I have a really bad problem right now with getting enough sleep. Part of it is just my brain constantly deciding that sleep is a waste of time and no, really, staying up all night is fine, you can just take a day off from doing that, but the other part of it is that when I do get to sleep, I will sleep like the dead, but cannot seem to scrape past six hours of doing so. The past two weeks it hasn't been six hours, it's almost entirely been 4-5. I have, therefore, conspired over the past few days to force myself to bed as early as possible (there are reasons I need to stay up to at least midnight).

Every. Single. One. of the last three nights, some emergency has sprung up right as I'm on my way. Give the dog meds, take my meds, and boom. A pipe breaks. My incredibly ill father falls down. The computer starts grinding like it's trying to seduce the PS4.

At this point, reality is definitely trolling me, so I'm mad at reality, I guess. Let me fucking sleep, asshole.

I'm not replying to that directly because I don't want to give the impression that it's aimed at reimesu, but I'm going to use it as a springboard:

People are not walking because they can't make personal attacks. It's the internet. The internet runs on personal attacks (and memes, and memes that are personal attacks). We can make personal attacks anywhere, MSB did not provide some rare fix that is no longer available.

People are walking because community trust was broken. It was broken in the way that snapping a twig five times and then feeding it into a woodchipper counts as 'broken'. An action was taken, there was backlash, the original actor doubled down, there was louder backlash, an ultimatum was given, a ban came down that a huge portion of the board not only thought was unfair, but wildly inappropriate, things blew up, and it came down to 'shut up or else' in somewhat more politely worded terms, to which a massive chunk of posters took the 'or else' option, either via further bans or simply leaving.

Derp was not the cause of most of this (though folks were already going to walk away over the appointment), he was the spark. Gany, you keep writing about how this is all your responsibility, and you're entirely, 100%, beyond belief correct, which is basically the only point at which you've been correct in any of this. But I'm not sure you quite understand what exactly that responsibility was. I lay it out again:

You broke the community trust. There's an unspoken understanding in any community of people, anywhere, in any medium, but particularly online, that those who hold the authority will use their authority fairly, that they will listen to complaints and concerns, and that they will take appropriate action. This does not mean bowing to every whim or allowing every fire to burn uncontrolled - and you are well aware of that - but it does mean that when a bunch of people have a problem with something you've done or not done, your response needs to measured, your response needs to come from a certain understanding of why the problem has sprung up, and it needs to adequately address the issue.

Cold rules-pounding does none of this. I think you fell back on it because you were unprepared for protest, you did not know how to respond to the size of said protest, the vehemence of it, the direct attacks and the anger, because iron-clad rules are comfortable for you, because you feel you can draw a line in the sand and everyone worthy will find where you draw the line to be acceptable, or at least satisfactory in the moment, and everyone unworthy can be kicked out without guilt, because breaking rules and crossing lines are in and of themselves proof that someone who receives a ban deserves the ban.

A lot of people disagree.

The reason why this kicked off is frankly unimportant at this point. You've made your decisions. You're now trying to patch up all the holes by trying to address every angle, cover every possibility, because the solution is, clearly, that there just weren't enough rules, that the reason people got upset at how you handled things is because you hadn't set enough boundaries. Look at this:

This is silly. This is proof of the problem. If you've got to put that many conditions on what is, for every other part of the forum, a simple one sentence description, rather than simply relying on the stickied conduct post, then you need to ask yourself why. Frankly, if you don't want a version of the Hog Pit, then I recommend locking it down for good, and leaving it visible for the sake of preservation. If you want a debates forum, then open a debates forum, but, again frankly, I'm not sure it matters at this point. It doesn't to me.

You broke the community trust, and community trust is a fragile, fraught thing not easily mended, if ever. People in this thread are afraid of the hammer coming down if they don't tiptoe enough. No amount of reassurance will fix it. No number of apologies will fix it. Nothing is going to fix it, because the people who have left, willing or otherwise, are by and large not coming back. You don't fix community trust once it's broken, you rebuild it, from the bottom up, and in this case I'm afraid that is also going to require rebuilding the community itself.

But before you can rebuild anything, you need to understand why it fell apart in the first place. I'm not convinced that's going to happen, but you don't need to convince someone also walking out the door. You just need to set the metaphorical pen down for a moment, set aside the self flagellation (real or performative), and take a good long honest look, not at the 'what', but the 'why'.

And I will tell you right now, the 'why' isn't that you didn't have enough conditions set in place to mire any attempts at protest.

Uh. The 'vocal majority' is the majority on an internet message board. People supporting you in emails but not posting aren't participating in the thing that a message board exists for. Maybe they'll post more with the 'vocal majority' having departed, cool if so, but it's kind of hilarious to argue that the majority of people who post on your board shouldn't have their concerns addressed (concerns addressed is not catering or bowing to whims, good grief).

@devrex said in Something Completely Different:

@GreenFlashlight
I saw a lot of weaponized victimization in the aftermath of that post. The actual opinion? The actual words? Were at no point actually engaged with.

Fucking yikes.

I've got thoughts on this discussion, but lemme boil it down to two things:

1. I vehemently disagree with the idea that people being assholes in whatever way should not have their behavior pointed out, or that people who have seen such behavior somehow owe them the thoughtfulness and courtesy they themselves did not display. Cool if someone decides to go through that effort, but that's an extra kindness they're doing, not what should be expected.

Furthermore, I've got some serious objections to the widespread idea that it's more important for there to be peace and decorum than it is to address genuine issues. That is a form of silencing, to expect someone who has been harmed to just be quiet about it to avoid disturbing the perception that everything is okay. It is not weaponizing victimization to point out that you have been harmed, or who harmed you. It is not being a bully to tell other people that someone has been harmful. It is not worse to call someone out for their behavior than it is for that person to engage in said behavior. Are there limits that should be imposed, care that should be taken, instances where the dogpiling itself has been weaponized? Absolutely. A community needs to have its own standards, rules, and ways of dealing with this, and every community is going to draw the line in a different place. But holy hell is that phrase gross.

2. It is completely, utterly impossible to be a perfectly objective, logical person with entirely rational responses to everything. In my experience, people who convince themselves they are this are the ones most likely to teeter over the edge into complete meltdowns as soon as that perception is pierced, because they don't know how to deal with it. Nor should it be a desirable state: there is nothing rational about being unemotional about emotional things.

And to speak somewhat generally so as not to open that particular wound? Politics is nothing but emotion. Politics is everything, because it's what determines how we live. If you (general you) Kramer into a discussion where a lot of people are upset and hurt (and scared) to show off how calm and logical you are, then you are, indeed, being a fucking asshole. There's a really toxic perception in our society that having feelings about something is bad, strong feelings even worse, and that the admirable person is the one entirely divorced from caring.

In any case

@jomomomo said in Something Completely Different:

The hog pit was literally the dog's house on fire meme. "This is fine". Most toxic place anywhere.

@jomomomo said in Ethics:

These people trying to go out like a war heros or something. Or in Kanye's case, practically begging to be banned as if it were some badge of honor.

Like, just shut up and leave?

This narcissistic behavior is exactly what makes the hobby so toxic.

lmao

Shard on a good day.

@derp said in Something Completely Different:

@kalakh said in Something Completely Different:

This is silly. This is proof of the problem.

This wasn't Ganymede. This was me. The decision was made to change the name. The old blurb was not in line with the new Code of Conduct. So I redid the blurb.

Could probably be less verbose, but frankly, I wanted to get it up and opened again more than I cared about whether it took up any extra space or whatever, and having it there is a good reminder that the rules changed.

If someone can figure out a shorter way to say that, I'm all ears. I'm not married to that blurb. It just does what it needed to do.

The problem isn't the name, or necessarily even the length (though the length is indeed silly), it's the content and reason for it existing. That's a whole lot of waffle to say 'we're really nervous about this forum', but more importantly, whether the Hog Pit was or was not a problem, it was not the problem. And if the most noticeable response (aside from a bunch of bans) to what went down is "people were too mean", then it's pretty clear the situation was misdiagnosed and will continue to receive the wrong treatment.

Or, shorter: it doesn't really matter how good the patch is if you're patching the wrong roof.

Waking up from a very nice dream in which the worst day of your life still happened but everything somehow turned out to be okay, and immediately remembering that no, nothing about it was, is, or will ever be okay.

Uh. The 'vocal majority' is the majority on an internet message board. People supporting you in emails but not posting aren't participating in the thing that a message board exists for. Maybe they'll post more with the 'vocal majority' having departed, cool if so, but it's kind of hilarious to argue that the majority of people who post on your board shouldn't have their concerns addressed (concerns addressed is not catering or bowing to whims, good grief).

@devrex said in Something Completely Different:

@GreenFlashlight
I saw a lot of weaponized victimization in the aftermath of that post. The actual opinion? The actual words? Were at no point actually engaged with.

Fucking yikes.

I've got thoughts on this discussion, but lemme boil it down to two things:

1. I vehemently disagree with the idea that people being assholes in whatever way should not have their behavior pointed out, or that people who have seen such behavior somehow owe them the thoughtfulness and courtesy they themselves did not display. Cool if someone decides to go through that effort, but that's an extra kindness they're doing, not what should be expected.

Furthermore, I've got some serious objections to the widespread idea that it's more important for there to be peace and decorum than it is to address genuine issues. That is a form of silencing, to expect someone who has been harmed to just be quiet about it to avoid disturbing the perception that everything is okay. It is not weaponizing victimization to point out that you have been harmed, or who harmed you. It is not being a bully to tell other people that someone has been harmful. It is not worse to call someone out for their behavior than it is for that person to engage in said behavior. Are there limits that should be imposed, care that should be taken, instances where the dogpiling itself has been weaponized? Absolutely. A community needs to have its own standards, rules, and ways of dealing with this, and every community is going to draw the line in a different place. But holy hell is that phrase gross.

2. It is completely, utterly impossible to be a perfectly objective, logical person with entirely rational responses to everything. In my experience, people who convince themselves they are this are the ones most likely to teeter over the edge into complete meltdowns as soon as that perception is pierced, because they don't know how to deal with it. Nor should it be a desirable state: there is nothing rational about being unemotional about emotional things.

And to speak somewhat generally so as not to open that particular wound? Politics is nothing but emotion. Politics is everything, because it's what determines how we live. If you (general you) Kramer into a discussion where a lot of people are upset and hurt (and scared) to show off how calm and logical you are, then you are, indeed, being a fucking asshole. There's a really toxic perception in our society that having feelings about something is bad, strong feelings even worse, and that the admirable person is the one entirely divorced from caring.

In any case

@jomomomo said in Something Completely Different:

The hog pit was literally the dog's house on fire meme. "This is fine". Most toxic place anywhere.

@jomomomo said in Ethics:

These people trying to go out like a war heros or something. Or in Kanye's case, practically begging to be banned as if it were some badge of honor.

Like, just shut up and leave?

This narcissistic behavior is exactly what makes the hobby so toxic.

lmao

@kalakh said in Something Completely Different:

Or, shorter: it doesn't really matter how good the patch is if you're patching the wrong roof.

@derp said in Something Completely Different:

@kalakh said in Something Completely Different:

This is silly. This is proof of the problem.

This wasn't Ganymede. This was me. The decision was made to change the name. The old blurb was not in line with the new Code of Conduct. So I redid the blurb.

Could probably be less verbose, but frankly, I wanted to get it up and opened again more than I cared about whether it took up any extra space or whatever, and having it there is a good reminder that the rules changed.

If someone can figure out a shorter way to say that, I'm all ears. I'm not married to that blurb. It just does what it needed to do.

The problem isn't the name, or necessarily even the length (though the length is indeed silly), it's the content and reason for it existing. That's a whole lot of waffle to say 'we're really nervous about this forum', but more importantly, whether the Hog Pit was or was not a problem, it was not the problem. And if the most noticeable response (aside from a bunch of bans) to what went down is "people were too mean", then it's pretty clear the situation was misdiagnosed and will continue to receive the wrong treatment.

Or, shorter: it doesn't really matter how good the patch is if you're patching the wrong roof.

I'm not replying to that directly because I don't want to give the impression that it's aimed at reimesu, but I'm going to use it as a springboard:

People are not walking because they can't make personal attacks. It's the internet. The internet runs on personal attacks (and memes, and memes that are personal attacks). We can make personal attacks anywhere, MSB did not provide some rare fix that is no longer available.

People are walking because community trust was broken. It was broken in the way that snapping a twig five times and then feeding it into a woodchipper counts as 'broken'. An action was taken, there was backlash, the original actor doubled down, there was louder backlash, an ultimatum was given, a ban came down that a huge portion of the board not only thought was unfair, but wildly inappropriate, things blew up, and it came down to 'shut up or else' in somewhat more politely worded terms, to which a massive chunk of posters took the 'or else' option, either via further bans or simply leaving.

Derp was not the cause of most of this (though folks were already going to walk away over the appointment), he was the spark. Gany, you keep writing about how this is all your responsibility, and you're entirely, 100%, beyond belief correct, which is basically the only point at which you've been correct in any of this. But I'm not sure you quite understand what exactly that responsibility was. I lay it out again:

You broke the community trust. There's an unspoken understanding in any community of people, anywhere, in any medium, but particularly online, that those who hold the authority will use their authority fairly, that they will listen to complaints and concerns, and that they will take appropriate action. This does not mean bowing to every whim or allowing every fire to burn uncontrolled - and you are well aware of that - but it does mean that when a bunch of people have a problem with something you've done or not done, your response needs to measured, your response needs to come from a certain understanding of why the problem has sprung up, and it needs to adequately address the issue.

Cold rules-pounding does none of this. I think you fell back on it because you were unprepared for protest, you did not know how to respond to the size of said protest, the vehemence of it, the direct attacks and the anger, because iron-clad rules are comfortable for you, because you feel you can draw a line in the sand and everyone worthy will find where you draw the line to be acceptable, or at least satisfactory in the moment, and everyone unworthy can be kicked out without guilt, because breaking rules and crossing lines are in and of themselves proof that someone who receives a ban deserves the ban.

A lot of people disagree.

The reason why this kicked off is frankly unimportant at this point. You've made your decisions. You're now trying to patch up all the holes by trying to address every angle, cover every possibility, because the solution is, clearly, that there just weren't enough rules, that the reason people got upset at how you handled things is because you hadn't set enough boundaries. Look at this:

This is silly. This is proof of the problem. If you've got to put that many conditions on what is, for every other part of the forum, a simple one sentence description, rather than simply relying on the stickied conduct post, then you need to ask yourself why. Frankly, if you don't want a version of the Hog Pit, then I recommend locking it down for good, and leaving it visible for the sake of preservation. If you want a debates forum, then open a debates forum, but, again frankly, I'm not sure it matters at this point. It doesn't to me.

You broke the community trust, and community trust is a fragile, fraught thing not easily mended, if ever. People in this thread are afraid of the hammer coming down if they don't tiptoe enough. No amount of reassurance will fix it. No number of apologies will fix it. Nothing is going to fix it, because the people who have left, willing or otherwise, are by and large not coming back. You don't fix community trust once it's broken, you rebuild it, from the bottom up, and in this case I'm afraid that is also going to require rebuilding the community itself.

But before you can rebuild anything, you need to understand why it fell apart in the first place. I'm not convinced that's going to happen, but you don't need to convince someone also walking out the door. You just need to set the metaphorical pen down for a moment, set aside the self flagellation (real or performative), and take a good long honest look, not at the 'what', but the 'why'.

And I will tell you right now, the 'why' isn't that you didn't have enough conditions set in place to mire any attempts at protest.

Waking up from a very nice dream in which the worst day of your life still happened but everything somehow turned out to be okay, and immediately remembering that no, nothing about it was, is, or will ever be okay.

I have a really bad problem right now with getting enough sleep. Part of it is just my brain constantly deciding that sleep is a waste of time and no, really, staying up all night is fine, you can just take a day off from doing that, but the other part of it is that when I do get to sleep, I will sleep like the dead, but cannot seem to scrape past six hours of doing so. The past two weeks it hasn't been six hours, it's almost entirely been 4-5. I have, therefore, conspired over the past few days to force myself to bed as early as possible (there are reasons I need to stay up to at least midnight).

Every. Single. One. of the last three nights, some emergency has sprung up right as I'm on my way. Give the dog meds, take my meds, and boom. A pipe breaks. My incredibly ill father falls down. The computer starts grinding like it's trying to seduce the PS4.

At this point, reality is definitely trolling me, so I'm mad at reality, I guess. Let me fucking sleep, asshole.

Shard on a good day.