First Quarter 2023 D&D Feedback.

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

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

Skippy McPants posted:

This forum is a joyless stick-in-the-mud, and I like it that way. It's nice to have someplace on SA where I can go to read about an issue without the need to skim through pages of shitposting and empty quotes.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2023 11:11

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 09:58

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

Josef bugman posted:

The China thread is also rarely posted in and frequently it is just one poster for weeks at a time.

Really, this seems like a good overview of the situation in D&D is a whole, less posting more of it being for a smaller audience of, I'll say "dedicated", readers and it being less about chats with politics and more about showing how bright you are.

If that is what is wanted then great, but be aware that is what is happening.

Anyone who wants to chat about China does it in GBS or CSPAM depending on what and how they want to chat about it.

I think that's as much a reason for the quiet threads as anything else. You can find a more casual thread in other places.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 08:29

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

Yeah bad shoot on that one Cinci

edit: Especially as it seems the poster was going from exactly the type of words words in quotes as news updates you've said you want to discourage to a more analytical and asking questions way of sharing notable events

fez_machine fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Mar 27, 2023

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 14:03

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

It's fine to have a pointdexter politics forum when there's other places to casually chat about politics

even if that means threads lie fallow

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 14:16

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

It should be completely fine to have casual discourse in D&D.

There are many places that do have more casual discourse in D&D like the country threads, the chat thread (and maybe USCE? I don't know I don't read it).

Can you make a compelling argument why D&D needs to be a place like GBS or CSPAM? And why posting in those places is less preferable than D&D for casually discussing politics?

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 14:23

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

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.

I just want to check both of these quotes are complaining about the same thing right?

Because it seems to me there's two competing narratives for why "experts" (I have no idea if people posting anonymously on a message board are true subject domain experts, I just have the sources they cite) left D&D:

1. Over moderation. Where nobody can have fun, be casual or state controversial ideas without being punished for it
2. Under moderation. Where effort posts are met with "casual" reactions that chase them away without being punished for it.

Personally, I like that the current moderation status quo has largely stopped D&D being the no man's land for c-spam and GBS fights.

The fact that there's a lot less of these type of posts

Turgid Flagella posted:

Maybe it's time for d&d to become "d" & "d" - consolidate all threads down to one of two thread tags ("debate" and "discuss") respectively; using the Ukraine thread as an example one thread can be for lively, scholarly debate on the merits of arming Nazis to own The Other Empire and one can be a feel-good, vibes only thread to discuss and report on the ongoing Azov rebellion against That Other Empire

Somaen posted:

There are places you can discuss how actually, NATO provoked Russia into invading and actually, the holodomor is a made up conspiracy to make the soviets look bad that are more appropriate and you are very welcome to post there, why do you need to import that to DnD

is appreciated

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 22:37

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:

there's simply better places to have these kinds of discussions than on a forum which has a decades old culture of ritual hostility and scalp collecting

Yeah, only a few clicks away in GBS, BYOB, C-SPAM etc. etc. (including D&Ds very own chat threads). Nobody has yet made a convincing argument why D&D generally needs to be more casual and chatty when there exists many other places to do so on this very forum.

At the moment, it's still a pretty popular place to post and read from the users browsing numbers. Less than GBS or C-SPAM but about the same as PYF. And way more than any of the specific interest sub-forums.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 23:29

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:

it needs to be casual and chatty because that's what people want, in different flavors. people don't want to defend their posts as if they were dissertations, they want to tell people to shut the gently caress up. we're not going to be able to mandate people only make informed posts, that is outside of the capacity of moderation. something awful is just a smaller version of what we've been learning about the internet over many years now - larger networks simply lead to more arguing, deliberate contention and trolling. smaller networks are gatekept to keep out overly combative or difficult people. if i've got smaller networks that meet my discussion needs, what can this place offer me when i'm bored with being purposefully combative at folks who have opinions i dont like?

but again there's a whole range of places on this website that do this?

Why does D&D specifically have to be that place?

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 23:58

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

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.

why not just post in CSPAM about this stuff?

Why D&D?

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 00:10

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

Turgid Flagella posted:

Why have D&D at all, then?

Because people want a high effort grey posting forum about a range of general topics? That's it's niche.

Harold Fjord posted:

Because they already know it

Why is this a problem?

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 00:38

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

also lol Turgid so riled up they went on a multipost spree

big mad about the grey forums

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 00:40

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

sorry should have said higher effort forum

edit: as has been said nobody actually wants a super high effort forum

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 00:45

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

Gumball Gumption posted:

It's poo poo posting with a boat that gets rocked easier then the other forums

I honestly don't see much poo poo posting in D&D.

To prove my point there's the new AI thread with a mere 2 pages of posts in it, can you provide 2 examples of poo poo posting from that thread?

fez_machine fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Mar 28, 2023

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 00:51

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

Harold Fjord posted:

Doesn't matter, through your selective quotation you've effectively acknowledged the problem that is obviously more serious

I can find at least three on this page

It was a two argument stance:

1. People in CSPAM already know about it

I needed to ask why that's a problem because talking and discussing poo poo with people who share some knowledge isn't a problem to me?

2. Serious, well written arguments have no place in CSPAM

I don't need to ask why that's a problem because that's clearly under D&D's remit (as an aside I've seen plenty of serious well written arguments in CSPAM, it's one of the arguments for why the CSPAM Ukraine thread is good)

This thread is explicitly a poo poo post allowed zone, so there's going to be a lot of shitposts, I'm asking about the day to day standard threads in D&D that aren't chat or casual threads.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 01:01

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

Gumball Gumption posted:

I'm not calling out individual posters but I'll happily call my own posts low effort poo poo posts.

I looked and as representative example:

Gumball Gumption posted:

I think it's important to note that it's training included example MEE essays. It's interesting but GPT-4 being trained for the exams and passing them is then not indicative of performance in a court room. It does show that it would be of value as an information store for lawyers.

Really I think that's where the true value in AI is. Not for its ability to create things but for its ability to be a way to store knowledge and interfaces that feel more natural.

I don't think this is a poo poo post. You're making good conversation. Have a higher opinion of what you post.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 01:17

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

Enigma89 posted:

I disagree with this post. D&D has been way less funny over the last few years. poo poo posting is amazing and I miss it dearly. If I want to read something academic then I will read an article written by an actual expert.

Along with that this place has really become an echo chamber and it is not nearly as fun to read. If anyone steps out of line they get mobbed. That sucks.

Good funny poo poo posts should be allowed and we should be more inviting to more diverse opinions.

But politics funny poo poo posting exists in many other places on this website? Why does it have to be in D&D?

Still nobody has explained this. (At least one person has said that D&D is only shitposts!)

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 02:02

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

Enigma89 posted:

I did not know about C-SPAM. I will check it out, thank you.

lol

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 02:09

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 09:58

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

I think we got a pretty good example of what abrasiveness looks like earlier in this very thread.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2023 15:58

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