(sorry, this probably ignores a lot of follow up, I haven't had time to get through all the feedback etc)
@faraday said in Regarding administration on MSB:
No, I am not saying that people being rude on a forum causes people being rude on games. That's absurd. What I am saying is that a culture of negativity can bring out the worst in people instead of the best, and that attitude can spill over into games as well. Especially when it devolves into personal grudges
I still don't see it. Do you actually have any examples of an MSB-origin grudges moving to game? In my experience it's almost always the other way, where something happens on a game, and then someone calls them Hitler (for said game behavior) here. The only thing MSB helps there is that they might be able to see where each goes to play in the future.
The cases of players really being hounded, singled out, or targeted because of stuff here... isn't that mostly people who really fucking deserve it, like VA Spider, Custodius, etc? I have people who really don't like me here. Not one has ever pursued me to a game. And maybe if they found out who I was, they might avoid me or something, but it still seems like you're just talking in vague terms ('negativity', 'toxicity') and suggesting a causal link, where really it's just a reflection of the world we live/play in.
Literally nobody is saying "no bad game reviews" and literally nobody is saying "only kumbaya, rainbows and sunshine are welcome, if you have anything negative to say - zip it".
I don't think people are saying it in those words. But we've seen how the more extreme rules of moderation that you and others specifically pushed for has had the actual effect of stifling it. Again, there is a thread with important content (such as the outing of a serial sexual predator!) buried in the Hog Pit, difficult (if not impossible for a lurker) to find and associate with its game, because we decided the ad thread for a genuinely shitty game couldn't call it what it was.
You want everyone to be 100% high brow intellectuals all the time, and any trace of meanness banished to the depths. You claim you want this while still leaving space for meaningful reviews, but to that I say... are you familiar with the internet? With humanity? It's just a naive desire, and an unreasonable expectation that has an actual effect that is more stifling than you're willing to admit.
The reality is that when you talk about behavior like this, some threshold of nastiness is going to happen. You can't accuse someone of being a creeper, a cheater, a toxic game-destroyer in a nice, positive, constructive way. Nor can you do it without their friends speaking up to defend them, and the larger arguments that result occurring. It just can't be done.
Some blood will always be shed, and this is why we need the 2.0 rules, to clarify and protect a reasonable threshold of negativity where it is tied to meaningful content, while preserving some moderation rules for people who go full nastywordvomit. I have no problem with a post that just calls someone a shithead being deleted, forget moved to the Hog Pit. But at the same time, I have a BIG PROBLEM with the idea that someone will get their post calling out some corrupt dictator sent to the Hog Pit because they happened to include a couple four letter words while expressing their genuine feelings.
For every person from MUSHland I know who posts or lurks here, there are ten more who are all: "Oh hell no" because of the negativity - either witnessed first-hand or by reputation. I think that does, ultimately, undermine the credibility and the good the site can do.
I take rather severe factual issue with this. I think you're taking a small handful of your own friends who may not like posting here because of badness and then generalizing that to way more people than you have any justification to do.
When you see everyone line up to say 'Oh those horrible WORA-ites, they're just haters, I'd never post there!' as a game gets roasted here (this happened on UH), this is... just them brown-nosing staff, and usually they're just lying. Some may not be regular posters, but often are lurkers. Why else do we have the phenomenon of tons of brand new accounts and posters showing up here when something happens on game? Why do the staffers know exactly where to come and defend themselves?
Beyond that, you don't get to take all the people who don't post and claim them as evidence for your vision. Most people who don't participate are failing to do so for the same very mundane reasons only whatever % of any given hobby, game, etc goes to their forums/community site/reddit sub/whatever to post: they don't know about it, don't care, have other shit to do, etc. Not everyone is that interested in a hobby spends non-hobby time discussing the hobby, but you don't get to magically claim those people as evidence on your side.
At least to whatever degree we can arrange.
