What Would it Take to Repair the Community?

[Ghost]

@TNP said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

@simplications said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

Having not been a Hog Pit reader, my knowledge of what went on in there came from second-hand reports of people I knew or knew of getting dragged, Mean Girls style, over relatively petty shit that just always seemed like interpersonal issues, miscommunications, or whatever

So in other words, a lot of the second hand reports you heard were told to you by those being accused of something and then declaring their innocence, or that it was being taken out of context, or that it was all a misunderstanding, or 'they' were just over reacting. Totally understandable. The guilty never declare they didn't do it or are being framed and anyone you actually know and like couldn't possibly be guilty of something.

Just because they knew someone or of someone who was getting dragged in the Hog Pit doesn't mean that 3rd party someone was some super guilty usual suspect person. So many people were mistreated on the Hog Pit you could throw a rock and hit someone who probably didn't deserve the vitriol they received.

I'm not into speculating who this person is or who they know/are friends of. They made a good point there.

[Derp]

@Seraphim73 said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

If there's a place where you can't shame actual crypto-fascists for being crypto-fascists, I don't want to be a member of that community.

You can here, so long as you provide some kind of evidence for the accusation and aren't just engaging in the current generation's equivalent of a Commie Hunt.

And your continued use of "some of these personalities" and "they" is complete bullshit.

I disagree, personally, but I want to point out that this is an acceptable statement for reviews and debates, because it's about a behavior or an idea. Not about a person.

you were one of those most vitriolic members of the Hog Pit, you just couched things in terms you thought were nice (sometimes). @Kestrel previously called you out with receipts for some of the many times you've done this. You were/are part of the problem, and you were/are part of normalizing it.

This is less acceptable. What is the point of this? You aren't trying to say here, "some of the things you did contributed to the problems that we're currently facing, and you should consider how you're going to handle that going forward." This is just meant to browbeat and shame a person based on personal dislike for no other reason than to vent your spleen in an argument. And frankly, you're intelligent enough to already know this. I know you are, I've seen it firsthand when we've talked.

Don't do this. You're better than that.

For everyone, at large: We really, truly aren't fucking around when we tell people to lay off the personal attacks. STOP IT. Debate ideas all you want to. You can even call out behaviors that you find problematic with evidence, but just trying to browbeat someone to win some kind of internet points is not gonna fly.

and now you're trying to shove that all on people who have been split (some by their own choice, some not) from this community and are in no position to correct your gaslighting.

Alright. I want to make a few things clear here, since this keeps coming up.

1. The people who aren't here are all not here of their own choice. They were explicitly warned multiple times to stop engaging in the behavior that they were engaging in, and then continued to do so even after they were made aware of what the consequences would be, so can we please stop repeating this line like it's somehow going to become truer based on volume of appearances? It's not. They all knew precisely what they were doing, and there is documented evidence in visible parts of the thread for this already. They weren't innocent bystanders. They made a choice, each and every one of them, and while I might not agree with the overall outcome in all cases, pretending that they were somehow swept up in a flood of bannings like some kind of tidal wave they had no way to get clear of is about as revisionist as you can get when there is actual, verifiable evidence to the contrary.

2. There were some mentions made awhile back that some of the bannings were due to inappropriate PMs. To be clear, there was one due to DMs, Farfalla, as was announced on the forum at the time, and one banning based on reported predatory behavior. Those were not reconsidered at all, and anything attributed to those should not be lumped in with the rest of the bans.The rest of them were about continuing to engage in a behavior they were repeatedly told to stop engaging in. I want to get that out there, for the record.

ETA: I am mistaken, we did in fact reverse Farfalla. My brain is an imperfect meat sponge.

[Kassien]

On a lighter note, what about the communities perceived inability to adapt to newer ideas of doing things like how to run games, and using newer technologies?

How can we appeal to a younger generation to bring them into our love for MUs?

[Derp]

@Tirit said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

How can we appeal to a younger generation to bring them into our love for MUs?

This question has been asked about a billion different ways, and really it has a fundamental conflict in it:

A MU is a very specific type of text-based game that requires typing out poses, presumably in a specific order, or at the very least operating a command line interface in order to play most games. There might be some graphical support with newer bases like Ares and Evennia, but at the very heart of the thing -- it's still just a writing game. It's text based roleplay or MUD dungeons. If you get away from that, then you start to distance yourself from the fundamental qualities of a MU.

Which means you aren't bringing a younger generation to MU, you're moving an older generation toward something that might appeal more to a younger generation, but probably not, because they've got Dark Souls or whatever.

[Devrex]

@Derp @Tirit IDK, Kiddo (age 21) is basically doing what we do, text based, just not on the same platforms. And sometimes they do rando voice scenes while playing some other game that are akin to MU* social scenes.

IDK where he finds his RP partners (possibly Discord?), and all their conventions seem to be a little different, but he'd also rather spork out his eyes than RP with someone my age (45) or anyone in the vicinity of being my age, and has stated that knowing a game was full of parent-age people would be a great reason to stay off it as far as he is concerned. Every generation finds its own path, I guess!

[Hella]

@Tirit said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

On a lighter note, what about the communities perceived inability to adapt to newer ideas of doing things like how to run games, and using newer technologies?

How can we appeal to a younger generation to bring them into our love for MUs?

It would be kind of cool if there was some form of promotion to capitalize on what seems like the resurgence in popularity of 'nerd culture'. Platforms like Critical Role, or things like all the new D&D-based/LotR-based TV shows and movies.

[Warma Sheen]

@Ganymede said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

It was apparent from the response that the game runner was aware of the issue. Regardless, I brought receipts; however, I know of nothing that was done to address the situation. That lack of action was one of the reasons I lost interest in the game.
This story has occurred many times in my 25+ years.
Going to the game runners is never a guarantee of action and brings with it a threat of exposure because, as Kestrel pointed out, that person may be good friends with staff. And if you want to stay on that game, you are potentially putting yourself in a difficult spot, one that might one day lead to your departure or start a whisper campaign against you.

This sounds oddly familiar to what just happened to me two months ago. A younger version of myself would say 'Yeah, based on my experience if you want to stay on a game just keep your mouth shut and don't ever say anything'.

But being older and wiser, I know that if you end up being kicked off a game by someone, then you were probably only going to be facing an uphill battle trying to have fun there anyway, which would be more work than enjoyment. So speak up and if it goes wrong, find other ways and means to have fun that aren't so toxic.

You'll be better for it in the long run.

[TNP]

@Derp said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

This is less acceptable. What is the point of this? You aren't trying to say here, "some of the things you did contributed to the problems that we're currently facing, and you should consider how you're going to handle that going forward." This is just meant to browbeat and shame a person based on personal dislike for no other reason than to vent your spleen in an argument

Pointing out someone's hypocrisy is not browbeating.

[Derp]

@TNP

I disagree that bringing up something from years ago that's already been addressed on multiple occasions constitutes 'hypocrisy' just because it differs from what they say now. People are allowed to change their minds.

But even if that were the case, there are constructive ways of doing that that actually move the conversation forward in some way that doesn't just involve hurling insults.

[Warma Sheen]

@Derp said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

For everyone, at large: We really, truly aren't fucking around when we tell people to lay off the personal attacks. STOP IT. Debate ideas all you want to. You can even call out behaviors that you find problematic with evidence, but just trying to browbeat someone to win some kind of internet points is not gonna fly.

Not sure if this was in reference to @Seraphim73 's comments, but it seems like it was. But that's not a personal attack. That's literally calling out behaviors that he finds problematic with evidence. It was just someone else's evidence that was referenced.

And its legit. Most of us have seen it, if not experienced it directly. Best thing to do is own up to past bad behavior and concede those points, especially if you can recognize those behaviors as negative and as something you want to avoid in the future for the community, despite having engaged in them in the past.

[Derp]

@Warma-Sheen

That's a fair take. But I think that I provided a bit of guidance on what we'd like to see from that kind of exchange moving forward. You can call out a behavior, but it'd be nice if there was more of a point to it than simply trying to shame a person for things in the past.

The call-out at large is because we're quickly sliding to/over the line of where 'acceptable' is, and I told people that we'd warn them when they were crossing/getting ready to cross that line, since people said it was unclear where it was.

And also because we just had to do yet another ban of a person that doesn't seem to give a fuck where that line is, despite repeated warnings to stop the behaviors in question.

[Seraphim73]

@Derp said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

This is just meant to browbeat and shame a person based on personal dislike for no other reason than to vent your spleen in an argument.

Actually, it was done to point out the hypocrisy, gaslighting, and rewriting of history on display. When someone calls for repair, suggesting that people act a certain way when they've acted in direct opposition to it, it's disingenuous at best and actively harmful to the efforts at worst.

@Derp said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

And frankly, you're intelligent enough to already know this. I know you are, I've seen it firsthand when we've talked.
Don't do this. You're better than that.

Is this a personal attack? It's certainly a personal appeal intended to shame me for an action that I've taken. Shame me for the action, through a personal description of me.

@Ghost said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

Let's stay on topic.

@Seraphim73 said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

So what do I think it would take to repair the community? In my opinion, fix the missing stairs. People you have to warn your friends about? Remove them from your circles instead of just warning the people around you. Tell staffers, share information, cut them out of the community. When they come back under a new name, find them (perhaps find out about them on a board like this) and remove them again. If you find yourself on a place that doesn't do that, or elevates their voices? Remove yourself from that circle. Vote with your feet....

Goodbye.

[TNP]

@Derp To quote @Ghost, saying someone has engaged in bullying is not calling them a bully. Using the same reasoning, saying someone is being hypocritical is not calling them a hypocrite.

Please be consistent in your warnings even when they come from those engaging in sycophantic behavior.

[Ghost]

@TNP Alas, referring to them as "such and such vile personality" is, which is not a universal opinion when it comes to me. I'm not bothered by it at all.

Here's the problem with what is going on in this thread right now.

• Person starts a legitimate thread questioning and polling for what would could be done to aid the community into being less toxic.
• Some people gather to share ideas and discuss, which is good
• Some people show up to use it as a sounding board to pick fights over the bannings, the difference between MSB/BMD, and attack others over stuff that happened years ago for a pound of flesh as if the Hog Pit never closed.

I'm not writing this to be personal, but I'm trying to point something critical out, and it's got nothing to do with me. It's the sort of thing that would continue if I never posted again with another unpopular target, and it's something that happened long before I showed up with other people.

There is an open opportunity in this post to constructively try to discuss making things better, but it seems like a third of the people posting are just throwing mud, calling everyone else mud-slingers (despite having mud on their hands but I guess it's justified mud?), and then getting upvoted by people who seem to be showing up only to cheer them on.

I could literally die tomorrow and this would continue because there's something very toxic going on that's been normalized for decades, and it deserves an honest eye.

[simplications]

@TNP said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

@simplications said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

Having not been a Hog Pit reader, my knowledge of what went on in there came from second-hand reports of people I knew or knew of getting dragged, Mean Girls style, over relatively petty shit that just always seemed like interpersonal issues, miscommunications, or whatever

So in other words, a lot of the second hand reports you heard were told to you by those being accused of something and then declaring their innocence, or that it was being taken out of context, or that it was all a misunderstanding, or 'they' were just over reacting. Totally understandable. The guilty never declare they didn't do it or are being framed and anyone you actually know and like couldn't possibly be guilty of something.

I mean, this goes both ways, right? I can be too permissive with my trust hearing the side of a story said on Discord, the people on Hog Pit or equivalent can be too permissive with their trust in the story that led to someone being dragged. That's also just looking at the case where there's a clear wrong and right. What seems to happen way more in interpersonal relationships is simply that people can hurt each other in small ways that then spirals into actions of increasingly greater magnitude until both parties are hurt enough to make a move that changes the relationship. Most of the issues I've witnessed where relationships come to a head have been like this. No sole responsibility but instead a shared mess of poorly handled failures to communicate and mutual wounding of emotions and/or ego.

The prevailing vibe I've gotten from the responses in this thread has felt like "Protecting the community from known bad actors is so important that we must maintain a stance that accepts public judgment of individuals, and any collateral damage done to actual innocents is acceptable." That's a tough pill to swallow, and yet I don't even know that I can disagree with the conclusion. Maybe, given the complication of anonymity and the vulnerability exposed in a hobby where people regularly establish such intimate interaction, that really is the cost of vigilance.

So, is astute moderation the only mitigation we have available? Not to groove on fresh wounds, but that's cold comfort.

[GreenFlashlight]

@simplications said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

The prevailing vibe I've gotten from the responses in this thread has felt like "Protecting the community from known bad actors is so important that we must maintain a stance that accepts public judgment of individuals, and any collateral damage done to actual innocents is acceptable."

That is the vibe literally everyone is getting. We are only disagreeing about who are the default bad actors: the reporters, or the reported.

[Derp]

@GreenFlashlight said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

We are only disagreeing about who are the default bad actors: the reporters, or the reported.

That's not at all what we're disagreeing about. Nobody is saying that those who report bad behavior are by default bad actors. The debate is where the standards of proof lie for those accusations, and at what point it is appropriate to take action based on that.

[GreenFlashlight]

@Derp said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

Nobody is saying that those who report bad behavior are by default bad actors. The debate is where the standards of proof lie for those accusations, and at what point it is appropriate to take action based on that.

Beginning from the assumption that a victim's story must be litigated is indistinguishable from beginning from the assumption that victims are liars until proven innocent. I acknowledge that there is no perfect solution in a situation in which it is impossible to be neutral, but that does not stop me from being deeply disappointed at the direction the advocacy in this argument is leaning toward. A lot of us* have been through the results of the proposed policies several times in our lives, and if you ever wonder what has made some of us so bitter, angry, and distrustful of authority figures who claim to have an interest in fairness and justice, the outcomes of those policies are why.

*well, I guess not really "us" any more, since most of "us" are no longer welcome on this board

[reimesu]

@GreenFlashlight And again, we have this argument.

Bring. Receipts. Is. Not. A. Bad. Default.

I don't know you from Adam, you could be a liar of the highest order. How do I know this? I've run afoul of VASpider and her at-the-time coterie and they sure as hell did a number on me on her say-so. For over two years. So you may not trust authority but I don't trust a mob mentality OR authority, even when the authority is mine. I second-guess myself so much that I annoy people and myself.

It's not about litigation, it's about bringing ANY kind of evidence.

Also, the people no longer welcome on this board are the ones who want to bring the personal attacks. Personally, I want to hear from the people who've been scared into silence for the last few years.

[Derp]

@GreenFlashlight said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

Beginning from the assumption that a victim's story must be litigated is indistinguishable from beginning from the assumption that victims are liars until proven innocent.

And yet it's strange how almost every society in the world has structured its systems of justice around the premise that an accused is innocent until proven guilty, which requires, you know -- proof.