Inaugural Coin Return Board of Directors Election [2025] - VOTING closed. Results soon.

The Zombie Penguin · March 31

Some general questions for the board candidates, on what have been some serious firecracker topics.

@spono

@Tef

@amateurhour

@ElJeffe

@Fishman

@kime

@Kelor

@Solysp

@Disco11

@Inquisitor77

@Moridin889

@Infidel

@ahava

@Fencingsax

@DrZiplock

@Richy

@Raijin Quickfoot

@Initiatefailure

bat signals in the spoiler block, please strip them out of quoting this post

-your feelings on generative ai, and protection of artists.
-your feelings on the Palestinian genocide.
-your feelings on support of minority & LGBT posters, given the PA forums history of driving such people away
-your feelings on people playing politeness politics while antagonizing other users
-your feelings on pizza toppings

To be clear, this is explicitly aimed at the Board candidates here. I know these are contentious topics, I'd rather folks who aren't in the running for the board refrain from debating or answering them. (Please, things are on fire enough for the mods already)

Powerpuppies · March 31

I think at least some of the vague halting comments about controversy were related to partisans in the forum schism or whatever. I see that schism as at least loosely based in people who very badly want mods to be empowered and required to address thing A and don't want thing B addressed or don't care either way and in order people who very badly want mods to be empowered and required to address thing B and don't want thing A addressed or don't care either way. Thing A is, as best i can describe it, "extreme hostility in response to incorrect or odious opinions" with maybe a lesser emphasis on "gravedancing and discussion of political violence that's upsetting to read." Thing B is maybe "tone policing and weaponised civility used to get rid of marginalized voices or unpopular opinions, especially via disagreeing in an aggravating way with the deliberate hope that the person being disagreed with will get angry and behave badly and get infracted." Maybe a lesser emphasis here on "using the rules deliberately and via conspiracy to change the membership of the forums, especially in a way that has to do with preventing discussion of moderation or the rules."

I think several people see the anger over eljeffe's behavior as primarily or partly motivated by preexisting (and unreasonable) frustration with eljeffe over the above, and think other board members are just as questionable choices for election due to not being trusted to achieve both A and B. I'm not sure i see any value in discussing it, but other people badly want to know what is referred to, and I think i understand the references. I could be wrong! I think probably Tef Kelor Jeffe Tynic Ahava Kime would all maybe be worth asking to comment on how committed they are to stopping A and B above and why or what they think about trusting them to be committed in that way. Just to be explicit about who has seemed in the past as if they might have strong opinions.

Powerpuppies · March 31

I myself don't have super strong feelings on most of the above, or if i do then they're chaotic and I'm not very aware of them today. I'm certainly not intending to suggest that eljeffe did nothing wrong or the TT did nothing wrong or that everyone i named would be an equally good or equally bad candidate for the board.

Fiatil · March 31

MechMantis wrote: »

Tef wrote: »

MechMantis wrote: »

Tef (and to a lesser extent "minor incident" ), considering the frightening demonstration of a complete failure of character judgement and vetting (over the objections of another Governance member), what actions will you take or commitments will you make to ensure that individuals with such similar utter contempt for an open, democratic, and transparent process (to the point that they actively encourage the suicide of other users for disagreeing with them) do not get anywhere near the levers of power at CoRe?

Further, you claim to want transparency, but there was no indication that Oghulk/Gereg was ever officially assigned to Governance, the last post from anyone involved in transition in the Coin Return Governance Decisions thread was with regards to zagdrob stepping down on February 9th, while further indicating that Chanus and zerzhul had been elevated.

What was the exact process by which Oghulk/Gereg appointed to Governance, and when, precisely, were you intending to inform the community as a whole of this change in the designated official channels for such information to be disseminated?

In light of this person being slipped in effectively under cover of darkness, and the amount of vitriol spewed in their official, professional capacity as a member of Governance, it behooves you, if you claim to want transparency and openness, to expose how this person ended up anywhere near CoRe's transition team.

Your recollection is wrong, or perhaps you missed it. Minor made an announcement in the governance sticky thread, here: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/46976324/#Comment_46976324

I'm not sure if you've ever been a hiring manager, or had to hire people into an organisation in a volunteer capacity, but expecting someone to know that someone is going to have a meltdown at some point, is ridiculous. We didn't believe conducting a psychometric profile on all potential hires would be scope, and I was not prepared to request the TT spend the thousands of dollars to do so from CoRe funds

I thank you for your clarification on where it was announced, I did in fact miss it initially and apologize for my errors there; they were unfounded.

I have been a hiring manager, and have made bad hires for one reason or another, and part of the aftermath of dealing with a bad hire is identifying flaws in your hiring process; how someone made it past your initial screenings such that you don't have a repeat. So I ask again: What, if any actions will you make to ensure that someone with such bare and open contempt does not get anywhere near the levers of power at CoRe?

Further, in this specific case, said individual had multiple bans for poor behavior, and routinely would insult large swathes of the community, but both you and minor incident have indicated that Oghulk/Gereg's professional experience was valuable and welcome. Did you, at that time of bringing him on board, feel that someone's professional life and experience is more important when deciding someone for a community role than their actions within that community? Do you still hold that view? If not, what changes would you make now?

It's worth mentioning that what happened with Oghulk/Gereg yesterday wasn't exactly new behavior for him. I was shocked when I saw he was on any of the TT stuff, as I could have predicted something like this entirely based on his prior posting history, and specifically his prior bannings. To hear that other people raised this same concern and were ignored is very puzzling because of how predictable it was.

He had his account purged so I don't think there's any way to get receipts here, but I know when he ate the (two week-ish) temp ban in D&D, it was very similar! He went as deep down the vitriol mine as you can yesterday, but the two week ban was one of those where he was like "I know I'm going to get banned/infracted for this but I'm so motivated to insult another poster that I don't care", and he procedeeded to directly tell someone to go fuck themselves.

It was 100% predictable -- all you had to do was know who he was, but a bunch of people who knew him closely ignored that and put him on a governance committee. Apparently the ethics one? Either way, it's a ridiculous and predictable own-goal that puts your basic judgement into question. It seems like favoritism for someone "we like" won out over common sense and collaboration (you don't collaborate by including forum members who voluntarily eat bans to insult people, and then self-ban to get away from the whole thing because they hate seeing/interacting with large groups of other posters so much), at a time when everyone in the TT and adjacent to it was ringing the bell of collaboration and getting along.

Edited due to mod post: If it's not clear, my post is referring to Tef specifically (similar to Mech Mantis's post), and I guess MI as well as there's some confusion on who was approving/vouching for who, and whoever saw fit to ignore poster complaints about inviting a poster with a very long infraction history and lots of personal attacks on other posters to the governance committees.

Zomro · March 31

As an admittedly less active forum member (I lurk basically every day, but don't post that much), I don't really know that many of the candidates to currently make what I would consider an informed decision. I also want to try and not let my own perception of forumers I do know of potentially tarnish my impression of ones I do not. In that regard, I have one question which I feel would help me get a better idea of ones interpretation and commitment to our stated community goals, namely respecting and protecting our marginalized members.

I do not want @ anybody, because this is a question for any candidate who wishes to answer.

What are your thoughts on the term "identity politics" and how it is used? I am mostly concerned with its use on the forums, but feel free to talk about other spaces you've seen it if you feel it helps with an answer.

And for clarification, I am not specifically defining "identity politics" because I want to gauge how potential respondents see it themselves. It's possible that an individual's definition of the term might make them an unsuitable choice for me before even addressing its usage.

The Zombie Penguin · March 31

shryke wrote: »

Grislo wrote: »

Hachface wrote: »

The mere fact that you thought putting your name forward for consideration demonstrates that you are incapable of putting the harmony of the community over your own self-regard.

If a person causes this amount of agitation, for want of a better term, the idea that they would pursue this, if they in any way claim to want what is best for the community, is quite telling.

There is no one we need that desperately for the "board of directors" on a forum.

Lots of things can cause a lot of agitation. A huge amount of complaints is not a sign that anything is actually wrong.

This is so grossly dismissive towards the problems folks have had with Jeffe and the forums I don't know where to start.

Well, other than by pointing out by this logic folks would be well justified in ignoring any issue raised.

Quetzi · March 31

Quetzi wrote: »

I am going to put on mod voice to make this very clear

If you have concerns with a candidate, please state them or ask them questions about those concerns directly

Don't just intimate that there might be concerns about some of the candidates, that doesn't help anyone and makes the thread more of a mess to wade through

I would also prefer it if, when someone else says something about a candidate that you disagree with, you don't turn it into a giant fight that we have to deal with, and instead let the person respond to the accuastion themself in due time

I'm going to reiterate this now, with particular emphasis on that last bit. Speaking your mind on candidates is good, back and forth sniping at each other for having spoken their mind? Not so much. If you can't abide by that, you will be removed from the thread.

P10 · March 31

weighing in on 'polarizing figures', i had no opinion on initiatefailure until yesterday, but this post in response to gereg telling zagrob that they hope they kill themselves is disqualifying to me.

initiatefailure wrote: »

baiting someone relentlessly in bad faith and them taking the bait isn't the same as being right. I thought we would have learned that after all these years but hey here we are.

gereg's post was obviously unacceptable and worthy of an immediate ban, and i am uncomfortable with the number of posts made after that characterized it as gereg being 'baited'. those posts felt like attempts to minimize and excuse gereg's bad behavior, and this reads as one of them to me.

Quetzi · March 31

Geth kick user shryke from the thread

Geth · March 31

Affirmative Quetzi. @shryke banned from this thread.

Quetzi · March 31

Geth kick user Bluedude152 from the thread

Geth · March 31

Affirmative Quetzi. @Bluedude152 banned from this thread.

Grislo · March 31

shryke wrote: »

Grislo wrote: »

Hachface wrote: »

The mere fact that you thought putting your name forward for consideration demonstrates that you are incapable of putting the harmony of the community over your own self-regard.

If a person causes this amount of agitation, for want of a better term, the idea that they would pursue this, if they in any way claim to want what is best for the community, is quite telling.

There is no one we need that desperately for the "board of directors" on a forum.

Lots of things can cause a lot of agitation. A huge amount of complaints is not a sign that anything is actually wrong.

That post is embarrassing, and you should know better.

The Lovely Kringle · March 31

The Lovely Bastard wrote: »

anyway, in the interest of clearing up any cobwebs, i do got a question for all the candidates:

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?

@tynic

@spono

@Tef

@amateurhour

@ElJeffe

@Fishman

@kime

@Kelor

@Solysp

@Disco11

@Inquisitor77

@Moridin889

@Infidel

@ahava

@Fencingsax

@DrZiplock

@Richy

@Raijin Quickfoot

@initiatefailure

Powerpuppies · March 31

Fiatil wrote: »

MechMantis wrote: »

Tef wrote: »

MechMantis wrote: »

Tef (and to a lesser extent "minor incident" ), considering the frightening demonstration of a complete failure of character judgement and vetting (over the objections of another Governance member), what actions will you take or commitments will you make to ensure that individuals with such similar utter contempt for an open, democratic, and transparent process (to the point that they actively encourage the suicide of other users for disagreeing with them) do not get anywhere near the levers of power at CoRe?

Further, you claim to want transparency, but there was no indication that Oghulk/Gereg was ever officially assigned to Governance, the last post from anyone involved in transition in the Coin Return Governance Decisions thread was with regards to zagdrob stepping down on February 9th, while further indicating that Chanus and zerzhul had been elevated.

What was the exact process by which Oghulk/Gereg appointed to Governance, and when, precisely, were you intending to inform the community as a whole of this change in the designated official channels for such information to be disseminated?

In light of this person being slipped in effectively under cover of darkness, and the amount of vitriol spewed in their official, professional capacity as a member of Governance, it behooves you, if you claim to want transparency and openness, to expose how this person ended up anywhere near CoRe's transition team.

Your recollection is wrong, or perhaps you missed it. Minor made an announcement in the governance sticky thread, here: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/46976324/#Comment_46976324

I'm not sure if you've ever been a hiring manager, or had to hire people into an organisation in a volunteer capacity, but expecting someone to know that someone is going to have a meltdown at some point, is ridiculous. We didn't believe conducting a psychometric profile on all potential hires would be scope, and I was not prepared to request the TT spend the thousands of dollars to do so from CoRe funds

I thank you for your clarification on where it was announced, I did in fact miss it initially and apologize for my errors there; they were unfounded.

I have been a hiring manager, and have made bad hires for one reason or another, and part of the aftermath of dealing with a bad hire is identifying flaws in your hiring process; how someone made it past your initial screenings such that you don't have a repeat. So I ask again: What, if any actions will you make to ensure that someone with such bare and open contempt does not get anywhere near the levers of power at CoRe?

Further, in this specific case, said individual had multiple bans for poor behavior, and routinely would insult large swathes of the community, but both you and minor incident have indicated that Oghulk/Gereg's professional experience was valuable and welcome. Did you, at that time of bringing him on board, feel that someone's professional life and experience is more important when deciding someone for a community role than their actions within that community? Do you still hold that view? If not, what changes would you make now?

It's worth mentioning that what happened with Oghulk/Gereg yesterday wasn't exactly new behavior for him. I was shocked when I saw he was on any of the TT stuff, as I could have predicted something like this entirely based on his prior posting history, and specifically his prior bannings. To hear that other people raised this same concern and were ignored is very puzzling because of how predictable it was.

He had his account purged so I don't think there's any way to get receipts here, but I know when he ate the (two week-ish) temp ban in D&D, it was very similar! He went as deep down the vitriol mine as you can yesterday, but the two week ban was one of those where he was like "I know I'm going to get banned/infracted for this but I'm so motivated to insult another poster that I don't care", and he procedeeded to directly tell someone to go fuck themselves.

It was 100% predictable -- all you had to do was know who he was, but a bunch of people who knew him closely ignored that and put him on a governmance committee. Apparently the ethics one? Either way, it's a ridiculous and predictable own-goal that puts your basic judgement into question. It seems like favoritism for someone "we like" won out over common sense and collaboration (you don't collaborate by including forum members who voluntarily eat bans to insult people, and then self-ban to get away from the whole thing because they hate seeing/interacting with large groups of other posters so much), at a time when everyone in the TT and adjacent to it was ringing the bell of collaboration and getting along.

Just to provide a counterpoint, I raised an eyebrow and maybe expressed reservations, but if so i expressed them very weakly such that i can't even remember for sure if i did it.

My take was "even an angry clown can do a good job writing a document or collaboratively writing a document, especially if that document will then be amended by me and others like me and especially if after that it has to be ratified by the community."

Knowing what i knew at the time i don't think i would decide differently if i had to decide again.

ChicoBlue · March 31

I think that "we shouldn't give someone who has a long history of upsetting people and perhaps hasn't shown the appropriate contrition or sign that it wont happen again a chance at input into governance" is perhaps something that is not as easily agreed to as many would think.

Or perhaps it is something that we should agree to now.

And perhaps give the candidate list a little scroll and look see

Infidel · March 31

Expendable wrote: »

Here is a list of questions I have, in no specific order. I may have followups based on your answers as I resisted the urge to list all possible followups in here. Trying to make thing a bit easier. I may also have other questions adding to this list later on.

1) What specific concerns do you have (with the KDs, Core Values, transition in general, for non-exclusive example) as we open CoRe up and what specific steps will you be taking to address them?

2) Things are likely to be busy and chaotic for a while, what do you feel like your first 3 months after taking office should entail? Knowing that time is fickle with plans, what would be your outline for the rest of the year after that?

3) How have you contributed to the transition process? Whether this is being on the TT or involved in a committee helping draft or participating in public discussions or any other measure you took to participate. Would you do anything differently if given the chance?

4) How will you square posting as a Board Member versus posting a member just maeking post? Do you have any concerns about potentially being baited into misconduct or something actionable?

5) Do you see CoRe having a route of growth or is it just running out the clock? What does CoRe have working in it's favor for growing and what is working against it and what, if any, actions will you take to address these challenges?

6) There are times I have attempted to raise concerns in PA, even in the last 24 hours and also inside this very thread, and have felt blown off. How do you reach out to members like me to actually make us feel heard and like we matter as members of a community rather than obstacles to be dealt with, and how would you extend that to Members who are far more jaded and feel that loudly public blowups are the only way to get noticed about legitimate concerns?

7) I hate that I have to ask something like this, but should the government of a State pass a law that binds The Coin Return Society in such a way that directly contravenes the core values as adopted what would you do?

Some pretty good ones here.

1) I think some things are not bad but overwrought, given the order of priorities in how things should be conducted based on what I currently know. We have a current interim board, we have a large bank account for a community club, and not a lot of experience that I see on how bylaws are critical because they're entirely the only way that club membership exists and how their intent can be enforced. Otherwise you just have a board of directors, legally it is whatever they say except for things spelled out in the corporate bylaws. I would expect to help review and formalize any deficiencies that may exist to make sure we're doing enough to protect ourselves legally, financially, and against potential bad actors in the board or executive that go against the principles agreed to by the membership and the intents therein.

2) See above, I think.

3) I have offered some of my technical services, as I have done in the past with Ramius and Icy and etc. I have the Tech Contributor badge on CoRe for teaching Gort how to roll dice, like I did for Geth. I also put together the PA Year over Year as a community building and fun exercise for all. I did not contribute too much to the public discussions in the forums, a lot of conversations were unfortunately derailed or not super high priority in my opinion and so I often just expressed my concerns and advice more privately.

4) My posting is way down since 2016, when I founded a startup in charitable fundraising. I lurk the forums and chat on several PA adjacent discords, which has eaten up a lot of my post activity, but I'm still here and consider PA a core part of who I am. Vast majority of my posts are playing Phalla, so no, I have zero concerns about being baited.

No one makes me post but me.

5) I don't have any grand designs, it would be something I would want to put together as a group, but I definitely am in the camp of "CoRe can grow, and should, and we should make efforts to do so." I think it would be in the community interests to even budget some of our funds towards marketing and awareness, with the right campaign, as the community we're trying to preserve is the best one I've been part of and we should be sharing that and growing that.

6) I think separation of board and moderation is a great way to have representation on how things are operating. If there's an issue with the executive or staff that isn't being addressed on their own, there's your elected board as hopefully representation above the executive. Having a standing method for feedback I'm sure is going to happen so that would hopefully address your engagement concern, as the rest is up to the board and so choose wisely.

7) It really depends on the exact situation, but I work in regulatory environments and have some experience with compliance without capitulation or compromising principles. I personally would expect to always fight to uphold the principles set forth by the community and that the board has a duty of care towards. I also think this is why we need to be prepared to face legal challenges, as capitulation being the only gameplan is risky business especially in the US right now.

I also am probably going to not be reading/responding for the next bit, as per #3 I am now assisting the TT with the voting security with some coding assistance.

Atomika · March 31

I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t offer a little pushback on the assertion this place has a history of “driving LGBT people away.”

Saying nothing of the experience of others and not at all seeking to invalidate it, I have not found this to be a consistent, concerted effort over my 20 years here at any point. In fact, much much more the opposite.

I would be dead in Dallas gutter if not for the overwhelmingly accepting attitudes of people here towards we queers.

xXx_bLunTmaSTeR_420x69? · March 31

Itd be nice to do a formal survey of how despised everyone is by each other rather than a squeaky wheel vibe check

localhjay · March 31

Fiatil wrote: »

MechMantis wrote: »

Tef wrote: »

MechMantis wrote: »

Tef (and to a lesser extent "minor incident" ), considering the frightening demonstration of a complete failure of character judgement and vetting (over the objections of another Governance member), what actions will you take or commitments will you make to ensure that individuals with such similar utter contempt for an open, democratic, and transparent process (to the point that they actively encourage the suicide of other users for disagreeing with them) do not get anywhere near the levers of power at CoRe?

Further, you claim to want transparency, but there was no indication that Oghulk/Gereg was ever officially assigned to Governance, the last post from anyone involved in transition in the Coin Return Governance Decisions thread was with regards to zagdrob stepping down on February 9th, while further indicating that Chanus and zerzhul had been elevated.

What was the exact process by which Oghulk/Gereg appointed to Governance, and when, precisely, were you intending to inform the community as a whole of this change in the designated official channels for such information to be disseminated?

In light of this person being slipped in effectively under cover of darkness, and the amount of vitriol spewed in their official, professional capacity as a member of Governance, it behooves you, if you claim to want transparency and openness, to expose how this person ended up anywhere near CoRe's transition team.

Your recollection is wrong, or perhaps you missed it. Minor made an announcement in the governance sticky thread, here: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/46976324/#Comment_46976324

I'm not sure if you've ever been a hiring manager, or had to hire people into an organisation in a volunteer capacity, but expecting someone to know that someone is going to have a meltdown at some point, is ridiculous. We didn't believe conducting a psychometric profile on all potential hires would be scope, and I was not prepared to request the TT spend the thousands of dollars to do so from CoRe funds

I thank you for your clarification on where it was announced, I did in fact miss it initially and apologize for my errors there; they were unfounded.

I have been a hiring manager, and have made bad hires for one reason or another, and part of the aftermath of dealing with a bad hire is identifying flaws in your hiring process; how someone made it past your initial screenings such that you don't have a repeat. So I ask again: What, if any actions will you make to ensure that someone with such bare and open contempt does not get anywhere near the levers of power at CoRe?

Further, in this specific case, said individual had multiple bans for poor behavior, and routinely would insult large swathes of the community, but both you and minor incident have indicated that Oghulk/Gereg's professional experience was valuable and welcome. Did you, at that time of bringing him on board, feel that someone's professional life and experience is more important when deciding someone for a community role than their actions within that community? Do you still hold that view? If not, what changes would you make now?

It's worth mentioning that what happened with Oghulk/Gereg yesterday wasn't exactly new behavior for him. I was shocked when I saw he was on any of the TT stuff, as I could have predicted something like this entirely based on his prior posting history, and specifically his prior bannings. To hear that other people raised this same concern and were ignored is very puzzling because of how predictable it was.

He had his account purged so I don't think there's any way to get receipts here, but I know when he ate the (two week-ish) temp ban in D&D, it was very similar! He went as deep down the vitriol mine as you can yesterday, but the two week ban was one of those where he was like "I know I'm going to get banned/infracted for this but I'm so motivated to insult another poster that I don't care", and he procedeeded to directly tell someone to go fuck themselves.

It was 100% predictable -- all you had to do was know who he was, but a bunch of people who knew him closely ignored that and put him on a governance committee. Apparently the ethics one? Either way, it's a ridiculous and predictable own-goal that puts your basic judgement into question. It seems like favoritism for someone "we like" won out over common sense and collaboration (you don't collaborate by including forum members who voluntarily eat bans to insult people, and then self-ban to get away from the whole thing because they hate seeing/interacting with large groups of other posters so much), at a time when everyone in the TT and adjacent to it was ringing the bell of collaboration and getting along.

On the other side of that coin, Jeffe got to come in here and lob a super inflammatory post that riled a ton of people up, people keep downplaying the OTHER things not related to the mod forums that Jeffe has done, and hasn't so much as gotten infracted. Much how you might say, Gereg was a known quantity, the other part of that known equation is the continued presence of people who do things like that. A lot of the worst offenders have gotten themselves banned in the last few months, but you cannot acknowledge that these types of huge blowups don't happen in a vacuum; people have years of history between each other, the tension isn't new it's old and well worn, and people have drawn lines in the sand. We can't keep allowing people to egg and bait folks into self immolation. It's been done to me, it's been done to a lot of well meaning members of the community, and it's happened to a LOT of marginalized folks

Death of Rats · March 31

@tynic

@spono

@Tef

@amateurhour

@ElJeffe

@Fishman

@Kelor

@Solysp

@Disco11

@Inquisitor77

@Moridin889

@Infidel

@ahava

@Fencingsax

@DrZiplock

@Richy

@Raijin Quickfoot

@initiatefailure

Death of Rats wrote: »

Question for everyone, there's been an effort over the last year or two to basically ban posting of Twitter embeds on the forums. What are your thoughts on this, are you for or against it? Please explain your reasoning.

Sorry, didn't batsignal the first time.

Undead Scottsman · March 31

Nirya wrote: »

Of the people up for election, tynic was the one who got my vote the easiest, though it almost feels mean to do this to her.

Raijin was similarly an easy vote, dude just gives all the time and it feels wrong to ask him to give some more but if he’s willing to do so I think we’re better off for it.

Most of my interactions with kime are from my phalla-playing days, and while that should be disqualifying given what kime is over there, I’ve always enjoyed my interactions with him and he seems like a solid choice.

Solysp (sorry you’ll still be Kayne to me) has always seemed like a good choice, and while most of my other votes are up in the air, he’s near the top of that list. Richy and Tef, based on their answers here, are similarly high up. Fishman as well, but I assume he’s sleeping right now so I’ll give him time.

He'll always be "Wait, it's not Kanye?" to me.

Sorry man.

The Zombie Penguin · March 31

Atomika wrote: »

I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t offer a little pushback on the assertion this place has a history of “driving LGBT people away.”

Saying nothing of the experience of others and not at all seeking to invalidate it, I have not found this to be a consistent, concerted effort over my 20 years here at any point. In fact, much much more the opposite.

I would be dead in Dallas gutter if not for the overwhelmingly accepting attitudes of people here towards we queers.

Again, I'm asking that board members only reply to my post please. These are contentious topics, they have been litigated to hell and back elsewhere.

Undead Scottsman · March 31

Also, reminder that you can vote for more than five people, in case there are more people you'd be fine having on the board if your preferred candidate doesn't get enough votes. (I think, I should probably double check the rules)

Nirya · March 31

Undead Scottsman wrote: »

Nirya wrote: »

Of the people up for election, tynic was the one who got my vote the easiest, though it almost feels mean to do this to her.

Raijin was similarly an easy vote, dude just gives all the time and it feels wrong to ask him to give some more but if he’s willing to do so I think we’re better off for it.

Most of my interactions with kime are from my phalla-playing days, and while that should be disqualifying given what kime is over there, I’ve always enjoyed my interactions with him and he seems like a solid choice.

Solysp (sorry you’ll still be Kayne to me) has always seemed like a good choice, and while most of my other votes are up in the air, he’s near the top of that list. Richy and Tef, based on their answers here, are similarly high up. Fishman as well, but I assume he’s sleeping right now so I’ll give him time.

He'll always be "Wait, it's not Kanye" to me?

Sorry man.

I, quite literally, scrolled to make sure it was Kayne and not Kanye.

Maybe that name change was for the best.

Chanus · March 31

Undead Scottsman wrote: »

Also, reminder that you can vote for more than five people, in case there are more people you'd be fine having on the board if your preferred candidate doesn't get enough votes. (I think, I should probably double check the rules)

you should vote for at least five

your order is your ranking of preference. 1 has the most weight, 19 the least

you do not have to vote for all 19

Powerpuppies · March 31

Undead Scottsman wrote: »

Also, reminder that you can vote for more than five people, in case there are more people you'd be fine having on the board if your preferred candidate doesn't get enough votes. (I think, I should probably double check the rules)

Hmmm, I thought this was wrong but I think I can prove you're right. If we have 700 votes, 5 spots, and 19 people, then you need 141 first choice votes to get in. So if everybody votes 100 first choice votes for the first six candidates, and nobody but you votes for the final 5 candidates, and you vote for those candidates with your first 5 votes, and nobody has more than 100 votes, i think your preferred candidates would be eliminated in the first 5 rounds and nothing else would change. So it could matter, at least in contrived degenerate cases, to stack-rank at least 14 candidates in your vote.

My instinct is still that in practice it's unlikely you vote for 5 people and all 5 of them are eliminated before 5 candidates cross the 141 vote threshold.

rhylith · March 31

I just want to point out that @spono is cool because not enough people have mentioned that

Atomika · March 31

The Zombie Penguin wrote: »

Atomika wrote: »

I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t offer a little pushback on the assertion this place has a history of “driving LGBT people away.”

Saying nothing of the experience of others and not at all seeking to invalidate it, I have not found this to be a consistent, concerted effort over my 20 years here at any point. In fact, much much more the opposite.

I would be dead in Dallas gutter if not for the overwhelmingly accepting attitudes of people here towards we queers.

Again, I'm asking that board members only reply to my post please. These are contentious topics, they have been litigated to hell and back elsewhere.

I don’t disagree and I think it’s a reasonable question to ask, but your phrasing parses it as to be an empirical fact that both this place is unwelcoming to LGBT folks and our leadership has made concerted efforts to marginalize members based on their being queer, and asks the candidates to accept it as such before the answering of your question.

Maybe just change the verbiage to something less demanding of accepting a subjective viewpoint.

minor incident · March 31

Bowen wrote: »

minor incident wrote: »

Tef wrote: »

PantsB wrote: »

Tef In the major thread yesterday, Gereg was banned for among other things telling a former member of the Governance Board to kill themselves. My understanding is he was an alt for a poster who requested a self-ban and deletion a few months ago while temp banned.

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?

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.

To add to this slightly — and ONLY because I have some semi-impartial insight (not to endorse or defend Tef) I want to be clear that I recruited gereg to the committee based on the volunteer list we had cultivated months earlier in the planning forum, seeing his skill set list and finding that his IRL professional experience lined up with this sort of policy writing.

And yes, absolutely no one had anything but firm support for the banning after yesterday’s blowup.

I think some more transparency of what all the committees/teams were, who was on them, why they were on them, and what they were working on might have helped with all this stuff immensely. I don't really remember seeing much about it, maybe I missed the post/thread? Was there a sticky?

committee members have typically been announced/disclosed on any posts involving them, just FYI. I'd also made a couple of specific posts about significant personnel changes in committees. Unfortunately it's very easy to miss a lot of the times due to the nature of the forums. When things are finished and steady at CoRe, I very much plan to have a permanent pinned "staff roll call" post that reflects current board members, mods, EOs, etc that everyone can reference.

Solar · March 31

ElJeffe wrote: »

Expendable wrote: »

@ElJeffe
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.

Expendable wrote: »

I was very much under the impression that retired mod user status did not have access to Reports but merely the mod social forum where things were discussed like kids and stuff. I felt that was unnecessary to maintain and could be done outside of official forum means but nobody asked me.

I was also under the impression that when that retired status was revoked and a retired mod was displayed as a regular user just like me that they had permissions and access that were exactly like my own.

Finding out that not only was this not so but the access was used is quite troubling to me. I definitely feel like I was mislead and lied to deliberately. I do agree that such a deception and misuse of access should be public knowledge, triply so if said misuser of access is pursuing a position of power and authority.

Unless there is some sort of forthright apology that details the wrongdoing and to my satisfaction demonstrates a willingness to learn and apply lessons to prevent such lapse of judgement from happening again I definitely won't be voting for that person. So thanks for finally bringing the issue to my attention as should have been done in the past, but at least it's public knowledge now.

Expendable wrote: »

This does not seem to address the issue I had earlier which is that you retained mod privileges while sporting a normal user icon after having a retired mod badge. And during that time you were openly presenting to us as being a normal user you participated in reports.

I have thought about it a fair bit the past few hours and I cannot come up with any explanation that doesn't involve a knowing amount of willful deception. Why should I vote for you to have a position of authority if I can't trust you to present yourself to the community in an honest way? How can I trust that you won't try to retain or copy access to sensitive data and keep it after some period of time when you no longer rightfully have that authority?

I've noticed when I raise concerns like this they tend to be ignored, and if specifically called out "the pace of the thread" or something similar is blamed. That's either a dramatic inattention to detail and should be disqualifying for the position you seek, or ignoring an inconvenient truth.

You're actively soliciting my vote. Why do you deserve it? How do I know this is isn't going to happen again?

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.

@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.

The reason that you are sucking up a huge amount of space in the thread is because you put your hat into the ring to mod, and for a lot of people the most appealing part of the new forums is that you actually won't be a mod there (for real this time, not the thing where you hang out in the mod forum and post in it and then tell everyone you don't, even though we all absolutely know you do)

So not only were you a bad mod but you also lied directly to everyone about it. I mean they can make you a mod if that's what happens but also a good portion of people will either 1) leave or 2) just kind of detest you

You should withdraw your application. It's actually kind of insane you even put your name forward.

Kadith · March 31

@tynic

@spono

@amateurhour

@ElJeffe

@Fishman

@Kelor

@Solysp

@Disco11

@Inquisitor77

@Moridin889

@Infidel

@ahava

@Fencingsax

@DrZiplock

@Richy

@Raijin Quickfoot

@initiatefailure

Kadith wrote: »

Question for all candidates:

What are you most excited for about moving to a community lead model vs what we have had in the recent past?

Added batsignals as is the fashion

localhjay · March 31

Generative AI is not bad in and of itself. It's not some fundamentally immoral thing. I hate the term "AI" btw but that ship has sailed. But "AI" art is not some soulless abomination. It could be a cool tool for folks to use to express themselves and do interesting things that they couldn't do otherwise.

Oh brother

Bowen · March 31

minor incident wrote: »

Bowen wrote: »

minor incident wrote: »

Tef wrote: »

PantsB wrote: »

Tef In the major thread yesterday, Gereg was banned for among other things telling a former member of the Governance Board to kill themselves. My understanding is he was an alt for a poster who requested a self-ban and deletion a few months ago while temp banned.

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?

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.

To add to this slightly — and ONLY because I have some semi-impartial insight (not to endorse or defend Tef) I want to be clear that I recruited gereg to the committee based on the volunteer list we had cultivated months earlier in the planning forum, seeing his skill set list and finding that his IRL professional experience lined up with this sort of policy writing.

And yes, absolutely no one had anything but firm support for the banning after yesterday’s blowup.

I think some more transparency of what all the committees/teams were, who was on them, why they were on them, and what they were working on might have helped with all this stuff immensely. I don't really remember seeing much about it, maybe I missed the post/thread? Was there a sticky?

committee members have typically been announced/disclosed on any posts involving them, just FYI. I'd also made a couple of specific posts about significant personnel changes in committees. Unfortunately it's very easy to miss a lot of the times due to the nature of the forums. When things are finished and steady at CoRe, I very much plan to have a permanent pinned "staff roll call" post that reflects current board members, mods, EOs, etc that everyone can reference.

that'll be awesome thanks MI

The Zombie Penguin · March 31

Atomika wrote: »

The Zombie Penguin wrote: »

Atomika wrote: »

I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t offer a little pushback on the assertion this place has a history of “driving LGBT people away.”

Saying nothing of the experience of others and not at all seeking to invalidate it, I have not found this to be a consistent, concerted effort over my 20 years here at any point. In fact, much much more the opposite.

I would be dead in Dallas gutter if not for the overwhelmingly accepting attitudes of people here towards we queers.

Again, I'm asking that board members only reply to my post please. These are contentious topics, they have been litigated to hell and back elsewhere.

I don’t disagree and I think it’s a reasonable question to ask, but your phrasing parses it as to be an empirical fact that both this place is unwelcoming to LGBT folks and our leadership has made concerted efforts to marginalize members based on their being queer, and asks the candidates to accept it as such before the answering of your question.

Maybe just change the verbiage to something less demanding of accepting a subjective viewpoint.

I'm really not interested in litigating this. I've asked the question, I'd like board members to answer it.

ChicoBlue · March 31

*scratches chin*

*nods*

*shuffles a name down some rungs*

Dabble · March 31

localhjay wrote: »

Generative AI is not bad in and of itself. It's not some fundamentally immoral thing. I hate the term "AI" btw but that ship has sailed. But "AI" art is not some soulless abomination. It could be a cool tool for folks to use to express themselves and do interesting things that they couldn't do otherwise.

Oh brother

Ya know, while I vehemently disagree, I'm glad they at least answered honestly.

PantsB · March 31

In case humility causes him to not toot his own horn, Infidel deserves a lot of credit for jumping on the elections issue and modifying an existing framework to try to help out the TT getting this going.

HerrCron · March 31

Powerpuppies wrote: »

Undead Scottsman wrote: »

Also, reminder that you can vote for more than five people, in case there are more people you'd be fine having on the board if your preferred candidate doesn't get enough votes. (I think, I should probably double check the rules)

Hmmm, I thought this was wrong but I think I can prove you're right. If we have 700 votes, 5 spots, and 19 people, then you need 141 first choice votes to get in. So if everybody votes 100 first choice votes for the first six candidates, and nobody but you votes for the final 5 candidates, and you vote for those candidates with your first 5 votes, and nobody has more than 100 votes, i think your preferred candidates would be eliminated in the first 5 rounds and nothing else would change. So it could matter, at least in contrived degenerate cases, to stack-rank at least 14 candidates in your vote.

My instinct is still that in practice it's unlikely you vote for 5 people and all 5 of them are eliminated before 5 candidates cross the 141 vote threshold.

Depends if we're using Hare or Droop to establish the quota, if it's Droop, then formula ought to be (700/Number_of_Spots +1) + 1 which would be 117 votes.
But that's really a minor thing and doesn't change the overall thrust of your post.

I would be of the opinion that people should rank as many candidates as they feel comfortable in giving the nod to, and five is a minimum rather than a limit. If nothing else it's making sure your influence on the election is at its greatest.

I'd also say if you think someone really shouldn't be there, you should rank the last rather than not at all, but that's a matter of personal preference, in so far as I can see.

Gnizmo · March 31

kime wrote: »

The Zombie Penguin wrote: »

Some general questions for the board candidates, on what have been some serious firecracker topics.

-your feelings on generative ai, and protection of artists.
-your feelings on the Palestinian genocide.
-your feelings on support of minority & LGBT posters, given the PA forums history of driving such people away
-your feelings on people playing politeness politics while antagonizing other users
-your feelings on pizza toppings

To be clear, this is explicitly aimed at the Board candidates here. I know these are contentious topics, I'd rather folks who aren't in the running for the board refrain from debating or answering them. (Please, things are on fire enough for the mods already)

Fun! I'll respond even though ignoring these is probably better for votes

Generative AI is not bad in and of itself. It's not some fundamentally immoral thing. I hate the term "AI" btw but that ship has sailed. But "AI" art is not some soulless abomination. It could be a cool tool for folks to use to express themselves and do interesting things that they couldn't do otherwise.

Pretty much all the current big models are Bad and Unethical. Training on data without getting permission is a Bad Thing. It's really not significantly different in idea to how human artists can train and practice and research. But the scope and scale of it and then how it is then packaged as a corporate bundle for $$$$ is Bad.

What is happening in Palestine is genocide. The Israeli government is Bad for doing this, and not just for what's happened the past half-year or so. Sending weapons to help Israel do this is Bad. My personal belief is that some folks here put the blame too much on the US and the US government and often just Dems, but I think we all agree this is a horrible situation that should not be happening.

Jewish people around the world or such should not take the blame for this, which is not a common thing here but sometimes comments get a little too close to that for my comfort. Or, well, they did, I'll admit I have not kept up with that conversation here, I found it did not help my mental health and didn't seem to be getting anywhere.

I don't believe that the forums have a history of driving minority and LGBT posters away in the way that I think you are insinuating, sorry. Have some left? Yes. Have other people that are not LGBT left? Yes. Have other LGBT folks stayed on the forums? Yes. My guess based on my vague recollection of your previous posts is that we won't really agree on this one, as I suspect you are going to blame like, D&D and Jeffe and such as directly driving away LGBT folks via targeted bigotry? And I also see folks that have left due to feeling pushed away from the opposite side, so I think it's not quite as black-and-white as some folks like to imply. However! Feel free to elaborate if you'd like

But! Protecting the safety of minority posters is very important to me. It's one of the best things about PA, historically, when you compare it to other places on the Internet that are a lot worse. The forums aren't as safe as they have been in the past (I've mentioned that a few times), but they can be and they should be. I've chatted with Minor Incident and others about some of the transition stuff here that I felt wasn't inclusive enough to really help make sure we were going to be welcoming to minorities, to try and get things changed for the better (and for the most part, I think they have!).

re: "politeness" this is another thing that I think we'll disagree on, but maybe not! I prefer a polite conversation. I don't think that you (generic "you") care more about something because you are louder and more visibly angry about it. I don't think that being polite to our fellow forumers is something we should abandon. Being nice helps others feel safe and welcome. Being loud and angry stifles conversation. Just because something Bad is happening does not give you an excuse to be rude to your fellow community members. Just because something Bad is happening and I don't seem angry enough does not mean that I don't care about it just as deeply as you do.

That said. Using politeness as a shield to antagonize others is Not Okay. Moderators shouldn't be like, "well he said please and thank you, so that's not really worth an infraction." If you're breaking the rules, you should expect moderator action. If you're breaking the rules while typing in ALL CAPS you should expect it, if you're breaking the rules while typing "calmly" and academically you should expect it.

Do you have any specific concerns about the new CoRe rules that you think folks will try to get around by being polite?

I am a picky eater. Sorry not sorry. Yes, more picky than you, person who is about to chime in and say "oh I'm also picky!" So for pizza, I just do plain cheese. Also, for those of you organizing parties/get-togethers with pizza, order more cheese. You know what happens? Everyone goes up to get pizza, and they get a slice of pepperoni. Or sausage. Or whatever. And then also a slice of cheese because hey everyone likes cheese pizza. And then you know which pizza disappears first!? Cheese! And then you know how much it sucks to be the kid who only likes cheese pizza!?!?!?!?!?!?

*cough*. Sorry. Childhood trauma coming out a bit there.

Your response to the struggles of the queer community really rankle me. Perhaps you are not aware of the history, but I can assure you it has happened. It has been very much a user problem combined with, imo, insufficient moderation coverage to actually address the issues. D&D was banned from having a thread on it for years and I was thrilled it happened. That should say something about how bad that was. SE++ threads were intermittent at best in part because of the hostility towards the queer community. It has even come up in G&T in passing, but that is usually more transitory at least.

This forum has always had lofty ideals towards the topic, but has often failed to live up to them. I hope we can do better in the new space. I don't think the place has ever meant it, but it has been there. And I definitely do not like seeing that dismissed as grudges against specific portions of the forum.

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