Posts made by Ganymede

The number of threads devoted to Arx, and how much fun people are having there.

I'm not even trying to be ironic.

It's good to see people enjoying a game. Especially a non-WoD game.

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

That's not me saying that you're not wanted, but me suggesting you look after your mental & emotional well-being by keeping away from the toxic and awful things that might cause you distress until you can let it roll off your back and keep it moving.

Let me just interject to say this:

I think you're missing Sunny's point.

We all internalize our emotions in our own way. Telling adults what they ought to do isn't helpful. Your advice is sound, but it will not lead to the kind of change that Sunny is seeking. She doesn't want to leave MSB.

She's asking for support for her request that MSB's admins/mods be fair and responsive, which isn't an unreasonable thing to ask for.

In my experience, Sunny is anything but a wilting flower, but everyone has their tipping points.

@lithium said in General Video Game Thread:

I am so looking for BattleTech, can't wait, I kickstarted it at the 50$ level, haven't even read the new novelettes by Stackpole but just want to /play/ the campaign.

I may even try to get a new computer for B-Tech.

Ah, Stackpole. So much nostalgia.

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

It's also not particularly helpful, when people are trying to make a genuine appeal for practical and reasonable change, for one of the admins in question to treat the topic so flippantly.

Arkandel and Auspice can probably attest to the fact that I'm taking all of this very seriously, but what you point out as being flippant helps illustrate the point below.

@Ganymede, if you want a direct example of how differently you are treated than others are here, reflect for a moment on how @Auspice was treated in the previous discussion about administration on the forums when she made a similar remark. People practically demanded her head on a spike, that she be removed from the modcorps, etc.

And frankly -- and this is aimed at surreality -- please don't presume that I don't appreciate, understand, or notice that a few people here get treated like garbage on the regular whereas I can pretty much act like Uncle Ruckus, and folks just look the other way. It does not always come out in my responses, but let me state, for the record, that I understand some people are treated differently. I pay attention to it, and, if you don't believe me, talk to Arkandel and Auspice. (Some of y'all may, in fact, remember that I jumped into a thread to point this out in the Hog Pit, and the general consensus was that I "get away" with behaviors that others get shit on for.)

Here is a short list of issues I'm perceiving as "primary" issues regarding consistency, which seems to be the overarching area of concern.

First, where there are multiple moderators there will be multiple interpretations as to each rule. Our justice system is rife with this problem. You can set up a rule that seems as plain as day, and two people may see it differently under a certain set of circumstances. If you want consistency, having a single "judge" of behavior means more consistency (presuming that such person rules the same way under the same circumstances), or at least ease in pointing out inconsistency.

Second, even presuming a perfect rule to determine whether behavior is acceptable or not, the next issue is the result. What punishment is fair? What punishment is unfair? What degrees of separation exist between a simple, private warning and a permanent ban? And what circumstances or considerations should be made when determining which degree of punishment is appropriate?

Finally, if a person thinks the punishment is unfair, where do they go to seek a reversal or justice for such an action? Absent a ban, the forum itself is a pretty good place to protest, and it is all too tempting to do it ... and maybe get back into hot water.

Right now, the three of us work fairly independently, but confer together before and after decisions and actions, as needed. In a way, this is good because that means three sets of eyes potentially monitoring the forum. But the membership has reacted differently to decisions depending on who makes them, and I believe this has had an effect on how we do things.

@thenomain said in HQ!!!!!:

... I'll show myself out.

Saves Arkandel, Auspice, and I the trouble, I guess.

@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?

@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.

@derp

I disagree, and believe the analogy is apt. You have no more power to vote out Officer O'Malley than you are to vote me out.

That said, if the membership is okay with the administration acting like a monarchal oligarchy, that's fine. Let's just be clear that this is what is happening, what is expected, and what is demanded. If so, then let's also put out there that, as a monarchal oligarch, none of the admin have any responsibility to publicly inform anyone as to the basis of any decision, and, if you want to discuss the rationale about the same, all such inquiries may be made directly to me.

You okay with that?

@sockmonkey said in Good or New Movies Review:

A Quiet Place was wonderful. I wouldn't say it was scary -- just tense. And it was emotional. I cried (although, admitted, it doesn't take much for me to cry).

This is a good way to describe it.

A Quiet Place is a thriller.

Get Out is a horror film.

I'm not sure what the fuck passes these days for "horror," but Truth of Fare ain't it. Maybe a slasher flick, I don't know.

@arkandel

There's so much I want to say in response. I'll try to be brief.

Telling people to stay out of the Hog Pit to avoid dogpiling is akin to telling black people to obey the law when they have been killed by law enforcement time and time again for doing nothing illegal. The problem is the dogpiling, which can understandably have a chilling effect on any kind of speech here. And let's not pretend that the dogpiling occurs only within the Hog Pit; it clearly and demonstrably has happened elsewhere, which is why we have to haul threads out of other areas into the Hog Pit.

But let's also not pretend that there are easy fixes, because, if there were, we probably would have already implemented them.

That said, any maybe to surreality's consternation, but I stand by every word I said before. The number of regular, frequent posters in the Hog Pit pales to the actual number of people that read or post here. I'm well-aware that I have a great deal of privilege because, for whatever reason, I'm not usually a target when I make comments, no matter how wrong or controversial my opinion might be. And I'm not going to pretend that I can walk in anyone's shoes and process experiences as they might, because I think that belittles their experience.

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

Simple: You set clear boundaries, and you enforce them. If the purpose of the Hog Pit is to be an unmoderated free for all, then everywhere else needs to be moderated. The administration cannot be afraid of 'oh god what about censorship and free speech' in the rest of the board.

There's a difference between fear and balancing interests.

We live in a society of laws away from this place. These laws are boundaries. They are the boundaries of conduct, and we charge law enforcement officers to enforce these laws to the best of their ability. Our expectations are reasonable because, in society, the people have given law enforcement officers this duty and authority because we the people are neither empowered nor permitted to do the same by the law. We observe and experience, and, at a trial, we judge and determine.

In this scenario, the admins are law enforcement, and the members are the people.

There are problems when law enforcement is asked to create the law. It's easy to see why. Yet when we are asked to do so, we contend with the multiple forces that exists within the membership here, which is to be expected. And we listen as best we can, but, at the end of the day, can find very few clear lines of conduct to censor unanimously. Every other boundary is discretionary, in some way -- and therefore unclear.

The solution isn't so simple. It's not supposed to be simple, and, if it were, the admin would be heavier-handed. There has been push-back about that, which we've tried to respect. Naturally, we expect that our current more laissez-faire approach has also created push-back.

What's important is the discussion, and here it is. And I can tell you that we're talking about changes, but haven't made up our collective minds.

@three-eyed-crow

Into the Breach reminds me a lot of Dynasty Tactics, with the brutal consequences of FTL thrown into it. I've played it for more than a few hours, and it gets incredibly frustrating at times.

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

I wish we had more of those here. Maybe if I get the urge to hang with a lawyer bot, I'll take a drive over the state border. I'll buy you a drink and everything!

Dayton is a surprisingly cosmopolitan burg. The community theatre is popping. It gets good touring shows (I'm seeing The Phantom of the Opera this weekend, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame is swinging through at the local equity theatre). And traffic is minimal.

Our major local gay club, The Masque, rivals places I've been to in Toronto.

Into the Breach is worth the money, if you're into the random annoyance that is Faster Than Light.

I got bored of Kingdom Come: Deliverance within 2 hours. It's fucking painful after playing The Witcher III.

@jaded said in Good or New Movies Review:

It was billed as a horror movie. By the amount of people laughing at it, I think our theater thought it was a comedy.

Save your money. Go see A Quiet Place instead. Or Blockers.

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

Sorry if you don't care to be lumped in with us plebs, but - like it or not - we are your catty, cliquish people. There may be a few good apples in the barrel, but numbers don't lie.

Man, karmabum, you've gotten cynical over the years.

I think if you actually look at the Hog Pit recently, there's only a select few that are sniping at each other harshly, but even they pale in comparison to the eloquence of our dear brother, HelloRaptor.

Mostly, it's about inappropriate GIFs that we snicker at childishly, and petty insults that we think are funny. All of that catty acrimony pales in comparison to some of the shit I see at the gay club where I'm at now.

@shincashay said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Is that normal? Snow in april? I've never been that far north cause my peoples ain't made for that.

It wasn't abnormal, when I was a kid, but I lived outside of the city.

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

This is not the Basketball thread. Please move this discussion to the appropriate thread. GAWD GUYS YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER.

It's not really a discussion if one side is totally wrong.

Point taken, though.

@arkandel

Here's a tip from a former Torontonian and curler.

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

The other part of me knows that it is because I predicted that Lonzo Ball would suck.

And you were wrooong.

The fuck you say, boy?

Ninth on the team in PPG, behind luminaries like Randle and Lopez, yet first in minutes played. FG% of .360. Donovan Mitchell had double the PPG, and triple the total points. Mitchell was picked 13th, Ball was picked 2nd.

Ball was supposed to make the Lakers a contender, yet he was out-performed by Kyle Kuzma, who was picked 27th in the same draft.

Get outta here with the rubbish that Ball wasn't anything but an utter failure in his first year.