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Were you the one who asked him to join the Governance Board? If so, do you think this reflects the judgement you would bring to the board? If not, could you clarify?
1) I want to maintain the community of everyone here. All should be comfortable and have a home here.
2)Obviously, first thing would be to consult the rest of the board, but compliance as far as the law says, not necessarily what authorities say what the law says would be the extent. If talking to a lawyer was necessary, we would obviously do that. People who have reason to be concerned (at the least) make their home here, and they deserve to be safe.
@Zek I believe that quote should be attributed to me
And yeah, I get your decision. I was just explaining my own thoughts on it.
Anyways, as a candidate, I'll let others chime in on if there is anyone else they find disagreeable.
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1) Absolutely. We have myriad views here, and I want this to be a place for all of them, to the extent that everyone follows the rules and values we, as a community, set forth. I have ideas on how to manage some of our more contentious discussions in a way that gives everyone a place to talk and doesn't marginalize any conversational style (again, within the scope of the rules). There's a lot of disagreement here, and it will be a challenge, but I'm confident we can make it work.
2) It would depend on the details, but my priorities are to protect the community members. If we're being contacted because a member acted in ways contrary to our values, that member would need to face strong consequences, up to and including removal, for the safety and well being of the rest of the community. If we're being contacted because the government is cracking down on non-Trumpy forums or the like, I don't know offhand what legal options are available, but again my priorities are to protect the rights and privacy of the community.
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Hey @richy I don’t really know you and your rotary club experience I feel is directly relevant to running a place like this so you are at least on my radar as a candidate, but I do have a pretty big question for you.
You mention being involved in a national AI association. Are you willing to give more detail on that organization and your role in it?
Given the number of artists on this forum and how contentious the topic is I feel it is very important to know your history with it.
To begin with your observation: I have been on this board for some 20+ years using this name and avatar (occasionally photoshopping a christmas or birthday hat on it). It's a large forum, so it's entirely possible you and I have simply not crossed paths. I mostly keep to D&D and occasionally H&A.
As you pointed out, I cannot make your, @Expendable, personal experience better since I do not know you nor your experiences. But as issues come up, I plan on deciding them based on what's just and fair to all members. I have a pretty strict moral compass in that respect (jokes about making Clarence Thomas blush notwithstanding) and I plan to apply it. I have a zero tolerance for bullying, hate speech, nazis, etc. In my experience what makes this forum amazing is how it is welcoming and inclusive of everyone, and that's what I want to preserve first and foremost. If your personal experience is enriched by this kind of community, then I will benefit you.
I haven't been involved in the Transition committee.
1) Just like a board of directors is charged with a duty of care to operate in line with the vision and principles laid out for them (not by them, in the case of a member based organization like this), the moderators are charged with enforcing the rules and encouraging discussion. This is a forum, people will not always agree on games or politics or whatever, and not everyone handles it very well. The point of moderation is to serve the community as a whole, not individuals in a particular argument.
2) Most communities have a Community Manager or Admin or such that assists the moderators in their roles, and steps in if harassment or concerns arise. We have established multiple non-moderator roles here that give many avenues for escalating not in a thread and definitely not in direct PM/email/discord harassment. Any such harassment is against our rules and code and should be responded to with consequences. Grievances must go through appropriate channels for the sake of individuals and the community in general.
3) I tried to point at it with my summary, but I have experience helping establish new clubs (community sports), where there are a bunch of motivated individuals passionate about their sport but no idea how to make a club. I've mediated conflicts that arise with the details of how they should go about incorporating, writing bylaws, creation of officers and elections, etc. without being one that had a opinion much one way or another. I have chaired a founding board of directors for such things, coached the interim and incoming board on how to achieve their mutual goals, and then stepped down.
I think I have a lot to offer for the first board of directors in this regard, and would be happy to serve a more neutral role. There's a lot we're all trying to figure out, it's clear we have common goals and good intentions but not always the right outcomes, so just "here's ways this has been done" can be very impactful. Depending on how that goes, perhaps that's me stepping back in a following election.
Though if any other candidate also wants to comment on how they would address such a situation in their candidacy that's okay.
I need some more time to think on general questions for all and specific questions to other candidates, but given what was going on yesterday this question has been festering in my mind for a bit now and I need to have it addressed. I'm going to include my previous posts on the matter for context.
To sum up, I do not know the circumstances that led to you moving from a Retired Mod badge that was made in MS Paint or something to a Regular User flair, but my understanding and impression of you posting among us as a Regular User, especially given that you had made comments about not wanting to be involved in moderation any longer, was that you had the same access and privileges afforded to me or any other Regular User. To later find out that while you were showing the same level that I do you actually still had elevated permissions and used those permissions to read and comment on Reports, whether you were the one being reported or not, strikes me as a deliberate deception and breach of trust. And now you're asking for my vote to be in a position of trust and authority and access to far more sensitive data.
To me this looks like you put your personal desires for access above the good of the community, like you take the required trust of such a position for granted or uncharitably only see it as a tool to use for the betterment of yourself. What do you say to Members like me who have never really had a meaningful interaction with you but now have this information? Plus the questions in my previous posts.
Ok serious question for any and all candidates.
In a hypothetical scenario of a mod that ends up not meshing with the new style, whether that ends with them being overly harsh, overly lax, showing favoritism or anything like that. This is brought to the board by several individuals, but not a crushing wave of reports.
How is this is handled?
Many of you have stated that this community is important to you and that you would work to preserve and improve it.
What does this really look like, in your view?
Are we making “problematic” users less welcome and encouraging them to exit the space? Are we examining why some users might engage in “problem behaviour” in the first place and looking at what can be done at a Board level to address those contributing factors? Are we leading by example, with humility and introspection and self-awareness? Are we prioritising the good of the community over our own positions within it, formal leadership or otherwise?
What does “the good of the community” mean to you?
@Expendable
I want to put some thought into this response, and so my reply will take a bit. My intention is to make one statement on this matter, and then leave it at that, so as not to suck all the oxygen from the thread. I'm not the only person on the ballot, and I don't want me (or anyone else) to turn this into the Let's Discuss ElJeffe thread.
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1) Bloodthirst
2) Ninja assassin squads
3) See #2
Alternatively...
1) I think it is important to have a mod that will use their judgment to enforce the rules fairly and consistently. I think there has been a problem with that not being the case across many mods. The leadership (admins back to Tube) have exacerbated the problem. I think folks across multiple subforums have felt this and haven't thought moderation was applied fairly to everyone. Sometimes folks are feeling it in completely opposite directions, and due to the variety of mods we've had sometimes they're both right. And that sucks. It becomes a sort of poison in the community and starts to cause all sorts of bad behaviors.
So one of the big hallmarks of success for CoRe is going to be moderators that have the backing and trust of leadership and their community. Finding mods that have convictions of really believing in the rules and our values, and really being able to enforce those in a positive manner is what matters.
Mods shouldn't be out to punish all the rulebreakers, but to help the community be a place where we like the rules because they reflect what we want this place to be, and the mods just need to help keep us on track. Most of the time, because not everyone will mesh well and again, that's part of being a growing community full of changing people.
2) Harassing the mods is not OK. The moderators are the only thing that can really make this community work, and they are volunteers, and their work should be acknowledged. Attacking mods is against the rules just like attacking any other forumer, and the mods shouldn't be scared to take action accordingly. I would work with the rest of the board to make sure they know they have our support, privately and/or publicly depending on the situation.
That doesn't mean the mods are without reproach. We've talked about this before, but there definitely needs to be avenues to discuss moderator decisions. The mods should reflect the community, and it's important not to lose the community's voice in that. But this should be done in a respectful way that recognizes the mods are doing a hard, thankless job for us.
3) Communicate! I expect things may get heated, and that's fine, but there's a difference between "I am passionate about this decision" and "this shows that you are a bad person and I will say so". Especially online, it's really easy to flip towards the latter thing there, and that's Not Okay.
But yeah, I will try try to express myself best I can, ask clarifying questions on anything I don't understand from their perspective, give specific reasons for what I think is the right thing to do.
In the end, we also have to just come to a decision. I don't like leaving things just "sort of lingering." Maybe the "decision" is "we're tabling this and will come back to it in a couple weeks when we've had time to think more on different options" or whatever. That's fine! But just sort of dropping it without coming to any sort of understanding is a recipe for misunderstandings in the future. I also think it's important to recognize that while decisions may have consequences and some of those may be semi-permanent (losing users, etc), that doesn't mean we can't change the decision later. We don't need to go all sunk-cost fallacy on things if we think change is the right thing and not just that we're flailing
Try and understand where folks are coming from, try to get down to what they want and why they want it, and you have a better chance of reaching a compromise all folks are happier with.
1) Yes. There are threads I personally don't want to post in, which is fine. That doesn't mean they shouldn't exist. There are a lot of folks here who prefer posting styles and thread topics that I just find incredibly annoying and boring. But like.... that's OK! They get to have their space and that's good! We shouldn't kill off the parts of the forums we don't personally enjoy.
There are lines, obviously, that you mentioned. But just "disagreements" is normal and healthy. There's not a single sub-community on this forum (or elsewhere) with whom I agree on every topic. I have things that I'm more extreme on, I have things that I just totally go in a different direction on, etc. If I wanted to only be with folks who agreed with me, I'd be alone.
2) This is really, really dependent on context. Most important is to understand the situation-- who are they, why are they contacting us, what do they think happened, etc. Try to get more information on our side so that we'll be prepared to answer questions and provide context. But also like, if it's a "Real" legal thing, we should be seeking professional legal advice. At the very least just initially to make sure we don't make any dumb decisions.
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@rhylith
The association is the Canadian Artificial Intelligence Association. We're a smaller organization, mainly responsible for organizing the annual Canadian AI conference, giving out AI-related awards to students, and occasionally answering questions from the media and government agencies about AI (when they remember to ask us). We do not fund research, we don't have the funds for that.
I think what you're really asking is where I fall on the "training data vs. creator rights" debate. And I'm squarely on the creator rights side. I am currently working on a research program to train a local-knowledge LLM, and the first thing we're doing is setting up a data-sharing agreement and contacting the right holders of the data we want to explain what we're doing, what we plan to do with their data, and ask their permission (with signature) to use their data (and if they refuse, well though luck for us, but so far everyone I've contacted has been very receptive and positive). When I teach about LLM in my class, one of the issues I cover, in addition to technical issues, is the violation of copyrights by OpenAI and Meta to collect their datasets. And on a personal note, my girlfriend is an artist working towards her first exhibit, so I have a personal stake in protecting creators. Every time she signs up for a new online service professionally, I read the license agreements closely with her to make sure she's not signing off more than she intends to.
It's still the best MOBA and you know it! You all know it! There are dozens of us!
re: your serious question. First, I'd make sure we (the board) understand the concerns. If we agree with them, then we should chat with the mod. They may not be aware of this-- constructive feedback isn't always super available! Chat with them, work with them, try to figure out the best path forward. Depending on how they act this could go in a variety of ways, but the ideal path is that we all get aligned again. We don't want to be swapping out mods every time they aren't perfect, we want to all work with each other.
There's a possibility they won't be able to align with the community's needs. Maybe they just aren't willing, maybe they're lacking some skills or time or something. We have avenues to replace mods, and so that's the time when we'd go through that process (hopefully amicably with the mod, understanding that this just isn't a good fit). This definitely isn't always the ideal best path, but it's also something that will definitely come up occasionally, and that's normal and healthy.
There's a possibility the board is really not seeing eye-to-eye with the individuals. Folks will have different opinions and perspectives, which is also normal and healthy! In that case, next step would be to try and understand more and just gain more awareness of this perspective. Then, it could mostly go one of two ways: either we think that the changes these folks want would still align with the community as a whole (even if we personally may not get it or whatever), in which case we go back to work with the mod as I said before. Or we think that the changes are maybe aligned with those few individuals, but not with the community as a whole. Hopefully we can work towards some compromise, but it's a group of diverse people, we won't agree on every moderator decision. It is OK to tell folks "hey, we hear you, we will continue to keep an eye on this and we welcome your future input, but for now we're not planning to change things."
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Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
The Three Musketeers (1993)
Trigger
(I've seen some more serious questions that I will answer when I'm not procrastinating at work and can give a thorough response).
Yesss we are twinsies!
Most of your questions should be the goal of the board (and community), yes. We want to try and help folks where we can, not just kick out anyone we see as "problematic". My understanding is that the proposed rules/moderation system supports this pretty well, it's not really all that easy to just get a permanent ban immediately! Even a temp ban requires some pretty extreme behavior, not just being "problematic". I think those are good! 0 to 100 moderation is not the right path. The board and the mods should lead by example. We should not assume that our positions make us better or special. We should prioritize the good of the community over our own positions.
Honestly these are all things I expect most folks will agree with. They seem pretty easy questions
Generally speaking, "the good of the community" means that we all feel safe and welcome here. We think this is a good place where we want to hang out. We have good times and good conversations with folks here, we respect them and we feel respected. This does not mean we bend over backwards to make sure no one ever wants to leave or feels unwelcome. There are certain behaviors that, if a forumer is not able to correct them, does mean that they are not a good fit with our community and they probably should head elsewhere. These are mainly things that mess with the safety of others. ie transphobia is not welcome here, etc. "Paradox of tolerance" sort of stuff.
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I mean, "yes" to all of those subquestions, for starters.
More broadly, I think that if we're to move forward, we need to really assess why we have these problems, where they came from, and what sustains them. And this will require a bunch of people honestly listening to views that aren't their own. It doesn't require agreeing with all of these views, but it does mean putting effort into understanding why someone might hold that view, and being wiling to meet them in the middle at times.
I think that broadly, every person should have places on the forum where they feel comfortable and at home. These will not always be the same spaces, and that's okay. Someone who likes discussing politics in a technocratic (but respectful) fashion may not be a fan of a discussion that is based solely on personal anecdotes, and they may not really feel at home in such a thread. And vice versa. And that's fine, provided they each have a place where they can have the conversations they want with like minded people.
In a group of 1000 people, there are going to be subgroups, and I think this is fine and healthy. To me, "the good of the community" means working towards a place where everyone looks at CoRe, either in whole or in part, and says "this is my home".
Right now, I believe I'm well suited to help usher that in. The day I feel that ceases to be the case is the day I step aside, because the forums are bigger than any one person.
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Favorite faction in SMAC?
Favorite faction in SMAX?
I play Zerg
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I once attempted to defeat you in a Forum Battle.
The lapse was that I even tried at all.
You know, I'm pretty happy with where they are. There are some things that I'm not a huge fan of, but for the most part they aren't huge and the rest of the community likes them. (I don't actually have an example off the top of my head, but I remember thinking this way.)
I think I'd be happy seeing how they go with the expectation that most of it will work well.
I think the bigger contributing factor is just going to be the moderation (which will in large part be dictated by the board decisions here) over the specifics of the Rules/Values, which I think are mostly in a good spot.
The absolute biggest issue has been the timeline. There are reasons why certain things took longer than they were expected to, we all know that, but in the end this just took too long. It's good the community has had a say in things, that's the right way to do it, but it just all needed to be faster. It's not the easiest thing to have done differently, it's not some single action that should have changed, I know. But like, if this were something we were going to be repeating regularly or was more applicable to future things on the CoRe forums, we'd definitely want to do some sort of post-mortem type thing to figure out how we could improve that next time.
As is, these actions are so unlikely to need to be repeated in any similar manner that it's probably not worth it.
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On that note, everyone please remember that several of the candidates are in non-US timezones, including some in Australian time zones. I'd recommend tagging candidates you specifically want a response from, and please afford them time to get back to you, their daytime active time might be overnight for you.
1) A few things. On the wider view, of the mod team as a whole, a diversity of opinion is very important. A question I will ask myself during mod selection is "what does this person believe in?' and an important corollary, "what views are not being covered in the current mod composition?". On an individual level, high emotional intelligence is important. People who seek first to understand. People who have a predilection for assuming positive intent. People who can entertain an alternate view without accepting it. People who are not scared of transparency and accountability. People who can accept that they may not always get their way every time. People that I am confident will respect privacy of users, mods, and the board.
2) This is an easy one, in that our values and code of conduct lay out what constitutes acceptable behaviour. Being a mod means that you will have to deal with angry people, that is inevitable. I will not accept people threatening or harassing mods and would do everything in my power to protect mods from that.
3) A lot of the qualities I described in point 1 are applicable here, I feel. They are just applicable to board members as they are to moderators. I think my work on the gov subcommittee has shown that I am willing and able to work across a diverse set of opinions and common ground to find a solution that's largely acceptable to most people. How do I work towards a compromise? I put a significant amount of effort into just listening, honestly. It's a boring answer, but it's effective!
1) Yes, absolutely. In the early stages of the transition, I was a frequent and vocal supporter of maintaining [chat] (I am predominantly an SE poster with some G&T thrown in there from years ago). I was also a heavily involved in the xenforo tagging design discussions, pushing for a system where folks could talk about their own political philosophy without needing to have the same acrimonious fights time and time again (notable exceptions for no fascists, of course)
2) Depends on the scenario. I have dealt with these scenarios in the past in other organising activities, and the response will range from compliance (removing copyright material, a request from law enforcement to remove a post or thread) right through to finding legal representation, seeking aid from charitable advocacy groups, and taking it adjudication. So hard to say without some concrete examples, but I certainly would not be handing over addresses and contact information to, say, ICE. I would rather we find an alternate hosting and incorporation solution than endanger our users like that
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
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Remember to put my name in quotes
My most recent lapse in judgment has been writing this post in between meetings while sitting on the toilet.
Cheers for answering! Couple of follow-ups.
Meeting in the middle is easier said than done in almost all situations where it is needed. How have you worked to get people to meet here previously, in other spaces in your life or here on the forums? What wisdom do you bring to help the community meet this (very likely) need?
(I ask because your recent actions have de facto led to situations resulting in the departure of two users, which runs counter to the idea that we should be trying to work to keep folks together if we can. I’m curious to know how a similarly escalated situation might go differently if you are on the Board of the new space, guided by the new systems in play there. If this feels too similar to other questions you’ve been asked, feel free to not answer it!)
Also, in what types of scenarios might you envision yourself or any other board member no longer being well-suited to act in the best interests of the community? How should that be handled? If you felt a fellow Board member was derelict in their duties, how might you try to resolve this before resorting to using established processes (if at all)?
Serious question borne of the LDB thread. You yourself have admitted you like pushing the line with the art in that thread which I absolutely love. As a board member you would obviously have a hand in picking the mods which could put them in a precarious situation in trying to mod you there. Would you be willing to take steps to ensure the moderator team feels comfortable stepping in that thread? I don't know exactly what that would be off hand, but I do believe it is possible. I just want to make sure you would be on board for that bit of extra work.
I appreciate your response @Richy and now that you mention it I think I do recall your avatar with a Santa hat at some point.
As a point of clarification, while you have not been on the committee, have you participated in public votes or discussions of frameworks? Some of those threads moved very fast and I admit to checking out at times and having Serious Life intervene.
What are your feelings on the Core Values, accepted rules, etc? What would you change and specifically how, given the chance, do you feel anything is lacking or shouldn't have been included? Any specific concerns with enforcement or interpretation?
1) A level-head and the ability to slide personal shit to the side for the sake of the community and conversation. Self-editing while responding to things is critical. That doesn't mean that they can't be themselves, but it does mean that they are representing something that is larger and beyond themselves. The "he's gone mad with power" trope is tired, old, and honestly that kind of individual can't be tolerated as someone who is keeping a community healthy and whole.
2) Over the years of managing community and social media managers we'd always joke that when you stare too long into the black, it begins to stare back. Modding isn't easy for a myriad of reasons and we need mods that feel that they aren't setting themselves up for abuse and threats in order to keep this place running well. How's that happen? There is no tolerance for harassment of the mods. They are humans that are doing their best. Being human also comes with that whole fallibility thing as well. They are, and will be, imperfect. Missteps will be proportionally handled as well. But for people who don't agree with a mods judgement? The easiest way to lose the high-ground with me is to start making threats. I'll listen to the complaints, but harassement and threats aren't going to help your argument.
3) There are people who put their toilet paper over the top, and others who do it the wrong way. We've managed to remain friends regardless. That said, experience, listening, and level-heads are the best way to workshop solutions and compromises that advance the plot in a positive direction.
With regards to issues that might trigger the paradox of tolerance, how would you want these issues handled? Say it has been revealed that a specific user holds views that are harmful to the community at large. How would you want this handled, and by whom? How might you approach this if it turned out to be a moderator or board member (ie a colleague) who held such views? What do you believe are your strengths in conflict resolution and interpersonal communication?
Absolutely. If it ever became any kind of issue I could ask for all images behind spoilers or even make them much less…provocative. That’s the not the key part of the game, just something that developed over the years.
The Mass Effect Series (we'll count that as one, yea?)
Hm. Probably Clue.
Probably Trigger, but I'll admit that JRPGs ain't my jam.
1) Simplest answer is "yes" and agreeing that the boards need to be welcome to all folks that aren't everything you listed.
2) The answer to this greatly depends on what flavor of legal entity and the realness/severity of the contact. It's usually alert relevant parties (Board, admin, mods), determine validity of the outreach, align all ducks to be in a row, and then respond if appropriate. ...which is a tremendous paraphrasing.
Didn't propose him, but did agree to inclusion without reservation. Gereg's return to PA was above board, there was no ban dodging etc etc so there was no reason to question the validity of his inclusion. He summarises it himself fairly succinctly here: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/46976467/#Comment_46976467
As to whether his blow-up yesterday is somehow a reflection of my judgement, it very much wasn't. His resume was good, I wasn't aware of him making threats like that previously (or anything close to it), there was no indication that this was going to be an issue. The response was also swift and universal and he has nothing to do with the gov subcommittee moving forward.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
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why, in your estimation, would any of the voters possibly view you as a piece of shit? what do you think you are contributing to this? what do you think you have no control over? how will you adjust how you interact accordingly going forward as a member of the board, literally holding people's money in your hands?
A lot of the toxic behaviour is a function of low trust. I believe if we are able to build that back with accountability, transparency, organisational clarity for decision makers, a consistently applied moderation approach, a democratic and formalised collaborative decision making process, as well as spaces for users to explore and discuss their opinions in safety we are well on our way. This stuff is so important to me, and this community is so important to me, it's why I have made the focus of my assistance to CoRe via the governance subcommittee and prioritised it inside a 45 hour senior management role and being a father to a toddler!
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
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A) Tynic is absolutely someone I'm happy to vote for and I agree with the praise.
It depends a lot on context, which hopefully should be obvious. Like, what do you mean by "holds views"? Is this something we suspect in their heart of hearts but they haven't actually expressed it, even by implication? Is this something people found from following the users accounts on other websites but they haven't posted anything of the sort here? Those are less actionable, by design.
But if someone is transphobic (for example) and they are posting things to that effect, that needs to be handled. There should be moderator action against those posts. The poster should be made clearly aware what is unacceptable for CoRe (and why!). If they don't adjust their behaviors (or if it was something super extreme), then yeah, they should be shown the door. They shouldn't hurt people a dozen before that final step is taken.
Additionally and importantly, this moderator action should be visible to the rest of the community as well (which I think should be the default based on how the forums are set up, is my understanding). Part of making folks feel safe is them seeing that when others cross the line, action is taken. We do not accept bigotry and we will work to keep things that way.
Moderators have to abide by the same rules and standards as everyone else. I don't think that they should get extra leeway to break the rules. (There may be some specific rule that is necessary to break for mods to perform their duties, I don't have the new rules memorized yet. Like, maybe we have a rule to support privacy that you can't screenshot and share private messages with others-- but sometimes a mod needs to see those to take appropriate action/prevent harassment/whatever. I just made that example up, but those should be very obvious and ideally addressed in the rules anyways.)
So yes, if a mod starts espousing hateful language, they should also suffer similar repercussions.
Board members aren't immune either. Honestly that should be more clean-cut because board members won't be responsible for moderating. Moderators should be empowered and feel comfortable to infract board members as appropriate, especially if we secretly turn out to be bigots or whatnot.
We've got measures in all the KD's and such to handle what needs to happen to replace moderators and board members. I kind of doubt that's ever going to need to be done in this type of situation, but if it is, then so be it. It should be if needed.
re: strengths, one thing I think I'm good at in conversations is really trying to understand other folks' perspectives. I'm not afraid to ask specific questions on what they mean instead of just assuming I understand, nor am I going to be annoyed when rephrasing or trying to be more clear with my own perspective. And then I'm also well aware that we have to actually commit to something and go with it, even if we may change our minds later or not be entirely happy.
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This is an interesting one.
The answer of "you know it when you see it" is some serious bullshit, but it's also kind of one of the best ways to describe it.