The Last Moderation Discussion thread of 2023

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Self Saboteur said:
Ok I didn’t realize how serious everyone was gonna take it. I just posted it because I thought it was hilarious and it made me laugh. But since this is the second mention of it I will clarify.

It was not a serious suggestion. Just trying to be funny.
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(shrug)I laughed
 
Self Saboteur said:
Ok I didn’t realize how serious everyone was gonna take it. I just posted it because I thought it was hilarious and it made me laugh. But since this is the second mention of it I will clarify.

It was not a serious suggestion. Just trying to be funny.
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I have those moments too. Sometimes the joke fails. Sometimes the audience does.
 
Self Saboteur said:
Ok I didn’t realize how serious everyone was gonna take it. I just posted it because I thought it was hilarious and it made me laugh. But since this is the second mention of it I will clarify.

It was not a serious suggestion. Just trying to be funny.
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Oh no, I got that. But in addition to it being a joke from you, I'm sure there are people who would actually take it as a serious suggestion and think "yeah, why don't we?". It's still worth the chat, I feel.
 
Fenris-77 said:
The whole series is wonderful. Top notch. :thumbsup: This is the sort of inspiration I'd look for if I were designing an RPG aimed at younger gamers.
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The Discworld books have been my favourite series for decades. I'm slowly replacing all my paperbacks with hardcovers.

It just took me a while to be ready to read the last Discworld novel.
 
Ladybird said:
Discworld without Kirby and Kidby just isn't right. Honestly I think their images are just as important to the series as Pratchett's writing.
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I love Kidby's art and have a book just of his Discworld paintings, a set of miniatures based on those pictures, and the heavily illustrated GURPs Discworld & Discworld Also, which is fine enough for me (Not to mention the Discworld map books and supplements).

Can't say I ever liked Josh Kirby's paperback covers, personally, and since my original hardcovers mostly didn't feature any art by either Kidby or Kirby anyways, I much prefer the premium format of the collector's editions.
 
Self Saboteur said:
Ok I didn’t realize how serious everyone was gonna take it. I just posted it because I thought it was hilarious and it made me laugh. But since this is the second mention of it I will clarify.

It was not a serious suggestion. Just trying to be funny.
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the internet is no place for humor tho
 
Godfather Punk said:
So can we start a 'Two D&D' thread when something new comes down the turnpike?
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Yeah, for sure.

I don't know if we're going to leave the OneD&D thread locked yet, it's something we'll discuss backstage once all the Mods are awake. Maybe not today/tomorrow, which is game night for me this week, but see if we can hash it out over the weekend.
 
TristramEvans said:
I don't know if we're going to leave the OneD&D thread locked yet, it's something we'll discuss backstage once all the Mods are awake. Maybe not today/tomorrow, which is game night for me this week, but see if we can hash it out over the weekend.
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I'll just say:

People didn't seem too butthurt, mods were participating and no blue box warning so it feels a bit abrupt. Your call obviously, but I feel like reopening it with a "shut up about the orcs" should make it return to normal.
 
Urdlen's best boy said:
People didn't seem too butthurt, mods were participating and no blue box warning so it feels a bit abrupt. Your call obviously, but I feel like reopening it with a "shut up about the orcs" should make it return to normal.
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I understand locking it, and I am mildly ashamed to admit I was one of the people that tipped it in that direction.

However, It did make me think a lot about the frustrating process by which topics are made taboo here by forces beyond our control out there. I guess that's just the nature of being a neutral apolitical ground, trying to bridge gaps between people, but I hate it sometimes.

Stat boosts and penalties to reflect biology are not political and we shouldn't accept our discourse on the topic being curtailed.

Heck, the mere possibility of orcs being evil in some realities should never have been allowed to slip into the 'politics box' in the first place either. It did, and now we have this weird consensus-based grey area on this forum. If tomorrow I posted a thread about my next fantasy setting and casually mentioned it had demon-blooded evil orcs among other things, it probably would cause no stir and would eventually sink into obscurity with no concern because really the majority of us here don't care. However, in the tiny off chance an outside provocateur came and drive-by posted that my orcs are offensive, there's a good chance the thread might have to be locked to publicly maintain the pub's promise.

Is anyone else saddened by the fact that we might continually have to cede the Overton window to the whims of loud fringes and cynical corporations?
 
Shipyard Locked said:
However, It did make me think a lot about the frustrating process by which topics are made taboo here by forces beyond our control out there. I guess that's just the nature of being a neutral apolitical ground, trying to bridge gaps between people, but I hate it sometimes.
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Yeah, I share that frustration.
 
Just so everyone knows, the thread was locked purely out of practicality. Consider it a "pause button". I did not have the time tonight to go through and read, let alone collect/move all the posts made about that tangent, I've got some IRL projects going on, and overnight I'm often the only mod online. And I have some things I'd rather discuss backstage than drop them into the thread like a hot potato.

We may end up deciding that it's RPG-related enough of a subject to deserve a Mod+ thread. We may decide to re-open the thread with just a warning to knock it off. My concerns could be voted down entirely. Adam was a participant in the conversation so I want to get his take, first and foremost. At the moment, I just wanted to give us some breathing room.
 
Shipyard Locked said:
Is anyone else saddened by the fact that we might continually have to cede the Overton window to the whims of loud fringes and cynical corporations?
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I think this falls under the category "... and that's why we can't have nice things".

I haven't followed that thread, so my comments are purely generic, not aimed at any one person or topic. In principle, as grown ups, we should all be able to discuss things we deeply disagree about in a civilised way, without the discussion getting heated and personal. That doesn't seem to happen. The Internet has a great quality of getting us all worked up from time to time. So I next best thing is to simple quash the discussion before it gets out of hand.

And it's not just politics. Threads have been locked over styles of roleplaying or Star Wars.
 
PolarBlues said:
I think this falls under the category "... and that's why we can't have nice things".

I haven't followed that thread, so my comments are purely generic, not aimed at any one person or topic. In principle, as grown ups, we should all be able to discuss things we deeply disagree about in a civilised way, without the discussion getting heated and personal. That doesn't seem to happen. The Internet has a great quality of getting us all worked up from time to time. So I next best thing is to simple quash the discussion before it gets out of hand.

And it's not just politics. Threads have been locked over styles of roleplaying or Star Wars.
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I fully agree.

I will add having an adult, nuanced discussion of fraught topics in person with people you know and like can be hard work. Keeping an open mind, listening to others, acknowledging others’ points of view, in person, with people you know and like, can be hard work. Striving to grant another’s words a “charitable reading”, and working hard to not feel called out or attacked by another's words in person, with people you know and like can be hard work.

For the most part, I suspect the relationships among Pubbers are parasocial relationships. And human communication without the ability to see body language is tricky under the best of circumstances.

All in, having a discussion on fraught topics on an online forum isn’t going to go anywhere fun, in my experience. Best case scenario is the various polemic positions get restated and everyone grudgingly “agrees to disagree”.

Its just my experience, and in ~24 years of engaging in online discussions via text, I can count on one hand the number of times the discussion of a charged topic has ended well.

Again, just my opinion, the moderation here at the Pub has been relaxed, and largely effective at keeping the Pub’s lighthearted, nerd hobby/media focused culture in tact.

So, the discussion was not over the line when the thread was closed (maybe), and I’m glad the mods pressed the pause button.
 
sharps54 said:
and I just accept that some topics can’t be discussed here.
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And the list of topics that can't be discussed here might keep increasing and getting more absurd. Are we ok with that?

Seven years ago the idea that orc antagonists would become a forbidden topic would have been absurd.

Right now it's stat bonuses/penalties sliding into the taboo zone.

What next? Games with violent themes? Games that try to be historically accurate? Games that are human-only? Evil creatures that practice slavery?
 
Shipyard Locked said:
And the list of topics that can't be discussed here might keep increasing and getting more absurd. Are we ok with that?

Seven years ago the idea that orc antagonists would become a forbidden topic would have been absurd.

Right now it's stat bonuses/penalties sliding into the taboo zone.

What next? Games with violent themes? Games that try to be historically accurate? Games that are human-only? Evil creatures that practice slavery?
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“We” don’t have a choice. This isn’t a democracy, it’s a forum run by mods who make the rules. We can accept them or we can post somewhere else but it isn’t like you can do a hostile takeover of the Pub.

Edit simply put their forum their rules
 
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