Posts made by GreenFlashlight

@Lithium I am not on the game you were on. I'm in a Discord server with some friends who are on the game you were on. I have no direct experience of you, and no right to speak for anyone who spoke to me in confidence, so I cannot provide you the specific list of verifiable or falsifiable allegations I'm sure you want. And, for the record, I absolutely get you wanting specific allegations. As someone who once lost a job over accusations of things I am quite sure I did not do, I am still haunted years later wondering what specifically anyone thinks I did. It drives me crazy as I wonder if I somehow did the things I was accused of but was too delusional to know I was doing them, or if someone had a reason to tell lies about me.

But I can say that despite not being on that game and not knowing who you are, I know four people who have told me directly that they felt very uncomfortable around your characters and would avoid scenes you were in. I do not say this to indicate you're guilty of anything--I don't even know what specific metaphorical charges have been leveled against you--but because if someone like me can hear about it from so many people, it may indicate something about the way you approach people needs reflection and adjustment.

If I could be more helpful to you, I would. This is as constructive as circumstances allow me to be. If you wish to hear from someone who does have knowledge of you and went out of their way to avoid you, then perhaps a more contrite tone with a focus on repairing relationships over defending your reputation would convince them to reach out to you, or perhaps not. In either event, it seems you must rely on the charity of those who were present.

@Derp said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

@GreenFlashlight

I disagree.

Great, cool, thanks for clarifying that. I hadn't been sure if we were actually in complete agreement but just engaging in a series of typos that made it look like we disagree with one another's positions.

@Derp said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

And yet it's strange how almost every society in the world has structured its systems of justice around the premise that an accused is innocent until proven guilty, which requires, you know -- proof.

First, I disagree that we are talking about systems of justice. We are talking about systems of punishment, which is not the same thing. Healing is justice. If you think I am advocating for silently and instantly kicking people off games the first time someone pages staff, then you do not understand me at all, nor my stance on how to effectively deal with victims. I went into it years ago and will not bother repeating it because I could not convince people then to stop viewing this as a matter of authority figures needing to "solve" problems with punitive dominance displays that focus on the abuser over the abused, and nothing has changed since then to make the audience any more receptive.

Second, refusing to believe a victim is itself an accusation that the victim is a perjurer who must prove herself innocent of the crime. It is not and cannot be a neutral position, because neutrality is impossible in the case of accusations. You must choose which party you default to believing is innocent of an offense, and you have. I will never change your mind, and cannot ever affect your ability to implement whatever policy you want, so I'm not sure why you bother arguing with me at all.

@Derp said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

Nobody is saying that those who report bad behavior are by default bad actors. The debate is where the standards of proof lie for those accusations, and at what point it is appropriate to take action based on that.

Beginning from the assumption that a victim's story must be litigated is indistinguishable from beginning from the assumption that victims are liars until proven innocent. I acknowledge that there is no perfect solution in a situation in which it is impossible to be neutral, but that does not stop me from being deeply disappointed at the direction the advocacy in this argument is leaning toward. A lot of us* have been through the results of the proposed policies several times in our lives, and if you ever wonder what has made some of us so bitter, angry, and distrustful of authority figures who claim to have an interest in fairness and justice, the outcomes of those policies are why.

*well, I guess not really "us" any more, since most of "us" are no longer welcome on this board

@simplications said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

The prevailing vibe I've gotten from the responses in this thread has felt like "Protecting the community from known bad actors is so important that we must maintain a stance that accepts public judgment of individuals, and any collateral damage done to actual innocents is acceptable."

That is the vibe literally everyone is getting. We are only disagreeing about who are the default bad actors: the reporters, or the reported.

When I think of this forum, in its current incarnation more than its previous one but even so, I think of the Room. Have you ever seen that movie? It's a movie about literally the best human being in the world who has never done anything wrong in his life, whose girlfriend cheats on him, emotionally blackmails him into falling off the wagon, lies about him physically abusing her, and tricks him into thinking she's pregnant just because she finds it amusing to hurt him that way. She has literally no reason to do any of these things, as the supporting cast of the movie repeatedly says to her and to the audience, but just does them anyway because she is a woman and women are evil.

The movie isn't very complimentary to men either, since the author-insert main character literally never gives any reason this sociopath is worth "loving" except that she's beautiful and sexually available to him. It never displays any qualities she might have that are worth treasuring or would make her a good life partner, and never has the author-insert main character compliment anything about her other than how she looks good while he's thrusting atop her. Neither the author nor the main character show any signs of seeing her as a full human being who has an existence separate from what he wants of her. If she's hurting him, then it must be because she's an evil bitch who just likes hurting men for fun, because he can only perceive her in terms of how he is affected by her. And of course the movie takes for granted that the author-insert main character is blameless in all things because how could there possibly be two sides to this story about a break-up? That's obviously ridiculous. The only side to the story, which she even admits to her mother and friends, is that he's perfect, she's an evil slut, and his only fault was loving her too much to admit she's an evil slut and kick her to the curb where evil sluts belong.

And it's not just the evil sociopath slut who's out to get the author-insert main character. His friends and employers all betray him in various ways too, some of them more nonsensical than others because it's a badly written movie, but the general thrust here is that nothing the author-insert main character did provoked the behavior he received. They were all just jealous of him for how perfect and moral he is, and decided to tear him down because they have evil hearts that love doing evil, like Saturday morning cartoon villains.

Anyway, you should probably ignore me. I'm just here to back up Kestrel's post because as a part of her clique of witch hunters, it's important to me to try to turn this board into an echo chamber where only the thoughts approved by our collective are permitted to be expressed.

@lotherio said in Something Completely Different:

It was a 'hey can we stop this until I talk with another admin to get a handle' and then it kept going, and going, and was still going even this week.

To people who perceive it as an injustice, "Hey guys please allow this injustice to carry on until I can consult with someone who actually matters (unlike you) about whether this actually is unjust" isn't a super reasonable request.

I would argue that if there is a silent majority, then its will is to be silent, not to effect change; so their stance isn't really relevant to issues the vocal majority weighs in on.

@devrex said in Something Completely Different:

Certainly the most recent dust up shared that problem. I wildly disagree that there was anything in the Set A words that was misogynist.

I'm not sure which "recent dust up" we're talking about here, so I can't say for sure. I can only say that if a whole bunch of people disagree with you, it may be useful to ask yourself why they think that and what experiences they've had that might inform those perceptions.

I will also say this as a challenge to you: it takes an extraordinary person to reflect on their own behavior. The very act of arguing for a position entrenches a person in that position regardless of right or wrong, because the act of publicly arguing ties your pride into needing to believe you're right.

I am asking myself if it is impossible that my perception of whichever person we're gesturing at is wrong (admittedly I won't find an answer to that question since I'm not sure whom we're talking about, but I am asking). I hope you will ask yourself if it is impossible that the people calling that person a misogynist might not all be wrong.

@devrex said in Something Completely Different:

And then the dogpile begins. And folks seem to reckon that if they just say real real loudly that someone is (Fill In The Blank) and That is What They Are...and What They Are is something that it is socially acceptable to punch awhile...misogynist...rape apologist...pick your name (as I point out that name calling is still name calling is still name calling) well then heck, we can just say anything we want about that person now, right?

If I understand you correctly, you are asking for empathy; for people to understand that their opponent has an identity outside of whatever flanderized sin they are accused of. My post will proceed from that assumption. If I'm wrong, you can save yourself some time by skipping this reply and correcting me about your actual point here.

I agree that empathy is a good thing. I hope I've been demonstrating the last couple of days that I'm a proponent of it and would like to see more of it around here. I think that everyone on either side of a monitor is a real person with real feelings that deserve to be treated with kindness, no matter how antisocial their behaviors are. Even if someone is hurt by another's behavior, it is useful to remember that the hurter is more than just a hurter.

But that goes both ways. Just as whichever person we're vaguely gesturing in the direction of is hurt by me calling them a misogynist, I too am hurt by the misogyny they displayed that led me to call them that name. It is a mistake to think that I called them that name because I wanted to inspire a mob to do internet violence to them; I called them that because just as the misogynist deserves kindness, so too do I, and I want them to understand that their stated opinions do harm to me and people like me.*

And so does everyone else who feels either directly or collaterally harmed by the opinions expressed, whether because they're part of the group targeted or because seeing someone else get targeted inspires a sympathetic outrage.

So if we agree that it is good to listen when someone says they are being harmed by another person's internet behavior, I hope we can agree that principle goes both ways. Our hypothetical misogynist does not get to demand that I stop, self-reflect, and alter my speech to better suit their feelings without agreeing to abide by the same restrictions. If he won't do that, then I hope I will have the strength of character to cling to my principles of kindness, but he has no room to complain if my anger causes me to slip and hold myself to the same lower standard he grants himself.

*Never mind that I don't think I've ever called anyone a misogynist. We'll assume that I did for the premise of this discussion.

@reimesu said in Something Completely Different:

No one called me a rape apologist for saying believe-but-verify. Why is that, do you think?

I am not certain I can answer that while remaining within the boundaries of the current code of conduct. I probably shouldn't be guessing at other people's motivations anyway, but in the most general and hopefully acceptable terms, I would guess the difference is your track record on that and similar topics compared to Derp's.

@jomomomo I get that you're mad at people, but I really do think there's an uncool amount of irony in accusing someone of being a toxic narcissist who needs to shut up and leave because they... said goodbye to their remaining friends?

@derp said in Something Completely Different:

The reason for the change wasn't that people were too mean. The reason for the change was that it usually devolved into just browbeating and name calling and shouting people down via sheer pressure of numbers.

I don't know if my standards are just way too lax compared to yours or what, but I genuinely can't recall an instance of this happening, let alone usually happening. Can you please provide an example?

@lotherio I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I think my theories on how to moderate would be extremely at odds with the rest of the team.

@lotherio said in Something Completely Different:

I'm just at the point that someone said, hey lets stop this until we can rationally look at things.

I mostly agree there's not much point to talking about it, but only because we can't talk about it. Otherwise, I'd be happy to sit down with you and hash this thing out until we're both satisfied.

Anyway. You're cool and I got no grudges against you. I'm not interested in re-litigating the dumb crap that's been going on around here because honestly, at this point, done is done. The only reason I bring it up is because I have this dumb hippie fantasy that if we could just all sit down and talk about shit without getting all weird and defensive, we could sort this whole thing out.

@jeshin That's kind of missing the point. People who were part of this community have an emotional investment in it. Some of us even have a little bit of our sense of self tied up in it. We don't want it to die; we don't want to lose it. We want it to be better than it currently is.

"Better for whom" is a fair question to ask and we can bicker all night long on that topic, but the point is, this isn't about giving up and walking away. It's about fighting for something we think is good enough to be worth keeping.

@mietze From the outside, with nothing but my own inferences and projection to go from about all the stuff happening behind the curtain, I don't see a way I can blame you for anything going on. Maybe I'm biased because you've only ever been kind and supportive to me, but I like to think that even if you hadn't been, I still wouldn't be able to blame you for putting real life ahead of internet drama.

I one thousand percent WILL blame you if you don't post cat pics regularly, though. My goodwill covers a lot, but that sin is unforgivable.

@lotherio Sure. And this isn't a criticism or an attempt to get you to change your mind; I'm just laying stuff out in the hopes that being open and direct will serve as some kind of example for people because apparently I think I'm the one who can save this community Jesus Christ what a petty thing for me to grow a messiah complex about--

Okay, I'm just gonna pretend that rant didn't happen and sit on it until I have time to really sit with that feeling. Let's move on, shall we? We'll pick it up at "open and direct."

I think a lot of people in the community still feel very hurt by the events of the last weeks, and one of the effects of pain is to draw our attention inward. Those of us who have been hurt fixate on what was done to us, reliving it in our minds, keeping it fresh, not forgetting it. So when you come along and start talking like we don't have legitimate pain to deal with, it doesn't occur to us that maybe you didn't see all the causes for grievance or maybe you did but forgot them or whatever. It's a touch on an open wound, and I'm guessing us yelling at you feels pretty much the same to you, right?

And of course the whole situation is made worse by it being illegal to talk about it in anything but the most non-specific terms I can conjure, so I can't try to build a bridge by saying, "Hey, I know you don't see it this way, but User X did Shitty Thing Y that really hurt me because Feelings And Context Z, so it stings when you minimize that even unintentionally." I CAN say I'm sorry about dogpiling you, and that I thought your apology was pretty graceful of you; and I do say those things, for the record, even though it kind of makes my teeth grind that under current legislation the deliberate erasure of context makes me feel like I'm participating in a propaganda campaign to make sure the argument seems as one-sided as possible. But you didn't erase anything, so it's not fair hold you accountable for any of that. You deserve an apology.

Sooooo...yeah, I think I've run out of things I am allowed to say. I really do hope this post was helpful in rebuilding trust, or at least explaining why in the current climate I can't reach out and show as much vulnerability as I otherwise would.

@jeshin said in Question: Code of Conduct:

If you believe the moderators would execute the spirit of the rule inappropriately then why would you stay?

If you hate America so much, why don't you just move?

@lotherio said in Something Completely Different:

Fine I'll be the new scapegoat, everyone can be upset with me now. You can try to paint me as ignorant or not understanding.

I think you are misunderstanding people's complaints. No one wants a scapegoat, and they especially don't want you to be the scapegoat: their anger is largely reserved for other people in this issue. To the degree anyone is angry at you, I think that's because they're exasperated that you seem to be defending one side using underhanded tactics like implying that you are a detached and therefore objective observer, or misrepresenting Auspice's personal problems for the sake of villainizing your opponents.

I don't say you are being underhanded, whether deliberately or accidentally. Miscommunications happen all the time, so I'm not judging. I just think you are letting your defensiveness get in the way of actually understanding the arguments people are bringing to you. If anyone who's been yelling at you thinks I've misread their anger, then they are free to correct me and you obviously should listen to them instead of me.