Andy Brown's page

they didn't want the armed vs unarmed debate to influence the data too much.

Not sure that worked, given all the "what about unarmed?" comments

I wonder why is it still called a draft when it is the final version?

Probably because of that thing about updating the copyright registration number

Don't expect an AI GM to need to be too strict. I'm currently in preproduction on a game that will have a very flexible ability to run modules. The flexibility achievable just by me alone is high. I can't imagine what a big studio could achieve if they actually tried. BTW, if you want to see such a game made faster and better, I'm always looking for help.

I played a scenario once where we concentrated so hard on one little detail from the briefing that we got to 4 hours without even hitting the first scripted encounter, with the GM making stuff up on the fly and the players enjoying themselves immensely.

I just love how queer the RPG community is and it felt nice to know that I wasn't alone.

*waves* from Mastodon

actually, I suppose Disney would have incentive to sue Hasbro into tiny tiny pieces regardless of the actual issue at hand, so who knows.

At which point Hasbro say to Disney "here's a royalty free licence for you to keep selling your stuff", which Disney accept while Hasbro go after everybody else.

Totally dumb, half-asleep thought:
Wasn't there a big thing a while back about Hollywood stars playing D&D?
How could that be turned into "do you really want to be connected with this?"

Presumably the new Announcements channel will only allow staff to start threads, replacing two forums where non-staff can start threads, and therefore pushing some recent discussions to the off-topic forum where they can be more easily ignored by Paizo?

Someone did suggest "Suspended until X" for temporary ones, but I'd assume the notice would go away once the suspension ended.

That was later, I'm not going to use it as an escape clause

Maybe something like removing the original posts but letting replies that don't violate ToS stay up with the banned tag on the OP being referenced ?

Problem there is that, as far as I can tell, quoting is purely a textual thing with no actual reference back to the quoted user, so adding the tag to each quote would be a manual job

I think calling Andy a chud is extremely uncalled for, but I also think the comparison was enormously inappropriate to the point of being disrespectful.

Thanks for that. I'll hold my hand up and say I could have worded my disagreement in a less inflammatory way. I'm not convinced it would have stopped the pile-on for disagreeing though.

Every single website I've ever been to labels posters who've been banned.

And places I've been have deleted the account. Different experiences, or maybe a generational change.

How could a simple "banned" marker possibly lead to toxicity towards an unpleasant poster?

I've been around long enough to see choice of font lead to toxicity...

Deleting the account isn't just technically difficult and legally dubious--it has an unpleasant side effect of sweeping things under the rug.

I'll give you that as a side effect, but it's about the same as deleting offensive posts when it comes to sweeping stuff under the rug.

More seriously, it also means the mods have to delete every single post from that user. Imagine if you got banned, and the mods had to delete every single post you'd ever made, and modify every thread you'd ever posted in to ensure it remained legible. Logistically, the labor alone makes it infeasible.

Deleting all of a user's posts should be one simple database command (alternatively it ought to be possible to use a simple command to change the text of the posts to indicate the user has been banned). Again I'm assuming stuff about the website backend which may not be true.

I also wouldn't put it past some people to try to get a temp ban just to pick up the marker as a badge to show how clever they are

Man, it sure seemed like I was getting through, but I guess not.

They probably can't hear you over the whistling

When someone points me in the direction of something inappropriate and inflammatory, I believe them.

The problem here is that the really inappropriate stuff (and the people posting it) was removed a while back (before your first post on the boards), so it's a bit difficult to show it to you. Which is convenient for your decision to ignore the people who have been targeted by it

I definitely think "offensive/insulting" should come back

Also, "being trans" can be a choice in certain respects, for certain people

I'm going to disagree there; being open about it is a choice, as is burying it so far deep inside that nobody else ever knows, but being trans is just how you are

you were simply contributing to the thread and you got bullied

That's a very delicate definition of bullying.

Andy Brown wrote:

NECR0G1ANT wrote:

The Additional Resources page has the following:

Quote:

Only the 2nd printing of this book or the 1st printing augmented by the current errata (released 7/21/11) are legal for play in Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

Everything in this book is legal for play with the following exceptions: … slaves are not legal for play.

So owning slaves in society was banned sometime between July 2011 and April 2019, and a less recent AR file would pull that second date forward.

earliest AR I can access right now (might have an older one somewhere) is July 16, and it has the same text

Do you mean July 2016? That predates the 9-00, the scenario the freelances took issue with.

I did. And I've now been back through stuff on my PC (rather than tablet), and the June 2016 AR is where the text was added, as follows

As of June 10, 2016, slaves are no longer available for purchase.

I still don't think I can personally tell a bigot that they are a bigot -- that's my personal hangup. I am more likely to post on a terrible post: "Flagged. Hate has no home here."

That's possibly because you're nicer than some of us (me, for instance). :)

Everybody needs to find a level of response that they're comfortable with, and a simple response like that is better than no response if you want to show visible support.

You've been one of the clearest voices calling for *sensible* responses, and trying to keep the forums welcoming, while also being a lot nicer than many when somebody suggests you're not as blunt as the rest of us. (which brings me back to my first point about niceness :))

One of my favorite erotica typoes: swapping "stroked" and "storked".

And the sort of thing that's really hard to spot in your own writing.

Some people see bold as shouting, some people see ot as emphasis, or grammar, depending on how your internet patois developed.

And when. Some of us started before all this fancy formatting stuff; I still use * and / for bold and italic emphasis.

I generally think it's best not to assume people are shouting if you see bold, it could be lots of things. The internet is a hodge podge of micro cultural pidgins.

Yeah, this.

I'm unable to view birdsite due to PTSD. What's going on?

Very, very, brief summary is that customer service and community management are very different skill sets, with CS focussing on solving problems for individual customers, and CM focussing on building the whole community in a positive way and also needing to learn how to spot the bad actors.

[ninja'd again]

Sometimes you're not trying to convince the troll, and you're not really even posting for the troll to see it; sometimes you're posting so anybody else watching sees it, to show that what's been posted isn't acceptable, and to show support for the (other) targets of the trolling.

You'll almost never convince the troll to change their mind, but sometimes you'll convince a lurker to change theirs.

You may be on the other side of the world but Heather and Raychel and Logan are on west coast USA time, locking threads that got a substantial amount of flags until they could get back in the next work day to clear them out was the norm, everything running rampant after the firing of Sara Marie and Diego quitting was the exception.

Funny how that worked out.

And as an action taken where necessary to stop things getting worse, it's fine.

Closing the forum "for the night" is everything BUT inclusive, considering that most of the world is in completely different time zones. Except for violence, it's hard to imagine more discriminatory action than making some people unable to discuss meaningful topic.

Full agreement with this.

it will also be quite useful after the collapse of civilisation :)

I am troubled by the concept of calling other forumites bigots. I can see calling out their actions or posts as bigoted, but...

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I don't see the problem with calling it a water fowl.

And hey, you're correct that I may be coming from a privileged enough background where I can see something nasty and just flag it and move on.

And I may be a bit on edge because my national broadcasting company has just platformed a transphobe who then went on to call for all trans women to be lynched (and named some specific people who should be first).

And I'm concentrating on transphobia here, because that's what we're currently seeing more of, rather than most other bigotry

It's a shame that nothing the Leads can do to appease the passionate few. Good try though.

I however have faith in the future and believe people make mistakes and can change. If I didn't have that belief it would be a sad world where people aren't allowed to make mistakes and learn from their pasts. The world would not have a chance to become better.

We'd very much like them to show that they've learned *this time*.

this is about the 3rd time we've been through this sort of thing since PF1 was released

Rysky wrote:

If someone makes a bigoted post and you [general] like it, it’s not anyone other you and that person making a “undesirable”.

We’re not asking for a wall of shame, we’re pointing out how people have patterns of behavior and it shouldn’t take that person making multiple actual bigoted posts and/or threats before they’re finally, eventually, maybe banned.

I think you're misunderstanding the scenario in question; it's the opposite that's being proposed.

I make a post, someone "undesirable" likes it, suddenly I'm implicated, basically.

When did it change to that from "does it mean anything if somebody clicks favorite on a bigoted post?", because that's where it started

I really wish this forum did emojis (some survive posting, some don't)
Toni sends a very quick message consisting of the poop emoji and a down arrrow

Then she starts racking her brains trying to remember where she's seen the woman
knowledge(local): 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (11) + 5 = 16

Every trans person ever possess a bottomless capacity for sarcasm. It's truly quite disturbing.

Fairly sure that last word should be 'amazing' :)

I made my post mostly for the poor overworked mods to be aware there are many reasons people don't join the community

And if they're not joining because they're going to get banned for being transphobic, that's a win.

I'm not sure which post you're referring to, because there have been more than one, but in several cases the only thing in the post being liked was a transphobic comment.

And this whole thing is mostly brought up by the person who you're attempting to defend, in an attempt to deflect various threads, and play the victim.
DARVO

Heh. Double-ninja'd

Is Paizo planning their own Transgender Awareness Week news post, I wonder? :Ic

I don't think my irony meter would survive

Another idea would be for flags to be public.

Unfortunately, that sort of thing can also be used as a weapon

"Block user" functionality is a great way of protecting your own mental health. The problem with it is that sometimes the user continues to post stuff that new users will see and think "it's OK to post that sort of thing here", which can turn the whole forum into an unsafe space.

Personal block functions are useful as part of a moderation system that works to remove the bad actors.
I've often thought there should be some sort of threshold on those systems that flags a user with a lot of blocks against them for the moderators to check why (no idea if it's ever been implemented that way). It couldn't be an automated ban, because that just opens up a new avenue of abuse.

A couple more days wouldn't have driven anyone away who hasn't already given up.

That's not 100% accurate. Given the way certain posters have been taking advantage of lack of moderation at weekends and holidays, I'd just about decided to walk away today and not go through another weekend of it.

Oh, you did. A possibly-accidental thread deletion and a lock.

Looks like it wasn't accidental, just a badly worded description of what's going on, which should possibly have been "It has been removed while we see if there's any of it worth keeping"