Posts made by Auspice

@lithium

Oh, some people do get dogpiled more often and more relentlessly. This is true.

People hold grudges. Sometimes for reasons we know. Sometimes for reasons we don't.

I've often had people hate me and when I finally learn why, it's for something I said/did months, years prior that I was wholly and completely unaware had upset them and they'd held onto it and used it as a reason to attack me for ages.

Me? I personally prefer just to move the fuck on. It's a lot less effort and my blood pressure appreciates it a helluva lot more.

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

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

I am one of the people that feels the way that @Ganymede mentioned: it is OK to heap BS in my direction, I am an acceptable punching bag, and for good fun the mods like to join in sometimes. Because they have. And it's NOT fun to realize that the people that are your recourse for being able to participate in the community are among the people that are handing out torches.

You and me both.

In regards to this, I think there is viewed a "walking among the giants" perception here.

One thing Arkandel has pressed in his management method is that he wants us -- as a team -- to be able to participate in the forum as well as moderate and for it to not just become "a job." Just as Staff on a game are players, too, this is just a forum. And this is less than a Staff gig because, let's be real, this is a fucking forum about fucking games.

But a lot of you put us on pedestals. One of the topics at hand here is we barely moderate as it is, but you guys view us on a different scale even so.

One of my personal Staffing methods when I do Staff is that I try to hang out and engage with the players (many of you who played The 8th Sea witnessed this before I had to step down due to RL). I don't just sit in a Staff room all day. I don't just speak up to issue edicts from on high. I hang out, I engage. I put the Staff Hat on as necessary, but the fact of the matter is... Staffers are just another player who have taken on added responsibility.

We're (Staffers and moderators alike) just volunteers. No one's paying us to do this. We don't get any special benefits. Really, we get more shit than anything else (in mod-land, you too can spend a day of Cirno making puppet accounts called things like <YourNameHere>Nazi just to spam you with PMs threatening you!). The least we can do is get to play.

But the perception is an issue. Because people see us as "greater than." So if I step into a discussion and say "I disagree," it comes with more weight than if Jimmy over there says it. If I say "I think you're being ridiculous," it comes across as sharper.

I have no posse or clique. I have no fan club. There is no one that dog piles in my name. And while I have my days where I get sharp tongued, I do my best not to attack people unless I am feeling especially defensive because again: there's no one to defend me. I largely stand alone around here.

But the favor that I (we, perhaps) need to ask the rest of you is to be the adults I know you are and to remember that we're just players, too, and we want to be able to hang out and not just work all the time. As has been stated... this is effort. I can and will moderate on the regular. And oft-times I want to. But a) there will be mistakes (none of us are perfect and anyone who claims to be fails the test by the mere fact they made an account on this site), b) let me be "just a player" too and remember I'm just a volunteer. I get zero perks from this job. Gany won't even buy me whiskey.

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

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

Because I am. I get super snarky, and I'm sure I'd forget on occasion. Except I have zero faith that it would be consistently enforced, so the heavier moderation would smack me in the nose, while the people who are actively being mean to me...la la la, continue on their way.

Here's my point of view: You feel like this, and so do the people you think are just happily going on their way. Everyone feels singled out when it's their turn.

The line between consistent enforcement and perceiving that enforcement is more unfair to (generic) you than the others is pretty thin.

It's like sports, where players saying that referees should play it 50/50 means they should play it 90/10. It's a human trait; if you ask Tim Duncan he never commited a foul in his career.

Or to rephrase it; it's not my intention to discriminate. I have no incentive to fake playing favorites.

He's not on MSB, but one of my best friends could tell you that a couple weeks ago I chewed his ass out for being one of those people who made plans to RP in a +event with me and then tried to back out with a bullshit excuse. He claimed "something came up" IRL, forgetting he had Discord setup to show what he was playing on Steam.

I called him out. Not in a petulant way, but in a: we signed up for this a week ago, you knew it was coming, and our schedule is more flexible than the other two people involved. This is the best night for them. I know you're just playing a game or did you forget Discord shows it?

I could have just sulked. I could have made an excuse for him on the game and just tried to reschedule (since best friend), but instead I called him to task. He apologized, joined the scene, and we had a great time.

I share this because contrary to what it may seem, I am more than capable of playing fair. But as @Arkandel points out... Perception is a thing. There's also the scale of severity. Something that upsets you may not hit the scale of what needs to be moderated, even if you're upset by it. Thus it seems like "more gets through."

For example? Hog Pit is just about anything goes. Moderators aren't going to fight your battles for you in there. You attack Bob. Bob attacks you tenfold. I'm not going to come to your defense. But if you attack Bob in Mildly Constructive, I'm going to say something.

And that can be perceived as "hey no fair! Auspice didn't defend me when Bob attacked me the other day!"

This is where I feel the Hog Pit is harmful. When emotions are involved, we can forget where certain things occurred. The emotional center is not the logic center. It's just a big squishy ball of feels.

(Which, to speak, I do feel a touch offended, @faraday, that you say the whole team supports the existence of the Pit. I'm on record that I don't. But it's not my call alone to end or limit it.)

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

but not the other two.

who is this mysterious 4th admin.

we have a ghost in our midst. (and not @Ghost)

SOMEONE HAS KEPT A SECRET FROM ME

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

I wouldn't be opposed to that, but I think the core of the issue is that @Arkandel in particular (and I'm not sure about @Auspice and @Ganymede) really just don't want to moderate except in the absolute most extreme instances of hate/harassment. And hey - I can respect that. I personally wouldn't want to deal with the headache of moderating this forum either.

Oh, I would moderate heavily.

I just don't want another 48 hours of 'let's tell Auspice all the ways that she's a terrible human being and should probably die and suffer for it' because I did choose to moderate.

I can moderate. I can moderate and see that the rules laid out are followed thoroughly.

But the rules would be applied evenly and I think that's what a lot of people are afraid of: being 'old guard' or a popular name or a game runner isn't going to get you a pass. I would not care if you're brand new or an institution, but even my ability to get up, close the site, walk away, and remind myself that I don't know most of you from Adam wears thin when I realize that you're putting dedicated time and effort into detailing the ways you want to see me suffer.

(And now I set my personal bet with myself for someone like bored to start that exact behavior in this thread.)

Would it be exactly-perfect-no-mistakes moderation? No. None of us are perfect. No one is. And if you expect perfection out of other people without being perfect yourself, you're not someone I personally want to be engaging with. But if our aim is to craft an uplifting space in which to engage in, I think the majority of people would prefer the occasional mistake than seeing more garbage through than not.

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

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

These folks' behavior is not subtle. It is not easily confused with the kind of petty sniping, catty snark, condescending bullshit, or GIF wars the regulars get into and maybe or maybe don't get worked up about. It's kinda past time for pretending it's hard to tell apart, because it's just not.

I agree.

So, we're all here good with my taking the mantle of permanent despot, right?

I thought we'd pass the crown around.

Hey assholes in the checkout lane: shoving me from behind isn't going to get you to the register any faster.

Fucking back off and exercise a little fucking patience.

@lithium said in RL things I love:

@auspice That sounds like a nice job, wish I could find one like that. I'd love to put in 4 10's or 3 12's and a four and be done...

With my fibro, 4 10s is hard. I'm more looking at it for the rare week of 4 10s for a long weekend or the days where I wake up and can barely walk, so coming in late isn't a big deal.

So I didn't get the job I was aiming for, which sucked.

But things will improve a bit. I'd put in for a new position at my current company. I got in today to find out I got it.

Still no benefits like PTO, but it will come with a raise. Enough of one to negate my commuting costs. So I'll be able to actually start paying off debt, getting this car shit taken care of, etc. (Maybe buy a desk so I can play games again?) slowly, but yeah.

Monday through Friday schedule. Hours during the week flexible: put in forty and I'm good.

And it'll be more properly tier 2. Less direct customer interaction.

Also working with a product that will look really nice on my resume in the IT world.

@vulgarkitten said in HQ!!!!!:

@auspice Did you win, did you win??? I didn't Got out'ed on the MAC question.

My connection stalled so I missed a question midway through.

Okay. I guess I'll try it out.

'Auspice' obvs.

Where do we stand then on pre-emptive attacks?

'I disagree with you because <largely disagreement with their stance, but could also be an attack if someone is being sensitive>, but you'll never listen to me because you always <think I'm a liar / hate me / come after me / dog pile me / other reason>.'

I'd say a good half of the major blow-ups I witness come out of the above.

It's not the statements of 'I disagree.' It's the ones of 'I disagree, but you won't listen because you already hate me!' and that last part almost always puts people on the defensive because most people think of themselves as a good person and they get whiplash when they're having discussion A and someone comes after them about issue B (or dredges up Past Discussion 16 from three weeks ago).

And if your disagreement about the topic puts them on edge while you also made them defensive about their Inner Good Person, chances are they're going to come back not just defensive, but a little on the offensive as well.

Which is where I come back to my earlier point: we need to all learn to take the advice we regularly try to issue forth to game admin... sometimes it's best to just walk away. Even if you only walk away for twenty minutes to take a breather and clear your head. Whenever I find myself getting upset (I get angry more than anything else, personally), this is what I do. I get up, I walk off, and I go clean or cook or pick up a book. I just get tf away from the keyboard until the pressure in my head ebbs off. I don't always make it away from the keyboard in time, but damn if I don't try.

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

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

(Just leave the Hog Pit. Do it. Dooooo eeeeet.)

Seriously the worst part about being a mod, hands down, is that I have to see the Politics board now.

That is the one thing I hate most.

Like there isn't even juicy drama over there, you guys.

Did the Politics Board bang a porn star? Asking for a friend.

My lawyer has advised me against answering this question.

(Just leave the Hog Pit. Do it. Dooooo eeeeet.)

Seriously the worst part about being a mod, hands down, is that I have to see the Politics board now.

That is the one thing I hate most.

Like there isn't even juicy drama over there, you guys.

@lotherio said in Good or New Movies Review:

@arkandel said in Good or New Movies Review:

My threshold is 7.0,

That's kind of high, I had to check my favorite 'horror' movie of all time to see where it lined up; 7.3 whew. Its really suspense genre, and the ending is a little wobbly, but I love it; The Changeling.

Sunshine is a 7.3 on IMDB
The Others is a 7.6

7.0 is a bit high. A large portion of the populace is not a fan of horror. And most people are highly conservative when rating to begin with. People hate giving things a 9 or 10 when the scale is 1-10.

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

It's not the headache that I mind, it's the nitpicking. This whole thing about administrating microaggressions seems so petty that I can't get myself interested enough to even read some threads - I'm just too lazy for that (stop gasping, @Coin). If something serious like harassment happens I definitely intend to get involved, but the he-said she-said bullshit... about some random clash of personalities, not so much.

Seriously, this.

We have all -- all -- warned administrators of games how they shouldn't mire themselves in the morass and they'd be better off not engaging or by making a single statement and walking away.

Many, many people on this board would be served well by following that same advice.

Yet a lot of people (I, @Arkandel, and @Ganymede have been guilty of the same) on the board do the same. We engage. And engage. And engage.

And some of those people will snipe back rather than walk away... and when they get rounded upon (by the person they sniped at in the first place or that person's friend), they run to us for help.

• If you nitpick at someone and they defend themselves, even if they're harsh about it... I'm not going to leap to your aid. You chose to poke the bear.
• If you continue to engage, over and over, I'm not going to leap to your aid. You could step away at any time (when the mob has come after me, I have had to do this; ask Ark about the times I've had to tell him and Gany 'Hey guys, I'm taking the evening off').

This goes hand-in-hand with my statements above about 'the loudest voice.'

If you come running to me to handle a situation, you are probably not going to like how I handle it if you are sniping just as much as the other person. Being the one to ring the bell (hit report) doesn't clear your conscience if you were dogpiling or attacking, too. I will drag you all out by the scruff if I have to.

@zombiegenesis said in Good or New Movies Review:

The Ritual (IMO one of the best horror movies in recent memory)

This is on my list. I hadn't yet heard from anyone who has seen it. I just saw it in one of my YT channels that does 'on Netflix this month' lists and it looked good, but I haven't had the free time to devote to a movie yet.

I'm glad to hear it's as good as it looks!

@ganymede said in Good or New Movies Review:

@auspice said in Good or New Movies Review:

Unfortunately, around the time of Saw, Hostel, et al... the blockbuster films fell into the laziness of the gore sub-genre. And about a decade prior to that they'd given over to the laziness of overusing the jump scare*. Which means true, good horror has been really hard to come by. We've had a few. Some of my notables are The Others, Babadook, Paranormal Activity (the first one, but a couple others haven't been bad).

The Babadook is on my list of must-watches. My partner loves horror movies, and she's sort of pulled me into watching some real shit, but she doesn't mind going to see things that look interesting.

In the past couple of years, along with The Babadook, there are other movies that look more like classic horror films that are getting recognition. It Comes At Night is another must-watch. A Quiet Place has made it to the list, along with Get Out. Raw is delightfully squicky, and Split pretty much revived James McAvoy's career. I also liked Maggie, which included a surprising performance from Ahnold.

I'm really looking forward to Hereditary. A24 is my new favorite studio.

So, I finally watched Split recently. And while it redeemed Shamalamadingdong in my eyes a little (being that it's related to that other film no spoilers)... It wasn't amazing. I enjoyed it, but it's not on the list, obvs.

But I don't need anything special to McAvoy. I dig the actor.

Hereditary is def. a must see for me. I heard about it before trailers even hit because it has been a buzz in the film community since the word go. Like, I will be shocked if it doesn't knock it out of the park. Before the first trailer there was the line "This generation's Exorcist" being thrown about.

@lotherio said in Good or New Movies Review:

Osiris Child is a good one in the sci-fi genre that's pretty recent. They did an amazing job with their budget, care and detail to the craft.

This is on my list to watch.

I forgot Cabin in the Woods on my list, shame on me. I also want to watch The Ritual on Netflix soon. The trailer for it amused me; a few pointed tongue-in-cheek lines that seem to be callouts to horror tropes.

I also love horror comedy (Hello Ash vs Evil Dead!).

Let me run down some of my other favorites in case people are looking for horror. If you want to know why something is on the list, ask!
Sunshine
Aliens (all of 'em for various reasons; even if it's just seeing the Colonial Marines at work)
Land of the Dead
The Others
The Thing (both! original and remake!)
28 Days Later (best zombie movie ever, IMO... 28 Weeks Later is on Hulu, but I prefer the 1st)
Event Horizon
The Cabin in the Woods
Slither
The Faculty
Halloween (everyone should see these)
The Ring (there's debates on American vs Japanese; I prefer the American for cinematography value alone. It was beautifully filmed. Sorry purists.)
Resident Evil (I enjoyed the first, could take or leave the rest)

Available streaming (Netflix/Hulu/Amazon)
Hellraiser
Tucker & Dale vs Evil
10 Cloverfield Lane
Heathers
The Babadook
Paranormal Activity
Friday the 13th (these should also be seen by all)
Carrie
The Witch

Okay, not a perfect list, but it's what you get between tickets at work and while I skim streaming sites. I know I forgot/missed stuff, but hey... If you're new to / looking for horror, there's prob. something in there for you.

Horror is an all-encompassing genre with sub-genres. It is bastard child in that they've always been shitty to it.

Get Out winning any Oscars was a big ol' middle finger to the establishment in more ways than just it being written by a black man and the content. The Oscars hate awarding horror films (other smaller, more truly artistic award shows are better about this; if you're a movie buff or want to be in the bizz, watch things like the director-guided award shows, movie festival ones, etc.... those are the ones that show which films are actually loved by the people who actually make films).

I digress.

Whereas in drama you have period drama, romantic drama, etc etc and we all naturally recognize this along with comedy having dramedy, action comedy, black comedy (not the racial, but the dark, for anyone unaware of the terminology)... and so on... we often just see horror as horror.

But horror has the supernatural, the psychological, the suspenseful...

Unfortunately, around the time of Saw, Hostel, et al... the blockbuster films fell into the laziness of the gore sub-genre. And about a decade prior to that they'd given over to the laziness of overusing the jump scare*. Which means true, good horror has been really hard to come by. We've had a few. Some of my notables are The Others, Babadook, Paranormal Activity (the first one, but a couple others haven't been bad).

Get Out knocked it out of the fucking gate as an entry back into true horror, but Hollywood is still stuck in the gore because it's easy. It's easy, it's lazy, and people get in the seats for it. The same reason they get in the seats for the lazy comedy films full of toilet humor and second-hand embarrassment. The same reason we've got 8 Fast & Furious films.

*Pro-tip: in a horror film, you always know a jump scare is coming when the music cuts off during a tense scene. If you look at the upper corner (right or left) of the screen, you can still watch out of the corner of your eye while almost completely negating any likelihood of 'jumping.' If, like me, you are a jumpy person, this is a great way to still watch without being startled or having to look away.