1st quarter 2024 D&D Feedback: State of the Forum

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > 1st quarter 2024 D&D Feedback: State of the Forum

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019; Can't post for 3 days!

There is still dogpiling and digging into years-old post histories in the War in Ukraine thread; there was an ugly example with someone whose name begins with K and Cpt_Obvious a few weeks ago. IIRC, folks were egging K on.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2024 16:04

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 08:03

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019; Can't post for 3 days!

Discendo Vox posted:

Conversely, for the users who are breaking the rules deliberately to sabotage discussion or harass other users (like B B as mentioned earlier), short probations are explicitly not a disincentive because their goals are still being accomplished.

With this and other posts you are claiming there is a grand conspiracy to sabotage the subforum. I think you are getting a little heavy into the paranoid style:

quote:

The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman�sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid�s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone�s will. Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; he has a new secret for influencing the mind (brainwashing); he has a special technique for seduction (the Catholic confessional).
�
A final characteristic of the paranoid style is related to the quality of its pedantry. One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows. It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency. But respectable paranoid literature not only starts from certain moral commitments that can indeed be justified but also carefully and all but obsessively accumulates �evidence.� The difference between this �evidence� and that commonly employed by others is that it seems less a means of entering into normal political controversy than a means of warding off the profane intrusion of the secular political world. The paranoid seems to have little expectation of actually convincing a hostile world, but he can accumulate evidence in order to protect his cherished convictions from it.

More often I see you dragging the discussion down or trying to shut it down entirely. You can make interesting and informative posts -- I wish you would write more words about the FDA than chiding people.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2024 20:41

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019; Can't post for 3 days!

Main Paineframe posted:

farting around in here is all well and good, but how long has it been since anyone's checked the D&D reports?

my money's on "at least two days"

as long as it takes several days for poo poo to get hit, it doesn't really matter what the mod guidelines are

Give me your money. This was from a post from March 13

gjb posted:

Now, normally, l'd think a day was appropriate for this, and it is.
But you reported your own post, so I would like to commemorate that.
A shameful display. User loses posting privileges for 6 hours.

The Sean posted:

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ¿ Mar 15, 2024 06:49

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019; Can't post for 3 days!

Victar posted:

I guess the only relevance to D&D modding is that it's extremely frustrating to deal with shifting definitions, especially when the definition of "genocide" gets shifted around.

The I/P thread appears to have the consensus that Palestinian suffering prior to October 7th qualifies as genocide even though the Palestinian population was increasing. I agree with this consensus and I was under the impression that Esran agreed too, based on their I/P posts. (And yes, this is something that only someone who regularly reads the I/P thread would know.)

If Palestinian suffering prior to October 7th is defined as genocide then the Holodomor (millions starved to death through a man-made famine and stealing food) fits the definition.

If the Holodomor doesn't fit a nitpicky textbook definition of genocide, then Palestinian suffering prior to October 7th also doesn't fit the nitpicky textbook definition of genocide.

So claiming that it's "not uncontroversial" to call the Holodomor a genocide, given the current consensus in the I/P thread is... I don't know how to put it into words. I want to assume good faith, like D&D rules say, or possibly ignorance of basic Holodomor information available on Wikipedia.

As you point out, my reaction to the cognitive dissonance resulted in a post that doesn't have anything directly to do with D&D moderation... but what is the appropriate response here? Just leave it alone? Report it? Esran's post didn't seem reportable to me. Shifting definitions around is against D&D rules, but it could have come from ignorance of the Holodomor.

I caution against relying on Wikipedia for European history as there are a lot of bad actors and poor sourcing: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939

One of most prominent Wikipedians mentioned in that article is also a top contributor to the Holodomor page. It seems they have largely stepped down in response to the media attention (or maybe they started a new account).

# ¿ Mar 16, 2024 20:12

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019; Can't post for 3 days!

Bar Ran Dun posted:

I just recently picked a pretty public fight with DV about the religious critique of democracy as a civic religion. I�d call it pretty heated.

That�s a different thing than what�s going on. There is an active mock thread of DV right now. That�s not really okay.

I don't know what thread you mean. I suspect you might be talking about the media literacy thread on a different subforum, but that doesn't actually fit your description.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2024 17:48

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 08:03

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019; Can't post for 3 days!

Bar Ran Dun posted:

The syq stuff being mocked is DV, from his media literacy thread.

Most of the posts in that thread are not that though, including the op. I don't think emptyquotes of tweets of videos and pictures of John Kirby really count. There are more "syqs" of other people.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2024 17:54

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