@sunny said in Regarding administration on MSB:
THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE PEOPLE DISCUSSING THINGS ON THE REASONABLE LEVEL ARE NOT BEING REASONABLE.
What if..
What if...
What if...I DO NOT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOUR WHAT IF.
I don't appreciate the all caps.
Can we please tone it down some?
@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:
What I mind is that it seems difficult to properly condemn something that really deserves it without that thread ultimately getting sent to the Hog pit. Again, this has happened, and in the process you have burried, to the benefit of Claremont & co, for instance a player talking, in detail, about the specifics of the circumstances under which she was sexually harassed. That is a thing you have done, even while we write and upvote post after post about how we really ought to encourage this kind of reporting!
We've already admitted it was a mistake to do it the way we did. It isn't a systemic issue, and it's not something we'll do again. Going forward we'll be forking threads from the point they devolve. It's easier if it's done early, since nodebb is a bit annoying in the way you can split up multi-page threads that way, so for example @Auspice had to spend a long time yesterday doing that with the one you mention (which should be restored now, for the record).
Speaking of this though we've been talking among us since it seemed like the Hog Pit system could be used to try and shove threads behind its opt-in wall by a malovelent party. That's definitely something on the admin radar, which we don't intend to be manipulated into doing in the future.
I don't know if that addresses your concerns, so input is welcome.
@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:
But... we don't have an alternative right now. Which is a forum organization problem. Either you have to heavily censor yourself to stay in Mildly, or you go to the FUCK YOU GO DIE section.
Is it truly that bad? Can we not express our thoughts about a game without resorting to personal insults or engaging in full-on attack mode? Because that's what flags a thread for the Hog Pit.
No one says we can't be in the Constructive section and give a completely horrible review for a game or even a staff member. Do we also need to call them a fuckhead?
I don't get it - and that's not a rhetorical statement. Please help me get it.
@zombiegenesis Speaking for myself, I like the rat race. It gives me something to work for, and although I will always run PrPs for the games I'm excited about it's nice to feel incentivized to do so.
If I have everything I might still get hooked, as there are more reasons to be on a game than the progression, but it takes one of those reasons out of the equation.
@bored Oh the part I was upvoting for was the last bit, about how MSB doesn't bring games down, and literally no one here thinks we do.
@zombiegenesis Consider the issue with dinosaurs, for example. You run your game for 6 months when I come in; at that point everyone is 6 months ahead of me in terms of power - and there are no diminishing returns in nWoD 2.0 either; the fifth dot costs as much as the third dot does. In six months they will still be six months ahead of me, and I can never catch up. Are there catchup mechanisms? Is this situation acceptable? It might well be, but you need to plan in advance for it.
Or alternatively think of the power curve. We both start playing the game, but I just happen to have way more time than you, or have more OOC friends allowing me to participate in more PrPs or any combination of such factors, so I accumulate XPs a lot faster. How much more powerful ought my PC be than yours? That's a question you need to have an answer for.
The third scenario (which was popular on TR) - people created XP containers. They'd make say, a Mage they didn't plan to play at the time and keep them there for a rainy day, since they'd gather XP just by existing. Is that okay? Isn't it? Same question. 
Just some food for thought.
@apos A difference that complicates manners between staffing a MUSH and doing whatever it is we do here is that there's no part of a game - typically - where by design is a more or less designated free-for-all territory. Imagine if there was a channel or room on Arx people could say nearly whatever they wanted, and to whoever, and freely traveled back and forth between it and the rest of the MU*. Things would probably spill out of there sooner or later if you weren't 100% on the ball, and worse, behaviors would carry over.
I am not a traditionalist but the Hog Pit seems vital to some of MSB's functions and I'm very reluctant to mess with that (despite, perhaps, appearances to the contrary). And yet one of my actual concerns about the forum is leaving small groups of people chase others out. In fact that's why I was convinced having some moderation was perhaps necessary which went against my initial inclinations.
For to give an example, the damage that a clique can do to a MUSH is in some ways limited; they would require outside - commonly staff - factors to work in their favor, they often have natural rival factions others can go to avoid them, even the nature of rooms themselves can let you avoid someone you can't be around. MSB offers none of those protections; if you can't stand me then I can be in your face every day anyway. If I have friends they can do the same. The recourse you have in those cases is pretty limited.
That's what's currently troubling me more than anything else when it comes to the forum. The rest are growing pains and adjustments we can make, both internally and culturally. But I don't want MSB to harbor systemic harassment, either.
It's one if not the main reason I was telling @faraday earlier in this thread I would really like it if we as a community can step in more often to regulate each others' tone, because the other options are that administrators need to do so, which can obviously go terribly wrong, or worse to scratch that up as a necessary evil.
@zombiegenesis If all else fails award a random number between X and Y and don't let players see what they got until they're out of CGen. One character per player per month. HAVE FUN!
@caryatid You know I will never ask or expect anyone else to apologize for anything. I will say I'm sorry though - I didn't do nearly enough to pave the way for her and Gany coming in, and I was (and am) grateful that they stepped into this insanity at all to give me a hand, so I tried to make sure they didn't feel left to fend for themselves. In that way, and probably others too, I am more defensive than I should have been. @Meg pointed out the 'but you asked us!' clause was getting overused, so I cut that one out of the rotation as well.
Well, let me put it this way then. What would make you feel this specific situation has been resolved?
What can we do - other than or on top of what we've already said we were doing - to remedy this?
@wizz Hey, it's a Friday. I float like a butterfly.
@zombiegenesis Another way to tackle this is to try and make some sample sheets out yourself. Not complete, with a lot of room to grow and leaving the players wanting more, but enough to be a concrete startup template.
Then look at how many XPs on average that took, and award that much.
Many of the posts here are constructive. As @Ganymede pointed out a couple of times, we're in the middle of discussing how we can move forward to best address moderation on MSB, and wording the Rules of Engagement better so that it's more clear what is or is not permitted, and what the consequences of stepping out of bounds are.
And we are not perfect. We've all made mistakes - admins certainly have. I certainly have. Although administrating on MSB isn't the same as staffing a game, we do have to improve on how we handle ourselves which isn't as easy as it seems.
Conversely, some of the posters here are staff on various games, and I suspend they wouldn't have tolerated neither the tone or degree of criticism applied they are themselves showing. Nor is it easy to shrug off being told you are complete shit at what you do publicly, then come back and word a polite response back from that.
@faraday said in Regarding administration on MSB:
But here's the thing... us individually calling people out is pointless. We saw that for ages before you took over. There's a large number - possibly even a majority - of posters who think that the entire site should be a hog pit. Even just calling for moderation invites people to pounce on you.
I honestly don't agree with that. I've seen it in the past way before I ever was an admin here, when I'd call someone on stuff they said even in the Hog Pit just because it seemed... well, out of line. And folks might have argued back a couple of times but they stopped. They cut it out.
I think culturally speaking it's all worse when certain behavior goes unchecked for too long because it becomes the norm and spreads, but also that even aggressive posters end up thinking twice if there's regular negative feedback. They might still kick back but there won't be that satisfaction of snapping at someone they don't like and suffer no consequences whatsoever for it, and that takes a toll on them.
It'd probably be harder at first then down the line but I think the adults in the room should step up more often. We need them to.
@zombiegenesis If it adds up to being the same I don't see any issues with that, sure.
But what you ultimately want to ask yourself is what are XPs there for? The answer to me is to incentivize certain kinds of behaviors that you want from your players, and that gets harder to do if someone already has them, you know?
Interestingly enough that's the same issue as characters who have too much. Basically - IMHO - you always want the progression carrot there, you always want to dangle a hot commodity in front of your players' hungry eyes. Make them dance!
@surreality said in Regarding administration on MSB:
@Arkandel I get what you're saying here, and I don't think it's an unreasonable ideal to ask people to aim their attacks at an idea, a behavior, or an action, and not the person.
Double post, but I also see the point ( @Apos was one ) that it's hard to not get personal about a thread that's essentially talking about how someone abused other players, or covered for the abusers. I mean we can place it in the constructive section all we want, but it's not going to be very easy to scrutinize someone like Rex without attacking him. What are you going to say? "Uh, he should perhaps avoid perving on every female around all the time ever" ?
It probably has to do with tone, delivery and language but we haven't found the right touch yet and yeah, it's a judgment call so not everyone will agree. I feel it will come down to trust, the same way players need to have faith in staff's intentions on a MU*.
@zombiegenesis said in POLL: Vampire Requiem 2E Settings/Theme:
I honestly think most games give WAY too much XP to beginning characters. I think none to start but incentives in c-gen to get up to 10 would be reasonable.
I prefer the opposite of what @surreality is suggesting; start low in CGen, but allow a cap that gets people excited about playing.
There's nothing worse for me in regards to XP than feeling my character's +sheet is already pretty damn ready right off the bat. I want to feel eager to grab some dots, to go out there and earn stuff, participate in PrPs, buy gear, improve.
@tnp said in Regarding administration on MSB:
Note: do this everywhere and half the posters will up and leave so it should be ONLY for Ads if you really want to keep that pristine.
Deleting posts everywhere isn't on the table and never will be.
But I still think I prefer locking Ad threads after they're made than carefully pruning them, if for no other reason than that... well, admins aren't around 24/7, and a full shitstorm spanning a couple of pages can form within an hour or so. At that point removing the original post wouldn't help, we'd have to get rid of the bunch of them, and it's simpler to not allow them to begin with.
Note though this still deprives game runners the ability to interact with players asking casual, legitimate questions.
Just to give some perspective on the admins having different personalities. This is by design.
See, when a general consensus from people whose opinions I respected was that we needed at least some moderation on MSB - whereas earlier I wanted to keep the posting rules more loose, and place the responsibility on the community at large for staying on the straight and narrow - I realized I needed some help; there was no way I would (let alone could) tackle that kind of work on my own.
To do that I went and spoke to a few people who had been here for some time and who wouldn't just agree with me. I didn't want lackeys to create a me-specific echo chamber but conspirators who would keep me on the straight and narrow and challenge my ideas. Gany and Auspice fit that bill - we have different perspectives, but that was very much the point.
The inconsistency thing is something that does trouble me. Again, my original intention was to avoid setting down hard rules about what is and isn't permitted in a forum category, partially because that invites rules lawyering which I'm not at all a fan of, but also because... well, we're all adults here, so if things get out of hand we'll discuss why and figure it out. However that's clearly something that a lot of people want, so maybe we'll make some changes.
But I do want to ask for your guys' help anyway. This is your forum too, so if speak up if a thread is going the wrong way; please and by all means don't just wait until one of the three of us is around to wag a finger when people are shitting all over a non-Hog Pit thread. Don't hesitate to call someone on it if they are unnecessarily vicious even in the Hog Pit - it's not some magical no-man's land, we are still all people behind the computers. We shouldn't be just ripping into each other just because 'the rules' allow it. Is the threat of a ban the only reason we can be marginally civil to one another?
I should hope not.
@sunny said in Regarding administration on MSB:
If we're at a point where I should not be pointing out that I think there's a problem...well. Thankfully, I don't think we're at that point.
This thread doesn't exist because we're not able to point problems out and discuss them like adults, but because we are.
We (meaning admins) do need to figure out a better way to be consistent, even if it means delegating certain responsibilities internally.