On moderation and extent

[Callan S.]

I was going to type this awhile ago, but thought nah, it'll smooth over so it'll be fine.

The thing is, by my measure the only reason moderation on any forum is to be listened to to any extent is that the own the property. It's like their house. So they can say your not invited, or your only invited if you do X and Y. And after all, if I don't respect that to some extent, to what extent will my property be respected?

Okay, the problem is when someone says something like "Hey, if you don't practice vegetarianism your a bad person, and get out of my house! (or get out of a certain room, whatever)"

The problem is A: Given that you trusted the person with your open ear and actually thinking about what they say, to hear this yet have no responce is to have that trust abused and B: But if you go and argue, well then your not leaving the house, so your not respecting the property line. Your kind of fucked either way.

I don't know what self judgement other visitors here give up and over when they decide to post. But all I give is that this is someone elses property. That's it.

Try and tack on a personal evaluation and yet at the same time not make that a two way street? Why the fuck would I care about your evaluation if you wont also listen - oh right, because I originally trusted that this would actually be back and forth, but here I've had the ball suddenly thrown at me yet the other person then leaves the building, leaving me with it. Wait, no, they make me leave the building. It's simply cheating at personal interaction.

Can't be in a certain room of the property? Just that, by itself? Of course and fair enough.

But that's my, I dunno, paradigm?
Moving on to technicals

And this is the big thing: there is no reason on this earth to keep giving Devon the message that he did a bad thing by playtesting the game.

Ron, I'm not really interested in bringing up some global standard of 'bad', particularly one not grounded in a physical metric.

But this is just you consulting your own value system and then saying there's no reason on earth?

I mean, from the guy who wrote about brain damage - alot of people would say you have no reason on earth to say white wolf games story emphasis has any sort of mental affect on anyone. And they'd be just as certain as you are now.

Do I appear to be just talking some floaty, up in the air spiritual issue, while you were talking practical issues?

Your analogies with peanuts and tits and all the rest of it are simple and straightforward personal insults toward hm in this context, and I'm stomping it down now.

I don't get this. Even if it is actually physically the case, it's still an insult? Perhaps like mentioning a ladies exact age is an insult or faux pas, even if it is her actual age?

Ron, really your shooting me down for apparently having done something when your actually doing that same thing to me right now.

"Callan, stay out of this thread now." - a little blunt, but that'd work. No need for someone to have to be outlined a bad guy to some extent, to leave the thread.

If you must try and teach me my errors - you wouldn't want me taking up the teacher position with you and you the silent student who only listens. Nor do I. I think were peers in this.

[Willow]

As author of the game in question...

The stated purpose of the Forge is to help one another design and develop games, correct?  Thus, posts pertaining to the designing, development, and playtesting of games, is within the parameters of that goal.  Posts disparaging a design, suggesting it not be designed, not be playtested, or not developed, are counter to that goal.

Yes Callan, the existence and play of Secret Lives/Sunset Boulevard is morally questionable.  That questionableness is what makes it fascinating to me, and I suspect others.

[Callan S.]

Hi Willow,

So you'd be surprised the thread for my new game was closed? Because while you satire, I just engage in sophomoric hysteria. Because when the forge is ostensibly about 'games', perhaps it's actually about particular, given the go ahead games?

I wonder how you can actually satirise current roleplay culture (and I don't mean 'satire' which is really a love letter (ala the producers)) without it supposedly being sphomoric hysteria? Or perhaps my game, which is playable, fits the category of satire fine and what's showing here is thin skin? If the satire bites too deep, the satirised shrug it off as the sophomoric? I'm sure there would be some in the military who'd treat my diary of a skull soldier as hysteria or whatever. But since the military aren't part of our tribe, they're up for grabs. But we never turn reflection onto ourselves. Only others?

My games playable - actually more playable, more game to it, more problematic situation to it, than much of my own roleplay history, strangely enough.

How does that fit in terms of what your saying about 'the Forge is to help one another design and develop games'? Does it actually mean some games, but not other ones? If so, why not your game any more than mine?

I'd like to see someone else write a game that satirises current roleplay culture without it apparently being sophomoric hysteria, but also not just a roundabout pat on the back. I don't think I've seen any, ever. That's pretty surprising if you think about it, really. I mean, were ripe. Anyway, they write it and I'll take up those methods - whatever works to get a satire off the ground.

The stated purpose of the Forge is to help one another design and develop games, correct?  Thus, posts pertaining to the designing, development, and playtesting of games, is within the parameters of that goal.  Posts disparaging a design, suggesting it not be designed, not be playtested, or not developed, are counter to that goal.

That goal is basically saying "We cannot be wrong in what we do". As nothing is ever wrong, there should be nothing that should not be further designer or distributed - anything that has the word 'game' stamped on it is always right.

And the thing is, I'm not even arguing someone can't say that as how they do things - indeed, if it is the case I'm actually encourging it's explicit statement.

[Callan S.]

Ron,

This is Fang Langford all over again, trying for attention, offense, and above-it-all detachment at the same time when he couldn't get his way.

Callan's rationally stated position may be found in Site Discussion. Discuss it there if you want to. This thread, which I judge to be a fit of sophomoric hysteria

This is attacking the man, rather than attacking the argument. It is way too easy to do and polarising. If you don't see an argument as existing in the link I provided, you don't need to attack me over it, just say no argument exists that you can see.

[Ron Edwards]

After these recent absurd posts of yours here, which confound events in a game with physical events such as groping and gassing people, you have a lot of nerve playing Mr. Rational now. That's a common bogus trick in internet pissing matches.

This is not a pissing match. As moderator here, I am judging you, socially and intellectually, here and now. I have concluded that you are being a baby, and also a troll. If you want to be taken seriously here and not see your further posts, regardless of content, tanked into the Inactive File, then do not play the victim further.

That goes for everyone. This is the winter of the Forge and we have work to do. I have no intention of tolerating internet ego bullshit here, as I see and judge it, myself.

Callan, regarding the initial issue which flipped your lid, I have presented my case - much of it agreeing with your concerns - and am done engaging with these posts. The reader can judge, as always.

Best, Ron

[Callan S.]

Ron, I think, given my previous concern of moderation cheating the social interaction, that I wasn't just told what I am then the thread is closed (atleast how I'm reading it it wasn't), I think that that didn't happen here shows a greater co-operation beyond the scope of the disagreement, which I appreciate (I hope that isn't read in some patronising way - I do appreciate it). And to be sure, I'm judging as much - you own the property but after that were peers. And as such both our judgements might be absolutely worthless. It's not impossible (and yeah, of course I feel mine will be the special one that wont be wrong in saying that - I'm an average person that way).

Tanked into the inactive file means they go without any indicator as to where to read them or that they ever existed to begin with, even if it's on another subject?

[Ron Edwards]

I appreciate that post, Callan.

My current thinking is that when anyone is misbehaving, in my judgment as moderator, that they cannot play good-guy in some other thread while causing hassles in the troubled one. So let's say Bob is crapping up a thread or two and doing some kind of classic internet nonsense ("Well, sir, you can go ahead and ban me", et cetera), and I moderate it. While Bob is being all sorts of defiant about it, he's simultaneously posting in two other threads with all sorts of please-and-thank-you. It's effectively trying to play the class against the teacher, at least in Bob's mind. So my take at present is to say, if I'm sufficiently forced to moderate Bob's response to moderation, then all his posts go into the Inactive File until I start seeing acceptable behavior in all of them.

Fortunately you are not Bob, and the overwhelming majority of moderation moments aren't anything like that, being one-post over-and-done, but I figured it's time to make that moderation policy clear.

Best, Ron

[Callan S.]

A gap from me since the last post, but: I think in terms of the small amount of net space I moderate, I do not really know if someone is misbehaving or not. For myself I cannot base moderation on the idea of 'if they are misbehaving, then...', because that would be treating it as a definately known quantity. I only base it on my guesstimate of whether they are misbehaving or not. This sometimes means I would actually end up being the badguy - having guessed they are missbehaving, when they are not, and yet having physically moderated their posting. Anyway, for myself I find any moderation policy based on really knowing if they are missbehaving is a policy impossible to adopt.

I think if you haven't already, Ron, it'd be worth reading through secret lies of roleplayers. It ended up fairly tame and conventional in the end, anyway. Though no doubt with bad grammer strewn all through it, granted!