Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

Being brutally honest? Some people just want to watch the world burn. Some people just want to wank their grudges. Some people will not see reason, or simply will never give someone who slighted them once a shred of benefit of the doubt ever again.

Nothing I'm talking about is going to change these people, but appeals to the reasonable people -- who I think are the vast majority of posters here -- that they have sometimes swayed into little hate cliques or dogpile teams or commiseration spirals or gossip circles strips support from the truly intractable hate-spewers and bullies.

Then, a suggestion.

When one of us does something you agree with -- the general you, not General Yu -- up-vote the intervention. You don't need to post anything to indicate your agreement. Just a "okay, I agree, but I don't want to say anything because, whoa, there is some crazy going on here, gurl, and I ain't into threesomes."

Similarly, when someone says something you agree with in opposition to something you don't agree with, maybe just do the same thing. Dogpiling starts with the seemingly-innocuous "me too, an' yo' momma" and ends up snowballing into "well, shit, if other people are going to dump on this poster, then, by golly, Imma gonna do it too." It's sort of a mob mentality thing, and the horrible thing about it is that otherwise reasonable people get pulled into it.

It's an actual thing.

Anyhow, sure. Okay. I'll speak up more, even in the Hog Pit that I said I didn't want to, and won't, police.

[surreality]

@ganymede I try to do this now when I see it, for what it's worth, and will sometimes comment with support directly.

I'm more careful with the latter because 'in that bucket of people it's OK to shit on without social consequence' is a thing, which means comments may equal 'oh if that stupid bitch agrees with it it must be wrong omg'.

I have zero qualms with upvotes. I'll upvote people I don't get on with at all when I think they said something valuable, called out bullshit well, or did this or that hard-but-right thing. I'd upvote people three times over for these things if I could.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

I also don't really know what you do with...people who just keep posting and posting, long after their point is made, to the point where it pushes out any kind of other conversation. I think it's pretty clear when this happens but there's not much you can do beyond just not engaging.

[Ganymede]

@three-eyed-crow

I don't know if any mod has ever stepped in to tell those posters "yo, point made, move along." But we have moved in when a poster is dominating a thread through multiple, generally unproductive or shit posts.

[Tat]

I feel like one of the problems with trying to contain things to the Hog Pit is, as others have mentioned, that folks often do not even notice they're not in the Hog Pit. It's really easy to just adopt one voice on the forum because you have to go out of your way to track the area you're in.

Have you guys considered styling the Hog Pit threads in such a way that just LOOKS different from other areas? Maybe I'm being super optimistic, but I feel that it might help those who do want to be good citizens and self-police to do so more effectively.

[Auspice]

@tat said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

I feel like one of the problems with trying to contain things to the Hog Pit is, as others have mentioned, that folks often do not even notice they're not in the Hog Pit. It's really easy to just adopt one voice on the forum because you have to go out of your way to track the area you're in.

Have you guys considered styling the Hog Pit threads in such a way that just LOOKS different from other areas? Maybe I'm being super optimistic, but I feel that it might help those who do want to be good citizens and self-police to do so more effectively.

I think this falls into a realm of... nodebb ain't built for that.

However, as I've said previously, I'm digging into other software and building pros and cons therein. I'll keep this in mind!

[Tyche]

IMO, less moderation, more drinking.

[Auspice]

@tyche said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

IMO, less moderation, more drinking.

Are you volunteering to pay my alcohol bill?

[Lithium]

I actually think the lack of downvotes has increased the amounts of dog piles and negativity.

Maybe it's just my perception, but before, when someone did something I thought was just fucking stupid I could downvote and move on. Anyone could mouse over who downvoted and see that I did and thus didn't like what was said.

I didn't have to post anything to express my displeasure.

Now I do.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@lithium said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

Maybe it's just my perception, but before, when someone did something I thought was just fucking stupid I could downvote and move on. Anyone could mouse over who downvoted and see that I did and thus didn't like what was said.

I do miss having a mild way to roll my eyes at someone's stupidity, just like upvotes are a mild way to agree, but people got so twisted up about the downvotes I feel like they were more harm than good (I never minded that downvotes showed my name, perhaps not surprisingly).

I think just disengaging from a subject once a piece has been said rather than battering it into the ground until it's a beaten remnant of what once was a dead horse might help the 'dogpiling,' I hint in a deeply unsubtle fashion.

[Tat]

@auspice I'm on a nodebb forum that has it done, so it's possible! Don't ask me how, but I've seen it.

[Auspice]

@tat said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@auspice I'm on a nodebb forum that has it done, so it's possible! Don't ask me how, but I've seen it.

Might be a plugin I'm unaware of! I'd have to dig through the piles of 'em to find. Or the settings again.

[Ashen-Shugar]

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

And for the sheer amount of time that went on it was just like, 'wow. these people really, really think I'm worthless.'

This.

This right here in a very generic way describes the issue that a lot of people on the internet as a whole have.

I want you (the general you out there) to think about this real hard.

Why would someone who you have never met, have likely never seen, know nothing about, likely has no knowledge of you as well, nor likely has a reason to even find out, have any bearing to state that you would be worthless or not.

And an even better question. Why should you care?

Just, you know, food for thought?

[Auspice]

@ashen-shugar said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

And for the sheer amount of time that went on it was just like, 'wow. these people really, really think I'm worthless.'

This.

This right here in a very generic way describes the issue that a lot of people on the internet as a whole have.

I want you (the general you out there) to think about this real hard.

Why would someone who you have never met, have likely never seen, know nothing about, likely has no knowledge of you as well, nor likely has a reason to even find out, have any bearing to state that you would be worthless or not.

And an even better question. Why should you care?

Just, you know, food for thought?

This sort of falls into the great psychological divide of people who have severe depression and anxiety issues and those who don't. How the brain functions, plasticity, and the (relatively) recent discovery that people with depression literally have a vastly more difficult time accessing the portion of their brain that handles more positive thinking on a physical and chemical level.

Which is a discussion that is neither suitable for this thread nor one that this board as a whole is really capable of holding, I think.

[Thenomain]

@ashen-shugar said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

Why would someone who you have never met, have likely never seen, know nothing about, likely has no knowledge of you as well, nor likely has a reason to even find out, have any bearing to state that you would be worthless or not.

Because you were kind of a dick to people for liking TinyMUX.

And an even better question. Why should you care?

You didn't, and we both matured as people.

--

It's pretty notable that both Ashen and I have changed enough that we can kid one another about the days when he shit-talked things, I tried to drag him down into the filth, and he largely ignored it as if he was making the world a better place for being harsh. We were both wrong. I was probably more wrong but screw it, I was going to be strong-willed and unapologetic about it.

People will be dicks. The important part is the endless cycle of change and trying to make it for the better. It gets easier as you mature because you start to realize just how stupid it is to care this hard. Maturity can hit anyone at any age.

[Derp]

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@tyche said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

IMO, less moderation, more drinking.

Are you volunteering to pay my alcohol bill?

@Auspice, remember that time that you said I could drink on your tab?

[Auspice]

@derp said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@tyche said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

IMO, less moderation, more drinking.

Are you volunteering to pay my alcohol bill?

@Auspice, remember that time that you said I could drink on your tab?

I said no such thing!

[Ashen-Shugar]

@thenomain said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

Because you were kind of a dick to people for liking TinyMUX.

Only MUX 1.x and TinyMUSH.

I got annoyed of people always whining about it eating their databases

[Thenomain]

@ashen-shugar said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@thenomain said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

Because you were kind of a dick to people for liking TinyMUX.

Only MUX 1.x and TinyMUSH.

I got annoyed of people always whining about it eating their databases

What is a niche hobby without shoddy equipment? Where is the excitement if everything works smoothly? Next you’re going to say that clear documentation is good or something.

[Ashen-Shugar]

@thenomain said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@ashen-shugar said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@thenomain said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

Because you were kind of a dick to people for liking TinyMUX.

Only MUX 1.x and TinyMUSH.

I got annoyed of people always whining about it eating their databases

What is a niche hobby without shoddy equipment? Where is the excitement if everything works smoothly? Next you’re going to say that clear documentation is good or something.

Absolutely. I love my documention clear always, you can even say I love it ever clear. Preferably in a glass, mixed with koolaid, straw optional.