Posts made by surreality

@ganymede If it means 'no longer giving banned people who only come here to cause problems endless third, fourth, and thirteenth chances to do more damage', I sure as hell am.

A second chance here or there is one thing, because sometimes it takes 'hitting it with a wrench' to get things running right. It tends to be obvious when this occurs, too -- the person with the sexy intro pose in the peeves thread being a great example of 'screwed up, owned it, trying to do better', for instance. That's a second chance going right.

But these folks are not on chance #2 -- #2 has come and gone many times over in several cases. Their pattern repeats over and over and over. It's time to not give them more opportunities to do as much damage to people as possible, which is what they're here to do every time they appear, no matter what casual ramblings they engage in as a smokescreen. (Obvious and content-free smokescreens are obvious content-free smokescreens.)

@three-eyed-crow I only flagged his things that appeared outside the Hog Pit, but I flagged them when I saw them as well.

Until the night he was banned, zero feedback.

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.

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

Like for example, someone could say, 'I don't like softcode'. Fine, okay. No one would object to that.

Here's the thing, though: at one point I said, "I don't like anime PBs. They break immersion for me." No attacks on games that allow them, no attack on the people choosing to use them, just that.

"Don't you dare ever set foot on our game then you <long list of colorful adjectives and accusations> monster!"

This happened. (I'm even counting it in the 'two places' referenced earlier as one of the two.)

I genuinely want to be on the same page with you here, and believe this is the norm. I've experienced the above and similar things too often to think it is.

@three-eyed-crow said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

I was surprised it took as long to ban Nemesis as it did, given his rage-tour across the entire forum. He was banned eventually, at least.

The thing I mentioned about 'acceptable targets to attack without social consequences' is very relevant there. I'm surprised he lasted until that day at all, since there were many instances of similar offenses before that, but he did. His standards and mode of behavior were so universally recognizable and horrid various people were able to identify him when he appeared within a log.

This person is not a healthy member to have in any community like this one, and these people do self-identify quickly. Not as in 'provide their names', but 'demonstrate the behavior'. People like him, and the 4chan crowd, who are here to cause trouble and actively do harm to others because they believe it is right and just that they do harm to others should not be coddled until they've gone through with a wrecking ball for several days and done enough damage to tell them to go. Yet, this is what repeatedly happens.

This is one area in which we could do with much more 'draconian' action, because the damage they leave behind is done and they have still achieved their goal of doing harm by being here. Then they come back, say two or three things that don't involve genocide or racism, and suddenly it's sunshine and rainbows and thirty-third chances land. Banning them, thus far, has accomplished very little beyond giving them a brief vacation and 'another chance'. It's the same pattern that let Spider ruin things across the gameverse for decades and we seem to know better now about such folk on games; it's not a stretch to say the same logic applies.

@krmbm That was the kind of shit that eventually went into the category of 'we should be leaving people's RL out of it unless it's directly relevant'. That was well over a decade ago, and things did change. And when relapses happened -- embarrassing pics posted, etc. -- people did rightly call that shit out as being out of bounds.

There is a real and notable difference between 'you are a sack of dead turtles trying to type the works of Shakespeare' and 'you are obviously a racist'. These claims have very different weight for a notable reason.

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

I can understand the thinking that it's better to air the toxicity in public than private (even if I disagree with that). But let's stop pretending that this is some kind of unsolvable problem.

It isn't even just that. I'll use myself as an example here, because there's a recent one that's relevant to the point about what I consider to be an important distinction worth making.

Look at the shit Nemesis pulled the other week. He's all over the forum, in Pit and notably in various places outside the Pit calling me a liar, claiming he knows these dozens of games and forums I've been on and banned from, and so on. Not one word of this is true. I've been asked -- based on discussions here -- to not show up on two games I had no intention of ever playing on in the first place, and that's the closest I've come to getting banned from anything, anywhere, ever; I've never even had staff 'have to pull me aside' on a game I've played on about something. (I also respected that, because 1. duh; 2. wasn't planning to anyway.) While I've modded on several forums, I've neither been banned from any of forum nor banned someone from one. So this shit is just blatantly and objectively untrue.

That's not airing toxicity. That's making a bunch of shit up in an attempt at character assassination of someone who you dislike for whatever reason. And while he's gone, and he's not a credible source to the average reader, there are plenty of people around the forums who behave in the same way who are still here and aren't so obviously 'WTF'.

This is not and should never be OK.

This is different from 'this horrible thing happened on a game, can you believe this shit?' and a story is told about the event and the people involved, usually with direct examples involved. It's also different from 'this interaction I had with staff was so toxic and abusive I couldn't believe it!' -- and people with the same experience or logs or something else pops up and actual wrong-doing is exposed because of it, which can be a greater good, though it isn't flattering to the target, it's based on actual events and happened in reality and it's good that people know about it (to get better at the thing they did badly, to avoid that place, etc.).

Fuck the cold snap that hit right when I have to work with 'keep all your windows and doors open or work outside (but this is not recommended because shit can fall into your stuff while it's setting)' clear coats and solvents and whatnots.

It is April, motherfuckers, and I'm wearing three shirts and leggings under sweatpants and two pairs of socks with footwarmers between them, and my fingers are shaking badly enough this shit is getting everywhere. Fix the goddamn Bond Villain weather satellite already, secretly-dastardly corporation, fix it now! Use that tax bill to Make April April Again, motherfuckers.

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

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.

^ This. I do agree with this entirely.

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.

The number of people isn't what's at issue. It may be a smaller number. It's the bleed of the behavior to everywhere else.

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.

Here's the thing with that. It belittles their experience to ignore it far more.

You're right that you can fully understand their experience no better than I as a white woman can fully understand the perspective of a black man.

That doesn't mean I shouldn't be keeping my ears open when a black man speaks about his experience and how it affects him in an environment in which I have authority to do something about it, understand that his experience is as real and valid as my own, and do something about it.

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

It's not the headache that I mind, it's the nitpicking. This whole thing about administrating microaggressions seems so petty that I can't get myself interested enough to even read some threads - I'm just too lazy for that (stop gasping, @Coin). If something serious like harassment happens I definitely intend to get involved, but the he-said she-said bullshit... about some random clash of personalities, not so much.

The problem is, there's nothing micro about the aggressions people are actively concerned about.

"SHE POSTED A MEAN GIF IN THE HOG PIT!" <-- microaggression.
"Yo, there's an angry screed full of completely unfounded false accusations being made here." <-- this is not a microaggression and it's not a mere difference of opinion.
"He's vaguebooking a gripe in Peeves about me!" <-- microaggression
"She's being a passive aggressive jerk!" <-- microaggression
"He's chasing me around to every thread I post in on the board and attacking everything I say on any subject!" <-- this is not a microaggression, this is harassment

Maybe the not microaggressions things are OK in the Pit, maybe they're not -- I don't personally think posting a giant pile of personal RL character assassination without some kind of foundation or evidence (unless it's a log of an actual character being assassinated!) or making real accusations about people's real lives is remotely OK no matter where the hell it's happening on the forum, and it goes on a lot. Chasing someone from thread to thread to attack them is harassment and should be regarded as such.

Carping about someone's behavior on a game is one thing. We've seen a very notable shift away from that and into trying to destroy people RL as human beings, and not in the derpy, over the top, 'we're just foolin' around and you shouldn't take it seriously' way that used to go down on WORA, but with real issues and real accusations of vileness RL.

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

@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.

I agree about the Hog Pit -- but only to a certain extent.

Yours is a very easy perspective to have when you're not the subject of regular dogpiles nearly any time you disagree with someone in any given circle of friends, are not being chased all over the forum (including outside of the Hog Pit) being bullied, or having completely irrational attacks slung at you, which are things more than a few people around here have experienced and are experiencing here.

It is a very easy perspective to have when people generally treat you with a modicum of respect, whether you disagree with them or not, play with them or not, etc.

It is a much more difficult perspective to share when people think it's totally awesome fun times to take out their shitty day or shitty life or personal baggage that you have absolutely nothing to do with on you from out of nowhere, because you're somehow on the designated 'no harm no foul' target list to randomly abuse without any social consequences for this shitty behavior.

As your experience isn't the only experience people are having, it would probably be a good idea to walk a mile in someone else's shoes on this front for a bit before rendering that judgment as you have here.

@faraday Heck, if the jerk behavior actually was confined to the HP, we'd be in a much better place than we are, and it really needs to be for the model to work.

Sadly, it's not.

Some folks genuinely give none fucks about that rule, or think they're above it, or... fuck-knows-what. That is really just not even a little bit OK with me, and if there's anything that I wish got more attention when it happens, it's that.

@thatguythere Dude, we just have the one flying car so far, but...

@derp I'm trying to keep the faith. I objectively know it is completely stupid of me to do, but I am.

It is not remotely easy.

Here's hoping you're not two years into this bullshit and your version resolves way faster.

@testament I would err on the side of caution there if HR has any reason to be mad at you now, in the past, or could even imagine being mad at you in the future.

One person's 'funny bonding project' (intent) is a grumpy HR director's 'report to the FBI'.

@auspice That's definitely a fair call to make.

Just don't not do it due to thinking you're not good enough. You absolutely can do that job, and knock it out of the park.

Not wanting to do it under the current pressures and time constraints is more a 'right thing, wrong time' sorta deal, though.

Just no thinking you can't do it.

@auspice Try, goddammit. You damned well better!

...sometimes, not getting Thing1 is fate's way of saying Thing2 around the corner is way better.

This Thing2 sounds way better.

Try.

Not only is it better, it's more you than teaching cars to drive.

You can do this.

@thenomain When the husband described the, uh, reboot of Reboot, I actually threw up in my mouth a little. I liked the original, he adored it; we both have a case of sandy asscrack about it.

I was OK with the new Lost in Space. It was visually stunning, so if you like eye candy, it's worth it for that alone. I am not usually a fan of child characters in anything (but Lucifer, Trixie is the exception that proves the rule, I adore that kid to bits) but they were pretty genuine and not wincey. The logic behind them being good at things -- and questioning it at times, along with lack of experience -- was actually bothered with, so it wasn't the usual 'and here is an obligatory pile of child prodigies with no explanation other than smart parents'.

If you have a day to binge a thing in the background, or just for some standard eye candy, you could do way worse.

It did lead to some heavy-duty eyeroll with my husband, who claimed some of the gender-swaps in terms of leadership positions and characters in general 'seemed like pandering', but the look he got along with the question, 'so is it pandering to people with penises in the original?' ended that one with a quickness as that particular lightbulb finally seemed to click on above his head. (Thank goodness.)

@tinuviel We would have had to pay extra for one, but Dad haggled them down to include it for half price.

@thenomain ...and my father. I swear to gods, my father does this.

Once upon a time, my car was in the shop, and I was going to go in for an application interview for a job at CompUSA (when they existed) and other than giving me a ride, his sole task was to use the stack of actual cash I handed him to pick up a specific printer. That's all. Really.

While I am in the manager's office, talking about work things and expectations and experience and availability, he tried to -- I am not making this up -- use a coupon for another printer, from another company, from a flyer that was two months old, to try to get the printer for that price.

And demanding he get that price for the entire half hour I was talking through things in the office, much to the exasperation of absolutely everyone I was destined to then work with for the next six months.

He had still not completed the purchase by the time I left the office. I had to pluck the money out of his hand and walk to the register upon discovering this.

@bobotron I really sorta am. Just make the hair green. The height's about dead on, though.

@cupcake ...my vast collection of unfinished games is testament to my empathy for this.