Posts made by Ganymede

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

If you think something belongs there, put it there. Delete things that belong nowhere.

Let's not pretend that the volume of garbage that piles up in the Hog Pit doesn't stink up the rest of this place.

What surreality says rings true. There are people here that have, in my opinion, gone on crusades against others to assassinate their reputation on a board with little or no accountability. We could shove all of the mean-spirited jibes and personal insults into the closet, and we could tell everyone "hey, it's okay to be shitty in the closet, but be nice out here because the folks that cannot or unable to defend themselves will surely not be affected by whatever vomit you spew in there," but we all know -- we all should know -- that this is not the case.

If we're a community, then we're a community with this weird fucking warehouse out on the docks where people are able to engage in the vilest sort of behavior so long it stays in the warehouse, like barebacking sheep. The problem is that, like Fight Club, expecting no consequences from that is foolish, and the sheep are understandably anxious.

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

I'm asking for consistency and clarity.

You can always expect that I will try to be as clear as I can in my communications.

But you cannot expect that I will always agree with Auspice and Arkandel, and I don't. I've made this clear countless times. Expecting the same result from three judges in the same jurisdiction with the same set of facts is reasonable, but in practice it is highly unlikely so I don't.

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

I think basing moderation primarily on reports is a really bad idea, and if that's the way it's going to be, I do not think there is any particular action that y'all can take as a result that's going to actually avoid making it more toxic than it is right now. Deleting posts is just going to make it worse.

You flag posts. We go to it, we look at it, we talk about it.

Other members do this too. Most of the time, they are finding our good friends that just won't leave us alone. (Thank you!) Other times, it is to identify posts that they believe cross the line. I can assure you that I read these when I get online to do so. And reporting members have good eyes and good minds, and often aren't even involved in whatever kerfuffle is being perpetrated.

If you read my post, then you should have picked up that my concern is that we have to figure out what the offending post is. Sometimes it is the flagged post; other times, it is a post to which the flagged post is a response; and other times, I can't figure out who the asshole is that started the dogpile, or if any post even crosses the line at all. And, if you can't tell, the three of us don't always agree on what crosses the line and what doesn't.

We have given the members the ability to report posts. We have never said "we will never act unless a post has been flagged." We have acted many times without prompting. So, we don't expect members here to report problems. That said, if members do flag the posts, we get that notification, and it allows us to hop to the post at issue immediately, which saves us some time.

We're not stupid. We know there are biases. And I'd like to think we've been careful not to act where we believe biases may be at play.

We do what we can. We're not perfect, and demanding constant, prompt vigilance is absurd. You say we're half-assing it, and that's your opinion, but I don't often stick around doing things with my free time (or, in this case, work time) for other people without compensation where I get the impression that: (A) people don't think I'm putting effort into what I do; and (B) people think I'm incompetent. In fact, I tell my paying clients that if, for any reason or at any time, they are unsatisfied with my performance, they can notify me and I will find them alternate counsel.

If you want the keys to the car to drive this thing, then I'll talk to Arkandel and you can have my set. If whatever sanity or insanity I have brought to the job is intolerable, then I would rather remove myself than to point fingers or discuss further.

@surreality

I see what you're getting at, and I understand the concern. That's why it was a suggestion only. I don't think it's a particularly good one; if it was, we might have already tried it.

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

Current practice makes me concerned that someone can post something very inflammatory/inappropriate and be just fine, but responses to that initial thing get swatted, leaving the original nastiness to stand. If this comes in the form of actually deleting these posts, what we have is somebody saying something ugly and no rebuttals being present for it. That's a recipe for disaster.

In my experience, other members have been quick to flag the offending post. That helps us quickly get to the offending post. That said, yes, if the flagged post isn't the offending post and is, rather, a responding post, then we've got an issue.

That requires us, as staff, to try to identify and determine what the offending post is, or ought to be.

An alternative, I suppose, is to put out the general warning post that things are, or have been, out of hand, and any posts thereafter get deleted. But I'm not sure if that addresses the problem, or if that would, for whatever reason, encourage to be as shitty as they can as quickly as possible.

iPhone 7 blows for Bluetooth.

This motherfucker can't stop spinning its gear.

@auspice said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

In the 'talk to your healthcare provider' section...

including if you are allergic to rubber or latex

WHAT EVEN IS THIS DRUG

Surprise! It's sex! Safe sex.

@taika said in Descent Reboot:

Just a quick reminder: we have Neutral Court tonight at 8:30p EST. All templates welcome, if you're brave enough to go to the site it's held at.

I'll be on a date with my partner, then, but if someone could log it for Mr. Grumpy Pants ...

@cobaltasaurus

MY SOYBEANS.

@tinuviel

@kestrel said in Let's talk about TS.:

Put it this way: in real life, I don't walk around with a flashing neon sign on my forehead that says 'up for a shag'. It's not that I'm never up for it, it's that I'm never so desperate for it that I need to advertise the fact that I might be.

The problem isn't that people don't know I'm up for a shag. I'm always up for a shag.

What people don't understand is that I'm not up for a shag with them.

@surreality said in Let's talk about TS.:

Or 'omfg I don't TS and everyone in this room wants to fuck me shit shit shit RUN FOR THE HILLS'.

@jaded said in Let's talk about TS.:

...are those actually pulled from the D&D erotica book? Or are you just making them up?

I'm kind of making them up. There is the spell Bigby's Hand, Mage Hand, and Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion.

@kay

+1 Mace of Pussy Pounding.
Bigboy's Meat Fist. (5th Level Spell.)
Mage's Throbbing Finger. (0th Level Spell.)
+7 Great Ass-Hammer.
Mordenkainen's Magnificent Member. (7th Level Spell.)

@theonceler

Jake the One-Eyed Trouser Snake.
The Flesh Spear of Destiny.
Russell the Milk-Spitting Muscle.
Misplaced Baby Fist.
Squirtle.

I can keep going, I guess.

@sunny said in Let's talk about TS.:

god I do not want to know.

It's funny when you get into this really descriptive, depraved TS scene, and then realize the person you're playing with is someone who've played with for a while, and just didn't know was into that sort of kinky shit.

Communicate well.

@arkandel said in Let's talk about TS.:

What I don't want to communicate is stuff that should be self-evident.

For example there's no such thing as OOC exclusivity, jealousy, any of that. Basically if these things need to be explained then there really won't be a need for them to.

For you, this may be the case, but it's not the same for everyone. Hence, the part where I said that you should set up clear boundaries and then expectations.

This takes all of 5 minutes, and saves you a whole lot of later stress, presuming your partner isn't lying. Then you have a difference issue entirely.

@arkandel said in Let's talk about TS.:

3. Then set expectations: How often do you want TS? Is it a garnish or the main course when you come online? (Yes, double-entendre there, har har, GTFO.)

That's a tough issue to bring up, I think. A poster here brought up in a recent thread she had someone as-a-joke-but-not-really-hah-hah complain about the regularity of TS, and I've been shared pages in the past by people who explicitly state that's what they're on the game for.

Too fucking bad? If you want to make sure that you're having enjoyable pretend-time sex, you absolutely have to fucking tell the other person how often you want it. There's nothing wrong with telling people you want to bang-bang-bang all the time. But there is something wrong to get your PC into a relationship with mine and bitch-whine when I'm off doing something else and you want your orifices stabbed or schlong sucked.

Get the fuck out of my face if you can't be up front with something that's important to you.

What I'm wondering is how often folks are honest, either to themselves or to their partners, about how often they do want this to happen. Is it a fallback on a rainy day when not much else is happening or the, as you aptly put it, main course?

For me, yes. For others, no. That's why you should set expectations.

4. Then discuss what you like: Do you prefer the grinding, descriptive, purple-prose TS, or the light-hearted, fun-having TS that leads to injuries and escapades?

Another sensitive point here is that in the early stages it might seem presumptious to start the conversation at all. You meet someone you don't know too well OOC yet - maybe you're chatting in pages about video games or whatever, then RP starts heading into that kind of direction... it's a step forward to start busting out the sex questions.

Let me ask you this: when you're with a new partner in real life, do you casually slip on a rubber and push your meat into their ass? Or do you simply presume that, because they are into the moment, that they would be cool with that?

At some point, you need to talk about what you like and don't like. If you don't start at the beginning, you risk souring a relationship with surprise butt sex. Take Lawyerbot's advice: talk first, fuck second.

@jibberthehut

Fuck dogs.

But, on top of that, fuck people with dogs.

Moreso, fuck people who have unreasonable expectations of others around their dogs.

I will kick it in the snout if it charges at me because you didn't bother to train it to be anything more than a yappy fur-rat.

Keep that filth away from me, thank you.

@arkandel said in Let's talk about TS.:

And it's this kind of thing I was hoping to discuss here - what are some good ways to approach this issue?

I would say, bluntly, communicate well. But you said that we couldn't fall back on this.

To parse it out a bit better:

1. Set boundaries: You have limits. Declare your limits.

2. Set clear boundaries: Declare them again. Be specific. Everything from "no anal sex" to "i really hate pregnancy sex."

3. Then set expectations: How often do you want TS? Is it a garnish or the main course when you come online? (Yes, double-entendre there, har har, GTFO.)

4. Then discuss what you like: Do you prefer the grinding, descriptive, purple-prose TS, or the light-hearted, fun-having TS that leads to injuries and escapades?

Outside of this triumvirate, there are my personal lines:

1. Never give out personal information.

2. Never talk about RL sex partners, past or current.

3. Never agree to chat, swap pics, or otherwise interact away from the MUSH of this forum.

@lisse24 said in Character 'types':

I struggle to empathize with vampires, even when I have a concept I think is cool.

And I'm the complete opposite, which is why we work well together. You take the normal mortal, and I play the broken vampire.