking White Privilege is overstated because I was young and dumb as gently caress and this forum set me right.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 08:07

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

VitalSigns posted:

I did post an example though. For a while after we were told that the only reason the moderation seemed biased is that opinions which conflicted with the majority were reported more (which is its own problem. Mods have this big rulebook that they can't actually enforce so the resuIt is a heckler's veto. Posts with unpopular opinions get reported more, posts with popular opinions don't just by weight of numbers because people tend to be fine with minor rules violations if they agree with the poster. And this is only natural but in aggregate it creates the appearance of bias)

So I gamely tried reporting for a while but usually no action was taken even on egregious rulebreaking I didn't keep a spreadsheet of every rulebreaking post that was ignored while other people got hit for piddly stuff, but I remembered the one that was egregious enough that I just gave up after

Koos also said itt that he ignores his rule about no sarcasm or jokes as long as he or the other mods think it's funny.

There was also the time he said he allowed someone to troll the China thread (and elsewhere until it got "too much")

No you didn't, you posted an example of a post you felt should of got probed but didn't which isn't even close to the same thing, not every single post is going to get reviewed so a single one not getting probed isn't proof of mod bias or anything else really. What people keep claiming is that people get probed solely for their opinions because they aren't liberal enough, which is something keeps getting claimed but never shown even a sliver of evidence for.

VitalSigns posted:

Oh I could provide examples, but only if you are really interested, because I don't keep like a spreadsheet of posts I reported for breaking the rules, and I gave up on bothering with reports that won't get acted on anyway a long time ago so it would take some time to hunt them down.

But I do remember the individual post that made me conclude that reporting people who break the rules while agreeing with the mod teams' politics was a waste of time, and that "well nobody reported them" wasn't why they weren't being punished for stuff that anyone else would get hit for.

(This was from before this person was made a mod btw). Seems to break like every rule. Posting about posters, assuming bad faith, meeting effort with no effort.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 11:21

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

VitalSigns posted:

Yeah but that's the problem right. People I agree with are laying down some righteous truth, people I disagree with are making GBS threads up the discussion.

That's why the best strategy to avoid punishment on here is to disengage if your opinion is too unpopular because you'll have like 10 people trying to find minor infractions to report, PMing mods, running to QCS, etc. The easy way to clear the report queue is to remove the unpopular opinion right.

You asked for an example, I provided one. Koos agreed it broke the rules, no reason was given why the report was ignored. If you guys don't care about it, fine, I don't know what else you want me to do. I could spend the time finding the other ones I tried reporting when I was briefly doing that I guess but like what kind of sample size are you asking for.

Am I supposed to keep a spreadsheet of reported posts and actions taken on an internet comedy forum. Nobody is going to do that, because that's weird obsessive behavior and if I had that I'd be mocked for it.

And of course there were examples of Koos saying he let people troll when he thought it was funny, while there's a big rulebook for everyone else.

People notice, they're not going to keep grudgebooks of all the discrepancies in enforcement, they're just going to decide it's not worth it and make this place an even narrower chamber of thought than it already is. But maybe that's not a bad thing, certainly would be easier to mod.

I asked for an example of someone getting probed for being not liberal enough, you know the accusation made many times in this thread. If it happens so often as people are pretending it shouldn't be hard to provide one, you don't need a "spreadsheet" or whatever.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 11:51

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

Rigel posted:

I'll go ahead and just help VS out by saying that anytime there is a post that falls well outside the traditional liberal orthodoxy or is even just the least bit spicy, it will get reported. You guys might be underestimating how often posts get reported.

Oh I'm sure all sorts of dumb poo poo gets reported, are you auto probing every one of these posts? I think the reason I'm sticking to this is I find the endless aggro posting exhausting and it's always a group of people that act like assholes who suddenly come in here saying they are only getting probed because they aren't liberal enough not because they can't stop being dicks.

socialsecurity fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Mar 28, 2023

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 12:07

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

VitalSigns posted:

From what I understand it's probably more logging in on Sunday and here's a big report queue, gently caress looks like so-and-so is riling people up again, and even if the reports are dumb there's a button to just make them stop for the next 6/12/18/24 hours.

It's why really the only way to go is to disengage if too many people start arguing with you, if you dig in and defend an unpopular position you're playing with fire because someone is going to report every post you make, especially once people start baiting you with the usual sarcasm, condescension, etc.

And it's understandable, I'd probably do that sometimes if I were a mod, easier and more pleasant to remove the unpopular opinion than to read 10 pages of arguing that you don't care about.

But idk at some point the whole team might want to step back and ask is an environment where "anytime there is a post that falls well outside the traditional liberal orthodoxy or is even just the least bit spicy, it will get reported" something that we should try to change? It's a tough question though because how do you go about it, but also I'm not sure if mods even agree it should change, maybe it's what they want?

You are still acting like mods auto probe posts based on the number of reports or something, this entire argument feels like you are inventing a whole ecosystem of nonsense instead of just accepting that people posting like assholes gets you probed sometimes?

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 12:53

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

VitalSigns posted:

If we're going to do this could you state succinctly
1) what evidence is actually being asked for, and
2) in your own words what do you think the "original positions" are

silence_kit posted:

There will always be a bias where posters who hold the thread majority opinion will be treated with leniency, and posters who hold a minority opinion will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

It is unreasonable to expect fair enforcement given human psychology, the nature of SA forums moderation & the post reporting system, where the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

This is the post that started most of this argument and is a common complaint in these threads, there are many people claiming that having the minority opinion will get you probed. Yet no examples of that have been posted beyond a single post from Rigel that you are mad didn't get probed which doesn't really mean much of anything.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 14:08

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 00:26

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

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?

No, it's not. Hence why I'm continuing to ask for an example of someone getting probed for an opinion.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 15:43

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