Moderation Criticisms

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Black Vulmea said:
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.
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I'm underlining part of this post as it makes a great point about one of the reasons we moderate the way we do. All of the posters involved in recent drama are valued posters that have been here a long time. They've all been a part of good RPG discussions and all been part of inside Pub jokes. That said, all of us have bad days. I know I've lost my temper here and posted things I regret.

We also have a lot of baggage from other forums and culture wars with the gaming scene. I think everyone that comes here wants to get past all that crap, but it just boils up sometimes whether we want it to or not. It's just the hopelessly optimistic view of the Pub that we can have a place where all kinds of gamers can mingle.

I know it might seem like I don't care because of the light moderation, but the fact is I try to moderate lightly because I do care. There isn't anyone posting on the forum currently that I could ban without feeling bad about, even if some of them have pissed me off from time to time.
 
CRKrueger said:
[ . . . ]
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.
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Not vengeance as such - really I don't want to stick it to you. But, I think you're crossing the line from abrasive into anti-social and it would be good if you toned it down at the very least. Sorry to be blunt. And, yes, I did take the piss.
 
EmperorNorton said:
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.
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I got quite a strong narcissistic vibe from Zak, although I couldn't really say whether he was a sociopath. Maybe he was.
 
CRKrueger said:
Ok cool. :thumbsup:
And believe it or not, point taken.
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Jolly good. If you want a good-faith discussion then reply to this, in particular the last section from "I'll start" where I attempted to outline my point of view on the topic.

www.rpgpub.com

GURPs vs FATE

This is why I eventually replaced the word "immersion", was just sick of arguing about DIC Immersion being something diferent. I was bitter about that years ago, lol, I was like "why do they need to take that word from us? It doesn't mean anything to their playstyle!" But, whatever, people are...
www.rpgpub.com www.rpgpub.com
 
Nobby-W said:
I got quite a strong narcissistic vibe from Zak, although I couldn't really say whether he was a sociopath. Maybe he was.
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I'm not basing that opinion on things he did here (I think his actions here just painted him as an ass, though I can see shades of the other stuff in his actions on the forums), but on other details that came out about him that I don't think anyone wants to rehash here again.
 
David Johansen said:
I'm not sure what sociopaths have done that was so bad that they'd be deserving of the association.
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It's more of a technical analysis. What I saw of ZakS was indicative of narcissistic personality traits. NPD is sometimes but not always co-morbid with APD (anti-social personality disorder) but I didn't notice anything that would have indicated it over and above narcissistic personality traits. Now, I'm not a paid expert on this, and nor do I play one in a role playing game, but I have spent a considerable amount of my career trying to get I.T. projects to happen in the face of narcissistic parties and the politics they generate. One or two may also have been sociopaths but they tend to be a lot more subtle if they're high-functioning enough to fit into management culture and less likely to be reactionary in the way that narcissists are unless co-morbid.
 
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EmperorNorton said:
I'm not basing that opinion on things he did here (I think his actions here just painted him as an ass, though I can see shades of the other stuff in his actions on the forums), but on other details that came out about him that I don't think anyone wants to rehash here again.
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I did read that stuff when it happened and it certainly shows him as a nasty piece of work. Really I was just going by what went down here at The Pub when I saw it. I've never seen anything he posted on other forums so I couldn't comment about that.
 
Nobby-W said:
I got quite a strong narcissistic vibe from Zak, although I couldn't really say whether he was a sociopath. Maybe he was.
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Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, but in either case he wouldn't be welcome in my home even though I appreciate some of the RPG stuff he created. I am a little astonished by this thread because otherwise intelligent adults are apparently unable to appreciate that smart and creative people are often shitty assholes. Life is nuanced, we gotta take the good with the bad.

Even though I sincerely do my best to treat everyone as innocent before being proved guilty, I found Zak extremely douchey, rude, and unpleasant long before the accusations (this isn't a brag, I am sure lots of people felt the same way and if you don't believe me look at some of his posts in the past ten years). That said, the world we live in is nuanced- shitty, despicable people can also be smart, insightful, creative, etc. I try (not always successfully) to separate the person from the art/science/literature/shit posts/whatever because if I only paid attention to people I liked or agreed with I'd be missing out on a lot of legitimately good things. I think I am allowed to say Chinatown was a good movie but still say Roman Polanski is a piece of shit as a person.

“The difference between stupid and intelligent people -- and this is true whether or not they are well-educated -- is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations -- in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.”
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Nobby-W said:
Jolly good. If you want a good-faith discussion then reply to this, in particular the last section from "I'll start" where I attempted to outline my point of view on the topic.

www.rpgpub.com

GURPs vs FATE

This is why I eventually replaced the word "immersion", was just sick of arguing about DIC Immersion being something diferent. I was bitter about that years ago, lol, I was like "why do they need to take that word from us? It doesn't mean anything to their playstyle!" But, whatever, people are...
www.rpgpub.com www.rpgpub.com
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I got myself booted out of that thread, so I'll have to answer in another one, but tomorrow. I had a marathon session of Valheim and I need some sleep.
 
CRKrueger said:
I got myself booted out of that thread, so I'll have to answer in another one, but tomorrow. I had a marathon session of Valheim and I need some sleep.
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Sure. Start a new Nobby and CRKrueger thread if you feel so inclined.
 
CRKrueger said:
I got myself booted out of that thread, so I'll have to answer in another one, but tomorrow. I had a marathon session of Valheim and I need some sleep.
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If you guys want to continue the conversation in that thread, I'll go ahead and lift Kruegar's threadban. It's been over a week anyways. Just keep in mind that the rules for that thread still stand.
 
David Johansen said:
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.
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It's not about being thin-skinned. It's about the overall feel of posting on the forum, and if what you get from it - social interaction, new ideas, new techniques - is worth what you have to put up with to get there - hostility and arguments. If you think the hostility makes it not worth your time then, well, why would you stay? None of us are being paid to post here; it doesn't take that many people being hostile to completely change the tone of a forum, as the people with low tolerances to hostility leave and folk with higher tolerances join (See : arr pee gee dot net and it's gradual slide into toxicity). Ignore lists are nice but they can only do so much, because they stop you seeing who you have defined as the worst posters, but they don't get rid of them, prevent other people seeing them and being driven off, or prevent other people responding to them.
 
Ladybird said:
It's not about being thin-skinned. It's about the overall feel of posting on the forum, and if what you get from it - social interaction, new ideas, new techniques - is worth what you have to put up with to get there - hostility and arguments. If you think the hostility makes it not worth your time then, well, why would you stay? None of us are being paid to post here; it doesn't take that many people being hostile to completely change the tone of a forum, as the people with low tolerances to hostility leave and folk with higher tolerances join (See : arr pee gee dot net and it's gradual slide into toxicity). Ignore lists are nice but they can only do so much, because they stop you seeing who you have defined as the worst posters, but they don't get rid of them, prevent other people seeing them and being driven off, or prevent other people responding to them.
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I mean, I totally agree, but I think people also exaggerate the issue as it currently stands, both in complaints here and in their reactions in threads.. There's like a handful of topics certain posters have strong feelings on, and when a thread brings them up they are certain to express those opinions, sometimes with a mix of snarcasm and sneer. It's not really that much different than DocSammy dropping by any Vampire thread to give his patented spiel on punks and goths and Justin Achilli - a situation most of us by now regard with nothing but good humour and ab occasional friendly ribbing as opposed to it blowing up into the same argument again and again with a bunch of nuWhite Wolf fans upset and with hurt feelings (granted it helps Doc is self-depricating and gotten pretty mild about it as the years have passed). Except we do moderate if it's just random threadcrapping - if a thread is started talking about PbtA, we'd moderate CRK or anyone else dropping in to complain about narrative game mechanics. But in neutral discussions? I'm not sure why the reaction to these (completely predictable and consistent) opinions are that extreme, even if they're interpreted as wholly negative over an expression of personal taste. I mean the apst few days I think, possibly egged on by Justin, there's been a group really at Kruegar's throat, and I simply don't think he's as bad as all that. He's not even that heavy a poster in comparison to most of the regulars.

I just think that we don't currently have any poster with such a negative influence on discussions here that it's a net positive to the forum for them to be banned. I think the closest to that extreme just voluntary quit as of this thread, and the focus on CRK or anyone else is just sorta lowering the bar, like an escalating purity hunt.
 
Fascinating. I’m probably one of the most thin-skinned forum posters ever but perhaps due to my first forum experiences back in the early 2000s on SomethingAwful.com, I’ve learned methods to ignore some posters or threads, or otherwise take a break when things go sour. I feel like shit, but it helps me cope.

Sometimes that’s not enough, and I’ve taken a half a year break from the Pub because of a few toxic people (some who are banned), so I can empathize with the desire to simply leave.

Weirdly enough, I’m usually a target of trolls and “bullies” but haven’t personally had any issues with CRKrueger. I wonder what’s the difference? I guess some people are just wholly incompatible in these environments.
 
Necrozius said:
Weirdly enough, I’m usually a target of trolls and “bullies” but haven’t personally had any issues with CRKrueger. I wonder what’s the difference?
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Well, this is why I don't see CRK as a "bully". I've never seen Kruegar just randomly go after a poster. Every spat he gets into here always originates from him arguing his POV on rpgs and mechanics. Whatever one says about his methods of interaction, he doesn't pick fights, he just jumps into them headfirst and enthusiastically.

And I feel like I'm acting like his advocate in this thread, but that's because I think he's being treated like a bit of a scapegoat. Yeah, he's a headache for the mods from time to time, but he's really just this guy, y'know? Sometimes he annoys me, sometimes he amuses me, and sometimes he has interesting stuff to say about RPGs from a very specific perspective.
 
TristramEvans said:
I just think that we don't currently have any poster with such a negative influence on discussions here that it's a net positive to the forum for them to be banned. I think the closest to that extreme just voluntary quit as of this thread, and the focus on CRK or anyone else is just sorta lowering the bar, like an escalating purity hunt.
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I think the thing is that you wouldn't, because it's a choice individual users make, and because leaving a forum is so low-friction, you just close the tab, and posters rarely say why they're leaving (And posting a "so long assholes" thread is kinda looked down on in many places anyway) that information wouldn't filter back to you.

Note that I am explicitly not saying that this has happened or that any individual user has been the reason why anyone has left (I wouldn't know; the only poster here I've ever met is myself), so I'm not calling anyone out, and in fact the few posters that did annoy me and I felt were only noise I just have on my IL anyway.

TristramEvans said:
Well, this is why I don't see CRK as a "bully". I've never seen Kruegar just randomly go after a poster. Every spat he gets into here always originates from him arguing his POV on rpgs and mechanics. Whatever one says about his methods of interaction, he doesn't pick fights, he just jumps into them headfirst and enthusiastically.
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I actually think he has interesting things to say sometimes, it's just that if you hit any of his bugbears he goes straight for the face; he doesn't have a medium gear, when sometimes one might be appropriate.
 
So, here's my take on this. I want to point out that I really was thrilled to note that Justin posted here when I started reading and then decided to make an account to post. I really enjoy a lot of his articles on his blog and have for some years.

That said, I really was dismayed at how nasty and sharp he was when interacting with some posts on these forums. Sometimes it was on the humorous side but mostly it was just really nasty and biting. Which is too bad. I get his annoyance with CRK, he can be annoying I've already found, but over all I've actually enjoyed or at least found interesting when CRK posts.

I do think he needs to be reigned in a bit more than he has been. The terms I want to use to define what CRK does I'll leave out because I'm too new and still figuring them out and don't want to use inaccurate terminology. lol I'll speculate that Justin just didn't have the patience/tolerance factor to deal with interacting with CRK.

I'd rather Justin didn't leave because I actually do enjoy his insights, but maybe it's for the best if he doesn't have the patience to deal with forums posting/interactions. Anyhow that's my two bits on this.(shrugs)

Edit: I think Ladybird Ladybird nailed what I'm feeling in regards to CRK at this time in the last section of the post above.
 
Justin has left the Pub before, last time it was over another poster's expressed opinions about some TV show or movie, cant recall who exactly.

He might be back again given time, maybe not. He's still welcome to post here.

But his style of interacting on forums has been consistent over the last decade or so at various places I've been online. If not CRK, it'll be someone else.

Honestly, we're probably better off just having threads on interesting blog posts he does, because at least there we get his ideas bereft of his acridity.
 
Acmegamer said:
I'm too new to know much about that honestly. I only posted on the thread because of reason for the thread and my very limited observations. Figured even my limited feedback was worth posting.
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It slipped my mind when I responding that you are new here, but yes, your feedback is still worth posting. Thanks.
 
Baulderstone said:
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.
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Ladybird said:
It's not about being thin-skinned. It's about the overall feel of posting on the forum, and if what you get from it - social interaction, new ideas, new techniques - is worth what you have to put up with to get there - hostility and arguments. If you think the hostility makes it not worth your time then, well, why would you stay? None of us are being paid to post here; it doesn't take that many people being hostile to completely change the tone of a forum, as the people with low tolerances to hostility leave and folk with higher tolerances join (See : arr pee gee dot net and it's gradual slide into toxicity). Ignore lists are nice but they can only do so much, because they stop you seeing who you have defined as the worst posters, but they don't get rid of them, prevent other people seeing them and being driven off, or prevent other people responding to them.
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You mean you’re not being paid to post here? Why not? Tristram sends me a check every month :-)
 
Ladybird said:
Ignore lists are nice but they can only do so much, because they stop you seeing who you have defined as the worst posters, but they don't get rid of them, prevent other people seeing them and being driven off, or prevent other people responding to them.
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With an ignore list, if they don't ignore you, they can quote you- do you see what they've done or said? That seems like it creates two different versions of reality.
 
chuckdee said:
With an ignore list, if they don't ignore you, they can quote you- do you see what they've done or said?
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The ignore facility here is thorough. I like it.

That seems like it creates two different versions of reality.
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Fair point. But putting someone on your ignore list is a statement that "seeing your posts makes the forum actively worse for me and I do not feel there is anything interesting I could learn from you", in my opinion (Only quietly, so as not to cause a scene), so to be honest, I don't really care.
 
While I really don't have any dog in this fight, I'm going to give my 2 bits on what I just observed because I feel that an outside observer can give a better perspective on things.
I just read CRK and Nobby argue, make-up and start a productive conversation. There's not a lot of bullying from what I've seen, more you like peanutbutter and I like chocolate and we ain't gonna change each others minds.
I had more thoughts, but I just did my taxes so my brain is a bit borked, and honestly I'm just here for the memes and weird setting descriptions
 
Giganotosaurus said:
I had more thoughts, but I just did my taxes so my brain is a bit borked, and honestly I'm just here for the memes and weird setting descriptions
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I'm so happy my wife does the taxes every year. Those accounting classes in college had to be used somewhere I guess... and at least I get out of doing it.
 
Its also possible to have a moment with another poster, even a very pointed saracstic, etc. kind of moment, and not have it spill over into other threads or linger in the thread it happened in. Adulting is possible people.
 
Giganotosaurus said:
While I really don't have any dog in this fight, I'm going to give my 2 bits on what I just observed because I feel that an outside observer can give a better perspective on things.
I just read CRK and Nobby argue, make-up and start a productive conversation. There's not a lot of bullying from what I've seen, more you like peanutbutter and I like chocolate and we ain't gonna change each others minds.
I had more thoughts, but I just did my taxes so my brain is a bit borked, and honestly I'm just here for the memes and weird setting descriptions
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IMO (and sorry to talk about you in the third person @CRKruger, but please do read this in the spirit that it's intended) this is not a partisan argument, at least not from my perspective. I've never read the forge and I'm not here as some sort of storygaming activist; I just run some games using one. IMO most of the fights are about his abrasive style pissing folks off as much as anything rooted in ideology. For example, The Alexandrian is clearly not a storygaming advocacy site, and his Youtube channel mostly talks about D&D. I've not seen anything to suggest that he's particularly -ist about the subject; it looks like a personality clash rather than anything about ideology.

Certainly the narrativist world has its share of obnoxious fanboys - FATE (for example) was notorious for this about 5 or 10 years ago and The Forge sounds like it turned into a real shitshow at some point. This feels like baggage from old flame wars as much as anything else.
 
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