4th Quarter 2023 D&D Feedback.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > 4th Quarter 2023 D&D Feedback.

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Koos Group posted:

Election Season
Because we have no major competitive primaries this cycle, things will probably be heating up later than usual. However, I'd still like to hear anyone's thoughts on how to deal with the increased contention that will inevitably come from an election. I think the D&D rules and moderation policies should be able to handle this as-is, but would still like to hear about what areas might need to be emphasized or what considerations we may have missed. I might, in particular, more strictly enforce the rule against arguments that aren't fresh or falsifiable to avoid going in circles or excessive posting of talking points and rhetoric.

1. What you are telling us by this statement is that you and other mods have chosen not to enforce the existing rules on fresh and falsifiable claims, which is why USCE has been repeatedly driven into a ditch for extended periods for entirely predictable reasons, by entirely predictable users, including across the past week with the electoralism bullshit. I have a crazy idea: stop coming up with excuses to stop enforcing the rules. Nothing, nothing else matters if you're still unwilling to enforce the rules, no matter how many of them you make up. This is especially visible in the I/P thread, where the entire ruleset is routinely thrown out the window. "Martial law" should not be a euphemism for "most of the rules don't apply, and we're going to randomly sprinkle day probes in response to posts that feel offensive or angry".

To wit,

Rigel posted:

A quick note on "whataboutism":

Could potentially be whataboutism: "What about (3rd party, especially if not significantly involved), they also do (bad thing)"

Not whataboutism, or at least not probatable whataboutism: "What about (one of the two belligerents specifically stated in the thread title), they also do (bad thing)"

2. Stop making up ad hoc policies of not enforcing the rules. For the love of god, it's the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is probably no single subject on earth more prone to deflecting arguments and discussion of factual claims with recriminating reversals. Declaring (in the middle of the thread, no less) that the most routine way to poo poo up discussion is fair game has the effect of maximizing the amount of conflict, reports, and moderation burden the thread generates.

Koos Group posted:

Violent Content
While this seems to happen more in places other than D&D from what I can tell, there's been discussion of how to deal with media showing violence, death or gore, particularly related to wars. D&D's currently policy is as follows: inline material that some might see while scrolling is a ban, and has an additional +30 days if it was done intentionally to troll or shock. Material that is properly tagged and linked but is posted gratuitously, without a legitimate purpose in discussion, receives a major punishment at mods' discretion. Material that in some way serves D&D's educational purpose, such as a CNN article that includes photos of dead bodies, is allowed, though should still have a warning if one might find it disturbing.

If you feel that policy should be more strict or more lenient, or is good as-is, please let me know. The one part that can't change (and I would not change it anyway) is banning for inline gore, as that is a general grey forums policy put down by the admins.

You are wrong. There is no general policy on this from the admins. One admin declared at the end of one SAD thread that it was their personal policy. It has then continued to fail to be enforced, because like the DnD mods, the admins are apparently genetically averse to reaching a consensus and stating policy and loving sticking to that policy.

3. Read the forum. If all you are doing is clearing report queues and making up every excuse possible to not enforce the rules, then the obvious, immediate effect is that you have no clue what effect your actions are having on the space. If enforcement of the rules is inconsistent, it gets abused by trolls, and users who want to have a conversation remotely grounded in reality are driven off the subforum. That especially applies to people who want to share subject expertise.

I have made these points across multiple feedback threads. You keep ignoring them, as you seem to ignore almost all other feedback. What conclusion should the people looking for good faith discussion take from a moderation team that seeks feedback, ignores that feedback, and deliberately refuses to consistently enforce the rules?

From a year ago:

Discendo Vox posted:

1. It is very frustrating to see someone violate the rules, and instead of applying them, the mods proceed to ask the user questions and give them control of the thread for several pages. Every single time this happens, the only effect is to draw out the harm to discussion that the rule is supposed to prevent, and the original violator either a) gets probated anyway or b) they don't, and all people looking to poo poo up discussion get an object lesson in forms of discussion-making GBS threads that the mods will facilitate. When you do this, you are making moderation harder for yourselves in the future, and making the subforum less useable for everyone else.

2. It is not helpful to have an enumerated set of rules if mod actions then don't align with those rules. When non-joke probes or other actions don't make clear what rules they're violating it provides justification for the users complaining that moderation is inconsistent.
2a. Similarly, when it arises that mod action is needed that doesn't fall under the enumerated rules, the reason should say that this is the case, and the mods should explicitly confer (not necessarily publicly) about whether and how the rules can be revised to address that situation.
2b. Moderation policies and their rationale should be stated publicly in one place, and should not be announced ad hoc in the middle of arguments with users, in D&D or elsewhere. This also contributes to both the perception and the reality of inconsistent moderation.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Nov 4, 2023

# ¿ Nov 4, 2023 03:32

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 04:29

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Rappaport posted:

Oh, that if there's a dedicated election thread (or /s), electroralism chat can be told to go to their own thread instead of distracting from obsessing over polls and whatnot.

Containment threads for electoralism arguments have been attempted multiple times. It doesn't work because the the point of the electoralism argument is to express opposition to discussion of the election - and to disrupt that discussion with an impossible counterfactual. Creating a containment thread just makes the people directed there angrier, and does not stop them from making GBS threads up other threads.

Clancychat threads by contrast somewhat worked because they were driven by a combination of ignorance and anxiety, which can be corrected to some extent with factual discussion. Even then, though, it still required active moderation, and the person who did that is gone.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Nov 4, 2023

# ¿ Nov 4, 2023 04:54

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Koos Group posted:

The reason I said that is because the "fresh" part of fresh and falsifiable is somewhat subjective. It's based on what we see around the internet or the forums to the point that it has become tiresome, but everyone gets political arguments from different places and some people spend much more time reading these sorts of things, so what might be stale for one would be fresh for another. Enforcing that rule more strictly would mean both having less hesitation to punish, and doing more research such as asking a specialist in a particular thread or skimming a thread to see whether something has been said to death. There's also the rule's exception to consider, which is when something that isn't necessarily fresh but DOES directly refute another argument might be permitted.

You know what would help with this difficult problem of knowing what�s �fresh,� Koos? Reading the loving subforum.

DnD has not, in a decade, needed a recap of "instead of discussing specific facts, current events or observable reality, I declare that anything other than civic withdrawal and overthrowing the government is futile and useless". This not a new idea- it�s a way to derail discussion and communicate contempt for everyone having it. There are thousands upon thousands of words and concrete examples here telling you what effect this "argument" has; I've personally given you documentation that this method of sabotaging discussion is centuries old. It doesn't require research to tell someone is breaking the rules - and your decision to entertain the users who do this, every single time, has consequences for who will continue to tolerate posting here. The same is true of white noise posting, and trolling, and argument by euphemism, and all the other recriminating toxicity that you have excessively documented and not stopped. Telling people to report poo poo, and then choosing to not act on it, tells the reporting party that you think the trolls are more valuable than everyone else participating or sharing actual information.

I understand you struggle to recognize how your lack of moderation impacts people. So here are a couple reminders of the effects of your �hesitation to punish.�

Rosalind posted:

[...] 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.

Rosalind posted:

See this is exactly it! This post perfectly encapsulates why I don't post here any more.

It calls me names, it interprets what I posted (which was basically just "I'd post here more if people are nicer") in the most bad faith way possible (suggesting I only want people to post adhering to some sort of corporate capitalist orthodoxy), and suggests that I made some sort of outrageous request (that people post with a level of academic study rigor).

And it's written so perfectly too for plausible deniability because I'm not mentioned by name of course. You can't call me "terminally academia-brained" to my face because that would get you in trouble.

This is exactly why I don't put in D&D any more. Thank you for proving my point in a thread about feedback about why people don't post in D&D any more.

You know that your decision to facilitate this backbiting harassment drives SMEs off the subforum- that they would rather post anywhere else, because by not enforcing the rules, you obligate them to entertain their attackers. Their expertise makes them a target under the system of not-moderation you have established. People who post about this problem are the easiest, lowest "research" probations for you to issue; and they just leave, because they recognize how this approach stacks the deck in favor of the people who don't care about probations.

But what message are your moderation decisions sending to everyone else? To the people who just want to learn or communicate? What should they have to tolerate? Well, thankfully we have a recent case where all the implicit elements of the trolling you don�t punish have spelled out for you.

Xiahou Dun posted:

Hi ElephantAmbush! Remember me, the guy who played Gloomhaven with you a bunch? If it wasn't for the watered-down bullshit imperceptibly better than nothing ACA I'd be dead. I almost died while between health insurances and that policy is the reason why I got to get surgery and, y'know, didn't loving die. The ACA does nowhere near enough, it's a pretty lovely implementation of any of its policy aims, but it's still the sole reason I'm alive.

What message are you telling users when they have to repeatedly argue against the claim that it doesn't matter whether they live or die? For days? For years?

# ¿ Nov 5, 2023 02:58

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Gumball Gumption posted:

Elephant Ambush has never trolled anyone in their life. The thing you've quoted is one earnest poster replying to another earnest poster.

The position that it's imperceptible whether other users live or die- that the discussion of actions that would determine life or death are pointless, and that only societal overthrow matters, is a well-trod way to sabotage discussion, as it was successfully deployed to do for several loving days. This reached the point that a mod acknowledged that this was what it was, but they still chose to do nothing about it for several additional days.

Rigel posted:

A quick note on "voting doesn't matter" doom/apathy arguments and/or "Dems bad" debates: as irritating and report-producing as those two subjects may be to some people, they are not forbidden topics of discussion, and current events do occasionally cause them to become relevant topics.

When we get closer to an important election and those topics are used more often to just shut down debate and discourage people from talking about what they want to talk about, then this board has often banished those arguments into their own containment thread(s), but we aren't there right now.

The person who originally deployed the electoralism shitshow then got to continue to derail the thread with it for another two days before they got a sixer for doing it. And we should all be grateful that they made it that easy, because there is already an explicit playbook for trolling the thread with these arguments, whereby the person who initiates this particular sabotage drops it and disappears for as long as possible while people respond!

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Nov 5, 2023

# ¿ Nov 5, 2023 03:13

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Koos Group posted:

The issue is that you're talking about a position, regarding the utility of different sorts of political action. You do in fact need to say what rule someone is breaking, not just that they have some sort of viewpoint that makes them likely to break rules. The freshness rule is also not applied abstractly, where anyone arguing for the same thing must be guilty, it's about specific arguments and the exception of direct responses applies.

I did, at length, to the mod who chose not to enforce the rules.

Discendo Vox posted:

No, they are, in fact, violating the rules.
quote:
A. Act in good faith. Dishonesty erodes trust, leads us to incorrect conclusions, and obviously encourages users to assume bad faith, with all the problems that causes.
1. Don't be trolling. Trolling is here defined as posting with the primary motivation of getting a rise out of other posters rather than engaging in discussion. Enforcement of this rule errs on the side of leniency so that posters do not fear they'll be considered trolls just for having a controversial opinion.
quote:
II. Ensure your posts add to discussion.
B. Make interesting posts. Ideally, it should be reasonably possible to gain something intellectually from every post, whether that's a new idea, an argument we can engage with, or relevant facts we didn't know.
1. Make points that are fresh or falsifiable. If a point is stale, it can at least be interestingly debated if it's specific and falsifiable. If a point is not falsifiable, it can at least provide interesting food for thought by being original or obscure. Arguments are judged for freshness in context. If an argument has been made before, but you are using it as a specific and direct rebuttal in a way it hasn't been used, that is still fresh, not to mention necessary for debate.
2. Support your arguments with reasoning or citations. If you have a gut feeling about something without any explanation, this is probably not compelling or able to be debated.

You have identified why and how these arguments are used to sabotage discussion, and you are choosing to allow them do to exactly that. You have chosen not to enforce the rules.

In turn, you are telling the trolls that they can continue to do this, and you are telling everyone else to leave the forum.

Koos Group posted:

I am as sad as you to see any expert go, as it hurts D&D's ability to be informative, which is one of its top goals.

You're not "seeing the experts go", you're driving them off and ignoring them when they tell you why. The "it" that hurts D&D's ability to be informative is your moderation policy.

Koos Group posted:

If someone has a wealth of knowledge or expertise they're sharing, I try to be especially lenient toward them and harsh toward anyone who breaks a rule in a way targeting them. I'm not sure what else I can do, and it's not helpful for you to say "enforce the rules" because I already believe I am doing so. I wrote all of them my dang self with the intent of being enforced.

But the rules are very explicitly not being enforced, which is why these things keep happening.

Koos Group posted:

The poster Xiahou Dun is responding to did not say it doesn't matter whether they live or die, and it's not clear from that post that they knew this part of Xiahou Dun's history.

The entire point of the electoralism argument, the entire reason it works to destroy discussion, is that it rejects all other discussion. Elephant Ambush hosed up only by making explicit the statement which was implicit when selec decided to sabotage discussion of gun control policy by deploying it - the claim that all discussion and all outcomes other than the ones that selec demands, in this case a euphemistic call to violence, are worthless. This is always the argument. It has always been the argument. It has always been a counterfactual that dismisses and sabotages all discussion of specific facts, demanding that everyone who cares about anything else reassert their value. It has always, always, carried with it the belief that the people killed by these differences in outcome are worthless.

You know that it does this, which is why you have to keep coming up with excuses to not apply the rules to it- to pretend that it is fresh, to give it new threads, to give users with mile-long trolling rapsheets opportunity after opportunity to deploy it. Every single time, every single time, these arguments ruin discussion because they always carry the same message: that everyone else who is impacted by the differences between the parties, who cares about those impacts, that all of it, that all of them, are worthless. This isn't new. It isn't fresh. It isn't falsifiable. It isn't moderated. It tells users who care that the most important topic of discussion in DnD is how they are worthless.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Nov 5, 2023

# ¿ Nov 5, 2023 03:38

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Fister Roboto posted:

My feedback is that Discendo Vox needs to be forum banned. I hate to be petty and call someone out like this but I think he is genuinely the worst poster here. Every conversation he butts into becomes a drag, like you're seeing right now. Every post he makes is dripping with condescension, anger, and self-righteousness. He never tries to have a discussion with anyone, he just lectures and berates them until they stop posting or a mod finally responds to his dozens of reports. And when the mods don't immediately respond, or respond in a way that he doesn't like, he publicly berates them for it. Seriously, stick up for yourselves!

He doesn't try to understand anyone's perspective, and frequently misinterprets what they say in the most uncharitable way possible. If someone comes to a different conclusion about something than him, he accuses them of trolling or spreading propaganda. I've tried talking with him like a normal person and even then he thinks I'm trolling. I've never seen him admit that he was wrong about something, or even entertain the possibility that he could be wrong. He lashes out aggressively at the smallest of issues, even people who aren't necessarily disagreeing with him. He constantly refers back to his own posts as if he's some kind of respected scholar that we should all pay deference to. The reality is that he's just an anonymous poster on a dying comedy website forum like the rest of us. He has nothing to contribute except bile and a completely unearned sense of authority.

Just a couple weeks ago I was having a conversation with another poster. Eventually I came to the conclusion that we weren't just going to agree on each other's point, so I tried to politely end the conversation. And the other poster was gracious enough to leave it at that. But then DV comes at me with this poo poo:

Like what the gently caress? If I or anyone else posted something like that I'd definitely be probated. And he does this constantly. He doesn't want to debate. He doesn't want to discuss. He doesn't want to further his own understanding or anyone else's. He just wants to lecture and yell at people until they agree with him or ignore him. I'm happy to just put him on ignore, but I think that his toxic attitude is directly harming this forum.

I think I deserve a probation for this post. It feels gross, but I needed to get it out there.

The post you are quoting was in response to you trying to "let's agree to disagree" after multiple users in the politoons thread, including the most active politoon contributors, explained to you in detail why and how someone working directly for authoritarian state-controlled foreign-facing propaganda outlets uses selective framing and loaded symbolism to misrepresent their subject, and how their appeal as a "supporter of the oppressed" was similarly selective and misleading, in service to those regimes. As someone else put it more succinctly,

Kchama posted:

Ah, the old "You can't refute me, because I won't read!" counter.

This is in many respects the core conflict.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2023 04:20

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Main Paineframe posted:

Just look at how Xiahou Dun gave an anecdote about how a policy helped them personally, and DisVox twisted it into "[users] have to repeatedly argue against the claim that it doesn't matter whether they live or die". That's ridiculously hyperbolic. Stretching poo poo like that is far more poisonous than a whole page of electoralism debate during a slow week in USCE.

I am not, and it is not. Every single time we get this electoralism bullshit, the same framework is in play. By saying that there is no difference or an "almost imperceptible" difference between the parties, they are rejecting differences in policy, like the policy that Xiahou Dun credits with saving their life, as meaningless. This is the point, this is the purpose, of that equivocation, to dismiss the difference in consequences that occur based on electoral outcomes. Those outcomes are measured, in no small part, in human lives.

This deliberate dismissal has always been why using this ultimatum framing is so effective as a trolling method- it rejects as meaningless as everything less than an extreme counterfactual, including everything and everyone who was involved in the previous discussion. It obligates the people having the discussion of reality to defend each and every part of that reality against a continuously shifting tide of cultivated ignorance.

And it wasn't "a whole page", it lasted for at least nineteen. It's not like there weren't any other current events happening in the US that week!

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Nov 5, 2023

# ¿ Nov 5, 2023 07:11

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Zachack posted:

Feedback that I haven't really thought through: Every active thread in D&D needs an IK (active being, I guess, two pages back?). From PMs Koos has indicated that some threads have relaxed rules, and some of those threads also don't have IKs, which means they have a higher chance of permanent degradation because there's no one ostensibly responsible for keeping the thread "functioning". Obviously some relaxed-rules threads work fine as they are, in which case I don't think having an IK would cause any problems (up until they finally go insane from other causes). Other threads, though, IMO really have a degraded discussion because it's too easy to shitpost and be hostile.

I think assigning IKs to all threads may also encourage new threads - if an OP is assured that someone will be at least paying a little attention and ensuring the rules are followed a little, they may be encouraged to take the actual step of creating a ne thread. I feel that over the years the success rate of new threads has been low partly because that lack of attention means that people can easily poo poo the thread up in a hurry and while it's in early stages. I want to note that I would hesitate to make OPs the IK, and probably discourage that, since they are likely biased in favor of their views or interests that prompted the thread in the first place.

You also get the benefit of a larger pool of future moderator candidates, assuming that isn't a curse.

Yes, this would be excellent. No, I will not be an IK.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2023 08:01

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Jakabite posted:

One thing I�ve noticed is that people seem to get away with saying some extremely heinous poo poo (cheering on genocide and generally treating Palestinians as sub-human, for example), but if they dress it up in nice words and a calm, measured tone, and don�t quite explicitly say the Bad Words, they get away with it because �we don�t moderate positions�. Frankly I think that�s both untrue and ridiculous. If I was to waltz into a dnd thread and say �it is my solemnly held opinion that all non-white people should be exterminated, here�s 2000 calmly written words on why�, I�m genuinely not sure if I�d be banned or not. I should, obviously, but if I was then clearly you do moderate positions. I have a lot of issues with CSPAM but their joke/observation about DnD being the calm hitler meme is pretty spot on from what I�ve seen.

Please do moderate positions and learn to read between the lines, rather than just assuming �calm tone, reasoned argument, lots of words = a fine argument to make that couldn�t possibly be loving evil�.

The reason that they keep repeating the calm hitler meme is because it's something Koos said.

Koos Group posted:

If anyone finds all my words tedious, I can sum it up thusly: D&D's purpose is to create the calmest Hitler imaginable. A Hitler so placid, so suffused with good faith, that he can save the world using citations.

They've taken it to heart.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2023 17:25

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Koos Group posted:

I agree, but if he doesn't want to be an IK I'm not going to force him. Though I do relish the fact that he complains about rule enforcement while being completely unwilling to enforce any himself.

I've told you, at length, in detail, why I can't. You know that it's because of the harassment and spreadsheet poo poo that you and previous mods and admins have encouraged. Why the hell would you think this is an okay thing to say?

Koos Group posted:

I was making fun of the meme/myself and that post was not meant to be taken seriously.

I really want you to loving stop "making fun of" what you're doing. It's completely indistinguishable from your policy, and I don't think you can tell the difference when you're "not meant to be taken seriously" either.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2023 20:19

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Main Paineframe posted:

Is literally anybody in this thread talking about actual real issues that happen regularly in D&D in fall 2023? I'm seeing a lot of rehashings of ancient arguments and grudges, and a lot of discussion of hypothetical problems that could theoretically happen, but D&D has calmed down quite a bit in the Koos years so I'm fairly surprised to see people acting like D&D is overrun with problems.

The violent content issue and the use of poo poo like electoralism arguments to derail discussion are both recent problems that have been recurring periodically. DnD has calmed down only in the sense that a lot of the effortposters and people who were creating new threads or providing effortful content gave up and left.

Main Paineframe posted:

"SYQ" posting was clamped down on ages ago, accusing people of doing it is also against the D&D rules, and I haven't seen anything in USCE about there being a resurgence of either one. Is this an actual problem cropping up again, or did someone just bring it up as a hypothetical and drag up old grudges with it?

You're not seeing anything about it in USCE because it's against the rules to mention it. SYQ posting was clamped down on for a period of maybe a week, and has become common again. The figleaf is the user's name is taken off the post, but since there's a subculture around it, everyone in the threads where it happens is also reading the source. A lot of this thread is getting reposted, for instance.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Nov 5, 2023

# ¿ Nov 5, 2023 21:02

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Koos Group posted:

Might have a reckoning if it starts taking over the thread whilst going nowhere again.

Why do you need a bad thing to happen again before you prevent the bad thing from happening?

# ¿ Nov 6, 2023 02:27

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Bar Ran Dun posted:

Most of the actual old drama has died down as well. Some people now post in CSPAM and some still post in D&D and generally each group stays there. There seems to be only a relatively small number of folks that regularly post in both.

No. If the "old drama has died down", it's because the trolls have more control; the people who were the most beneficial participants have been driven off of DnD or SA overall. The subforum continues to be harvested and targeted by trolls, actively facilitated by the current pattern of rationalizing not enforcing the rules. This thread is a great example, like its multiple predecessors; users who participate in the forum give feedback; it is either ignored or new actions are actively refused. Trolls poo poo the place up, and it serves to entertain them.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Nov 6, 2023

# ¿ Nov 6, 2023 17:12

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 04:29

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

socialsecurity posted:

Why this weird constant pretending that succ doesn't exist? You post in it, you know what it does, why pretend otherwise?

Because they're trolling the feedback thread.

Main Paineframe posted:

Honestly I think D&D is pretty much fine now.

It is not. As I have already said, as I have already demonstrated, it has driven off many of the people who made it a place for education or discussion.

Not really because of anything the current mod team did, but because Koos is not a D&D poster and expresses zero political opinions and minimal political insightfulness. So most of the people who were convinced their constant probes were just political oppression from the biased mods have given up their guerilla resistance and just left D&D. All this time, I guess what we really needed was a neutral outsider.

Main Paineframe posted:

Annoying posting still happens occasionally in USCE, but the volume is way down and can easily be drowned out by actual news. I didn't even bother reporting the electoralism derail the other day because the government's shut down and nobody really had anything else to talk about in USCE anyway

A tremendous amount of things are happening in the United States. The fact that it is not covered in D&D's USCE thread during a trolling derail does not mean everything else stops- it just means moderation has failed. Again.

Main Paineframe posted:

- the big problem has never been the electoralism discussion itself, but the way it generates tons of angry petty posts and drowns out everything else anyone's attempting to talk about.

You have correctly identified how trolling works. The point of the electoralism claim is that, by presenting an unfalsifiable counterfactual burden that rejects all discussion of specifics, it demands that response.

Main Paineframe posted:

USCE has been quite a bit better about staying on the general topic and not getting caught up in days-long circular slapfights.

USCE just has a lot fewer users, because it's gotten bad enough that people have left.

Main Paineframe posted:

One thing I will say is that if someone has a history of breaking the D&D rules, then that tends to not be taken into account at all in their probes unless the person typing the report adds "and this person has like thirty probes already for this exact same thing" to the end of a report. If they don't add that line, it's usually just a sixer, but adding that set of magic words seems to fairly consistently elevate the probe length to days or more. So the mods probably aren't looking at rapsheets enough when handling reports.

Koos has a policy of not reading rapsheets, like he doesn't read the forum he moderates. It's another way to justify not acting on bad users, even when their methodology is extremely predictable and longstanding.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Nov 6, 2023

# ¿ Nov 6, 2023 18:46

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