I do miss the days of having self-identified conservative and/or Republican posters in the debate threads. It was super interesting to learn about the sometimes very different perspective. Unfortunately, they keep being converted into liberals and/or Democrats eventually!
Not sure if it’s possible to use the new forum to make us more inclusive of those voices, but it would be neat.
I think in the end, whether the forum structure changes or not, the suggestion of more, non subforum specific, mods seems like a very solid one. That way, hopefully the perceived inconsistent modding can be reduced.
For now, I think the topic can't really be decided until more technical details on the move get decided.
I used to be a sole g&t and d&d poster and it's interesting in that in that while I never really thought of it the low tone subreddit drama did affect me and I did find myself stigmatizing se and even advising other people fo stay away for a long time. Then based off the combined xmas forums I started posting there occasionally and, I liked it. Sometimes I'm in the mood for on topic, mods chiding people on every second page discussion and sometimes se where it seems like every thread is 50/50 a d&d chat topic and the thread topic is very refreshing
Anyway I just encourage everyone to give every subforum an honest chance before talking shit about them. I didn't and I was wrong
I got an infraction for calling SKFM a concern troll, for calling somebody a SKFM alt a few days before they were banned for being a SKFM alt, and hit by Tube when I called out Pony for his pattern of trying to start shit and then editing all of his posts to something like "Just wanted to share trivia but I guess y'all suck, bye!" when he got pushback. I'm pretty alright with all of those.
I ate an engineer
+7
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
I do miss the days of having self-identified conservative and/or Republican posters in the debate threads. It was super interesting to learn about the sometimes very different perspective. Unfortunately, they keep being converted into liberals and/or Democrats eventually!
Not sure if it’s possible to use the new forum to make us more inclusive of those voices, but it would be neat.
Great example of why I can't take these people seriously
Since some people are unaware, I'm going to try and give an attempt at an impartial read of the current forum schism. As mentioned, it's mostly wrapped up in political threads, which are a minor part of the forum really, but politics are extremely consequential, and speak to the core values of the poster, so it's not surprising it's contentious.
And if you want my honest to god opinion?
Donald Trump and the modern republican party have basically driven us all around the bend with fear. There's basically two groups now and they're entirely wrapped up in where they draw their lines.
Group A draws the line at preventing the election of Donald Trump and the rise of fascism, and I have seem some damn distasteful stuff done by the Democrats essentially swept under the rug, mansplained or otherwise downplayed out of this fear. It's understandable, the altenternative is so much worse, but you see it time and time again, even when the critique is relatively minor. People fall over themselves to dismiss or downplay concerns of other posters, because they're fucking scared of the idea of a Trump presidency and see anything that could damage Democrat chances as not only unwelcome, but dangerous. And these things don't go away, they will pop up in the news time and time again, and each time it does and Group B comments on it, the tolerance towards those people erodes. Because, again, the biggest of all boogymen is breathing down our necks.
Group B draws the line at things like aiding genocide, shitty republican-esque immigration policies, or the softening of langauge on trans rights. They view these things as not only betrayals of the core beliefs and morality that the Democrats are supposed to represent, but in the case of posters directly affected by those things, a betrayal against themselves. That is fucking terrifying when you learn the people who are supposedly your defenders suddenly decide that defense is negotiatable, and when no one else acknowledges it, or even worse, tries to "well actually" to them why they shouldn't feel the way they do about something so incredibly personal to them... well, the longer a person is subjected to that, the more likely they're either going to leave or lash out, at which point they step over the line and get banned while the people who dismissed or derided them keep on going. The more that hapens, the more the tolerance for group A erodes as well, to the point where I've seen people from D&D get treated like complete garbage in SE++, in ways that I found shocking.
Everything stems from this paradigm, and it has turned people who should be allies into bitter enemies.
I would say that is a large part of the problem, yes.
Fundamentally, I think in the last 8 years, D&D has grown to be a place where centrist democrats have become far more accepting and welcoming of conservatives as long as they are sufficiently anti-Trump, no matter how much those conservatives may want or find adequately sacrificial marginalized groups. I think you see this playing out both in the board social culture as you see it playing out in the larger democratic party itself.
Whereas, somehow over the years SE++ basically became a subforum full of marginalized queer posters and became far more welcoming than it was during the aughts and early 2010s, and has rapidly surpassed how welcoming it is compared to present day D&D. Some people will say "But I still got told to fuck off and never return! That's not welcoming at all" and the only thing I'd say back to that is "Well, it's because you were known for being a right wing fuck is why you got told to leave, and SE++ is as hostile to right wing fucks as D&D used to be around the time we finally formalized a certain level of progressive political beliefs as community culture and made certain right wing positions largely bannable offenses"
Then I think some of the forum conservatives who stuck around either realized consciously or behaved unconsciously in accordance with what I will politely call the Lee Atwater Problem, which the Edict is woefully incapable of policing and actively exacerbates because it demands you lend credence and respect when someone starts Lee Atwatering about
+5
minor incidentpublicly subsidized!privately profitable!Registered User, Transition Teamregular
I do miss the days of having self-identified conservative and/or Republican posters in the debate threads. It was super interesting to learn about the sometimes very different perspective. Unfortunately, they keep being converted into liberals and/or Democrats eventually!
Not sure if it’s possible to use the new forum to make us more inclusive of those voices, but it would be neat.
No. I would not like to make this a welcoming or inclusive space for people who want me and my friends dead or subjugated. Fuck that.
minor incident on
Hell, New Jersey, it said on the letter. Delivered without comment. So be it!
Hey Lanz, if you want to continue to berate me, for the sake of this thread, maybe just PM me instead.
I think you are a large part of why we're in this cultural mess, so in a conversation about how to fix the forum culture I am going to address my issues with your moderation history publicly.
If folks want to side with you and think your history of judging people at their most stressful moments are just shitty rabble rousers deserving of snark and doing a little tap dance and stand up routine over their graves, well, thems the breaks for me I guess.
I think in the end, whether the forum structure changes or not, the suggestion of more, non subforum specific, mods seems like a very solid one. That way, hopefully the perceived inconsistent modding can be reduced.
For now, I think the topic can't really be decided until more technical details on the move get decided.
I think this is a bad idea because the culture of the subforums is so different that I cannot see how full-site mods could take any action that weren't just "picking a side", as it were. I guess you could specifically have a mod whose entire job was giving people points for complaining about other subforums or moderation, but I don't think that would actually make things better and it's also very clear the current moderation has no interest in enforcing that sort of rule as it stands.
I think in the end, whether the forum structure changes or not, the suggestion of more, non subforum specific, mods seems like a very solid one. That way, hopefully the perceived inconsistent modding can be reduced.
For now, I think the topic can't really be decided until more technical details on the move get decided.
I think this is a bad idea because the culture of the subforums is so different that I cannot see how full-site mods could take any action that weren't just "picking a side", as it were. I guess you could specifically have a mod whose entire job was giving people points for complaining about other subforums or moderation, but I don't think that would actually make things better and it's also very clear the current moderation has no interest in enforcing that sort of rule as it stands.
That's the issue. This is one forum. It should have a consistent feeling across groups. It's not picking a side, we should be all on the same side.
I'd hope that we just keep trucking along, even if it means continuing to fight and be wary of one another, to be honest. I post pretty much everywhere, even if I guess I'd be classed as a 'D&D centrist' or whatever (I'm a democratic socialist, if I have to pin it down) in the squabbles.
There are posters where I kind of expect poor posts in contentious threads, but I still click the ignored posts to read them 90% of the time because no one on the forums that hasn't been banned is that bad, and it's not at all rare for me to agree with people I usually argue with. I wouldn't even ignore people, I'm just not always in the mood to deal with certain things.
So yeah, I think anyone who sees a shining opportunity to stick it to those people, whoever that means, should be completely ignored for the transition, because I'd wager there are like twelve of them who take this whole thing deadly seriously at most across the forums.
Most of the voices in the chorus claiming irreconcilable differences are coming from one side, here. Just an observation.
No shit, one side doesn't want to get abused anymore
I'm not sure you're making the point you think you are
Which side do you think you are in this equation?
Do you think the reason Oghulk, TheySlashThem and countless others have left is just they got tired of posting?
SE++ is less strict on the edict sure but which sub forum generates the majority of the reports and bannings?
Which sub forum is the one trying to make forum segregation a thing?
I think you would find little enthusiasm from people who post mostly in SE++ if you told them everyone now has to to move to D&D and post under the ruleset of that forum. In the same way you would find little enthusiasm for the opposite.
I think in the end, whether the forum structure changes or not, the suggestion of more, non subforum specific, mods seems like a very solid one. That way, hopefully the perceived inconsistent modding can be reduced.
For now, I think the topic can't really be decided until more technical details on the move get decided.
I think this is a bad idea because the culture of the subforums is so different that I cannot see how full-site mods could take any action that weren't just "picking a side", as it were. I guess you could specifically have a mod whose entire job was giving people points for complaining about other subforums or moderation, but I don't think that would actually make things better and it's also very clear the current moderation has no interest in enforcing that sort of rule as it stands.
That's the issue. This is one forum. It should have a consistent feeling across groups. It's not picking a side, we should be all on the same side.
You're more than a decade late on that. The horse bolted out of the barn, jumped the fence, and died happily of old age and you're just now walking up and saying "man, somebody should probably close that barn door, huh?"
We have distinct communities. If we want to preserve The Forums, that means preserving those communities, not trying to create an entirely new one. If we want to preserve the specific experience of somebody who primarily uses one subforum or the other, that means preserving the existing communities. If we want people to be able to hang out with roughly the same people in roughly the same way, that means preserving the existing communities.
Can someone open an airing of grievance thread somewhere else so people who actually want to focus on the rapidly approaching migration of the forums can do that instead filling dozens of pages of a few people who want to be the main character of every thread grinding their axes and re-litigating beefs from years ago?
I'm gonna suggest something that, while I don't think is a magic cure all solution, but a good first step in closing the gap in the rift.
Whatever the DnD successor forum winds up being, it really shouldn't have Debate in it's name. That inherently implies taking adversarial stances is okay and welcome, and some topics just...shouldn't have them. Full stop. Be completely generic and bland and call it "The On Topic Forum" if you have to. But managing the idea and expectation that you can always get away with arguing something if you stick to approved rhetoric and your opinion has a place to be shared just because you have one is, lets say, counter productive, and not really what the sub forum is meant to be about (at least in my experience and understanding over the years).
I think we've got a technical problem and a social problem. Trying to solve them both in one big bang by moving to a new site while also changing the social structure is going to cause more dropoff than tackling each individually would. That's too much change to the community all at once
The technical problem has a definite deadline and has a lot of work involved so the work on that should go on unimpeded. The social aspect is going to cause issues further down the road, and the proposed solution can be done at any time via any forum software
I'd suggest that the social problem is something that we can start tackling at any time, even right now. We've got this new subforum here where we'll be talking for the next few months, in an ideal world we make some progress working together
I very much don't think we should move to a new forum with the current subforum structure and then fix it in post later I think that just prolongs the same issues we have now and probably ends up making some kind of a exodus when that culture changes
This opinion is noted, but at the same time, with a vastly reduced timeline, we may not have a choice. What I can say is that I'm all for having this conversation, either now or after the new forums have been established, as it should definitely happen. But at the moment, we may, simply out of practical necessity, have to port over what we can when we can as quickly as possible. If we have to do that without making changes, then I will pledge that, at least for myself personally, that we don't give into inertia and just let things continue the way that they have, and that we should have a community-wide discussion of what we want the forums to be in the new place.
We don't have a choice with regard to this exodus. Sometimes all you can do is pack up and move over without getting all the things that you want right away. It is good that this conversation is happening, but I just want to be realistic about this process. I will say that without the specter of the larger PA organization over us, I feel more empowered with regard to changing things. There's a lot of cultural and institutional inertia that is wrapped up in the whole history of these forums.
My suggestion is just to keep the current forums intact along the lines of what we have now and delete all the PA-specific stuff. So D&D, SE++, G&T, H&A, Tech subforum, MMO if the MMO guys don't want to be in the regular games forum. IMO we can consolidate all the arts forums into a single 'Creative Projects' board (call it the Bike Shed!). Also keep a webcomics subforum. I don't post in the tabletop games forum or the comics forum, but it's fine to keep those if people want. Nobody should feel like the new forum is being made without them in mind.
HOWEVER
I think the biggest thing to get done at this stage of the game is to survey the community and find out what people's interest is in retaining a) their posts (this is being discussed in the other thread), b) the particular forums they post in (as has been brought up, do D&D and or SE++ people want to keep their space or are they cool with losing it), and c) finding out what level of financial support people are willing and able to contribute. It's really important to me that the new forums are inclusive, so just because I don't post in a particular subforum doesn't mean that we should discard it, as we found out in the HQ thead when dennis brought up the desire to keep the PA comics specific board.
On this track I also think we should sticky the a news post in every forum that still sees traffic, just to help make sure nobody is missing anything.
I don't think webcomics needs to be it's own category. The thread in SE++ works just fine.
E- and as regards the Edict, sometimes a motherfucker needs to be called a motherfucker. Someone posting polite language with barbs in it to rule someone up is, in fact, motherfuckery.
I'm gonna suggest something that, while I don't think is a magic cure all solution, but a good first step in closing the gap in the rift.
Whatever the DnD successor forum winds up being, it really shouldn't have Debate in it's name. That inherently implies taking adversarial stances is okay and welcome, and some topics just...shouldn't have them. Full stop. Be completely generic and bland and call it "The On Topic Forum" if you have to. But managing the idea and expectation that you can always get away with arguing something if you stick to approved rhetoric and your opinion has a place to be shared just because you have one is, lets say, counter productive, and not really what the sub forum is meant to be about (at least in my experience and understanding over the years).
I've said it before but the word Debate is like a honey pot for the dregs of the internet to treat real issues like rhetorical exercises.
In general I don't find airing out these grievances to be very useful. I'm not going to try and deal with how I feel about the other posters and they feel about me, I don't care outside of our disagreements in the politics threads and it's fine.
But bringing up grievances with a mod is kind of relevant unless he's not working on the future then I don't give a shit about problems with Jeffe. The retired mod status makes things confusing especially when he occasionally posts in threads with the mod authority.
I'm gonna suggest something that, while I don't think is a magic cure all solution, but a good first step in closing the gap in the rift.
Whatever the DnD successor forum winds up being, it really shouldn't have Debate in it's name. That inherently implies taking adversarial stances is okay and welcome, and some topics just...shouldn't have them. Full stop. Be completely generic and bland and call it "The On Topic Forum" if you have to. But managing the idea and expectation that you can always get away with arguing something if you stick to approved rhetoric and your opinion has a place to be shared just because you have one is, lets say, counter productive, and not really what the sub forum is meant to be about (at least in my experience and understanding over the years).
I don’t think that’s necessary, as it stands people don’t take adversarial stances to be contrary, just often have different opinions on motivations or on solutions.
And often those disagreements aren’t a complete 180 degree difference of opinion. More often it’s a difference of degree. The divide comes when people won’t tolerate deviation from what they consider the only solution, or when people interpret disagreement to be the same as being told they can’t have their opinion.
In general I don't find airing out these grievances to be very useful. I'm not going to try and deal with how I feel about the other posters and they feel about me, I don't care outside of our disagreements in the politics threads and it's fine.
But bringing up grievances with a mod is kind of relevant unless he's not working on the future then I don't give a shit about problems with Jeffe. The retired mod status makes things confusing especially when he occasionally posts in threads with the mod authority.
Outside I think of helping of maybe clearing spam I don't think Jeffe has mod posted since retiring.
Also new forums we can shift it so there aren't those badges but the mods can keep their own little chat thread.
Also Jeffe's long career and watching this forum over different epochs I think is useful insight for the current mods charting new waters. Also he has been here as long or longer than most folks. His voice and concerns about the next step hold as much weight as any of ours.
People really should just stop obsessing about a stupid title.
Someone should really make a timeline with what needs figured out when, I don't think having a bunch of chat thread pie in the sky dreams is a viable strategy.
Someone should probably take a good luck at the cheapest v bulletin board you can find and figure out how much they costs per month, and then do a survey monkey survey or something to see how many people are interested in moving to the new place.
This is a water cooler chat thread, people can be mad about things literally anywhere
We are working on it! Forward motion is happening.
The edict is actively weaponised to provoke others by saying heinous shit with a veneer of civility. The aim is to manipulate others into breaking "The Edict" so that they get struck down.
Meanwhile the heinous speaker is allowed free reign as they did not break decorum.
Its a ridiculous, loony tunes, childs cartoon version of morality control reminiscent of the movie Demolition Man. "You have been fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality standard."
No, that's not at all what it's about and it's not how people treat it. If you are seeing hostility behind every polite post, that's about what you are reading into people's posts rather then what they are actually saying. There is not some grand conspiracy behind people talking to each other without screaming invective all the time. That's just people talking like normal.
This isn't a ridiculous, loony tunes, childs cartoon version of morality, it's basic expectations of behaviour you'd see anywhere in your daily life.
I said it gets weaponised. I didn't say that's all that ever happens. That's just one of the worst ways it gets abused.
On top of the weaponisation people are also just bog standard getting away with saying heinous shit because they're just "saying shit" and I meant that too. It just didn't come across in that post.
Those heinous posts aren't getting infracted either, because they're "polite". I thought I'd made that clear but I guess I shoulda put more time into that post because it does sound like I'm saying its a grand conspiracy, if only because I didn't point it out. But both are an issue.
I'm not interested in whether you believe this: this is the consensus opinion I've seen from numerous SE folks. I'm just relaying it, because they don't even want to talk to you. They've given up, and stay out of DnD. (I also stay away from Dnd mostly now but that's mostly cos I'm sick of people arguing in circles.)
If you try to force them to obey this edict in the way its enforced in dnd everywhere in this new forum they will not join the forum and you'll lose a ton of people. They will be the ones "lost" you spoke of. Many have said they won't join a forum with such a ridiculous rule and they certainly aren't interested in DnD style rules.
Also shryke, real life doesnt have an edict. We just push back against people being dicks or they get consequences for their actions naturally. Its the belief that an edict is necessary to regulate behaviour that reminds me of Demolition Mans little swearing fines. You don't need an edict to have polite behaviour and losing it doesn't mean we all turn into savages.
I work in a library in a council environment. I am nothing if not polite at my job. The "polite" behaviour I'm talking about that doesn't get people infracted in DnD would get someone fired in a real professional environment because their rules against bullying, harassment and codes of conduct for speech are much more comprehensive, and it's understood in a real professional environment that just because you are civil with your language doesn't mean you aren't being toxic or unacceptable. And note that nowhere in those codes of conduct will you find the ludicrous idea that only inoffensive insults like "silly goose" are ok. Instead intent is the key, and anything can be considered problematic based on context. For example, if i continuously called a coworker a "silly goose", even though its "inoffensive" this could still constitute harassment. In the same way if I continuously argued against them in a way that implied there was something deeply wrong with them or their beliefs, even politely, and without stating this outright, this could also constitute harrassment. That's incredibly frequent in Dnd: its the bog standard line of argument. You tried to use it on me just now by jumping straight into claiming I was projecting.
That is a real life, professional set of rules people are expected to abide by. The edict is a pathetic joke that, if you actually followed in real life, as it is frequently used here, would get you written up and likely fired. I absolutely could get some of the "polite" ways I've been responded to in DnD written up as strikes against my workplace code of conduct, its ludicrous that you think DnD is just folks politely "saying shit".
It's the belief that if its lost that we all descend into the pre edict world of savagery that comes across as looney tunes, cartoon morality thinking to me. I can't take it at all seriously. The original forum wide nasty culture that brought about the edict is long gone and the ideas that it needs to be kept is fear without a basis. SE doesn't go by the edict anymore and its just like a standard conversation. If someone starts gettin too upset or harsh, others reign them in. Its mostly self governeed. Very rarely, a mod has to do something. Its very chill.
Perhaps DnD with its, uh, "intense" arguments could get its own set of code of conduct rules. And more fair enforcement even when people are "polite".
Anything covered by the glorious edict would be bog standard for a conversation with like casual acquaintances or a group of potentially mixed company or the like. It's part of the basics of everyday interaction with people around you. Nothing it prevents is something you wouldn't expect people to just not do if you started talking to them. Real life social norms can go further, but it would be a pretty good baseline to start from. The glorious edict is not going to solve all problems but it's not, or shouldn't be, terribly restricting.
And the fact that many people apparently also imagine malice and trolling behind every person they posting at them on the forums without yelling and swearing does not make it any less projection.
In general I don't find airing out these grievances to be very useful. I'm not going to try and deal with how I feel about the other posters and they feel about me, I don't care outside of our disagreements in the politics threads and it's fine.
But bringing up grievances with a mod is kind of relevant unless he's not working on the future then I don't give a shit about problems with Jeffe. The retired mod status makes things confusing especially when he occasionally posts in threads with the mod authority.
has Eljeffe been making mod decrees in threads, or are we just talking about him interjecting in threads in general?
He will occasionally make GDST and then move the discussion there like he's a mod, not like infracting people.
In general I don't find airing out these grievances to be very useful. I'm not going to try and deal with how I feel about the other posters and they feel about me, I don't care outside of our disagreements in the politics threads and it's fine.
But bringing up grievances with a mod is kind of relevant unless he's not working on the future then I don't give a shit about problems with Jeffe. The retired mod status makes things confusing especially when he occasionally posts in threads with the mod authority.
It's kinda tangental to the topic but I'm fairly certain Jeffe hasn't done anything with mod powers or a bold post since he retired last year. Since Ramius was able to remove his load-bearing modship and change his status over to retired mod I thought that's what people wanted back in spring to clear up any confusion over if he is an active mod or not.
Like, I dunno if he occasionally does cleanup of spammers when nobody else is around or not but I'm pretty sure everything I've seen is just him participating in the forums like anyone else.
It's a term for spending a large period of time debating unimportant or trivial matters, based on the hypothetical example of an atomic planning committee spending hours arguing about the color of a bike shed and almost no time discussing the actual reactor design; the general principle is basically that organizations spend a lot of time on trivial matters because they're easy to debate and contribute to, even if the impact of one decision vs. the other is minimal.
E: talking about what to name hypothetical rebrand subforums is bikeshedding because it does not matter, it has no influence on people's behavior or meaning for a forum where everybody knows what they're getting.
Posts
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
Not sure if it’s possible to use the new forum to make us more inclusive of those voices, but it would be neat.
For now, I think the topic can't really be decided until more technical details on the move get decided.
Anyway I just encourage everyone to give every subforum an honest chance before talking shit about them. I didn't and I was wrong
Great example of why I can't take these people seriously
I would say that is a large part of the problem, yes.
Fundamentally, I think in the last 8 years, D&D has grown to be a place where centrist democrats have become far more accepting and welcoming of conservatives as long as they are sufficiently anti-Trump, no matter how much those conservatives may want or find adequately sacrificial marginalized groups. I think you see this playing out both in the board social culture as you see it playing out in the larger democratic party itself.
Whereas, somehow over the years SE++ basically became a subforum full of marginalized queer posters and became far more welcoming than it was during the aughts and early 2010s, and has rapidly surpassed how welcoming it is compared to present day D&D. Some people will say "But I still got told to fuck off and never return! That's not welcoming at all" and the only thing I'd say back to that is "Well, it's because you were known for being a right wing fuck is why you got told to leave, and SE++ is as hostile to right wing fucks as D&D used to be around the time we finally formalized a certain level of progressive political beliefs as community culture and made certain right wing positions largely bannable offenses"
Then I think some of the forum conservatives who stuck around either realized consciously or behaved unconsciously in accordance with what I will politely call the Lee Atwater Problem, which the Edict is woefully incapable of policing and actively exacerbates because it demands you lend credence and respect when someone starts Lee Atwatering about
No. I would not like to make this a welcoming or inclusive space for people who want me and my friends dead or subjugated. Fuck that.
I think you are a large part of why we're in this cultural mess, so in a conversation about how to fix the forum culture I am going to address my issues with your moderation history publicly.
If folks want to side with you and think your history of judging people at their most stressful moments are just shitty rabble rousers deserving of snark and doing a little tap dance and stand up routine over their graves, well, thems the breaks for me I guess.
I think this is a bad idea because the culture of the subforums is so different that I cannot see how full-site mods could take any action that weren't just "picking a side", as it were. I guess you could specifically have a mod whose entire job was giving people points for complaining about other subforums or moderation, but I don't think that would actually make things better and it's also very clear the current moderation has no interest in enforcing that sort of rule as it stands.
That's the issue. This is one forum. It should have a consistent feeling across groups. It's not picking a side, we should be all on the same side.
There are posters where I kind of expect poor posts in contentious threads, but I still click the ignored posts to read them 90% of the time because no one on the forums that hasn't been banned is that bad, and it's not at all rare for me to agree with people I usually argue with. I wouldn't even ignore people, I'm just not always in the mood to deal with certain things.
So yeah, I think anyone who sees a shining opportunity to stick it to those people, whoever that means, should be completely ignored for the transition, because I'd wager there are like twelve of them who take this whole thing deadly seriously at most across the forums.
I think you would find little enthusiasm from people who post mostly in SE++ if you told them everyone now has to to move to D&D and post under the ruleset of that forum. In the same way you would find little enthusiasm for the opposite.
You're more than a decade late on that. The horse bolted out of the barn, jumped the fence, and died happily of old age and you're just now walking up and saying "man, somebody should probably close that barn door, huh?"
We have distinct communities. If we want to preserve The Forums, that means preserving those communities, not trying to create an entirely new one. If we want to preserve the specific experience of somebody who primarily uses one subforum or the other, that means preserving the existing communities. If we want people to be able to hang out with roughly the same people in roughly the same way, that means preserving the existing communities.
Whatever the DnD successor forum winds up being, it really shouldn't have Debate in it's name. That inherently implies taking adversarial stances is okay and welcome, and some topics just...shouldn't have them. Full stop. Be completely generic and bland and call it "The On Topic Forum" if you have to. But managing the idea and expectation that you can always get away with arguing something if you stick to approved rhetoric and your opinion has a place to be shared just because you have one is, lets say, counter productive, and not really what the sub forum is meant to be about (at least in my experience and understanding over the years).
I don't think webcomics needs to be it's own category. The thread in SE++ works just fine.
E- and as regards the Edict, sometimes a motherfucker needs to be called a motherfucker. Someone posting polite language with barbs in it to rule someone up is, in fact, motherfuckery.
I've said it before but the word Debate is like a honey pot for the dregs of the internet to treat real issues like rhetorical exercises.
Cheap and low maintenance. Ship it
I hope everyone can leave in PAF
But bringing up grievances with a mod is kind of relevant unless he's not working on the future then I don't give a shit about problems with Jeffe. The retired mod status makes things confusing especially when he occasionally posts in threads with the mod authority.
{Bluesky Account }{Writing and Story Blog}
I don’t think that’s necessary, as it stands people don’t take adversarial stances to be contrary, just often have different opinions on motivations or on solutions.
And often those disagreements aren’t a complete 180 degree difference of opinion. More often it’s a difference of degree. The divide comes when people won’t tolerate deviation from what they consider the only solution, or when people interpret disagreement to be the same as being told they can’t have their opinion.
Outside I think of helping of maybe clearing spam I don't think Jeffe has mod posted since retiring.
Also new forums we can shift it so there aren't those badges but the mods can keep their own little chat thread.
Also Jeffe's long career and watching this forum over different epochs I think is useful insight for the current mods charting new waters. Also he has been here as long or longer than most folks. His voice and concerns about the next step hold as much weight as any of ours.
People really should just stop obsessing about a stupid title.
We are working on it! Forward motion is happening.
MHWilds ID: JF9LL8L3
Anything covered by the glorious edict would be bog standard for a conversation with like casual acquaintances or a group of potentially mixed company or the like. It's part of the basics of everyday interaction with people around you. Nothing it prevents is something you wouldn't expect people to just not do if you started talking to them. Real life social norms can go further, but it would be a pretty good baseline to start from. The glorious edict is not going to solve all problems but it's not, or shouldn't be, terribly restricting.
And the fact that many people apparently also imagine malice and trolling behind every person they posting at them on the forums without yelling and swearing does not make it any less projection.
He will occasionally make GDST and then move the discussion there like he's a mod, not like infracting people.
{Bluesky Account }{Writing and Story Blog}
It's kinda tangental to the topic but I'm fairly certain Jeffe hasn't done anything with mod powers or a bold post since he retired last year. Since Ramius was able to remove his load-bearing modship and change his status over to retired mod I thought that's what people wanted back in spring to clear up any confusion over if he is an active mod or not.
Like, I dunno if he occasionally does cleanup of spammers when nobody else is around or not but I'm pretty sure everything I've seen is just him participating in the forums like anyone else.
It's a term for spending a large period of time debating unimportant or trivial matters, based on the hypothetical example of an atomic planning committee spending hours arguing about the color of a bike shed and almost no time discussing the actual reactor design; the general principle is basically that organizations spend a lot of time on trivial matters because they're easy to debate and contribute to, even if the impact of one decision vs. the other is minimal.
E: talking about what to name hypothetical rebrand subforums is bikeshedding because it does not matter, it has no influence on people's behavior or meaning for a forum where everybody knows what they're getting.