Well...Let's Talk About This

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Maybe instead of a garbage dump forum we need a trash compactor that deletes anything more than 24 hours old. That way it's impossible to follow the debate from the beginning.
Reduce it to an hour, and you have yourself a rollicking good time!
 
Maybe instead of a garbage dump forum we need a trash compactor that deletes anything more than 24 hours old. That way it's impossible to follow the debate from the beginning.
If we are going in that direction, I suggest that rather than wait 24 hours, it just deletes everything in that forum before it is posted.
 
True, but there have been instances of bad faith engagement that were obvious. There is a noticeable difference between strongly arguing/defending a position and flat-out mocking and disruption.

Well, this is the tricky thing. Outside of Mod+ threads, we generally step in when things get bad in a thread, but otherwise we only officially have the One Rule. Otherwise, we mostly have free speech here, which kinda means the good and the bad. I don't know if we suddenly moderate anytime an argument gets heated or words exchanged that will suddenly mean we now have "unspoken rules". And that also avoids the opportunity for posters to work things out on their own. We had a situation in a thread just this week, where I was watching it closely as it escalated, and then the posters de-escalated it themselves, and in the end there was no need for moderation. If I'd jumped right in and threadbanned one of the posters from the start, I'm not sure I'd count that as a better outcome. Sometimes the light moderation touch lets people just interact like people, and resolve issues between themselves. I think the more we moderate, the more we'll need to moderate, and the tone of The Pub will gradually shift to something much more oppressive and stuffy. But that does mean, the price for that is sometimes we're going to have people posting in bad faith, or jumping to ad hominem or strawmen.

It's a question kinda related to something we're kinda wrestling with backstage right now insofar as how far we'll let things go with a poster when they are having an affect on the board overall, or even outside perceptions of our forum, until we take the steps we are loathe too - bans or temp bans. There's no perfect answer that I know of. More moderation or less moderation both come with their own inherent consequences, and decisions we make now could affect the board cuture overall in the long-term.
 
Tristram, I know I've mentioned it before but how do you see growth affecting the policy going forward?

It seems forums are prone to hitting a certain critical mass where there's enough posters to form a clique that tries to push things around as they see fit. I always see the first mod war and the Tangency cool kids club that formed around Theron, Redredderreddest and Winna (resulting in the infamous "ban me motherfuckers" post) as the point of divergence where we'd need to send time travellers back to save the whales. Of course, there was another clique, the moderators and their supporters, who won that war but I think neither group was actually good for the forum.

Therpgsite gives us a counter example where a single individual has set the tone and direction of the forums, drawing like minded individuals like a light house.

The "because I say so," rule has its draw backs as does the big list of rigid rules.
 
Tristram, I know I've mentioned it before but how do you see growth affecting the policy going forward?

It seems forums are prone to hitting a certain critical mass where there's enough posters to form a clique that tries to push things around as they see fit. I always see the first mod war and the Tangency cool kids club that formed around Theron, Redredderreddest and Winna (resulting in the infamous "ban me motherfuckers" post) as the point of divergence where we'd need to send time travellers back to save the whales. Of course, there was another clique, the moderators and their supporters, who won that war but I think neither group was actually good for the forum.

Therpgsite gives us a counter example where a single individual has set the tone and direction of the forums, drawing like minded individuals like a light house.

The "because I say so," rule has its draw backs as does the big list of rigid rules.


Honestly, I don't know.

Part of me wishes we could sorta freeze things back at The Pub's first one year mark. I see the forum growing all the time, and it honestly worries me. I imagine at some point we'll have to take on more moderators, and the personality clashes will get more extreme as we get people coming from completely different ends of the forum worlds. I already look back on that first year as a sort of Golden Age for The Pub that we'll never quite capture again.

The Swo of our youth...

A few things keep me optimistic, though.

For one, Endless started The Pub with a specific vision, and he hasn't wavered from that. When we do add additional Mods, they're always people on the same wavelength, and when we have backstage discussions they continue to be very thoughtful, evenhanded, and conscious of not overstepping.

Two, I think things here mostly work. I look at the few issues we have from time to time and compare that to what's going on on other forums, and we are still, 1500 subscribers later, a pretty great community. I think people acclimate to the laid-back, not taking itself too seriously mood of The Pub well overall. For every thread that goes bad, we have dozens that are great and thoughtful and fun.

I still believe, in my heart, that for the most part if you leave people alone and treat them like adults they will act that way. I thinkthe posters, from the old guard refugees from the Site to the newest, overall want the forum to be a friendly oasis from the turbulance elsewhere online, and even now three years on posters moderate themselves well. I hope it continues on like that. I hope that the challenges we face with growth will not alter how we interact, as mods and posters.

And I think threads like this very one are a part of that. The kind of thread you simply can't have at certain other forums. Where posters and mods are on equal terms and we listen to each other, and come to understandings as a community, as opposed to a small group dictating terms. I don't want a List of Rules, and I don't want "Because I Say So", with no room for conversation. Because, deep down, I hate authority, and I don't like being in a position of authority, even one as insignificant as a forum moderator, because I hate how that colours interactions. I don't moderate here because I want to be a moderator, I do it because I care about the Pub enough to play caretaker.
 
Skimmed through and have some thoughts...

Certainly we don't want threads locked when there has been constructive discussion and someone is disruptive. One thought, look back, has the apparent disruptive poster in the thread engaged positively with any other poster in the thread? If not, they are clearly just crapping on the thread.

I do want to say that while there was some heated back and forth in the sandbox thread, and I tossed some doozies myself, I feel like the thread did accomplish some good stuff in getting folks to really talk about what a Sandbox is and what things might look close to a Sandbox but be Qualified. Good thread...

I think the Safety Tools thread was decent also though it's quite a contentious issue and hard to separate from politics. Because of that, the subject may just not be a good one for the Pub unless you want to add a sub-forum specifically for subjects that are hard to talk about without bringing SOME politics in. But seeing how those sub-forums generally work in other places, it's hard for the feelings that come up to not leak out to the rest of the forum (I HAVE been on one forum where the leakage was not too bad, mostly I think we had some really good folks talking politics even though there were some pretty divergent values, but that was also some 20 years ago, long before the current political climate).
 
I think the Safety Tools thread was decent also though it's quite a contentious issue and hard to separate from politics. Because of that, the subject may just not be a good one for the Pub unless you want to add a sub-forum specifically for subjects that are hard to talk about without bringing SOME politics in.
This is a good example, and I think something I think the moderation has failed on. I don't understand how safety tools could be considered political. They are a neutral tool that can help RPGs be more inclusive.

One of the big problems with a "no politics" rule, is it becomes a "we strictly enforce the status quo." Which is political. It`s pro-majority, and makes the discussion unwelcoming to the minority.

As an example: if I wanted to post a thread "asking for advice on portraying gay NPCs in a realistic and thoughtful manner," I'm pretty sure that thread would get booted for being "political,"
 
As for my own experience: Generally, despite what I believe about "no politics." I think the site and mods enacted it in good faith, and try their best to keep the site as neutral and positive as possible. I think that is the spirit of the rule. I think most poster abide by the spirit of the rule, and that's what makes this a good place to chat about RPGS.

I think Krueger is aggressively and apparently conservative. I think they agressively do what they can to disrupt discussion that is not conservative, or disrupt discussion about products made by openly progressive authors. I've reported their behavior, and they are the only person I have blocked. My view is that "No Politics" as a rule is actually biased towards conservative politics, and Krueger takes advantage to get away gross negativity while abiding by the letter of the rule. I think Krueger regularly run afoul of the spirit of the rule.

Even though I have them blocked, the disruption remains, as I have to scroll through other posters contending with the same behavior.

Anyways, this is a pickle for moderation.
 
As an example: if I wanted to post a thread "asking for advice on portraying gay NPCs in a realistic and thoughtful manner," I'm pretty sure that thread would get booted for being "political,"
Given that the guy people I've known have ranged from police officers that you would never realise they were gay, through to living cliches of camp, and a gay woman who claimed she could steal any man's girlfriend. So there's no way that's not a political question designed to appeal to RPG.Net mods.

People are diverse and one thing we have in common is that we're all different. Asking a question like that is asking for guidance in political correctness.

In other words, it is inherently political.
 
The eternal tension of big tent forums is: people want to go where there's lots of people to talk to, and also where there's lots of people to see what your opinion is (maybe more people will adopt your opinion); and 2) I don't want other people to talk bad about what I like.

I personally don't spend a lot of time on big tent forums; I used to think the typical person changed their minds by debate but that isn't true and never really was. I no longer care as much if I post an opinion that expresses everything I want it to say, but someone else dunks on it because it's simply antithetical to their preferences - concentrate on finding those who are aligned to your thinking instead of those who never will be. And so I spend most of my time in smaller forums where the vibe is "we all agree on 90% and the quest is application of what we agree upon instead of verbal bloodsport". When I'm bored I'll go seek verbal bloodsport purposely, but that's rarer and rarer.

The point is: you can have a big tent, or you can have copacetic discussion, but you can't have both. You can simulate copacetic discussion if you're willing to not see the counter-opinion. But that requires being OK with people who aren't aligned with you and never will be, finding people like themselves though the thread you're not seeing them posting stuff you disagree with, in.

It requires a certain detachment. It requires being at peace with someone stating on the internet they think your opinion is super dumb. It requires having a low desire for external validation and whether people might form poor opinions of you because of what this other person can say that you can't see.

Big tents are not easy for many of the personalities drawn to them. it's a weird world.

The only suggestion I can offer is to emulate a "medium-sized tent", if and only if, there are a couple/handful of "tribes" of like-minded folks who all agree there's conversations they wish to have in semi-private. Open up a sub-board for those groups that the rest of the board can't see, and won't be allowed to join - perhaps these sub-board membership can request people be added - but then, if they end up complaining about someone they invite...it clarifies. Edit - also illuminates whether a group's main concern is whether they can express what they want to express, or whether other people are expressing something they don't want expressed. if it's the former, a place to talk is all they need. If it's the latter, they'll still complain because a voice saying things they don't want said is still speaking in another part of the board. Often what is really #2 will be presented as #1

Caveat: I have no idea how the back-end is structured, how easy this would be, or if it would be less stress on the admins/mods than two flags continually calling each other poopey-heads in the general public facing forums.
 
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In other words, it is inherently political.
That's where I disagree.

I know that gay people exist. I am not gay, I have very little experience with being gay. As a GM, I could definitely use resources if I want to add realistic gay people to my roster of NPCs and improve my game. That's not politics to me.

I think you proved my point though. And I'll leave it at that.
 
If we constrain the idea of politics to the workings of democracy to form government, nothing else is purely political, not gays, not guns, not even people from other countries or with different ideas. But if we broaden our definition of politics more and more things get into that bin. "No contentious topics" followed by a list would kill this place dead. There are points of view expressed every day on talk radio that I don't think anyone here on this forum would condone.

I do think the pub has an advantage when it comes to surviving growth while maintaining civil discourse. The owner of the pub is in favor of civil discourse and isn't pursuing any particular agenda as far as I can see. If "no politics" were to become "only my politics" the pub would become just like some other places I can mention. Hopefully, if the political attack dogs aren't allowed to dictate policy, they won't stick around. What is difficult right now is that there are gamers with strongly held preferences who will turn a discussion into a knife fight over matters that aren't remotely political.

I wonder if we need a "rules of civil discourse" sticky. Not as hard and fast rules but as an introduction to the concept for those who, apparently, have never encountered the notion before.
 
I think the danger is - and the fear of the mods - is that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

We're having this discussion now but lets say the overarching theme that comes out of it is 'Krakajak' is a poopyhead! (Sorry, Krakajak, I needed an example and you were nearest). Krakajak gets banned and a small proportion of the people posting in this thread go "Yay!" but the rest of us are left with a bad taste in our mouths and this place becomes that little bit less welcoming.

Fast forward a few years and you've got rules for everything, banned topics and a culture that only allows for one train of thought and no divergance at all.
I'd disagree that the 'no politics rule' means this place supports the status quo (and I'm someone that loves to debat politics). It just means we don't want to fall out over something as contentious as whether political party X has the right idea or that they are baby eating monsters. You could say everything (like gay NPCs) are political but by that rationale EVERYTHING is political, DnD, Tunnels and trolls, Monopoly etc.

(David J can read my mind and type faster! Bastich!)
 
Sorry, my psychic powers grow stronger with lack of sleep and are at peak efficiency now.

Perhaps we need a thread where we make up random rules. No discussion of peanuts and bananas in tacos. No discussion of the trimming of bangs with a hammer. No offering the goths pickle bagels for preferential treatment in discussions of Electric Light Orchestra albums.
 
That's where I disagree.

I know that gay people exist. I am not gay, I have very little experience with being gay. As a GM, I could definitely use resources if I want to add realistic gay people to my roster of NPCs and improve my game. That's not politics to me.

I think you proved my point though. And I'll leave it at that.

"Gay people" are just people. Asking for advice on playing them is asking for stereotypes, because it assumes there's some way to specifically roleplay a gay person that isn't just treating them like an individual, the same as roleplaying anyone else. So yes, I'd probably consider that political.

On the other hand, if you wanted to have a thread about depicting "Modern North American Gay culture" in games, that wouldn't be an issue, anymore than a thread on "Medieval Lithuanian Culture" or "Pre-Contact Meso-American Culture".
 
"Gay people" are just people. Asking for advice on playing them is asking for stereotypes, because it assumes there's some way to specifically roleplay a gay person that isn't just treating them like an individual, the same as roleplaying anyone else. So yes, I'd consider that political, just as I would any form of bigotry.

On the other hand, if you wanted to have a thread about depicting "Modern North American Gay culture" in games, that wouldn't be an issue, anymore than a thread on "Medieval Lithuanian Culture" or "Pre-Contact Meso-American Culture".
Yeah, that'd be my view. A "how to I play a gay NPC?" isn't going to work because it's clumsy if well meaning. And the only possible answer is "exactly the same as you'd play anyone else, they just happen to be attracted to their own gender".

A thread on the gay scene would be fine, although you'd be asked to narrow that down by location pretty quickly.

It's already been repeatedly established that we do not consider the existence of gay people to be political and will give short shrift to anyone who claims that you shouldn't mention being gay on the forum for that reason.
 
The issue is really identifying this as a mod, and not coming across as constantly reading the worste possible interpretation into posts.
IMHO, many posts can be read multiple ways. The problem I've seen over the years is that too many people -- and not just mods -- pick the worst possible way to interpret the post. I've found discussions are better if everyone involved reads such posts with the assumption that the poster did not mean in that way. In other words, if members read posts in the least problematic way, discussions generally work better.
 
I assume if we have a garbage dump thread we wouldn't bother moderating it at all.
Garbage dump is a not quite the right analogy - a better metaphor is a toxic waste dump that contaminates all the drinking water. The toxicity doesn't stay put - it follows people across decades and forums and then pollutes the atmosphere wherever it lands. In the past few months it's had a noticeable effect on the atmosphere here; the Pub is a perceptibly less fun place than it was 6 months ago.
 
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Well, this is the tricky thing. Outside of Mod+ threads, we generally step in when things get bad in a thread, but otherwise we only officially have the One Rule. Otherwise, we mostly have free speech here, which kinda means the good and the bad. I don't know if we suddenly moderate anytime an argument gets heated or words exchanged that will suddenly mean we now have "unspoken rules". And that also avoids the opportunity for posters to work things out on their own. We had a situation in a thread just this week, where I was watching it closely as it escalated, and then the posters de-escalated it themselves, and in the end there was no need for moderation. If I'd jumped right in and threadbanned one of the posters from the start, I'm not sure I'd count that as a better outcome. Sometimes the light moderation touch lets people just interact like people, and resolve issues between themselves. I think the more we moderate, the more we'll need to moderate, and the tone of The Pub will gradually shift to something much more oppressive and stuffy. But that does mean, the price for that is sometimes we're going to have people posting in bad faith, or jumping to ad hominem or strawmen.

It's a question kinda related to something we're kinda wrestling with backstage right now insofar as how far we'll let things go with a poster when they are having an affect on the board overall, or even outside perceptions of our forum, until we take the steps we are loathe too - bans or temp bans. There's no perfect answer that I know of. More moderation or less moderation both come with their own inherent consequences, and decisions we make now could affect the board cuture overall in the long-term.
You could have a second rule - 'Leave your baggage at the door,' or 'What started on The Forge stays on The Forge.' This should be amenable to moderating on a 'we'll know it when we see it' basis.
 
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As for my own experience: Generally, despite what I believe about "no politics." I think the site and mods enacted it in good faith, and try their best to keep the site as neutral and positive as possible. I think that is the spirit of the rule. I think most poster abide by the spirit of the rule, and that's what makes this a good place to chat about RPGS.

I think Krueger is aggressively and apparently conservative. I think they agressively do what they can to disrupt discussion that is not conservative, or disrupt discussion about products made by openly progressive authors. I've reported their behavior, and they are the only person I have blocked. My view is that "No Politics" as a rule is actually biased towards conservative politics, and Krueger takes advantage to get away gross negativity while abiding by the letter of the rule. I think Krueger regularly run afoul of the spirit of the rule.

Even though I have them blocked, the disruption remains, as I have to scroll through other posters contending with the same behavior.

Anyways, this is a pickle for moderation.
I totally agree with this.

I don't mind that CRK and I butt heads a lot; I don't mind that we disagree or have different tastes. It's a discussion forum; if we all agreed on things then what's the point.

What I do mind is discussions being turned into "well what about what this person said fifteen years ago" rather than the actual topic at hand. What I do mind is "it doesn't matter how things are actually used at the table, I'm going to take the most literal and clearly un-fun reading that I possibly can and that must be true". What I do mind is the hypocrisy of saying both "don't assume intentions into my posts" and "of course it's the Usual Suspects doing their usual things" which reads a bit like assuming intentions to me as well as trying to be coy about it to hide behind Plausible Deniability. What I do mind is attempts to shut down topics that he doesn't like by posting "I say this is Politics so nobody should be allowed to discuss it because now it's a political issue" or even just a fucking blatant "I don't want this discussion to happen so I want this thread to be about something else".

He's not the only user that makes threads actively unpleasant to post in. I actually don't even think he's the worst. But it's certainly something that he's good at doing.
 
It's probably worth looking at a thread that went right as well.

The "gun laws" thread could have taken a political turn but it didn't and was a highly productive thread. So I'm interested in why that topic didn't blow up in the same way and how we can see more like that in the future.
 
Two, I think things here mostly work. I look at the few issues we have from time to time and compare that to what's going on on other forums, and we are still, 1500 subscribers later, a pretty great community. I think people acclimate to the laid-back, not taking itself too seriously mood of The Pub well overall. For every thread that goes bad, we have dozens that are great and thoughtful and fun.
Is that the ratio of bad threads to good? 1:dozens?
What's the ratio of posters that battle with one another to those that don't? 1 dozen: 1 thousand?

I'd also say that things work pretty well here if those are the ratios. I'll take that over the sh!t-flinging or oppressive Rpg forums that are out there.
I already look back on that first year as a sort of Golden Age for The Pub that we'll never quite capture again.
I've seen these sentiments stated before and they always strike me as odd. Has the 'Pub fallen from its glory days?

To me, the Pub has consistently been a welcoming place - since the beginning to now - with interesting threads, interesting posters, and humor. But my perspective might be based on my engagement level with the Pub. If you're not a 'regular' and you avoid hot-button threads, you don't see the ugly side of the Pub nor the animosity between posters. And those hot-button threads are pretty obvious - when they're topics that have been argued over for two decades in other places, you know that things will likely get heated. (And when you find those topics f&$king boring, it's even easier to "miss out").
 
IsI've seen these sentiments stated before and they always strike me as odd. Has the 'Pub fallen from its glory days?
You’ll have to cut TristramEvans TristramEvans some slack. He’s just a very nostalgic person. To unwind from school every weekend, he takes his Dallas roleplaying game off the shelf and plays out scenes from the golden age of dramatic television.
 
You’ll have to cut TristramEvans TristramEvans some slack. He’s just a very nostalgic person. To unwind from school every weekend, he takes his Dallas roleplaying game off the shelf and plays out scenes from the golden age of dramatic television.
I hear he puts on his old goth boots every Friday and reads Vampire sourcebooks while shedding a single tear.
 
I totally agree with this.

I don't mind that CRK and I butt heads a lot; I don't mind that we disagree or have different tastes. It's a discussion forum; if we all agreed on things then what's the point.

What I do mind is discussions being turned into "well what about what this person said fifteen years ago" rather than the actual topic at hand. What I do mind is "it doesn't matter how things are actually used at the table, I'm going to take the most literal and clearly un-fun reading that I possibly can and that must be true". What I do mind is the hypocrisy of saying both "don't assume intentions into my posts" and "of course it's the Usual Suspects doing their usual things" which reads a bit like assuming intentions to me as well as trying to be coy about it to hide behind Plausible Deniability. What I do mind is attempts to shut down topics that he doesn't like by posting "I say this is Politics so nobody should be allowed to discuss it because now it's a political issue" or even just a fucking blatant "I don't want this discussion to happen so I want this thread to be about something else".

He's not the only user that makes threads actively unpleasant to post in. I actually don't even think he's the worst. But it's certainly something that he's good at doing.
Yeah, I really don't like the argument based on an undefinined "They" either, whether it's a political group or baggage from the forum wars. In general, I simply dont like lumping people together, I think it's dehumanizing and divisive and counterproductive to conversation.

What is amusing is that how often we are accused of being biased towards one side or the other of the political spectrum whenever we moderate based on politics - there's always this idea that "if it supports my beliefs, it's not politica, but if it goes against them it is" that informs a lot of the reports and PMs we get. We get accused of supporting conservative views if we moderate people for bringing up liberal issues just as often as we are accused as catering to the left by not banning discussion of topics like Xcards.

I have no idea if CRK is conservative - because that means a huge bunch of things that having nothing to do with the Culture War (and it's not like it's even the same things over time or from country to country), so I think it's more accurate to say that we all know exactly what side of the Culture War he falls down on. But we don't want the Culture War waged here on the forum. And I can understand why some stuff appears to fall into one camp or the other, because people grab onto those things. As I said to Krueger in the Safety Tools thread: "If you can talk about it without bringing up politics it isnt inherently political, it's just been politicized", but I know he didn't agree with me there, just as I know other folks on the other side are going to disagree with other calls that he's fine with. And I often don't totally agree either, insofar as what I see as ideologically-driven elements in the hobby, but I have to put aside my suspicions in order to be a neutral arbitrer.

The reason the No Politics rule isn't more specific or defined is because it comes down to interpretation a lot of the time. And I don't think it means what people interpret it as meaning, more often than not. It often doesn't mean that we accept things that have been politicized in recent years as inherently political. I think we do at least a decent job of giving people the benefit of the doubt that they can discuss volatile subjects without assuming they are politically motivated. But we're never going to please everyone. We lost one of my favourite posters a while back because we allowed a discussion about a bundle of games that supported a political cause, because posters were able to talk about the games and not the charity or political ideology of the website offering the bundle. He obviously sawit as a compramise, whereas I see it as just not being in denial that we live in a very politically-charged landscape, and we can accpt that and still have discussions that don't revolve around that. But it goes both ways, just looking at the Justin Alexander/Chris Brady "misogyny" incident as a counterpoint.
 
Has the 'Pub fallen from its glory days?

No, I wouldn't say so. What's that word for that initial rush of hormones you get when you just start a new relationship? It's more like that; there was this buzz of excitement and comraderie when the Pub just got started and there was like maybe 30 of us, and there were so few threads that everyone pretty much took part in all of them.

It was also pretty slow, TBH. We still aren't the most active forum ever, but a thread on the front page can drop to the third page of the Open forum in the course of an afternoon, somethiing that would have been unheard of back in the day. As a Mod, I used to read every single post as they were posted, nowadays, I'll just sorta skim certain threads or even not check in on them for days at a time if I don't think I need to be there as a Mod. I go to sleep now and wake up to log in and regularly find 50-60 notifications.

And The Pub has gotten more diverse over time as well. It's not the same old conversations about the same old games. So, while I may wax nostalgic from time to time for when it was just a small group of friends who all knew each other from forums beforehand starting off on a new journey together, that doesn't mean The Pub hasn't gotten better.
 
You’ll have to cut TristramEvans TristramEvans some slack. He’s just a very nostalgic person. To unwind from school every weekend, he takes his Dallas roleplaying game off the shelf and plays out scenes from the golden age of dramatic television.

I play out the scenarios using Megos!

00dallas.jpg

But MY Dallas has Sleestaks...

000.jpg
 
You’ll have to cut TristramEvans TristramEvans some slack. He’s just a very nostalgic person. To unwind from school every weekend, he takes his Dallas roleplaying game off the shelf and plays out scenes from the golden age of dramatic television.
This just strengthens my belief that Moderators are masochists. First, you willingly volunteer to babysit adults and then you <shudder> enjoy the golden age of Dallas. :shock:
 
"of course it's the Usual Suspects doing their usual things"

And I don't really know when I changed from being an individual that sometimes agrees with either side into the "Usual Suspects" side of things. But it's one of the only hot button topics that I have, and can admittedly change me from reasonable to not in a blink. It doesn't seem like too 'sensitive' a line to draw, in all honesty.
 
This is a good example, and I think something I think the moderation has failed on. I don't understand how safety tools could be considered political. They are a neutral tool that can help RPGs be more inclusive.

One of the big problems with a "no politics" rule, is it becomes a "we strictly enforce the status quo." Which is political. It`s pro-majority, and makes the discussion unwelcoming to the minority.

As an example: if I wanted to post a thread "asking for advice on portraying gay NPCs in a realistic and thoughtful manner," I'm pretty sure that thread would get booted for being "political,"
Personally, I wouldn't consider that to be a political topic. I agree with the people that say there isn't a particular way to "act gay", but I'd be fine with the question being asked, giving people a chance to give a sensible answer to it. While it is possible to make political hay out of people's sexual preferences, there is nothing innately political about the subject, and it isn't something I want to see discussion of shut down. If someone asks a naïve question about it, I think we have enough knowledgeable, mature posters to answer the question in reasonable fashion.

A Fiery Flying Roll Black Leaf also makes a good point that there are gay subcultures that have formed throughout history, so if the question was asked in a more specific manner, there can be some interesting information to be discussed.
As for my own experience: Generally, despite what I believe about "no politics." I think the site and mods enacted it in good faith, and try their best to keep the site as neutral and positive as possible. I think that is the spirit of the rule. I think most poster abide by the spirit of the rule, and that's what makes this a good place to chat about RPGS.

I think Krueger is aggressively and apparently conservative. I think they agressively do what they can to disrupt discussion that is not conservative, or disrupt discussion about products made by openly progressive authors. I've reported their behavior, and they are the only person I have blocked. My view is that "No Politics" as a rule is actually biased towards conservative politics, and Krueger takes advantage to get away gross negativity while abiding by the letter of the rule. I think Krueger regularly run afoul of the spirit of the rule.
Actually, I think Krueger is an example of how the "No Politics" rule isn't innately conservative, as Krueger is the most frequent person to go over the line. If there was a conservative bias, he wouldn't need to cross it so much.

On top of that, he's made it clear he has no interest in even attempting to follow the rules or spirit at the Pub. When he was asked to ignore Norton, he refused to do it. When I asked people to stop the safety tools discussion in the Moderation Thread, he kept going. Unfortunately, I was too busy with work that day to notice things had carried on until much later.

To give some transparency, I made the decision when I became a mod to avoid moderating Krueger as we have a contentious history, and I didn't want my personal dislike of him to affect the moderation of the forum. I felt it would be better to allow other mods to deal with him to avoid the appearance. I'm done with that now, as Krueger regularly makes comments about how if he does some particular thing "Baulderstone will threadban him". I guess he wants to cultivate an image of being the tough guy standing up to the mods, but it just looks absurd as until the last month, I have never moderated him at all.

This kind of manipulative dishonesty bothers me. It says a lot that so many posters here see him as getting special favor to do as he pleases while he acts as if he is the victim of mod persecution. I'm frankly tired of the mod team trying to accommodate him only for him to spit in everyone's face. It's reached a point where I feel its gone far beyond my personal dislike of the guy into him being a detriment to the whole forum.

Over the last month, I've reached the conclusion that he has no interest in following the rules of the Pub or the spirit it was founded on. I don't see much reason he should be posting here anymore. We've given him increasing run of the place by setting up special threads on his pet obsessions like "RPGs vs. Story Games" and the more he gets, the more unhappy he seems. I'm just tired of it.
 
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