@gangofdolls said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:
There are a lot of such devices out there, all of which look... fine? I'd prefer the band over the brace but I'm not sure the ban is necessarily going to work as well. Anyone have experience with this and have recommendations?
Have you looked into a copper sleeve?
@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:
I'm still gonna go with 'a bunch of my (anonymous) friends agree with me!!' is always a bad argument.
I agree with @faraday, and I'm not anonymous.
That is, I agree with what's she's getting at.
I, by no means, know everyone, but I've come across a lot of players on games I am new to who either have never heard of this place or its previous incarnations or actively avoid it. Those that fall into the latter have rumors and stories, all of which are only partially true.
I have only been a moderator for a short few weeks, and it is overwhelming. Not that any members are particularly difficult to deal with -- to the contrary -- but what has come with it is a myriad of considerations and perspectives that I did not have to deal with before, and this sense of responsibility that I had underestimated.
I think I see what people are getting at. Activity is what keeps places like this alive, but it's not the only thing. One could blame IGU's demise to that, or see how it coincided with the rise of MMORPGs and console gaming.
I know what I'd like to see, so hearing a large number of voices and perspectives has been helpful. I would encourage more voices and opinions. I'm seeing people arguing with one another when there's really no need to argue; convincing one another of the weight or strength of an opinion seems pointless if the people who are supposed to be convinced aren't responding or engaging fully.
I can verify that there are people who believe as Faraday does, and who don't come by this place with their ideas for the reasons she's stated. I can't speak for why Faraday remains to voice her position, but I think it is because it's not just her position. As a person who is employed to speak for others, I can empathize with holding on and repeating what has been said because it needs to be said. Take that for what it's worth.
I think an Honest Review section is important. I think it needs to be watched carefully. I think the Hog Pit needs to remain as a check against pedantry and sophists. And I think that we need to be careful to keep the toxicity where it is supposed to be.
Still working on Rules v 2.0.
@tnp said in Regarding administration on MSB:
Some of you will be thinking 'Huh?' which is exactly my point. There's a reason why WORA has lasted so long in whatever form and Idealistic Gamers Unite went the way of the dodo a long time ago despite being contemporaries of each other.
clears throat
IGU came on the heels of SWOFA, if my memory serves me. WORA came along after IGU was mothballed.
Point taken, though.
@templari said in Regarding administration on MSB:
Pointing out general spread insults is not helpful?
It's helpful if I can't see it. It's not helpful if I'm standing right there, watching what happened.
@thatguythere said in Regarding administration on MSB:
I think you are on the right track, but not with the fake Staff 1 and 2 thing but create separate mod accounts.
I don't believe that separating accounts is going to accomplish anything. I believe that, wherever I post, I will carry my hat on my in some way, shape, or form. I acknowledge this, and that may mean I need to refrain from doing things that I used to do before.
C'mon, man.
Not here.
I see how those guidelines differ from what we've got, so let's see if we can't digest them and spit out clear standards and examples that people can refer to.
I don't hear a lot of disagreement with your idea, so I can only presume that it is well-supported.
I think the "there must be backup" standard is problematic. I'm of the opinion that many incidences of sexual harassment aren't backed up by logs or other "acceptable" forms of "evidence." Yet the fact that a player has been sexually harassed on a game is a very valid criticism, backed up or not.
In full disclosure, someone approached one of us three about some place where people could report harassment and such, and yet not face immediate, vicious reprisal about it. We had no idea what we could do. This proposal of a middle-ground between "Mildly Constructive" and "Hog Pit" may fit that bill, so I'm rather interested in it.
@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:
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.
Okay, I can get on board with this.
If you would put forth "standards" that could apply to this middle ground, what would they be?
@three-eyed-crow said in Regarding administration on MSB:
And making it a separate thing from the Hog Pit would make staffers less able to obfuscate criticism from the masses, which I do think happens as things stand now.
I'm not sure if Yelp! allows owners to respond to reviews or not, but would it be reasonable to keep staff responses to reviews on the Advertisement thread?
Just feeling out ideas, here.
I feel what you're saying here, and it is a concern, but I do think that there are many posters who want to express their concerns safely and in a way that isn't an immediate personal attack on one staffer or another. It would be a place where there'd be some assurance that responders wouldn't immediately launch into a derogatory diatribe at them for daring to speak badly.
It would require heavy moderation, yes. But I think it would be a valuable resource we don't have here. If we simply have all of such reviews in the Hog Pit, players who have legitimately suffered what they believe to be a bad experience risk being verbally assaulted personally, for lack of a better term, by staff and their minions. So, that's my concern with having a Review section being the subject of Hog Pit rules.
@thenomain said in Regarding administration on MSB:
Would you encourage a bad enforcement because you don't have the resources?
I don't think this is a fair line of inquiry.
If people would like to have us open a section that is desirable and has merit, so be it. This may tax our resources further. We could always high more moderators, but that may create more problems than solutions at this time.
But inconsistent enforcement is a concern, not a certainty; it's not a matter of encouraging bad enforcement.
@tat said in Regarding administration on MSB:
I don't think 'constructive criticism' is quite right, but a 'reviews' section would be good.
I'm sorry, but what I meant was a "reviews" section that followed the same rules as the Mildly Constructive section. You would not have to be constructively critical in the review section, no; you just have to refrain from certain kinds of unhelpful comments.
@thenomain said in Regarding administration on MSB:
But who devolves it into Hog Pit territory? And what is the law when it does?
I don't know. I would like to say that "offending" posts could be split off into a separate Hog Pit topic, leaving the unoffending posts alone, but that might require too many bureaucratic resources.
@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.
@tempest said in POLL: Vampire Requiem 2E Settings/Theme:
If you do that, I could be wrong, but I suspect you'd severely crippling your potential pool of players to draw from.
Maybe.
Or you could potentially attract people that aren't interested in playing with "typical" WoD players.
@zombiegenesis said in POLL: Vampire Requiem 2E Settings/Theme:
Well I'd argue that if you're only RPing for XP than there's something wrong to begin with. I RP for fun, XP and advancement is connected to that but not my driving goal for RP.
I think you should try @Tempest's proposal. Why not give every PC 50 XP, period? And then let them play together. Every now and again, if it feels right, move that up. Everyone starts the same; everyone places the same; but not everyone will have the same build.
@apos said in Regarding administration on MSB:
Right now I don't really notice which threads are where, frankly.
Do you think this is an issue?
Would it help if there were a separate "constructive criticism" area for game reviews?
@surreality said in POLL: Vampire Requiem 2E Settings/Theme:
Capping at 2XP/week is exactly what Reno1 tried that didn't work on any level at all.
Hard-capping at Fallen World wasn't what caused its activity to slow down, from my perspective. The absence of any tangible activity reward also did not slow BSG:U or Fifth Kingdom.
@tempest said in POLL: Vampire Requiem 2E Settings/Theme:
I like 40xp. But I also like zero further XP gain after that. You get 40xp. Make your character. The end.
My preference is not popular though.
I like 40 as well, to be honest. It's a good level to work at.
What needs to happen, in conjunction, is laying out what is available and then capping things. It's sort of unfair to set things at 40 XP, and then later approve a whole bunch of new stuff that I cannot get without sacrificing substantially.
@wizz said in Regarding administration on MSB:
Like, this is a forum. There is literally no reason to post your first response to something you see, give yourself a minute to breath.
You're probably right.
@Kanye-Qwest, when I jumped in several posts back, I genuinely meant that I didn't think delving further into what had been said was helpful. Your reaction was understandable, and my response was ill-timed and in poor judgment. It does give off the impression that we were circling wagons, and that was the furthest from what I wanted to communicate.
I earnestly am going to take Wizz's advice here and step back. Everyone's got their opinion, and I think that this is as good a place as any to voice it. I've made mistakes recently. Maybe I'm not ready for this. So, I'll accept what comes.
Meanwhile, we are working on new rules of engagement. I don't intend to interject anywhere in the Hog Pit in the foreseeable future, mod-wise or otherwise.
@sunny said in Regarding administration on MSB:
I literally feel that I cannot post in response to her 2 most recent posts to this thread without you telling me to 'knock it off, it's not helpful'.
If you feel this way, then you feel this way. I don't know what to tell you that can change how you feel, and it would be utterly too vain for me to suggest that I have the power to make you feel one way or the other.
I will say this: I wouldn't have said the same, and you know (or should know) that I wouldn't have said the same. But Auspice would be equally in the right to kick the soapbox from under me if I attempted to pull the whole "don't react on passion or under duress or when you've just woken up." Just because I've admitted to fault does not eliminate that fault.
If you are uncomfortable posting publicly about it, my PM box is open.