Well...Let's Talk About This

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The mods have taken it upon themselves to guide the community and I'm pretty impressed with how thoroughly and seriously they've taken on trying to find the balance there, and leading by example.
If you are going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. I wouldn’t ask any member here to do something I wouldn’t do.

We also don’t want to be viewed as some kind of higher power that comes down from the mountaintop to occasionally bestow wisdom or wrath upon the mere mortals that make up the rank and file of the Pub. I’d like to think we are servants to you all having a good time here.

Threads like this are good for discussion but they actually can enlighten us and make our jobs as moderators better for a variety of reasons.
 
If you are going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. I wouldn’t ask any member here to do something I wouldn’t do.

We also don’t want to be viewed as some kind of higher power that comes down from the mountaintop to occasionally bestow wisdom or wrath upon the mere mortals that make up the rank and file of the Pub. I’d like to think we are servants to you all having a good time here.

Threads like this are good for discussion but they actually can enlighten us and make our jobs as moderators better for a variety of reasons.
If you're not gods from on high why have I been sacrificing pickles to you all these years?!?!
 
If you're not gods from on high why have I been sacrificing pickles to you all these years?!?!

You're supposed to be bringing us jars of olives

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If someone wants to be the blunt and red-nosed Scot in our swanky British country club they are welcome to do so. I find it ever so tiresome when I don't have someone to politely snicker behind my hand at when they show off their lack of breeding.
Oh, it's breeding you be wanting, I got your breeding right here!
 
We started being vocal about threadbans after people were upset about Stealth Modding a while ago, so that may be why it seems like a more recent thing

Though there's problems either way, I can't help but think opaque modding is just asking for various kinds of conspiracy theories to brew up.
 
Though there's problems either way, I can't help but think opaque modding is just asking for various kinds of conspiracy theories to brew up.

There's no approach that's going to satisfy everyone. Some people feel it's unfait to embarass them by bringing it up in public. Others are concerned because if they don't see other people getting modded they think they are getting singled out. Some folks already know why they are modded and feel it's patronizing to get it explained and others want to have long conversations every time they are modded.
 
My initial guess is that by and large the forum is pretty good at avoiding politics that's disconnected from RPGs. Like gun laws are a political issue that might be relevant to the setting of a game, but people seem to have little interest in getting into the real life issues. I think it's more "politics in games" adjacent stuff that causes blow ups. So if an RPG designer was explicitly pro/anti-guns and designed an RPG that involved the cops having no/more guns as a statement, that would be far more likely to degenerate.

This is probably obvious to you, but it would be my "first order estimate" at the truth.

A lot of potential setting elements can end up walking around on people's politics because, well, you almost have to make some sorts of decisions in how you present a setting as a positive or negative thing (its theoretically possible for someone to present it completely neutrally, but its rare enough I have to conclude either few people want to or few people can).
 
There's no approach that's going to satisfy everyone. Some people feel it's unfait to embarass them by bringing it up in public. Others are concerned because if they don't see other people getting modded they think they are getting singled out. Some folks already know why they are modded and feel it's patronizing to get it explained and others want to have long conversations every time they are modded.

I think its more than that, though; if someone vanishes from a thread abruptly or even from the board, a lot of people are going to wonder why, and if you've got stealth modding, that's going to be one place they go. And if they do think its because of modding, there may be quite distinct assumptions as to the reason.
 
woof...that's a lot...

Look, if I can keep my politics out of it anyone can. I know that part of the issue is that so many of us came here from therpgsite. And that's certainly a site that's become politically polarized to the point where it's almost exclusively about the culture war. I think most of us went there from rpgnet usually after getting banned by the malicious clown squad that runs the joint. I guess I'm saying many of us have impressions of each other's politics from our experiences in those places. I wondered about the relationship between narrativism and progressive politics once before but it was too political for the site but that question seems to be at the heart of the current toxicity here.

Anyone who's read the whole damn thread deserves a medal and a padded cell.
 
I think its more than that, though; if someone vanishes from a thread abruptly or even from the board, a lot of people are going to wonder why, and if you've got stealth modding, that's going to be one place they go. And if they do think its because of modding, there may be quite distinct assumptions as to the reason.

Well, we don't really do stealth modding anymore after the conversation like last year or something, but my point was I think that's one reason there's a perception tht more moderation is going on now than before
 
from rpgnet usually after getting banned by the malicious clown squad that runs the joint
Seeing someone else say this really makes my day. I thought it was just me. I was there for 1... maybe 2 days? Got threadbanned for passive aggressive behavior (take that passive aggressive shit out of here was the note in the threadban) for saying that someone was more invested in the conversation than I was, and I was just going to let it drop. I wanted to ask what was passive aggressive about that so I could avoid it in the future because I was befuddled- but there was no one to ask. I read sometimes, but the more I read, the more I realize that was probably a favor so I wasn't more invested in the board or the community and could just drop it.
 
If you are going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. I wouldn’t ask any member here to do something I wouldn’t do.

We also don’t want to be viewed as some kind of higher power that comes down from the mountaintop to occasionally bestow wisdom or wrath upon the mere mortals that make up the rank and file of the Pub. I’d like to think we are servants to you all having a good time here.

Threads like this are good for discussion but they actually can enlighten us and make our jobs as moderators better for a variety of reasons.
Servant huh? I like the sound of that... Never had a servant before :-)
 
It seems to me that there are a handful of people that don't like what another handful of people like. If those 4-6 posters each put each other on ignore or stopped posting in response to each other's posts pretty much all this bullshit would stop. But some of those 4-6 posters enjoy arguing pointless points, so it is what it is.
 
Talking about personal shit isn’t fun, I rate it somewhere just above having wisdom teeth removed through my dick.

But, if I can’t get a Medical Transfer to a different position due to my back getting worse, I’m looking at a Medical Termination. Also, my mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, which is a whole level of horror past some vascular dementia, which is what we thought it was.

So, I’m probably not in the best mood, and that’s probably affecting a ton of things. So, I might be wrong about Baulderstone, or anyone else, or everyone else. Maybe I’m just seeing everything in a negative light and that’s impacting everything.

Who knows? I’m not sure I do anymore.
I'm really sorry to hear that, CRKrueger CRKrueger . My ex's mum had dementia, and so I know it's a huge drain and tough to see.

I hope you manage to get your transfer.
 
It seems to me that there are a handful of people that don't like what another handful of people like. If those 4-6 posters each put each other on ignore or stopped posting in response to each other's posts pretty much all this bullshit would stop. But some of those 4-6 posters enjoy arguing pointless points, so it is what it is.
I think you're on to something there. I'll take it a step further:

The Mods perma-ban those 4-6 posters based on some trumped-up technicality - "arguing for/against Storygames/Sandboxes/Dallas is political in nature. Take a hike!" - the Pub returns to peace and tranquility, and the golden age of Year 1 returns. :wink:
 
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Well, I think part of the solution is actually to get back to actually discussing actual games and not abstract philosophies. Where's the FATE thread where specific FATE settings and mechanics are discussed? GURPS verses FATE is a bit like arguing about the relative worth of Apocalypse Now verses A Goofy Movie. They're both movies and there are meta things that they share but they are very different beasts and there are reasons some people might like one more than the other but they don't take anything away from each other.
 
Its been many years and I'd probably conflate some houserules we used with the base rules, but I could at least follow along.
 
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