@mietze Do what you need to as far as how strict or loose the rules are; I'm not disagreeing with @Kestrel but I'm not in charge here.
I'm saying that, as minimal as the rules are, Tyche kept breaking them and getting warnings, and his response to that was to do the same thing but maybe not quite breaking exactly what the rules were for a little while until he did, and then getting another warning that the warning after that would be even more strongly worded.
And I'm saying that someone who does that will always, always, always be a drain on any online community until they cross whatever line the moderators decide to set for flushing them.
@krmbm said in Tyche Banned:
It has happened. Several times. They don't last, 'cause people get bored.
There's a reason the Hog Pit accounts for ~45% of the posts on MSB: it's more fun in there.
And yet the non-hogpit section is still relatively active given the comparably small size of our community. There are clearly folks willing to engage in mildly constructive discourse.
I think the larger problem is that MUSHing is a (relatively) tiny and stagnant community. There just isn't that much to talk about that's actually relevant to the hobby and constructive. Most of the activity here has nothing to do with MUSHes at all, in or out of the hogpit.
@faraday There is also a thing that...
Well. Just now, I wanted to post a dumb thing about Arx.
It's not mean. It's not shit-flinging. It's not anything that needs to be in the HogPit. But that's where the Arx megathread is so that's where I went.
@mietze said in Tyche Banned:
If someone ever creates a constructive only forum community for MUSH land, where civil discourse is enforced with moderation, I would happily participate. I do think that's a lot harder than a lot of people appreciate, which is why to my knowledge it hasn't happened yet, and when/if it does I hope people will be appreciative.
I run a pro-intersectional MU* Discord server with these rules.
It does not have a no politics or no religion rule because the personal is political and what most people consider political tends to vary based on how far ahead we are as a society; I prefer a no racist politics rule because anything else, including "no politics", only benefits those with privilege and silences those without.
It's just a MU* server but I and most (if not all) participants in that server have been harassed too often based on our sexual/gender identities and more across the MU* community for it to be a topic we can simply ignore. The server was created as a direct response to predatory harassment occurring on a game I was playing with friends at the time, which staff dismissed and ignored.
I may be biased but I happen to think it's one of the nicest places on the internet.
If after reading the rules that interests anyone, message me.
Too clueless about how this forum works to figure out DMs but yeah, interested.
I don't know why we're talking about this in this thread, but since we are...
@insomniac7809 said in Tyche Banned:
It's not mean. It's not shit-flinging. It's not anything that needs to be in the HogPit. But that's where the Arx megathread is so that's where I went.
Yeah, totally.
You also have the Facebook Problem. In any social endeavor, people gravitate to where the people are. Even if somebody opened another no-holds-barred MU discussion forum, it would have a hard time competing with the established community here. It's no wonder that the constructive-only alternatives, which inherently have a narrower audience, had trouble competing.
It's true that drama and dumpster fires will always have an audience. I mean, how many reality shows are based around that concept? And I agree with those who find it necessary to have a 'the truth hurts' section for outing bad behavior. It's still disappointing to know that any given discussion thread is prone to being pulled down into the mud at any moment just because people can't be bothered to be civil even in the Mildly Constructive section. It's also no wonder that most folks would rather tolerate the mudslinging than be cut out of half of the discussions.
@faraday said in Tyche Banned:
And yet the non-hogpit section is still relatively active given the comparably small size of our community. There are clearly folks willing to engage in mildly constructive discourse.
Absolutely. Which is why it's nice that the hog-pit remains opt-in, so people don't even have to go to the effort of avoiding it. (Unlike the ten million Arx threads, which I have to ignore one-by-one. Could we just make an opt-in for Arx drama?)
@krmbm I do the same. I'm sure they have interesting convos and/or bizarre drama now and again, but folks were kind enough to split them off from the main peeves thread for folks who didn't want to see it totally overtaken, and I appreciate that. There's also historically been enough friction on the personal level there that I'd rather respect their space by staying completely out of it.
@Kestrel said in Tyche Banned:
Yeah I really don't care one bit that Tyche broke rules, I care that his politics are disgusting and that as a society we seem to think such things are more sacred than the actual human lives they systemically oppress.
Sometimes those in the seats of power are presented with a situation where a person has done something vile and repugnant which causes the proposal of a law meant to address the same. In the late 1700s, this was the murder of children born out of wedlock. Would-be fathers were procuring drugs and poisons to give to their mistresses, with or without their consent, to cause miscarriages in order to avoid the consequences of their actions. And with men out in the battlefield with lonely wives, this was causing a great deal of scandal in the Western World. (I'm looking at you, Aaron Burr.)
So in 1803, Lord Ellenborough in England passed a law for "the further prevention of malicious shooting and attempting to discharge loaded fire-arms, stabbing, cutting, wounding, poisoning and the malicious using of means to procure the miscarriage of women[.]" Prior to that abortions, which were considered the "intentional miscarriage of women," were either considered misdemeanors or not crimes at all and not well-defined under common law. The law found its way into the United States and, around 1820, several jurisdictions began passing similar laws. Back then the laws were targeted at apothecaries and physicians, but by the mid 1840s New York had criminalized the act if taken by a woman.
This is the rhetorical slippery slope of policy setting. When people in power take a stand as to what ideas are permitted and not permitted, this infringes on the idea of speaking freely and safely. As it pertains to this forum, we have promoted the idea of speaking freely and safely even if what we say is objectionable or repugnant. The Hog Pit is a good example of our tolerance for that sort of speech, which has little political value but a lot of stress-release value.
Obviously, the consequences of banning a member is different than criminalizing abortions. Still, when moderators have taken a stand on something, it justifiably causes a furor that demands addressing. This occurred when we debated the alteration of rules in the Hog Pit and continues to cause us moderators some consternation. This is because we are human and fallible, yet are compelled to be models of conduct here, which we are not. I know I am not (and will not pretend to be anything less than a well-programmed feline automaton).
Tyche is a good example. No one is required to argue in good faith, even outside of the Hog PIt where our arguments are sometimes admittedly-surfeit but without reason. No one is required to adopt a thinking or morality that is accommodating, tolerant, or accepting. You can be as racist, sexist, or *ist as you want to be, but our rule is that you do not communicate or express such ideas here intentionally or in a way that is meant to target a particular group. And he crossed that line, in our opinion.
Taking a position is difficult and sometimes justifying it is more so. This is not the case here. We found that he knew what he was doing and saying, but ignored the rule regardless and the time came to put an end to it.
@Kestrel I am aware that your discord exists, as you know, and I'm glad that it's continued from when you started it.
However, I personally prefer a forum format like this (I have tried to be part of discord communities before and even when they were nice, it my brain doesnt adapt well to keeping up.). It may very well be that more constructive conversations will happen on discord rather than boards because that's just kind of what everyone is migrating to.
@mietze said in Tyche Banned:
@Kestrel I am aware that your discord exists, as you know, and I'm glad that it's continued from when you started it.
However, I personally prefer a forum format like this (I have tried to be part of discord communities before and even when they were nice, it my brain doesnt adapt well to keeping up.). It may very well be that more constructive conversations will happen on discord rather than boards because that's just kind of what everyone is migrating to.
The conversations may very well be more constructive but they are unlikely to be as accesible (and thus inclusive of participants) since not everyone is around at the same time. At least on a forum, you can just drop your opinion in at the end like a boss.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
@Coin you can scroll back on discord though, right? It's a little better than skype groups at least though maybe that depends on the volume.
Either way, my cognitive inability to keep up with that kind of thing now really gets to me/makes me frustrated too, so. Not the medium for me, I definitely find it easier to be a contributor to a board than something like that. Might be just a matter of spending my time in it though.
@mietze said in Tyche Banned:
@Coin you can scroll back on discord though, right? It's a little better than skype groups at least though maybe that depends on the volume.
Either way, my cognitive inability to keep up with that kind of thing now really gets to me/makes me frustrated too, so. Not the medium for me, I definitely find it easier to be a contributor to a board than something like that. Might be just a matter of spending my time in it though.
You can, but conversations in chats tend to have a much shorter lifespan of acceptable input. If you're scrolling back on discord and pitching into a conversation that's four days old, people are usually done and on to other things; not so much on a forum.
@Coin said in Tyche Banned:
@mietze said in Tyche Banned:
@Coin you can scroll back on discord though, right? It's a little better than skype groups at least though maybe that depends on the volume.
Either way, my cognitive inability to keep up with that kind of thing now really gets to me/makes me frustrated too, so. Not the medium for me, I definitely find it easier to be a contributor to a board than something like that. Might be just a matter of spending my time in it though.
You can, but conversations in chats tend to have a much shorter lifespan of acceptable input. If you're scrolling back on discord and pitching into a conversation that's four days old, people are usually done and on to other things; not so much on a forum.
That and I find that Discord doesn't offer the same sort of robust conversation that this forum does, in that you have much less time to construct a deliberative post about a thing, and really much less space to do so. Discord's posts limit to something like 2000 characters, and the immediacy of the medium means that people engage fast and hard about a topic and it's probably well moved on to several other things by the time you even read the first, if you read the first.
That said, I kind of agree with @Ganymede's post, which is likewise why I find the prior set of rules linked to for a Discord community somewhat objectionable, really. Among other reasons. But I think that the forum is a superior medium for this kind of chatter.
Oh ok. Well that makes sense for social connection then (like chat channel). But if you want more lasting/slower moving talk with your kaffeklatch maybe not.
@Ganymede said in Tyche Banned:
image snipped
I, um.
I get that you picked the image because it's talking about the slippery slope, but... I can't help feeling like a speech about "genocide starts by joking about it to normalize it" isn't entirely in line with using it as a reason to let an alt-righty poster alt-right up the forum.
@Kestrel said in Tyche Banned:
Some topics don't deserve civil discourse.
I disagree with this sentiment.
Racial slurs, threats of violence, malicious intent to make people feel unsafe or unwelcome - all of these are against the rules & I personally don't understand why @Tyche wasn't banned ages ago, as much as we've discussed spirit vs. letter of the law here.
But the prohibition of anything you can describe as civil discourse (which would preclude the examples named above and many other circumstances that we all as semi-functional adults can agree on without having to name them outright) is where I personally draw the line. I don't make or enforce the rules here, but I do enjoy the banter even when you're all completely wrong & that wouldn't stop me from leaving if we ever got to @Kestrel's stated level of wrongspeak/wrongthink policing.
@Pandora said in Tyche Banned:
@Kestrel said in Tyche Banned:
Some topics don't deserve civil discourse.
I disagree with this sentiment.
I wonder if Kestrel is using "civil discourse" the way Neo-Nazis use it, to describe conversation that is required to validate attacks on marginalized people as being 'just words' that you must rebut their right to make. You know, like,
SHITBAG: All Jews should die in ovens.
DECENT HUMAN BEING: Fuck you endlessly. That's repugnant and calling you a garbage person is an insult to trash.
SHITBAG: Wow, so much for civil discourse! You can't even debate my ideas without descending into personal attacks!
DEPRESSING NUMBER OF PEOPLE: Wow, Shitbag is right, I can't believe how uncivil Decent Human Being was!
(thank you for reading my one-act play)
ETA: I can't get spoilers to work and I don't really want to quote that shit anyway; scroll up.
@Pandora said in Tyche Banned:
Racial slurs, threats of violence, malicious intent to make people feel unsafe or unwelcome - all of these are against the rules & I personally don't understand why @Tyche wasn't banned ages ago, as much as we've discussed spirit vs. letter of the law here.
Don't act like I didn't cover that sort of situation in my post, it's disingenuous & that's only if I'm being generous about your intentions.
Tinuviel about 9 hours ago
I hate you with the power of a thousand Pandoras.
@Pandora said in Tyche Banned:
Don't act like I didn't cover that sort of situation in my post, it's disingenuous & that's only if I'm being generous about your intentions.
Considering the specific context of the post you were responding to, ditto, brah.
@faraday said in Tyche Banned:
And yet the non-hogpit section is still relatively active given the comparably small size of our community. There are clearly folks willing to engage in mildly constructive discourse.
Absolutely. Which is why it's nice that the hog-pit remains opt-in, so people don't even have to go to the effort of avoiding it. (Unlike the ten million Arx threads, which I have to ignore one-by-one. Could we just make an opt-in for Arx drama?)
