Regarding administration on MSB

[Prototart]

@misadventure said in Regarding administration on MSB:

@thatguythere One of us, one of us.

OR

ps that movie is so fucking good

[bored]

@thenomain Sure, and I agree that we can and should strive for that civility where we can.

A concern does remain for me that there's a difference between 'we should do our best to treat each other as human beings existing behind the screen' as a general goal and the potential chilling effect of 'carefully censor your posts to avoid any negative tone or content to avoid them getting sent to the pit.'

This isn't a claim that we're at that point presently, but I do feel that it's the direction where some people want to move things. It's also why I kind of focus on an alternative to Mildly Constructive, because that word seems to limit discussion, particularly in a more moderated environment. It's very easy for 'hey, be constructive' to become a rhetorical bludgeon rather than an actual appeal to civility, where people use it to attack the tone of an argument rather than attacking its content (which, when it exists, is every bit as much of a dodge as an ad hominem).

Especially when people are responding to gross abuse (ie, once more, the UH example, where there's as close to a consensus on 'these people suck' as will ever exist on this forum), an element of emotional involvement is likely and natural. Those emotions seep through and things can get heated. I think leaving some space for this is probably healthier in the long run, giving people the opportunity to express their outrage, albeit with reasonable limits.

[Faceless]

@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:

It's also why I kind of focus on an alternative to Mildly Constructive, because that word seems to limit discussion

We have one. It's called the Hog Pit and you can call someone a deplorable piece of shit that you wish would have an unfortunate encounter with a Greyhound(the dog, not the bus) while you're knuckles-deep in their wife or husband, all you want there. Constructive discussions even happen there! Total anarchy! Dogs and cats, living together...yadda yadda. Mildly Constructive and Hog Pit can coexist. One needn't die so that the other may live. There can be constructive criticism, without it devolving into shitslinging. There can be shitslinging, without it being constructive.

There's nothing wrong with people saying they want a more pro-constructive/polite/work-safe alternative to the Hog Pit. There's nothing wrong with people saying that they want a section that is Thunderdome meets The Running Man. The Hog Pit is precisely where negative reviews can (and often do) go. Take off the opt-in feature. The responsibility for not clicking content with clear warnings can be on the user's end. "But I don't want to see bad things said about me/friends/people/etc!!", "So don't click it. You are presumably an adult with free will."

Those who don't want to venture in the Hog Pit can exercise self-control and not venture into the Hog Pit. Those who do, needn't worry over feeling like their voice is being censored or silenced through a hidden section.

Everyone wins! One big happy community full of rainbows and unicorns and years-old vendettas.

[Collective]

@faceless said in Regarding administration on MSB:

@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:

It's also why I kind of focus on an alternative to Mildly Constructive, because that word seems to limit discussion

We have one. It's called the Hog Pit and you can call someone a deplorable piece of shit that you wish would have an unfortunate encounter with a Greyhound(the dog, not the bus) ....

Autoist.

[Thenomain]

@bored

I have made the same concerns of our current board administrators, so I wholeheartedly agree. Saying that we need a gray area is the right answer for me, but also the absolutely hardest one.

I have seen Ganymede at least offer moral guidelines as the basis for legal decisions in the past, so I don’t doubt that we will see this again.

[bored]

@faceless

You're clearly missing some of the context of prior conversation here and I encourage you to read the whole thread. The Hog Pit was an acceptable alternative when we had little to no moderation (really only in extreme cases) and when non-constructive content was allowed in ad threads.

The issue is that the new framework does not create a space where someone can say "This game is bad, it just is, I'm not being constructive, you can't fix it, you shouldn't even consider playing there, here's why, I repeat it's really terrible, plz no just no" and have that visible to the general public. This empowers game owners to conceal their shame because the Hog Pit is not visible to casual observers.

@thenomain All verbal grappling aside, I do feel this thread has been productive and I'm cautiously optimistic about things moving forward, yeah.

[Faceless]

@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:

The issue is that the new framework does not create a space where someone can say "This game is bad, it just is, I'm not being constructive, you can't fix it, you shouldn't even consider playing there, here's why, I repeat it's really terrible, plz no just no" and have that visible to the general public.

@faceless said in Regarding administration on MSB:

The Hog Pit is precisely where negative reviews can (and often do) go. Take off the opt-in feature. The responsibility for not clicking content with clear warnings can be on the user's end. "But I don't want to see bad things said about me/friends/people/etc!!", "So don't click it. You are presumably an adult with free will."

ETA: An opportunity to use Jeff Goldblum.

[Tempest]

@faceless What this guy said.

[bored]

@faceless I'd be happy with that as an alternate solution too. I'm not really too picky about how we handle things, I just don't want bad reviews hidden from the public eye.

[Auspice]

@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:

@faceless I'd be happy with that as an alternate solution too. I'm not really too picky about how we handle things, I just don't want bad reviews hidden from the public eye.

Bad reviews aren't (look at the Stranger Than Fiction thread). Bad reviews full of insults, inflammatory language, and other, well, Hog Pit-esque behavior may well end up there.

Plenty of people on the board have shown themselves able to say 'this game is garbage don't go there' without, y'know, using some of the personally insulting language that turns everything into a dumpster fire.

That's all people are asking, man. Word your negative review without going, for example, '...and everyone who sets foot on this game is a rapist and puppy kicker.'

I mean of course that's gonna set people off and two pages later, we're forking it off to the Hog Pit because we don't have enough fire extinguishers on hand.

[bored]

@auspice I've been back and forth on this territory man times this thread. They're not automatically, but with more proactive moderation than in prior days, it's very easy for them to end up there. It also has a potential limiting effect, because every critic has to be wary of a 'that's not constructive!' counter-'argument' and getting their posts reported to the mods.

I don't think 'skirt the line of what constructive really means as a word, it'll probably be fine' is a good policy.

[Auspice]

@bored

The only times I recall seeing 'that's not constructive' trotted out have been:

• Someone flinging personal insults at the person they disagree with (rather than any conscious counter-argument).
• Someone posting shit just for the sake of trolling / fanning the flames (without providing any actual content other than the troll).

I think we can all agree neither of those are constructive, yeah?

[bored]

@auspice Sure.

But we didn't use to have independent proactive mods, we basically had group consensus 'this is a flaming shitpile, can we get it moved?' The board was essentially self-policing, just not enough for some people's tastes.

As it stands, it's far better in my mind for there to be clear guidelines and well-delineated areas for the mods to enforce if we're going to have them, not murky things where you and Ganymede just... get to decide if something is 'constructive enough.' I have nothing against you, but your individual judgments do not represent the prior spirit of group consensus.

[Auspice]

@bored

Out of curiousity (and I mean this sincerely)... Do you mean consensus or do you mean 'When I, bored, think a post should be moved.'?

Because in most cases (not all, I will admit: such as Gany's move of the thread the other day), moves have been made based on discussion between the three of us and users flagging the posts in question.

The latter is a bit of a sticking point for me. I understand the desire to see people voicing it 'aloud,' but I'm not going to try to force people to voice their discomfort in the public eye.

[Ghost]

What's interesting to me is that this board doesn't abide by the same rules regarding civility, harassment, and abuse attached to the very games this board is designed to promote/discuss.

Waxing philosophical here, but how can we expect people to treat each other with respect and civility on these games if the general standard for many is to take the OOC drama from these games to a demilitarized zone where they can behave aggressively and abusively without it affecting their actual roleplay time? It in no way keeps the drama away from the games, it just takes the fight to a place where they're less likely to be banned from the game for it, because it's not happening on the server itself.

A constructive zone on this forum should be kept just that, constructive. People should be able to post and communicate with each other without the fear of aggressive behavior from people who come to troll, abuse, and assassinate the reputations of others.

In the end, this protects you as much as it permits you from this behavior.

My suggestion: Hold the "Constructive" zones of the board to the same standards requested on games. At some point it has to be asked "Is this acceptable behavior, or is it being used as a sandbox for allowing behavior that isn't allowed on the games?"

[bored]

@auspice I mean consensus. I've never been directly involved in having anything moved because I'm not personally all that sensitive to it. But I've been in enough scraps to how the board works. In the past, it's generally happened when it was clearly getting out of hand and people could see it was clearly getting out of hand.

The problem with your method is, ok... you're having a conversation between the 3 of you and one side of the argument. Where exactly does the other side figure in? Just this alone very much suggests a policy favoring the most sensitive, most likely to be aggrieved parties. I am OK with those people having a sanctuary but I am not OK with them taking over the entirety of the board -Hog.

[Cupcake]

@faceless said in Regarding administration on MSB:

We have one. It's called the Hog Pit and you can call someone a deplorable piece of shit that you wish would have an unfortunate encounter with a Greyhound(the dog, not the bus)

HEY.

[Thenomain]

@ghost said in Regarding administration on MSB:

Waxing philosophical here, but how can we expect people to treat each other with respect and civility on these games if the general standard for many is to take the OOC drama from these games to a demilitarized zone where they can behave aggressively and abusively without it affecting their actual roleplay time? It in no way keeps the drama away from the games, it just takes the fight to a place where they're less likely to be banned from the game for it, because it's not happening on the server itself.

This right here is why a lot of people refuse to come to Soapbox. You could (er, well, I am) say that this prevents Soapbox from becoming a place to discuss game theory or otherwise be a casual hub for hobby discussion, because either none of Soapbox is the Hog Pit, or all of it is.

Theoretically, the existence of a distinct forum for people to come separately and get their wank on means the game administration will have no idea that these people are spewing acid because it's removed from the game.

That leaves Soapbox administration left holding the overfull vomitorium bucket. What they decide is for Soapbox and Soapbox only. If they really think that the Hog Pit saves these games from trolls means that they keep the Hog Pit. If they want to be a community discussion site, then they keep the Hog Pit locked down.

There may be other ways for it, but that's my current thesis. Either Hog Pit stays and the rest of the board is moderated heavily, or it's unlocked and Soapbox returns to being Wora in the hearts and minds of those not already there and some who are.

[surreality]

I'm still just not on board with this theory that incivility or poor behavior on games is the fault of the forum. I just can't get behind that one at all.

[Ganymede]

@ghost said in Regarding administration on MSB:

Waxing philosophical here, but how can we expect people to treat each other with respect and civility on these games if the general standard for many is to take the OOC drama from these games to a demilitarized zone where they can behave aggressively and abusively without it affecting their actual roleplay time?

The fact that there's a Hog Pit doesn't mean I cannot be respectful and civil in other arenas.

I don't think there is any reasonable policy that can prevent a person from allowing toxicity to affect them in other parts of their lives. To-wit: when I lashed out at Tempest, I was in the middle of a trial.

I don't believe that removing the Hog Pit will solve anything. It's not going to cure this place, or other games, of toxicity. Toxicity isn't just a matter of personal insults, dick jokes, and derailing .GIFs. There are people who engage in toxic behavior, yet couch it in what may be considered reasonable language. Niceties and politeness doesn't make some behaviors any more or less toxic.