Moderation Criticisms

[Justin Alexander]

I want to briefly explain why I'm leaving the Pub.

However, what Krueger said was absolutely correct @Justin Alexander - he answered and addressed your questions and your replies were little more than trolling. So, yeah, you would have had a threadban as well.

This is an obviously false statement. To briefly review: I said let's specifically not talk about the flashback mechanic because it makes some people tribalistic and they simply cannot move past it.

The flashback mechanics are probably too contentious at this point, unfortunately, for valuable discussion to emerge. This happened in the previous thread, too. Attempts to move the conversation past the specific dissociation of the player-triggered flashback went nowhere because people had become completely tribalistic about the specific heresy of the flashback mechanic and simply could not move past it.

Krueger's direct responses (with me repeatedly telling him to let the flashback mechanics go) have been:

I used the term Living World.

Here’s why flashbacks preclude it.

So...you agree, disagree, or ignoring the Flashback argument?

So ignore, just checking.

For some reason, you don't actually want to know what I meant, so you dodge, then claim I'm threadcrapping when I'm specifically detailing the points you called me out to talk about.

If you don't want an answer, maybe don't call someone out to give one.

All the disingenuous crap, as usual, is coming from you. Do you actually think anyone here is fooled? Seriously?

Note that there were, in fact, several specific questions in the original post. Despite repeatedly refusing to stop talking about the flashback mechanic, Krueger never once answered any of those questions. Tristram is simply lying when he said that he did.

The problem here is really straightforward: CRKrueger is a troll. If the moderators simply decided that they were OK with open trolling on the forum, that would be one thing.

But that's not what they're doing. They have instead chosen to actively enable and REWARD his behavior by:

(a) Repeatedly threadbanning everyone who calls CRKrueger out on this bullshit; and

(b) Closing threads that CRKrueger disrupts with his trolling

This is bad moderating. It is enabling and empowering a bully, and as a result we are beginning to see other trolls engaging in the same disruptive behavior (and, similarly, being rewarded by the moderators). It has already resulted in high quality posters leaving the boards and, unfortunately, those people had the right idea. Because of the actions of the moderators, the bullying will continue to intensify, the thread disruptions will continue to escalate, and the quality of the board as a whole will continue to deteriorate.

Maybe the moderators will figure this out and course correct. But at this point that doesn't seem likely. They seem ideologically firm in their belief that the REAL problem are the people calling out the trolls, and so they will continue unintentionally encouraging and empowering those trolls while simultaneously expressing dismay that so many threads seem to be full of trolling.

I was invited to this board by the moderators. I appreciate much of the time that I spent here. But that time is now done.

Ciao.

 

[David Johansen]

Much as I'm tempted to head into Monty Python (oh yes, we've all been very bad and must be spanked) I'm not a moderator so it's a bit of a stretch.

Yeah, they're bad or at least not very good. Sometimes I think they should be a lot more ruthless.

But I'll take the bad moderation over the "good" moderation I've seen at any other site.

Other people like different things. In a perfect world I'd be the pope of roleplaying games and my word would be the final authority. Until the coming of that righteous day, I've had to accept that sometimes other people are wrong on the internet. Not me of course, but until I can rain fire down from the heavens upon my enemies for their wickedness, I have to make allowances for other people's faults.

 

[EmperorNorton]

I'm not leaving, at least not at this time. And I'm not going to say I think the moderation is bad. But I also think that Justin is not entirely wrong. I'm going to grab a bit from Tristram's last post in the locked thread so I can address a little bit of what I see as a problem.

Likewise, we don't care if anyone thinks or says that their style of play, or games they like, are better than anyone else's. My response to that is nothing more than an eyeroll, and maybe a giggle. We're not going to start going after posters for wrongthink. Part of assuming everyone is an adult is assuming you can handle people having different tastes than you, disliking games and mechanics that you like, and in general expressing statements you disagree with. It shouldn't matter to you this much. You want to debate it? By all means, but if you use it as an excuse to turn a thread about gaming into an extended match of insults and personal attacks that reflects worse on you than the person who said something you didn't like.

I would also assume that adults could express their tastes without treating it like some kind of objective fact. But here we are. You guys focus so much on how "childish" it is to care what people think, but you have no problem ignoring the childish behavior of people who need to insist what other people do is lesser.

You guys are so obsessed with "whoever swings second" that you don't really care about who swings first. You've honestly strongly incentivized swinging first.

New posters coming from more heavily-modded forums may have different expectations of what a moderator's role should be rather than we ourselves see it. Our intention isn't to be moralists, or to dictate forum culture, or to establish the "correct opinions". We prefer any moderation action to be a last resort. Because we don't want posters walking on eggshells, or to cultivate an air of deep-rooted hostility and passive aggressive snark where no one knows when the mods will randomly misintepret something they said and bring down the guillitine.

You talk about not wanting to dictate forum culture, but you are still creating it. The only reason I've stuck around so long is... you know what honestly I have no idea why I have.

And you want to talk about feeling like you have to walk on eggshells? I share my perspective on something, say "to me" in the perspective, and the person I was talking to comes back with "I'm not you" like I ever even accused them of being me, or even having to have the same tastes as me. When I ask what is up with the weirdly hostile response, I get mocked.

I bring up my thoughts on comic book superheroes and sandboxes, and just try to clarify what I was talking about with them, and get told that I'm being disingenuous and that I "don't know anything about comics".

I'm not bringing these two things up to start an argument about them. They happened, I moved on, and in the second case I had a useful discussion with Tenbones in PM that hashed out some of our issues, and hopefully we can start on a better foot in the future. Like this isn't about those specific issues, and I'm not trying to "call out" the posters. Just trying to explain that I ALREADY feel like I have to walk on eggshells to avoid active hostility on this board.

You think this forum doesn't make people feel like they have to walk on eggshells? Hell, I honestly just thought strongly about not writing this post because hey, just one more "Norton being an oversensitive crybaby" accusation is right around the corner, you know?

How you choose to moderate will ALWAYS dictate the forum culture. Even non-action creates it.

 

[Spellslinging Sellsword]

Rather than quitting, wouldn't it make more sense to just place the trolls on ignore? That's what I did.

 

[EmperorNorton]

Rather than quitting, wouldn't it make more sense to just place the trolls on ignore? That's what I did.

It helps. But I do think it kind of "wallpapers" over the issues. Especially if you have the kind of tastes they enjoy mocking. It's still derailing threads and they are still probably responding to my posts and twisting what I'm saying (unless they have me on ignore as well). Only now, I don't even have an idea of how they are changing my words and coloring the surrounding conversation.

Like I said, it does help. And I think I need to do it more often. But it doesn't fix the core problems. And for a new poster on the forums it will definitely still remain a problem.

 

[Brock Savage]

@ Justin Alexander I hope you reconsider your decision at a later time. I happen to enjoy your posts and blog even when I disagree with you. I sometimes forget the effect that trolling has on people; I spent a lot of time on /tg/ so I learned long ago to ignore trolls and deny them they attention they so obviously crave.

 

[Stumpydave]

I've never known people get so wound up over how best to play "let's pretend". Seriously, if you don't like what other people are saying, don't read it! Scroll on. Put them on ignore. But don't let it wind you up.

 

[Brock Savage]

I've never known people get so wound up over how best to play "let's pretend". Seriously, if you don't like what other people are saying, don't read it! Scroll on. Put them on ignore. But don't let it wind you up.

Agree. I come from a gaming message board that was 99.9% unmoderated so I learned to say my piece and move the fuck on. Why would I dignify garbage posts and obvious bait with any kind of acknowledgement or response? The whole point of trolling is to get some poor asshole all riled up for the lulz.

I'm not saying trolls never bother me and I am not saying that skilled trolling is easy to ignore. Just a few months ago Bunny and I played an adult game that had an unmoderated live chat and every day a troll would denounce anyone he didn't like as a racist in all caps. Well eventually I became one of those people he disliked so he started doing it to me. Even though I wanted with all my heart to flame this asshole back to the Stone Age and humiliate him in front of everyone I simply hit the ignore button and poof he was gone. To do otherwise would have played right into his hands.

 

[Nobby-W]

I've never known people get so wound up over how best to play "let's pretend". Seriously, if you don't like what other people are saying, don't read it! Scroll on. Put them on ignore. But don't let it wind you up.

This has very little to do with people's opinions on the way to run role playing games and everything to do with an abusive narcissist being allowed to harass people and play the victim when he's called out on his bullshit. If there's a cabal of onetruewayist storygaming activists on this site it's completely invisible to me - and I'm the only DM actually running PbP games here on a system with narrative mechanics.

 

[TristramEvans]

Hmmmm, OK.

Well, anyone is free to consider us bad moderators, because we don't punish the posters that they want punished.

But, well, since you went to the trouble of explaining why you're leaving, let me go to the trouble of countering your claims.

Justin's postings always baffled me, TBH. Like most people here, I've read his blog on occassion, and so I know that here is capable of making intelligent, well-reasoned arguments for his PoV on a given subject. However, when it comes to actually interacting with posters, more often than not, sadly we get this instead...

This is because you've objectively bad at running non-sandbox campaigns. You have the "play the setting" skills, but you objectively lack all the other skills that an AP GM needs. Because you're objectively less skilled at running an RPG, you're incapable of creating The Experience for your players without the limited crutch of the sandbox structure.

What on earth would I do with your objectively microscopic D.O.N.G.?

It's even less impressive than that limp non-entity which passes for your "wit."

These are the more extreme and obvious examples of course, but there is an undercurrent of hostility and mocking that is prevalent in most of his forum interactions. It's odd to me that the author of The Alexandrian resorts to playground insults. It seems like a lack of either maturity or self confidence to not simply let their arguments stand and speak for themselves.

But nobody wants to take responsibility for their own posts, this is apparently all about CRKruegar.

So, let's look at Justin's actual exchange with Kruegar, not the cherrypicked version he's presented us with here.

Here. And also here.

But mostly the elision is happening because of the originally hidden premise (which has become more clearly stated in the last few pages) that you can't have sandbox play unless you're running an RPG, so the arguments that BitD can't be used to run sandbox campaigns are the exact same arguments that were just used a few weeks ago to argue that BitD isn't an RPG.

The flashback mechanics are probably too contentious at this point, unfortunately, for valuable discussion to emerge. This happened in the previous thread, too. Attempts to move the conversation past the specific dissociation of the player-triggered flashback went nowhere because people had become completely tribalistic about the specific heresy of the flashback mechanic and simply could not move past it.

The interesting principle here, IMO, is the idea that sandbox campaigns are about players having specific lists of available resources, and any other approach to the question of "available resources" disqualifies the campaign from being a sandbox.

If you wanted to interrogate that idea, we could look at, for example, preparedness mechanics and abstract wealth mechanics: In both cases, the players make a mechanical check to see if their character has a particular resource which has not been explicitly established to either exist or not exist. To be honest, it seems ridiculous to me that such mechanics would be seen as precluding sandbox play, but CRKrueger explicitly said they did and Black Vulmea implied it.

I'm honestly curious about what the exact rationale is and what the full implications of it are perceived to be.

What if this check is moved to the GM? A player asks, "I check the trunk of the rental car. Does it have a spare tire?" Or maybe it's a spy game where there are supply caches and a system that the GM can use to randomly determine if a particular cache has a specific item. If it's the GM using the mechanics to determine whether or not a particular resources exists which has not been previously established to either exist or not exist, does that also preclude the campaign being a sandbox? Or is it different? (And, if so, what's the difference?)

What if the system in question is a random table that, for example, generates the content of a spy agency's equipment cache? Obviously sandbox campaigns that use random treasure tables are OK, but is that only true in certain circumstances?

Is it sandbox-okay for the GM to use random treasure tables while stocking a dungeon room?

Is it sandbox-okay for the GM to roll on them during actual play?

Is it sandbox-okay if the GM only rolls on the treasure tables when the PCs actually loot the room and ask them what they've found?

We could also look at, for example, the principle in Feng Shui that gives permission to the players to assume the props which would reasonably be available in their current location are, in fact, available to them for describing the crazy martial arts stunts they want to perform (e.g., you're in a sporting goods store, so you can just grab a football and chuck it at somebody's head). Is this style of play also impossible in a sandbox campaign? And how far does this extend? If you're traveling through a forest in October in a D&D hexcrawl and you say, "I'm going to grab some of the dry leaves to serve as tinder" -- even though the GM has said nothing about dry leaves existing! -- did you suddenly ruin the sandbox?

So, while it's true that he does, as he quotes himself saying, state that Sandbox mechanics are "too contentious" or "tribalistic" to discuss, he then goes on to basically discuss the underlying concept behind the flashback mechanic in more general terms at great length. That's not a criticism on my part, I just think this becomes relevant in regards to later claims he makes.

So this is also the post where he engages CRKruegar for the first time in the thread, specifically tagging him and stating that he made a specific claim.

Justin does so while discussing his abstracted generalized version of "not talking about the Flashback mechanic while still talking about it"

So we get CRK's first response to Justin:

I used the term Living World.
Here’s why flashbacks preclude it.

-The point of a Living World is to have the NPCs moving towards their own goals with or without player interference.
-To use the example from the BitD book, if I have an Inspector show up at the same party a PC is at, there’s a reason, even if that reason is coincidence.
-To have the Player use a Flashback to claim that their PC was the one who tipped off the Inspector so they could impress a Noblewoman, they’re invalidating the reality of why the Inspector is actually there.
- If the PCs can rewrite what the ”game running itself” comes up with, what’s the point of running a Living World campaign to begin with?

So, to recap...

1) Justin says he doesnt want to talk about Flashback mechanic
2) Justin proceeds to make an argument about the underlying concept behind flashbac mechanics
3) in the course of this argument he calls out CRK for his statements
4) CRK responds clarifying his position on flashback mechanics

OK. Now can anyone honestly say that CRK's response to Justin here was him acting ike a troll? Or him being a "bully?" Obviously not. It would take a deep-rooted bias against him to see anything even malicious or hostile in that post. It's simply a clarification of his PoV. Even if Justin thought it was besides the point, because its about flashback mechanics specifically, it is, as a response, completely uncontroversial.

So where does the interaction go from there?



Justin reprimands Kruegar for talking about the flashback mechanic, by stating CRK specifically is being tribalistic about it and can't get past it (a rather uncharitable inference at best), and mocks him with a meme, before clarifying that he was referring to another statement CRK made. Justin sets the tone for the discussion with this post, and it is....not friendly.

I'm going to drop the commentary for now and let the remainder of the interactions speak for themselves...







Yeah....so, the exchange looks a bit different when not editted huh?

Ask yourself, who comes off trollish ?

It's also worth noting, while this was going on, and Justin was also going after robertsconely (yeah, let that sink in), we were also getting incomprehensible reports from him of CRK's posts saying things like "Just being CRK should be a reportable offense".

(sigh) It's just a weird example for Justin to use to declare why he's quitting the forum and we're "bad moderators" for not being harsher on CRK.

 

[TristramEvans]

I'm not bringing these two things up to start an argument about them. They happened, I moved on, and in the second case I had a useful discussion with Tenbones in PM that hashed out some of our issues, and hopefully we can start on a better foot in the future. L

Well, at the very least, I'm happy to hear that.

 

[Nobby-W]

The thing is Justin, I'm not that sad to see you go, because while I think you could have been a great contribution to the Pub, and I think you have some great ideas on RPG theories worth exploring...

In person you're just kinda a Douchenozzle.

It doesn't invalidate his claims, though. "Bully" is a pretty accurate description of CRK's online behaviour.

 

[Endless Flight]

As much as he might not like us saying this, I believe we’ve threadbanned Krueger more than anyone else here, so the “Krueger gets away with it all the time” is crap. Krueger has also been warned backstage about certain issues.

Krueger is not a one-man show around here when it comes to disrupting threads. We’ve warned several people here in public and private for their actions In these last few threads. Even after he was banned in one, it kept going.

 

[TristramEvans]

It doesn't invalidate his claims, though.

I think the post preceeding it pretty aptly did that, however.

"Bully" is a pretty accurate description of CRK's online behaviour.

I can't say I agree. CRK is, as I'm sure he'd be the first to admit, frequently abrasive, stubborn, and opinionated.

I think he's crossed the line once or twice being dismissive or mocking, and he's been called out for that, but overall I don't see him being a "bully".

 

[David Johansen]

I think there has to be a black eye and some stolen lunch money before you can really call it bullying.

I know we're living in a very hyper-sensitive time where thin skins are the norm.

But come on, rub some dirt on it and get back in the game.

 

[Nobby-W]

I think there has to be a black eye and some stolen lunch money before you can really call it bullying.

I know we're living in a very hyper-sensitive time where thin skins are the norm.

But come on, rub some dirt on it and get back in the game.

I don't agree with that at all. I've seen it in a work environment, and I've seen a harassment suit brought successfully over it. Nobody got into fisticuffs. Bullying can be purely psychological and can cause serious mental health issues for its victims.

 

[Baulderstone]

Rather than quitting, wouldn't it make more sense to just place the trolls on ignore? That's what I did.

Or at least don't respond to them. We've always had some trollish posters at the Pub, but we used to have fewer posters willing to feed them. If you don't respond to a troll, they generally trail off after a post or two. Every response you give them makes a thread more and more about their trolling.

If you really feel then need to refute something a troll said, don't directly reply to them. Make a new post in the thread stating your side of the issue in a way that doesn't directly connect to their post. You get the satisfaction of giving your response, and you starve them of direct attention.

As for Justin, like a lot of people here, I have a lot of respect for his ideas on gaming, but I've found his calls for tougher moderation ridiculous. If we got more liberal about handing out permabans, he's on the shortlist of people that would be first out the door. As possibly the rudest poster here, he's also the last person qualified to give advice on how anyone should conduct themselves online.

 

[TristramEvans]

I don't agree with that at all. I've seen it in a work environment, and I've seen a harassment suit brought successfully over it. Nobody got into fisticuffs. Bullying can be purely psychological and can cause serious mental health issues for its victims.

That would have to exist in a situation where people are forced to interact.

I would say the very existence of an ignore list precludes this entirely

 

[Nobby-W]

That would have to exist in a situation where people are forced to interact.

I would say the very existence of an ignore list precludes this entirely

To be fair I'm not being paid to hang out here. What I will say is that somebody who had any respect for you or The Pub wouldn't carry on like he does and put you in the position of defending him in public. Serial abusers also tend to be pretty good at manipulating people.

 

[Endless Flight]

So from the way I take it, several people here want Krueger banned permanently? After he’s gone, who’s next on the list?

You guys and gals know how I feel about moderation and the slippery slope.

 

[Nobby-W]

So from the way I take it, several people here want Krueger banned permanently? After he’s gone, who’s next on the list?

"Banned for serially abusing moderation policy." doesn't necessarily constitute a slippery slope. He's quite a lot more anti-social than any of the people who have been banned and is by far the most toxic element on The Pub today.

 

[EmperorNorton]

If you really feel then need to refute something a troll said, don't directly reply to them. Make a new post in the thread stating your side of the issue in a way that doesn't directly connect to their post. You get the satisfaction of giving your response, and you starve them of direct attention.

I've stated my thoughts on stuff without specifically calling anyone out, and then got called out for not specifying who I was talking about.

 

[Endless Flight]

"Banned for serially abusing moderation policy." doesn't necessarily constitute a slippery slope. He's quite a lot more anti-social than any of the people who have been banned.

I don’t think you remember who we banned.

 

[EmperorNorton]

"Banned for serially abusing moderation policy." doesn't necessarily constitute a slippery slope. He's quite a lot more anti-social than any of the people who have been banned.

As much as I don't like CRK's posting style, I'd rather spend a week doing nothing but talking to him than to have to spend ten minutes conversing with one of the banned posters on this site. (also, honestly, the only person I can remember being permabanned).

 

[Black Vulmea]

As many of you know me from forums past, you know that I can shitpost with the best of 'em, so I say this with authority born of experience: if you're an asshole online, it's because you choose to be. Don't point fingers and whine about others - that's gutless. Be an adult and own your behavior.

If you don't like the forum culture, change it, starting with yourself. That's what I try to do, some days better than others.

 

[Nobby-W]

I don’t think you remember who we banned.

Zak S might be a bigger ahole than CRK in the large but he's not causing anywhere near the strife that CRK is making now.

 

[Endless Flight]

Zak S might be a bigger ahole than CRK in the large but he's not causing anywhere near the strife that CRK is making now.

You can’t expect me to take that seriously.

 

[Nobby-W]

You can’t expect me to take that seriously.

I don't know if he got up to anything behind the scenes but I don't recall the hoo-ha around him being as big as the stuff that went on in the storygame and sandbox threads.

 

[CRKrueger]

I just think it might be worth mentioning that the latest kerfluffle that got NobbyW tempbanned from a thread was I when I called him out for accusing BitD detractors from causing a Moral Panic.

That's nice and social, I guess, huh?

He didn't like being called out on it of course, and, of course, like others couldn't just admit to taking the shot, and moving on, instead he has to double down and to cry foul.

I'd take all the calls for my permabanning seriously if it wasn't mostly by people who started the fights in the first place, and didn't like that they couldn't get away with it.

The sig still says it all.

 

[EmperorNorton]

Zak S might be a bigger ahole than CRK in the large but he's not causing anywhere near the strife that CRK is making now.

Nah. Zak pretty much never in his entire time here posted anything that wasn't arrogant condescending drivel. I'm not fond of CRK, famously so, but he's not a sociopath. I'm 99% sure Zak is.

(I honestly imagine that, in person, if we sat around a table, me and CRK would probably get along perfectly fine. Something about online discourse is weird sometimes).

 

[Nobby-W]

I just think it might be worth mentioning that the latest kerfluffle that got NobbyW tempbanned from a thread was I when I called him out for accusing BitD detractors from causing a Moral Panic.

That's nice and social, I guess, huh?

He didn't like being called out on it of course, and, of course, like others couldn't just admit to taking the shot, and moving on, instead he has to double down and to cry foul.

I'd take all the calls for my permabanning seriously if it wasn't mostly by people who started the fights in the first place, and didn't like that they couldn't get away with it.

That's an outright lie.

Every interaction I've had with you recently has started with you attempting to pick a fight. Sure I took the piss when you did it but it's not the first time you've had a go at me over something that wasn't addressed to you.

 

[CRKrueger]

That's an outright lie.

Every interaction I've had with you recently has started with you attempting to pick a fight. Sure I took the piss when you did it but it's not the first time you've had a go at me over something that wasn't addressed to you.

What wasn't addressed to me, was you stating people were starting a Moral Panic. Would you like me to quote you?

 

[Nobby-W]

What wasn't addressed to you, was you stating people were starting a Moral Panic? Would you like me to quote you?

So, this is what I said in reply to Black Vulmea -

I think that's a straw man version of flashback mechanics. The way they work in the Forged in the Dark family is that you don't change the timeline of what's happened in the adventure. There's still (for example) a guard. The flashback allows you to establish some preparation retrospectively, like going out on the piss with the guards and getting them drunk, or bribing them to look the other way or some such. The rules are quite specific on this.

It's also worth noting that flashbacks are a finite resource and burn stress, which is a metacurrency pool that doesn't refresh all that quickly. For a trivial flashback like having something illegal but easy to obtain on the street, one might charge zero stress, but anything non-trivial will cost stress at a rate that really only allows you to use one or two flashbacks between downtime episodes where stress is replenished.

I've been running a couple of Scum and Villainy games for a while now, and the moral panic I've seen in these threads doesn't tally with my experience of how they get used and their effect on the game in practice.

That is a discussion of my actual experience using the flashback mechanics in two online games.

 

[CRKrueger]

Sure, lets do it.

Here it is.
"I've been running a couple of Scum and Villainy games for a while now, and the moral panic I've seen in these threads doesn't tally with my experience of how they get used and their effect on the game in practice."

There we go, people talking about BitD are suffering from Moral Panic. Technically you were addressing me, because you basically plastered the whole forum with that one when you said "in these threads". Someone who doesn't like what you do is in Moral Panic. Nice and social there friend.

My response...
"Moral Panic?
How about calling an obvious narrative mechanic what it is?"
You know, what people were ACTUALLY saying.

Then you attempt to be smartass and meme your way out of it, instead of taking back the shot, admitting you made it, or actually putting forth an arguement, for which you took a little vacation from the thread, which apparently made you mad, so here you come demanding vengeance.

 

[Baulderstone]

Public calls for people to be banned aren't going to do anything good for discourse on the forum going forward, and it certainly isn't going to make the moderation staff favorably disposed to people starting that kind of tempest for us to deal with, especially when I was thinking of going to bed. If you have a problem, you'd be better off using the report function or PM the staff.

 

[EmperorNorton]

report function or PM the staff.

I don't know if you've noticed it, so I'm just bringing this up because it's annoyed me a bit: If you are going to say these are better alternatives, could you please at least tell people to knock off mocking people for reporting things or messaging mods. Like, honestly the "you went to teacher, loser" is straight up school yard bullying behavior.

(Honestly I do sometimes report stuff, and I have talked to several mods in PM, I won't say I haven't, but, I've been accused of reporting things even when I haven't, and it is always a mocking "oh you can't handle anything whiney baby" attitude.)

 

[CRKrueger]

To be honest, for all the people that think the Mods are bad, let me tell you why they're not.

They actually read posts and call people out on their passive aggressive bullshit. They keep track of who started it, who was trolling, and who was making arguments. The crap people get away with on other forums where the Mods just want quiet (which I accused these Mods of, and I'm wrong, I apologize) they can't get away with here.

I can show you a dozen threads on the Site where Justin does the exact same thing as he did here. He specifically calls me out by attacking my position, and then refuses to engage in the argument, usually because it's on a narrative point and he can't win. Also he admitted here for the first time, he also does it on purpose to frustrate me.

He's a stellar blogger, but he's always been a shitposter, being one of the rudest people on the Site, if you can fucking believe that.

He quit here because he can't get away with his bullshit.

 

[Baulderstone]

I don't know if you've noticed it, so I'm just bringing this up because it's annoyed me a bit: If you are going to say these are better alternatives, could you please at least tell people to knock off mocking people for reporting things or messaging mods. Like, honestly the "you went to teacher, loser" is straight up school yard bullying behavior.

(Honestly I do sometimes report stuff, and I have talked to several mods in PM, I won't say I haven't, but, I've been accused of reporting things even when I haven't, and it is always a mocking "oh you can't handle anything whiney baby" attitude.)

I wasn't addressing that comment about you. We've had productive PMs in the past, and I think you make a good point that people making incorrect (or even correct) accusations about people making reports is pretty poor behavior.

 

[Endless Flight]

We get most reports from posters who aren’t even involved in the particular incidents.

If we see people doing that, Norton, they will get a warning.

 

[EmperorNorton]

I wasn't addressing that comment about you. We've had productive PMs in the past, and I think you make a good point that people making incorrect (or even correct) accusations about people making reports is pretty poor behavior.

Aha, no I was just pointing out I have done those things so when I say "I get accused even when I don't" know I don't mean that I don't at all. I do. I even sometimes get a little snippy in the PMs and you guys are generally pretty patient with me when I do.

Also just to say, all my comments on the moderation here is not in a thing of like, hating on you guys, even though I know me and Tristram have butted heads, both from a moderation standpoint and just on gaming shit, I don't dislike any of you (I mean, I don't actively dislike anyone here. I may get annoyed with some people, but if I heard something bad happened to CRK in real life, I'd be bummed by it. The only person from here I've ever actually disliked for real isn't allowed here anymore so...).

I just think we have a difference of opinion on how to run the site, and I'm voicing it. Ultimately, you guys run the site though not me.