Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.
-
@sunny said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
Different rules? IDK how to say what I'm trying to get at. I don't disagree with you. I just think that it should be allowed to warn people about folks like Sovereign.
I get what you're getting at.
I think that you can very easily warn people about folks like Sovereign without wandering into Hog Pit territory. In fact, I've read very descriptive accounts of him that, although stating vile and despicable things, very accurately recounts the vile and despicable things that Sovereign said and did.
It's not slanderous or defamatory if it's true.
-
@ganymede said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
It's not slanderous or defamatory if it's true.
Yeah, it's a fine line but I do think there's an enforceable line there somewhere.
ETA:
Like saying "this thing happened - beware" is something I haven't seen anyone object to.
The trouble is keeping it from devolving into:
"This thing happened"
"No it didn't!"
"Of course it did, you vile scumbag."
"You just have an axe to grind you lying garbage pile."
... and so on until the dumpster fire and popcorn GIFs come out. -
@sunny said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
As an out of left field (ish) thought...:;
I am really kind of wondering what would happen if the hog pit just went away entirely and 'mildly constructive' just became the general discussion forums with SLIGHTLY less lax rules than at present. Yes, there are people that would quit here if that part of the forum went away, and there would be a lot of screaming, but...
I don't see a 'new' hogpit style forum wakening, or the user base splitting. I see...people being pissed off, some leaving for a while, and ultimately everyone coming back. There are reasons for gloves off possibilities, but I think that those reasons could be crafted into the semi-constructive rules to allow for it.
I dunno. I keep hearing folks say they really would prefer that, except for a very vocal few, and I'm not sure why we as a culture/community are letting a vocal few people make us keep the hog pit around instead of making the decision that we need to be better.
So, lemme just make sure I'm clear on your suggestion here.
You want to take away the place where people are supposed to be toxic assholes because they're being toxic assholes all over the rest of the forum, then say it's okay to be slightly more toxic on the rest of the board, in an effort to reduce the overall toxicity?
Also, I don't think a "vocal few" people who want the board to be made out of rainbows should have a greater voice than the "vocal few" who appreciate having a place to call a spade a flaming piece of cunty spades.
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ THE HOG PIT, DON'T OPT IN TO THE HOG PIT.
Why is this so hard?
-
Because the hogpit isn't staying in the hogpit and the moderators are asking for input regarding that situation.
-
@krmbm said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
Why is this so hard?
Because shit in the Hog Pit overflows into the rest of the board.
-
@ganymede said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
Because shit in the Hog Pit overflows into the rest of the board.
So deleting the Hog Pit and then making the rest of the board "more toxic-friendly [tm]" is going to stop this?
-
I did actually already clarify that I was struggling with how to phrase it, and then Gany explained exactly what it was I meant to say. Changing things to toxic-lite is not what I mean about changing the rules in the other subforums.
-
@sunny said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
I keep hearing folks say they really would prefer that, except for a very vocal few, and I'm not sure why we as a culture/community are letting a vocal few people make us keep the hog pit around instead of making the decision that we need to be better.
I don't mind the Hog Pit. There are times when gloves off can be beneficial. I more mind the fact that, even with a designated gloves off area, people can't seem to keep it there and it ends up spilling everywhere because things get dragged into the mud if they get too dirty, instead of someone turning on the hose, like should happen.
If we get rid of the Hog Pit, then those lines become, well, muddier. I think that would ultimately have the opposite of the intended effect. At least with it there, there are moderate boundaries between 'pit material' and 'non pit material'. Even if some people still fail to grasp that.
-
I think a big part of the issue is trying to force the concept of community on people who for the most part only have MUSHing in common and generally dislike each other while MUSHing.
-
@thatguythere said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
I think a big part of the issue is trying to force the concept of community on people who for the most part only have MUSHing in common and generally dislike each other while MUSHing.
Entry level community theatre is the exact same way. It's easy to spot a stable influence once you see what happens behind the scenes.
Our problem here is that we have what is in essence "a discussion list about community theatres" started by people who only do, for bad example, audience-participation murder mysteries.
This wasn't so much of a problem until the latest director said, "I want to include everyone as much as possible without alienating the people who kept us alive for this long". Pandering to drama queens is not going to endear anyone who doesn't normally deal with drama queens. (male or female, drama kings if you'd like, drama nonsequiters, whatnot.)
It's a no-win situation at best. Admin just have to decide what they don't want to win.
-
@derp who are these untouchable people
-
@thenomain said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
It's a no-win situation at best. Admin just have to decide what they don't want to win.
Yeah, I mean, 21 pages of arguing later and nobody really has any good solutions. I don't think there are any. It's like any highly-polarized topic. You either pick a side and alienate the other side, or try to walk that microscopically small middle line and accept that you're going to piss of one side or the other more often than not.
-
Like any other polarized topic with that many sides, you find the sides that matter to you and alienate the side that you don't want around. This still isn't a fantastic solution, but at least you know what your goal audience is.
-
Project scope too big. Given available resources, all ends cannot be accomplished. ^^
-
@thatguythere said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
I think a big part of the issue is trying to force the concept of community on people who for the most part only have MUSHing in common and generally dislike each other while MUSHing.
People in general don't dislike each other. I don't believe that.
But specific people come here carrying baggage from the games they are playing? I do believe that.
What I don't want MSB to become - and won't allow while I'm at the helm - is to try and treat this forum as a social arena to settle down differences and chase away undesirables by making life unpleasant for them. You know, the petty high school tactics that get attempted in any game that tolerates them.
-
@arkandel I think this depends a lot on how one defines 'undesirables'.
People like Sovereign, Spider, Elsa, or Nemesis, who are egregiously abusive across the board and have no intention whatsoever of changing their behaviors, are definitely undesirables and I think the community would be better off without them, full stop.
If this forum is keeping these people away from games, good.
If we are defining 'undesirables' as 'anyone who doesn't agree with me about everything, gets snippy once in a while, and fucked something up once in 2002', on the other hand? Bluntly: the people defining 'undesirables' this way need to grow up and recognize that their personal dislikes are not indicative of broadly abusive and toxic behavior that is detrimental to the community on the whole.
There's a difference. It's valid, and it's relevant.
-
I don't know whether this is useful to you or not: NodeBB New User Approval.
It would prevent those one-shot users from posting.
With a little tweaking you could move an approved user back into the unapproved group temporarily to make their posts require approval. -
@tyche said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
I don't know whether this is useful to you or not: NodeBB New User Approval.
It would prevent those one-shot users from posting.
With a little tweaking you could move an approved user back into the unapproved group temporarily to make their posts require approval.This sounds like a great idea.
-
@derp said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
I don't mind the Hog Pit. There are times when gloves off can be beneficial. I more mind the fact that, even with a designated gloves off area, people can't seem to keep it there and it ends up spilling everywhere because things get dragged into the mud if they get too dirty, instead of someone turning on the hose, like should happen.
If we get rid of the Hog Pit, then those lines become, well, muddier. I think that would ultimately have the opposite of the intended effect. At least with it there, there are moderate boundaries between 'pit material' and 'non pit material'. Even if some people still fail to grasp that.
Here's why I don't approve of this line of thinking.
Some people don't want to play in the mud, like Faraday. I know this, so I could hop into the Hog Pit and defecate a whole ton of false, defamatory offal there accusing her of everything from kidnapping the Lindbergh Baby to being the reason why kids are getting shot in schools. And I could attempt to do so in a witty, rhetorical fashion that both amuses and persuades people to my line of thinking. And if Faraday wanted to denounce all of that bullshit, she would have to come into the Hog Pit to do it. Otherwise, she has to sit back and take it or hope that someone steps into the ring for her.
How is that fair? This is what bullying boils down to: I take the fight to a place where my victim can't or won't go, or won't have a fair shot in.
I cannot say from personal experience that I have been the target of a whisper-campaign, but I can damn well understand it is some shady peak-at-high-school bullshit that I have neither the time nor the inclination to properly express my anger over. I have seen and heard enough in my 20+ years of lingering in virtual space to know that, at one point, the WORA community was about two steps away of heading down the road of 8-bit and 4chan. And I'm too old to think there is anything hip, edgy, or valuable of having a website that has a section that condones and even encourages people to be shitty to one another.
Maybe back in the day when some of us were neophytes still masturbating to our purple TS prose, we thought that it would be cool and cathartic to take potshots at people who had difficulty communicating over the internet. Where we could nitpick about grammar and spelling, and pass judgment on who or what was acceptable in our community of misfits. But in retrospect, I've come to the conclusion that my belief in a "free internet" where people could express what they felt in whatever way they wished is the same sort of mentality that shields hate groups as they organize, intimidate, and sometimes kill the easily-oppressed.
If we can comprehend that there is a good behavior and bad behavior, then we can recognize that bad behavior is bad. In order for a person to conclude that there is value to the Hog Pit, they must also conclude that the bad behavior is desirable, and should be considered acceptable. But if conduct were acceptable, then there is no reason why it should have been separated in the first place from the other forms of acceptable conduct -- the good conduct, if you will. And that doesn't make sense to me.
But, more fundamentally, I do not see why we have to accept bad behavior here. What value is there in giving members of the community a place to accuse one another of things in egregious ways that are sometimes lauded and praised? Why is it that we seem to be incapable of airing grievances as we'd expect our friends to do, namely civilly and without childish name-calling? (I suppose it depends on the kinds of friends you have.)
If WORA was a place where people could complain about what was happening in the hobby, then make a "Complaints" forum and attach the same rules as we have for "Mildly Constructive." Complain all you want, but stick to what happened rather just accuse someone vaguely as a psycho hosebeast.
I don't think it's difficult, but I file complaints for a living.
-
I agree 100%, and I say this as somebody who finds the hog pit routinely "worth" engaging in (evidenced by the fact that I do). I recognize that I would have to change my behavior and I'm probably going to get in trouble a time or twelve, but I think it might very well be the right move for the community at large.