@TNP I disagree. I know too many people who won't come to MSB because it was downright mean. And people who still won't because they don't trust it. Can't say I blame them, given how many times we've had to point out that people are attacking the person instead of the idea.
The fact that a whole group went and formed another board just so they could continue being really mean to people says more about them than this place, really.
@TNP Then they can rename their board "WORA" and no one's going to give a damn. Not sure why they didn't, to be honest. I'd be all for it, myself. Take back the original name rather than trying to take a new one, you'll get all the people who liked that kind of thing.
@Tez I'm not saying this is why people were banned, except Kestrel. I'm saying this is behavior that is no longer welcome. (I'm not speaking to past bannings, just the one that I was involved with.) Hope that clarifies it.
@simplications I think the only way we can really keep going to protect people from bad actors is to a) establish what the bad behaviors that we want to see people protected from are, b) establish how much responsibility on any given game the player base needs to do in order to protect themselves, and c) have places where we can keep talking, honestly, and hopefully kindly.
I know people are going to be up in arms about my point b) but the thing is this: there's nothing wrong with staff saying, "I only have so many spoons, there are steps you need to take, too." At the very least, how about a blanket "I am not comfortable around this person and am requesting a No-Contact Order?" Mail it to the person and CC staff so there's some kind of...paper trail, and then if the person who's going no contact gets paged or @mailed again, there's that request already in place. (It's a theory, a suggestion, not a "my will be done," btw. A jumping off point for discussion.) I mean, at least on Ares, there's multiple easy ways to report a page convo or a scene to staff. Otherwise, there's screenshots and logs.
@GreenFlashlight And again, we have this argument.
Bring. Receipts. Is. Not. A. Bad. Default.
I don't know you from Adam, you could be a liar of the highest order. How do I know this? I've run afoul of VASpider and her at-the-time coterie and they sure as hell did a number on me on her say-so. For over two years. So you may not trust authority but I don't trust a mob mentality OR authority, even when the authority is mine. I second-guess myself so much that I annoy people and myself.
It's not about litigation, it's about bringing ANY kind of evidence.
Also, the people no longer welcome on this board are the ones who want to bring the personal attacks. Personally, I want to hear from the people who've been scared into silence for the last few years.
Kestrel has been banned for repeatedly ignoring warnings to stop using personal attacks.
The Code of Conduct states that one is to attack the idea, not the person. And it's not something we're interested in putting up with any longer. That day is done. Arguments and spirited discussions are welcome, just keep them about the arguments at hand instead of about the person behind the keyboard.
@Ghost Ok, that's fair. I mistook what you wrote, then, thank you for clarifying! I admit, Spider's a hot-button issue for me.
@Ghost Look. You keep defending Spider, but numerous people brought evidence. They brought logs. They brought anecdotes. The staffers came in and told their tale.
None of that happened in a vacuum. If you need to defend someone, (in my opinion,) pick a better subject. Spider is a lot of the reason why I want evidence before I'm willing to ban someone. I've seen too many people hounded off a game because Spider decided they were doing something wrong and told Spider's in-crowd. (Edited to fix pronouns.)
OMG, David Warner was Evil in Time Bandits!
@faraday said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:
Which honestly makes me sad, because I don't think the MUSH community is big enough to sustain two separate discussion forums,
Thing is, we've already had people pointing out that they're on other communities that discuss gaming. Which means there are more out there that we just don't know about. Which means the MU community very much IS able to sustain two separate discussion forums and possibly more. There's a huge amount of people who MUsh and don't come to either MSB or BMD. Let's not make the mistake of thinking we're the only two shows out there. We're not. We're just loud.
@Arkandel Sure! It starts off looking like it's going to be a Beauty and the Beast knock-off, but one where the Wood is more of an antagonist than anyone else. Except the main character's faults turn into her strengths and she never becomes a "typical" heroine. She doesn't magically become coordinated or beautiful or able to do anything in a typical fashion. It also incorporates some Russian myths and quite a lot of twists and turns in the plot.
That one was so good that I'm about to start "Spinning Silver", which is a take-off on Rumplestiltskin. And I think I have some of her Temeraire Chronicles, which I'm given to understand is the Napoleonic Wars with dragons, but I haven't started those yet.
I just read "Uprooted" by Naomi Novik and it pretty much blew me away. It didn't go where I thought it would, which made it a lot better, and it was a wild ride.
I know, I'm late to the party.
I have a weird dice quirk, for most of my life: if I have a char that regularly manages to hit something in combat, it does no damage. There was a TT gaming group I was in, back in the age of dinosaurs, where my OOC nickname was Glass Jaw <nickname redacted> because invariably, my character was the first one knocked out. I learned to bring a book because it was generally a long combat session that I wasn't part of.
When I can? I try to turn it into something fun and funny because I know it's going to happen. It is my Dice Karma. But it's still usually disappointing.
@derp ...I never once connected that thought. Although, Padme's position as queen was an elected one, so I don't know if that counts as royalty. But that's nitpicky.
@derp Luke? No. Leia was, but that's because she was adopted by royalty.
I've rarely had chars outright die, but I always seem to lose them long before I consider their story done. Sometimes, (not all the time, just sometimes,) I have someone where I can do private RP outside the game, exploring the what-ifs or the last of the story until something new replaces it. Not all the time, though.
The rest of the time, I let myself grieve because stories get a little too real to me and losing them is HARD.
@derp I'm holding out for the Appalachians. 
There's going to be a whole book about that!
Admittedly, I have lived in Oklahoma and I can attest that being in the Midwest would be a hell of a nightmare for me.
@lotherio I'll PM, because I can go on at length about Sandman. And have. Frequently.
@Ganymede Are you talking about something like what the Corinthian did or how Fiddlers' Green behaved? (I'd elaborate, but if you've read The Sandman, you know, and if you haven't, it's a spoiler.) Or something more like Matthew?