Lissa Guillet's page

Looks like Meta et al, might have trained their AI models on Paizo materials. A surprising 190 volumes of it(maybe more.)

One can find information on if their material might have been included in LibGen via this link LibGen search on The Atlantic.

Wondering if they should join a class action on that. I wonder if you could ask them specific questions about copyrighted material and if they would spout that out.

Thoughts?

He put a lot of... character... in the forums. ^_^

Thank you, I'll be here all weak. Try the veal. Tip your waitress.

Back in the day, I built him a real-life ban hammer and mailed it to him...

That tickled him so much. He kind of loved that hammer.

And now you all know why I showed up a few days ago out of the blue. Pour one out for the PMG. He tried a lot harder than most to be a good dude. I'll miss him.

Gary not only gave me a chance, he listened to what I had to say, gave me council, and protected me from a lot of s#*~tiness. He tried to help Crystal as much as what little power he had could do. He was someone I looked up to and he taught me some things about being good to people as a manager and not just as a person. How to spend your capital wisely.

After I left Paizo, I didn't see him much, but his presence here was always felt. It worked for a kinder Paizo and a kinder Forum. Part of him will live on in this community for as long as it exists and I hope that's a good long time.

Rest in Peace, my friend and mentor.

Eh, we had a terrible run. Probably for the best.

Lissa Guillet wrote:

Tornados have been especially nasty this year.

So I have heard. Are you and yours alright?

Yeah, Mom has had a few close calls, and same with Owen. That I-35 corridor between south OKC and Norman has had a few problems but most of the damage in oklahoma has been up near the Tulsa area from what I've gleaned. One came out near the OKC/Moore are pretty much after everyone had said it was just going to be severe thunderstorms most likely and just back-built very quickly to a tornado. Very little warning and a lot of people had gone to sleep by the time that happened. Could have really caused some damage if it had stayed around.

A lot of states further out have been hit harder than usual.

Tornados have been especially nasty this year.

Lissa Guillet wrote:

Hey Folks. Long time no see. ^_^

points, screams

Heheh.

How are you and Crystal doing? Still crushing it I hope! She is still my favorite adventure path director!

Yeah, I mean I am being paid a ridiculous amount of money as a swarm lead for a company that is about as progressive as a fortune 500 company can be. Writing technical docs, mentoring people, helping move stuff forward. It's a good deal.

Crystal is writing graphic novels these days and working a day job. Her Wikipedia entry is missing some stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/Cheer-Up-Pompoms-Crystal-Frasier/dp/1620109557/ref=s r_1_1

It's really the dishonesty of it all that really bugs me. It's use in art is largely atrocious. It's practical uses could be interesting if they were at all honest about it's capabilities and were ethical in the sourcing of their models, but largely they are not either. And it's frustrating being in technology watching companies throw money at a glorified database query that is often enough wrong with authority.

Nice to see this thread still going. ^_^

Funny coincidence you peek now.

Earlier today, I considered writing a post on facebook that we (the gaming community/designers) might consider pushing a Creative Commons/No AI license, or something like that, and you were on a list of creators who I would tag along with Crystal, Owen, and others.

I didn't write the post in the end, though.

Oh yeah f*ck AI, honestly. Plagiarism machines, every last one of them.

Lissa Guillet wrote:

Hey Folks. Long time no see. ^_^

Aah! The triannual phoenix flyby!

Cowers. Looks at sun. No longer sees things. Calms down.

Nice to see you!

Heh. Ain't that the truth. ^_^ <3

Hey Folks. Long time no see. ^_^

Pretty sure there are specific timeouts for My Account items for increased security on that part. You have to prove you are who you are to, for instance, change your password or order or cancel a product or get access to identifiable information. It's fairly common or was fairly common, for certain things in various web platforms to allow you to use a lot of different functions and then have to prove you are who you are for things that need to be more secure. Also, pretty sure the site has been like that for a decade at least on purpose because of standards for credit cards and such. Personally identifiable information should be extremely secure on any site that takes credit cards.

Though if it logs you out, ie, going back to just the normal forums requires you to login, that might be a bug but it could also be increased security, ie, the authentication cookie is removed and reauthentication is required at that point, which would be an easy way of accomplishing that and adding security that says, if you can't login here, you shouldn't have access to anything else at this point either which I could see being reasonable.

In his case, I would say confessed rather than admitted. He had a seemingly genuine mea culpa for what it's worth. But that's all kind of outside this specific issue.

Realize that convention issues are more than just, "I didn't get to go." GenCon is a place where you can meet fans, talk with industry professionals that will help you develop your career, and team building among colleagues. Being effectively banned from professionally attending GenCon is detrimental to your career both in and out-of-house.

I think one of Paizo's ongoing problems here is that this is just some of the stuff that's happened. They've crystalized around these couple of big things, but there's more and some of them are lesser but longer term. I know there are tales from certain former employees that probably won't see the light of day unless they do. There are other things out there that have the potential to come up and that's where the continuing problems will lay. There is potential for them to keep coming up and Paizo just be a consistent holding pattern so that the good they do is constantly chopped off at the knees by old patterns of abuse.

It's a problem.

Wait, they are deleting Diego's posts?

Yes indeed. Well, at least his post in this thread. Not sure it's a unilateral thing. Probably well deserved snark at this statement.

L Pellazar wrote:

I quit.

Ok. I just wanted to make sure. Keeping track of everything going on is so rough. Im sorry you went through that. You struck me as a cool person a good artist assuming Im not confusing you for someone else.

Lu is the best. They're a go-getter too. Whoever hires/hired them will be lucky to have them.

That fun moment when the company has no money to raise wages to a living standard but it has the money to hire Wolfram & Hart so that they can *checks press release* send e-mails asking former employees if they were mistreated.

Nice Angel reference.

Yay... Transawareness week, where we all come out to help those that need it and for payment we get yelled at and our existence challenged. Followed immediately by the reading of the names of all of the trans women who were killed this year for being trans. woot

Oooo no. Please don't tell me it involved the playtest. For the love of God don't tell me it involved the 2e playtest....

Oh this was a long time ago. Well before 2e. But to be fair, I would have taken a heavier hand. For better or for worse. We disagreed. It was fairly amicable. Chris and Sara did their best and we all appreciate that even if we disagreed on the extent to which the hand of moderation should be applied. But, it certainly wasn't pleasant in the years after to have to endure those comments anytime we included a queer NPC. Which we did often.

You know how exhausting it is for people to constantly debate whether you should exist or not as a valid debate topic and when you point that out have your hands slapped away from the forum controls? Oh, yeah, I do. It's terribly exhausting. -_-

On a side note, maybe just listen to your trans-employees when they say they feel attacked and treat the topic as you would anyone actually attacking other employees. Just my two cents.

Of course. People are not a monolith. Also, no one is hiring people just because they can diversify their board without expecting them to do the job. Well, I'm sure someone is, but no one here is asking for that and saying that is just a derailment tactic. People often do, however, hire people based on whether they can identify with them or not, which often translates to skin, gender, etc because they have similar experiences and thus have more in common. And when you get a board where all of the people making all the decisions for the company are white guys in their 40's and 50's, it's a problem. And ignoring that and putting your head in the ground, isn't going to help.

People of color, women, lgbtq people are often discriminated against, often unconsciously, often in little ways that reverberate in bigger ways throughout the organization. It takes a conscious effort to unbias yourself in hiring and managing your reports. It just does.

Also, there is no best person for the job. You can't possibly know that. Usually, there are several good choices and you make the best one you can given the data and you can choose to get different voices in the board room or you can choose to go with the guy you want to have a beer with. That is a choice. We make those choices consciously or unconsciously. But the idea that there is one best choice and that guy happens to look just like everyone else in the board room is silly and unrealistic and we should be past that by now. Choose to have a new voice in the board room and I guarantee your choices get more informed.

The other is about the leadership team. There IS a PoC who is highly qualified and frankly deserves the promotion on staff. The person currently running the tech team is a woman of color and has done wonders for the tech team and the company. Vic, the CTO, stepped back in the first half of 2020 and since then she has run the tech team. She was the tech team manager before that but since then has stepped up in that void. At the time I left in September there was no CTO in place and the plan was to hire a new CFO and that person was going to double as CTO. It's mind boggling to me that they were choosing to double up those roles rather than offer it to someone immensely qualified and competent. That even in looking to expand the leadership team they still didn't consider her is pretty telling.

This. I've heard nothing but good things about the manager who took over the team after I left. I wish I had gotten to meet her before I left but the toxicness of my relationship with the then manager was... epically bad. Paizo, as a company, would probably cease to exist in a meaningful way without them.

I'm begging you guys to let Aaron vet your replies. He's actually got the best interests of the company at heart and he's really good at conveying complex situations, as is his job. Stop making it harder.

Wooot! Congrats guys. Way to make history. I've started a Starfinder subscription!

Yup. Picked up a scoop neck shirt and a mug as well. Management email will go out tomorrow. I need to think on it.

Also, I'd like to say, as long as I'm posting to the forums today.

Way to freaking go all! You did the hard thing and have at least partially pulled it off! It's a great day for Paizo. Finally, employees will have some say and real way to air grievances and work with management to solve the hard problems.

I've bought a shirt and a mug and hope for the best for the Golems.

Bread for all, and roses too!

This is reasonable; if we take Aaron's statement that the Paizo headcount is under 80 at face value, then there aren't yet enough signatories to constitute 50% +1 of the workplace.

There are a lot of managers at Paizo. And, as has been mentioned elsewhere, not everybody was comfortable with their name on the internet.

Jessica's Tweet

I guess I'm out, y'all. Lovely to see you all again, but the forums are as hostile a place as ever... Here's to Golarion, though!

Ah I've seen erik's posts about GenCon. I'm glad they didn't force people to go this year. Not loving what I'm seeing on the floor from a few pictures and I hope the ones that did go stay safe. ConCrud is going to be a helluva thing this year.

I'm not sure what it's like now, but those two being gone would have meant about half of the CS staff. The thread lock and banhammer buttons were ever coveted only a few people had them and even less were allowed to use them. And GenCon is going on. Not sure what's happening there but the way the registers tie in to Paizo was something they had to be on the ball for, especially for big release stuff. I imagine that CS is busy and there is less staff attached to computers now than there usually are.

That moment you see a dot on a post in a forum you haven't posted on in 3 years and wonder wtf?

And yeah, Sara Marie, she was the best at what she did. I didn't always agree with her decisions on the forums but it came from a good place. Diego is one of the best men I've ever known. That one hurt.

Yeah I mean, I too shall stop by and say hello. Nice to see the FAWTL thread is still going and as random as ever. ^_^ I love you all. Never change. At least not this.

Also Second Seekers

url = https://paizo.com/image/content/PathfinderSociety/SecondSeekersLuwaziElsebo _itsy.png

The setting is what makes Pathfinder great. Rules are rules. Some people will like them, others will find ways to do their own thing: house rules, 3rd party publishers, whatever. You can pick and choose the rules all you want. They are really selling you Golarion or the-mystery-of-what-happened-to-space-golarion. It's in the pathfinder/starfinder society. It's in all the books after the rules. It's in everything they produce because that's what's important. Rules are rules, but Golarion is the magic that binds it all together, this world built by a 100 authors and everyone who plays and reads all the flavor text.

Sara Marie was always an advocate for her people. She stood up for their needs and made sure they got as much as she could for her team. Something that makes a great manager. I think she was easily one of the hardest workers there.

Diego is a f@%~ing lion with the heart of a colossus.

Paizo will be diminished without them there.

url = https://paizo.com/image/content/PathfinderSociety/VerdantWheel_itsy.png

Also, I'd like to point out, sometimes things happen. Sometimes hardware goes bad. Sometimes something unexpected happens. They work really hard and they do good work. Maybe don't assume the worst.

yay! Congrats guys!

Whitneys got this and really this crystals moment. ;)

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

dmchucky69 wrote:

You (and Lissa) will be missed here at Paizo. But I know we haven't heard the last of either of you. Godspeed.

Wait, Lissa is moving on too?! Noooo!

I think Lissa had already moved on. :(

Narator Voice: She had.

It would help a whole lot if we could get an actual page you are seeing this on and what version of any browser you are using.

Thanks

Can you be a bit more specific as to what pages you are seeing those on, it will greatly help us narrow down where to find the problem. Thank you.

Thanks. That helps a lot.

If you could give us a little more detail on what terms and category you are seeing weirdness in, that would help a lot. Some of this MIGHT have been fixed with a recent issue fix today.