Posts made by Thenomain

@carnivale said in An Apology to BSO and BSU.:

While I do understand that there have been people who have been hurt on an emotional level at some point in time by @DownWithOPP, we have ventured into a territory of baiting and blasting - neither of which seem to be overly conducive or even mildly-constructive in any way.

Yes, but whose fault is that? OPP's, who in spite of how people see him has been more or less civil in his own thread? Or the actions of others who are taking this opportunity to not simply call him out for being dishonest, but bash and mock him?

I'm not defending anyone here (I don't know enough to have an opinion), but questioning the idea that others can behave poorly and punish everyone in a thread regardless of the civility of others. I fear the chilling effect this would have, or the power this would give to those who want to drag any thread that they personally want into the Hog Pit.

@wolfs

Well it is funny, but there's this gigantic thread about their new administrative style and they said they wanted us to self-police a little, and if I can't be the resident tweed robot then I can at least be my usual killjoy.

@wolfs

Wait, does that officially make this a Hog Pit post?

I'm not yet sure what @Arkandel, @Ganymede, and @Auspice consider the line from 'constructive' to 'baiting'.

The Dr. Seuss and Sendak lot must have an honest, unforced shot and this is mostly all I've got. It's been a while since I've played with a rhyming back and forth brigade but yeah, she's right, we've overstayed.

Mind you, if you don't mind cursing I'll leave this link for your perusing, because the context's pretty near.

It's ERB, Seuss vs. Shakespere

@sparks said in Sockmonkey's Playlist:

@thenomain said in Sockmonkey's Playlist:

@sparks said in Sockmonkey's Playlist:

(Yes, I say this despite being someone who willingly plays Traveller...)

But the big question is would you play it on a Mud? Would you play it with a HUD? Would you could you with some code? Would you should you on the road?

I would not, could not, on a MUD, or on the road, or with a HUD. The game's a mess, I must admit, and players would all want to quit.

Would you with some streamlined rules? Could you without gaming fools? Focused theme or accessed plot? FS3 might hit the spot.

@auspice

How do they speak without breathing?

So speaking is yet another reminder.

Mind you: No migraines.

@sparks said in Sockmonkey's Playlist:

(Yes, I say this despite being someone who willingly plays Traveller...)

But the big question is would you play it on a Mud? Would you play it with a HUD? Would you could you with some code? Would you should you on the road?

@theonceler

Nowhere on your list is Dark Metal. It's not even under your "clusterfucks I missed" section which means either entirely skipped your radar (tho mentioning Masq, Elysium, and Tartarus I'm wondering how that could happen), or it was so bad that you blocked it out of your memory (you mentioned CrackMUX and Start Your Engines, so I'm wondering how that could be, too).

--

I played on one of the Twin Cities by Teatime, which if I remember right was a Seannan game. I once saw a post from a web cartoonist that I was following mention doing the illustrations for it and that it was a part of her life that she wanted to forget.

Last I saw, she was doing stuff for Disney or something similarly impressive, so I'll consider that a win.

@sockmonkey said in Sockmonkey's Playlist:

@Thenomain We're not that rare! Who did you play? Granted, the chances of me remembering who you were are slim since that game was forever ago and it took all my brain power just to recall my own character's names. And I'm not entirely sure I got them right. Remembering is HARD. What day is it? Where am I? Where are my pants?

I played the coder Puck. I got fired when I refused to code something that was kind of skeezy for Aestra, though in retrospect it may not have been skeezy so much as it might have added to increasing bureaucracy and I pushed back against it.

I did have a character, maybe even named Thenomain, but like most places I found myself gravitating toward coding as a more relaxing pastime, plus I got to chat with a lot of great people on staff.

So I had a thought. This isn't to derail Apos' point, but I was reminded that this thread exists.

We have another thread on this board that is focused entirely on venting outside of the rules and confines of the context of what we're venting about.

This one. Here's an example of venting for the sake of venting, and sometimes even swearing and insulting in a not at all friendly manner. And it's still mostly constructive. Why? Because there is no to almost no chance that anyone who is being vented at or about will see it. We don't have to tell people to not vent about people on these boards or in this hobby, even if they are driving us insane in an RL manner. The limits of that thread are understood almost universally without extra rules being enacted.

And yet I don't for a second doubt that it's not useful. We get things off our chest to fellows who either commiserate or ignore it if they disagree. Even shouting into the void is considered healthy, in moderation.

There is no stated conclusion here, but in my mind it's a lynchpin of many of these related comments.

I just got my boss to check the thtermostat, after three months of complaining.

My department's thermostat, which lives outside my department, was set permanently to 'chill'. The AC was always on. It was on when it was 70 outside, it was on when it was 30 outside. I live with low blood pressure and not a whole lot of body weight. My fingers were visibly cold and I could only get someone to check it just now, because they finally felt it.

Really, guys, you can trust your employees more. You can. Really.

@arkandel

Sometimes people have to be reminded how you expect them how to behave. That's why businesses have an employee manual. That's why we sometimes ask posters to please cut it out. These actions help remind everyone that yes, sometimes we get emotional and that yes, sometimes we forget the context of where we are.

Reminders are the first and most reasonable step towards the problem escalation process, and if done in a respectful manner then leaves the de-escallation process in the hands of the person who you believe started it. It shows them that you don't immediately think that they are a troll, or are causing problems on purpose, and so you respect their ability to manage themselves. (edit: And people managing themselves is what you want. I want it too.)

Adulting. Sometimes it's hard, but it builds respect and trust.

@surreality said in Regarding administration on MSB:

No one's said this.

You may not have. Others have, explicitly.

I will back this up. I was going to say when she did that I couldn't remember who because it was a silly thing to even suggest, but then I started thinking about it: Culture propagates. If something is okay in one place, then people can start believing that it's okay in other places.

The fear of this can drive people here to call this place a hive of scum and villainy. That is, to stamp out bad behavior in one place, it's an understandable method of trying to solve the issue of stomping out all bad behavior.

I personally think that this is a bit of an insult to the ability for adults to act like adults when treated like adults, and expected to act like adults, but this is my take on the entire issue.

@arkandel said in Regarding administration on MSB:

@thenomain Only the kind dogs bark at.

I'd howl for that.

@arkandel said in Regarding administration on MSB:

@misadventure One third of this place's administration is handled robotically, so.

I dunno, @Ganymede has been acting a bit...human lately. Is it possible that he's becoming a real boy...girl...thing?

@misadventure said in Regarding administration on MSB:

Free press is the devil.

I think of Soapbox et al. to be more the public commons, or some bizarre mash-up of the two where the desire for "public commons" is there, but it's controlled as a privately owned place. There is the question of who is the target audience, as well as what is proper decorum.

Holy crap a fellow Aetherite. Yo.

@ghost said in Regarding administration on MSB:

Waxing philosophical here, but how can we expect people to treat each other with respect and civility on these games if the general standard for many is to take the OOC drama from these games to a demilitarized zone where they can behave aggressively and abusively without it affecting their actual roleplay time? It in no way keeps the drama away from the games, it just takes the fight to a place where they're less likely to be banned from the game for it, because it's not happening on the server itself.

This right here is why a lot of people refuse to come to Soapbox. You could (er, well, I am) say that this prevents Soapbox from becoming a place to discuss game theory or otherwise be a casual hub for hobby discussion, because either none of Soapbox is the Hog Pit, or all of it is.

Theoretically, the existence of a distinct forum for people to come separately and get their wank on means the game administration will have no idea that these people are spewing acid because it's removed from the game.

That leaves Soapbox administration left holding the overfull vomitorium bucket. What they decide is for Soapbox and Soapbox only. If they really think that the Hog Pit saves these games from trolls means that they keep the Hog Pit. If they want to be a community discussion site, then they keep the Hog Pit locked down.

There may be other ways for it, but that's my current thesis. Either Hog Pit stays and the rest of the board is moderated heavily, or it's unlocked and Soapbox returns to being Wora in the hearts and minds of those not already there and some who are.

@bored

I have made the same concerns of our current board administrators, so I wholeheartedly agree. Saying that we need a gray area is the right answer for me, but also the absolutely hardest one.

I have seen Ganymede at least offer moral guidelines as the basis for legal decisions in the past, so I don’t doubt that we will see this again.

@bored

I’m not against people replying to something to say “I️ don’t agree”. Especially if they feel that if they don’t make their stance known then they would risk being misrepresented. This is a lot of the thread derails that I️ see.

Fucking hell, Apple. Well you get the idea. My objection is essentially telling someone that their ideas are bad and they should feel bad goes against the concept of civility that some of us would like to see more of.

Your response? Absolutely civil. Whether or not it was kind is not the point in any of this; it held consideration toward the topic and respect for Faraday as a human being, even if a human being you strongly disagree with.