Posts made by bored

@faraday said in Regarding administration on MSB:

But I will say this: We talk sometimes about the future of MUSHing, about how hard it is to draw in new players, etc. As someone who knows writers who might be interested, who has a daughter who some day might be interested... I can't in good conscience invite them into a gaming community that is so darn toxic. And I'm not just talking about MSB here, because the same attitude that feeds the Hog Pit pervades the games too.

I had a bit more on whether MSB is actually causal... but @surreality got it (bizarro world continues). I just don't see that MSB is anything more than a sample subset of the hobby, and if anything, we at least grapple for self-awareness, whether or not we grasp it. That's better than average. I think we're better than the average.

My issue comes to this: You to want to promote this place as a center for discussion of game design etc. I'd love that! I love systems and I love talking about them. I love thinking about how to structure them to create the play you want. But (and this is a huuuuuge, Sir Mix-a-lot worthy but): even in the absence of people vitriol'ing those conversations don't actually happen all that often here, and certainly not to the point of treading novel ground with any frequency. There is, right at this moment, a thread about xp earning rates for... whatever, some game I don't care about. I only saw it in passing. Yet I could have the entire argument with myself at this point, because I (and probably we) know all the beats.

Now, you are one of the very very few people on here who can actually lay any stake or claim to having done something to meaningfully advance the hobby, so it's not on you personally, but if you want to bring other people along with you... I'm not sure simply telling them all to 'play nice' is going to be sufficient.

If we want those conversations to really drive the board, they need to produce. And we have basically two possible sources for insight: pulling it out of our ass (ie, just coming up with novel ideas, which seem in short supply) or analysis of actual play, ie, the shit people do on games. And that second one is why I think robust (and even occasionally harsh) criticism is so important, and especially why we need to allow it without automatically denigrating it by Hog-status. When we conflate those things, it makes it very hard to have any kind of meaningful conversation about the games we're actually playing.

And I think that's just as stifling as a new game runner getting some push-back on a concept.

@ganymede Cool 'nuff.

@ganymede I mean, basically what you quoted or what I said in prior posts? To vaguely summarize, uh, I'd like an area where:

• Criticism needn't be constructive ('Spying on players is bad!' <- not constructive, but OK!)

• It is OK to criticize specific people for specific behavior on-game ('Look at these corrupt staffers doing X, Y, Z' 'Look at this creeper creepin', etc).

• That said, I can live without pure raw bile ('So and so is hitler,' current @Vorpal / @Tempest derail, etc != OK)

• Content/derail moderation should only really happen when there's clearly no relation to the game/situation in discussion ('I hate fucking Vampires' 'Uh that's nice this is a Magic Space Ponies thread') not to prevent people from following natural threads of conversation ('Hey we're not talking about my NPC-as-PC abuse, we're talking about XP spends!'' 'Sorry bub, you play, you take your chances')

• Violators of any of the any of the above generally be dealt with as to (re)move the minimum of content (maybe already being done, but worth saying)

I also really want to stress that it's fine for us also to embrace higher general standards. It's all about balancing things. If we have a public critical area, Constructive can probably be more moderated, and Hog can really be more focused on the meme-laden shitposting, which would seemingly make the @faraday etc crowd happy (and even help avoid, say, the blow up I had with @surreality - she'd have a space for positive-only feedback, etc).

@meg Sorry! I'll even go an edit. I just meant to put the point on it that it's a real thing that happened, and this argument that they're offering is basically serving this guy's interest.

This is, again, why we need some kind of middle ground where bad things can be said about people... where there is substance being offered, not just bile.

@sparks So 'X is a serial sexual harasser' belongs in the Hog Pit because it's a personal attack on a staffer?

@arkandel You've fixed the... newer banishing.

The original thread, that was the ad thread, got banished to Hog, forcing people to start a new one in Mildly, that then itself yadda yadda <- this is what you're talking about.

Anyway, that specific situation aside, I still think we need a Reviews section, or a 'Deconstructive' section, or whatever. Even if the rules end up being similar or even identical, words matter, the names matter, etc. "Constructive" suggests... exactly that. It conjures to mind the holy land that @faraday (rightly!) desires, where we sit and engage in intellectual debate about game design and the future of our hobby. It is a noble ambition, that should be supported.

But we also need a place where we can be deconstructive, without being banished to the dark. There is, at this point, nothing constructive to be said about UH. So having a mildly constructive thread for it is really a fiction. I suggest removing that fiction. We can still do it without a certain threshold of bad words, but we need to be able to tear down that which deserves nothing better, and do it in the open.

@arkandel It's not that we can't express ourselves. We can. I'm Ok if it becomes the forum norm that anyone calling someone a cunt or a nazi or whatever just gets their post deleted. Everywhere if you want, even on Hog.

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!

The approach is something along the lines of one bad apple spoiling the bunch, and... it's the internet. Every bunch will get spoiled, even if we police ourselves perfectly, because even then 1-day posters can come and shit on things. You need some tolerance for things to get, if not personally nasty, at least viciously condemning of things that deserve it.

@faraday said in Regarding administration on MSB:

@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:

Or put it simply: it is currently against the rules to post 1-star yelp reviews where the public will see them.

I'm actually with you there. I just don't think that forum software like this is a great vehicle for reviews. Would yelp or amazon tolerate one of the review areas devolving into a "You!" "No you!" type flame fest, complete with "F You" meme GIFs? I seriously think not.

Good review sites let you give a star rating and your opinion, perhaps with a chance for a rebuttal from the owner. It varies of course, but a review is very different from an ad is very different from a discussion. What we have here is discussion software trying to serve many masters.

Sure, I agree.

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.

That is a problem. And I feel like that the 'great reform' is missing a step. We need a proper venue for honest reviews.

@ganymede said in Regarding administration on MSB:

@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:

Or put it simply: it is currently against the rules to post 1-star yelp reviews where the public will see them.

If we were to apply the current Mildly Constructive rules to a new section, would that help? I think you could make a 1-star Yelp review that didn't immediately devolve into Hog Pit territory.

That is something along the lines of what I'm suggesting, yes. I think there should be a 'Reviews' or similar section to compensate the Ad section essentially becoming a propaganda space. I also think the rules shouldn't be 100% identical because...

This isn't just a matter of our community behaving and self-policing. I, despite being a poster who probably leans more Hog than not, am capable of turning it off if there are clear rules. Smack the dog on the nose, I'll learn.

What I'm not capable of doing is preventing 1-day old accounts from coming in and derailing and getting the thread ruined. And while that sounds like some hyperbolic hand-wringing about an impractical situation... it already happened. I think the new forum ideally would have a threshold somewhere between Mildly and Hog. Outright personal attacks != cool (but those posts would ideally just get deleted or separated, not the entire thread moved into Hog), but probably little to no moderation on content topic (edit to add: obviously people could always on their own ask mods to branch off a topic if it really branched hugely, as has happened since long before the new mod-pocalypse).

As it is, the current moderation regime has served the interest of Claremont and other bad actors (by hiding, for example, frank discussion of actual sexual harassment, something we purport to care about these days) more than it has aided in defending... I don't know, whoever it was meant to protect. That guy with the D&D/FS3 game?

You guys need to figure it out. Your intentions may be good, but your current implementation is not serving the community interest.

@faraday Sure, in a very chain-of-consequences kind of way. But I don't think the average (again, sane) person writes a * yelp review thinking 'ahhaha I'm taking these fuckers down!'

You're also kind of generalizing from a thread like UH, which is such an extreme example people have commented on it ('I haven't seen stuff this bad since old school MUD admins' to paraphrase one) to other cases which are a lot less severe. Talking about a problem that is being brushed under the rug on-game (which is a natural defense mechanism of even non total-garbage staff) here can sometimes get it attention, sometimes not.

Do you think the people posting in the VASpider thread, for example, are trying to shut down Fate's Harvest? Arguably they're doing the exact polar opposite!

@Arkandel While you upvoted my last post, the situation I described is not one I think currently exists on MSB under your new moderation regime. Right now it feels like any attempt at criticism is harshly, unduly moderated and that column A doesn't exist, except in a dark shady corner hidden from casual view.

Or put it simply: it is currently against the rules to post 1-star yelp reviews where the public will see them.

I think you desperately need either a new forum category, or a re-categorization of some existing ones.

@faraday said in Regarding administration on MSB:

If the purpose is to support civil discourse about MU-related topics, then no - the UH thread did not exemplify that purpose.

If the purpose is to support no-holds-barred discussions to hold people accountable and wield the power of public opinion to bring down games, as the old WORA did... then you're right.

I don't think we can have both, and this thread is illustrating that rather emphatically. Feel free to prove me wrong.

I don't see those as mutually exclusive. They can happen on the same forum, possibly in different areas. IE: In column A, we point out shitty games being shitty and why. We give people a place to speak out where they cannot have their posts deleted, @mailboxes raided (lol), etc.

In column B, we talk about solutions to the shit we see brought up in A.

And, as pointed out, the 'bring games down' thing is a laughable fiction. No one sane thinks that, and it's most often a straw man trotted out by game admins trying to shut up discussion here. Please don't replicate their behavior.

@arkandel Fire the new mods.

You've admitted we're testing, the first test failed.

Next: Dial it back. Try again with a medium point of moderation between what you tried here and what existed before. I know you feel people 'wanted more,' but you've taken this as a mandate for sweeping reform that doesn't exist.

If you want an example that doesn't have to do with @Auspice and @Ganymede acting like tools, how about the fact that the current moderation regime/system/rules/whatever you want to call it seems to be incapable of supporting a thread that exemplifies MSB's purpose. At no point should we feel like our rules exist to protect the dishonest and abusive garbage-people that comprise UH's staff, and yet it seems like the rules have largely served their interests over ours, with a thread about legitimately terrible people being over-moderated, chopped up, etc.

There's a difference between personal attacks and calling legitimately vile people what they are, and you don't seem to be able to make the distinction in the current framework.

So... it took one argument about moderation and we already have the mods being abusive, using 'mod voice' to defend each other from criticism, and me upvoting @Kanye-Qwest.

@thatguythere said in Regarding administration on MSB:

I know @Arkandel said elsewhere we shouldn't need rules not the be asses (paraphrasing) but the simple fact that moderation was desired kind of shows that to not really be the case.

It's not about needing rules to not do it. Rules won't stop people from being and 'ass', because what constitutes 'an ass' is wildly subjective. Probably the large majority of arguments in this forum have one or both parties thinking the other is a total unmitigated jackass, and many of the people reading agreeing one way or another. If you start modding that, you are 100% now picking winners and censoring opinions.

We need rules for over the top behavior so that behavior is actionable based on a standard. Because they're new, they should be specific, clear, and limited in scope to particular areas of the forum. Pure ad hominem being sent to Hog and derails being branched to their own threads is more than sufficient (especially as we can already see that bad actors can and are taking advantage of the modding to hide their behavior).

Are we talking about the one I ran? Didn't a ronin win it?

So much for clan posturing!

Yeah Utaku warhorse > Rank 1 PC.

All the clanwank makes me so nostalgic

@arkandel I think that list kind of makes my point, especially if you compare it with characters who are already taken and/or the groups I mentioned. Do you think someone like Vertigo is really an appealing FC?

... oh right, and JUBILEE!!!!

Obviously not all of them are A-listers, but you may be more hard pressed to find as many in Gotham.

And this is you continuing to make the same weird intentionally oblivious argument? I don't get it. FP: Gotham is not a Batman game. It's a game about a global war between the Atlanteans and Amazons where the grid happens to be in Gotham. Taking that into account, there's probably something like 10x the available popular characters.

Ehnnnn. Like who? Once you're past Jean/Emma/Storm/Rogue/Wanda/Kitty/Psylocke you're already past non-comic media recognition, with New Mutants on the edge of that and maybe getting a boost since they're getting a movie. Past that... you're really into nerd territory.

Oh, I guess you could be Jubilee! Hooray!

The Gotham thing feels like a semantic argument. Its true for the Gotham/Bat-Fam cast, but Gotham: FP isn't a Gotham game. It's just set there. Flashpoint is a world-sprawling storyline with a lot of focus in Europe as well. As far as I can see, the Atlantean/Amazon casts are untouched, though people have sniped off the main JL ladies.

But yeah, the popular ones will get snatched up though I think it's far from the slim pickings a mutant-only game creates.

The usual suspect women always go instantly. While I'm sure part of that is everyone's desire to do creepy mindrape on Emma, it's more a reflection on the sexism of comics, where the raw #s just don't favor them. Remember, it took more than a decade to get to Storm from Jean Grey being the team's 'OMG a girl!' (literally their reaction in #1), and to the 80s before they had any kind of variety (Kitty, Dazzler, Rachel, then Rogue and eventually the few more that come in with the New Mutants). If we're talking Gotham, it's probably even worse, since they were pretty much all sexy villains, although it's also a slightly unfair comparison since Gotham isn't a team setting, it's... Batman.

Gotham is a full DC game though, so there's probably more options left there than there are on Mutant Genesis, particularly since it's focused not just on Gotham but the whole Flashpoint storyline which involves all the Amazons and Atlanteans and pretty much the whole world. There are more canon mutants than bat-fam, but they also get to 'Who?' tier pretty fast, and I think the popular ladies were gone on Genesis in the first few hours, let alone days.

I've played Deathstroke a couple times, and I've always made efforts at running Titans RP (I had a decent little re-imagining of the intro storyline on UH, pre trash-fire), so I approve this idea.

I do think you'd have to look at broadening who you'd allow beyond strictly that roster (it's essentially one team under 2 names) or you'd have the 'run out of FCs that anyone wants to play' issue that happens pretty quickly on comic games that don't allow everything. Maybe just make it sidekicks/2nd gen/etc characters generally?