Valeros

vagrant-poet's page

RPG Superstar 6 Season Dedicated Voter. Organized Play Member. 3,106 posts (6,119 including aliases). 3 reviews. 2 lists. 1 wishlist. 2 Organized Play characters. 18 aliases.


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1 person marked this as a favorite.

Homebrew tends to be pretty tailored to people's personal experience, and often incredibly small detail oriented, but honestly everything here seems really well-done. Mostly additive, the broader changes are simple and difficult to object to. Great stuff!


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Rysky wrote:
Holomog!

HOLO-MOG! HOLO-MOG! HOLO-MOG!


9 people marked this as a favorite.

Leshy is the mascot ancestry for 2e for me. I had no interaction with them in 1e, and they seem widely loved, and brilliantly varied.

All glory to Paizo selling little potted leshies.


11 people marked this as a favorite.

My problem with the community at the moment, is that they did not ban most of the bad faith bigots and gave them short timeouts during the week they announced they were banning bigots.

Because of how that "we can ban now" thing was rolled out, it seemed like the ground level team were enthusiastic, and there was much less will from a level or two up.

So it seems to me someone tried to sneak openly transphobic creeps back into the community while getting points for cleaning them up. Whoever that is, at whatever level: They are why this community is devolving fast, because those actions make it exceedingly clear that the safety and basic humanity of trans folk and implicitly many other marginalized folks is a distant priority if it is one at all.

That's disgraceful, and whoever is responsible needs to not be able to make those calls anymore.


9 people marked this as a favorite.
Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:
I think the forums will get better again. Things got better with the permanent suspension ban hammer, but Erik Mona's public statement brought a whole new set of angry posters at a time when many Paizo Staffers go on very well deserved holiday breaks.

DISCLAIMER: This is not about the over-worked frontline CS people like Heather F, who was my enormous respect and sympathy for the situation they are in.

They don't seem to have banned almost anyone. Loads of the worst transphobic agitators disappeared, and I would have agreed with you then, except they clearly just got temporary suspensions again and are back. Agitating the racism threads.

There is a user on this board who was deliberately, toxically misgendering. They got suspended. They came back, derailed even more while bragging about having misgendered people and gotten away with it. They didn't actually get banned though.

They were back quietly within a few weeks, and are already creeping their little bigot heads into the main boards again.

If you don't ban people that bad, and a good few people not as obvious but still as bad as that we never get off the bigot-go-round.

Someone in charge of the team at some level decided to alleviate or not follow through on lots of bans. I doubt that was any of the workers in the CS department, it smacks of management "oversight", and until that person wises up or gets replaced the forums won't get better.


6 people marked this as a favorite.
Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:
I'm wondering what will the "it's just some opinion from one former disgruntled employee, we must cherish the presumption of innocence the Western Civilization was built upon" folks say about this.

Already there's a very different response to these accusations, which is not SKR's fault, but people are taking it differently despite very similar accusations. And it's not because this is the second time we're hearing it.

Plus, most folks who say Western Civilization out loud eventually get banned for racism. So they won't say anything.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Have they done those deals before, I can't remember?


3 people marked this as a favorite.

I'd agree with that, once you have a furm policy of booting creeps, you can reasonably start to assume good faith, and find better, kinder ways to discuss things we're passionate about, like gane minutae, or how you execute story beats, or tangential hobbies we share beyond this, or pets, etc, etc, etc.

My only issue was ever assuming this can work before we remove bad actors. I think it's a good premise outside of that context as long as it's not used as a politeness bludgeon, a and that in itself is a messy grey area outside of dangerous contexts.


5 people marked this as a favorite.
Logan Harper She/Her wrote:
I may not have a sweet little kitty floof anymore but I do have a large cat-like greyhound who will also tell you she doesn't receive enough scritches and treats, does that count? :P

My barber has a greyhound which she often has hang out in her front window, and it was doing donuts on it's bed recently during a haircut. Which lead to me asking and discovering that sighthounds, like foxes are effectively cat software running on dog hardware.

So more reason than ever to have a cute long-pup!


2 people marked this as a favorite.

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

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.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
I suppose whether an abusive poster develops a better attitude is secondary to me to the priority of ensuring they aren't posting abuse and harassment on my forums.
KC, while I don't disagree with the message of the post, one thing to point out, these are not your forums.

I don't know if I can think of a better example of the importance of reading people in good faith than assuming that the use of "my" to indicate the forums I inhabit was instead an attempt by me to seize control of the forums.

All glory to our new Kobold Overlords I guess.


15 people marked this as a favorite.

I cannot stress how much suggesting that bigoted attacks are just some random statement equivalent to any other statement, and "therefore Pandora's Box" is only a vaguely rational statement if you either don't think bald-faced transphobia is a bigoted attack OR you willfully refuse to parse what transphobia looks like.

There's a deep, fallacious false-equivalency there that is not debatable in a rational manner, because the premise of your argument is "How can we know what's bigoted?". Targeted marginalized people know.

They've always known. Equivocation on, again, demonstrable unambiguous bigotry only lends credence to the bigot.


10 people marked this as a favorite.
Ixal wrote:

people are not just disagreeing with many posts, they are insulting posters who in their opinion are disrespectful.

But even when they are later proven correct by the actions of the moderators, throwing around insults serves no purpose except increasing the toxicity of the forum.

People are calling posts bigoted, and the moderators are agreeing and removing the bigotry when they get the chance.

And you are opposed to this?

I haven't seen anyone who wasn't caught demonstrably being a bigot called a bigot. And those cases were backed up with removal of the bigotry. There was a lot of debate about whether those posters should have posting privileges removed, and that also seems to be resolved.

Though I don't expect you to read the details of what anyone else is saying, I'm also willing to completely oppose this statement by you as not accurately representing the specific concrete reality of these boards or recent weeks.


11 people marked this as a favorite.
gwynfrid wrote:
Being challenged after a provocative post is in fact the result a troll hopes for.

Not necessarily, they also want to have and share their hate-filled nonsense in public spaces as if it were legitimate, or or value to discuss. Leaving it unchallenged only achieves leaving it unchallenged.

gwynfrid wrote:
It gives them exposure and, if it's aggressive, it degrades the atmosphere of what should remain a welcoming and inclusive forum. On top of that, it adds work for moderators.

Sorry, but absolutely wrong-headed to suggest that countering hate-speech causes these things, once the hate-speech exists, these criteria are met.

Hate speech existing in a public place gives it exposure, and completely ends ANYTHING like suggesting an atmosphere is welcoming and inclusive. As long as it exists, the forum cannot be "welcoming and inclusive" challenging it does not degrade and atmospshere that doesn't exist in the presence of hate-speech.

Bigots love to be unchallenged, it lends them faux legitimacy.

gwynfrid wrote:
A solution to overnight/weekend moderation limitations is to temporarily lock those threads known to be at risk (they're not hard to identify), and reopen them come morning. This is what was done last night on the leadership announcement blog thread. That was a wise move. In the worst case, moderators should consider locking an entire subforum during times when moderation isn't available to react quickly. Sure it's heavy-handed, and hopefully won't have to be done in a routine manner forever, but it's a safe way to go, unless Paizo finds a way to vastly increase moderating resources.

I mean, the real answer is to increase moderation resources, or at very least have a no or low tolerance to bigotry or bigotry dogwhistles. That involves suspending bigots. And I'd like to see where a rigorous effort to do so leaves us in a few weeks.


13 people marked this as a favorite.

You only appears in a discussion to insist "all things can be debated" only in relation to one topic.

I have seen no attempt by you to inject, in any other existing conversation, that all things can be debated. Yet, here, you are insistent. When challenged, you reiterated: "I made the uncontroversial statement that literally anything can, in principle, be debated." to a post which had as point #1 that actually, that isn't a meaningful position even academically, and in this case, the only place you feel that your insistence is VITAL is a conversation where that position is clearly aligned with a front for doing harm.


12 people marked this as a favorite.

You were caught being a bigot and given a temporary ban recently yourself. So spare us with the false accusations routine.

Attacking a trans person, and calling them describing their experience being targeted as "virtue signaling", itself a hate-filled dogwhistle, is not subtle bigotry. That's why a one-post sock-puppet was used.

You're desperation to defend something when the person who posts was not even willing to stand behind it just shows you for who you are again.

And is a fair demonstration that you should actually get banned if you can't behave yourself even after a timeout.


5 people marked this as a favorite.

I only see two things go nuclear toxic on these boards. Incredibly specific rules minutae that almost couldn't even come up on a live game (5,000,000+ posts, extreme violence) & full on bigots proposing the worst shit going like it's a new idea and they just want to debate it, then getting very offended when they're told do go off and do one.

So either you had a particular bad experience that didn't gall under that and it colored your view, or you were involved in one of those two. And the two common ones have opposite but actually obvious solutions that do not require ending the boards entirely for any amount of time.

In #1 just mute the threads, you just can't leave a rules minutae black hole until you can't see it any more.

In #2 they could spend way less than your proposing, then hire proper, trained forum mods, and prune bigots. Because some people, hateful empty hearted people, shouldn't be welcome in a welcoming community.


16 people marked this as a favorite.

Devil's advocate is a device you use to argue with yourself in order to test the strength of your argument.

If you "devil's advocate" someone else, you're just arguing what you're arguing for.

In this case, a very real situation is: some posters who have inserted themselves into every conversation about trans people adversarially for over a month, the same people have hit the big + button on direct bigoted attacks on trans posters, or misgendered those posters then pretended they didn't know better after having liked previous identical attacks. THEN the same posters have argued that they are being unfairly targetted, despite weeks of this clear public behavior, because it's mostly trans posters being attacked and noting the patterns.

None of that is hypothetical. I don't want to read another 40 plus hypotheticals. If you haven't seen the pattern of abuse, and don't know how to feel, don't say anything and keep thinking. But maybe don't jump to make more work for exhausted trans people already under attack.

It doesn't escape my notice that when this stuff devolves, it is the trans posters who get quoted and jumped on endlessly. Cut it out.


13 people marked this as a favorite.

"If you favourite bigotry, it's a bad look" is so obviously, clearly a good principle, and it's very disturbing to hear every possible situation involving favourites being used to concoct alternative scenarios.

Favorite is a big + button, that says favourite. If you see an attack on someone, especially one using some bigoted mode of attack, AND you favourite it, it is the same as standing on the street and giving thumbs up to people waving hate speech signs.

No matter the reason, maybe consider it's a bad look, and will obviously come across as threatening to the people targetted by the hate speech.


13 people marked this as a favorite.

Every trans member of these boards that has had the spoons to engage (and I'm sure those who haven't), has shown incredible bravery and poise over the last while on these boards.

You're all incredible, though you shouldn't have to be. You should be allowed to just be, and hopefully this week next year that will be at least a little more true.


15 people marked this as a favorite.

Yeah, favourites are publicly visible. If you favourite hate speech or slur, you're showing yourself for who you are.


8 people marked this as a favorite.

I'd like to chime in.

I've been pretty vocal on the threads about moderation.

But to be clear in perpetuity, I actually don't have anything against Heather, Raychael, or any of the moderation team. If any criticisms were written poorly enough that they seemed like criticisms of people, I sincerely apologize, that was never my intent.

When I have called for more to be done, I don't mean by the same handful of overworked employees. And in the melee I didn't make that as clear as I should.

The SYSTEM of moderation on these boards is not serving either group of people mentioned by KC. I have at least once made it clear that I think the current system is creating a threadmill of endless work for CS, but I empathize with that. The workers who's job it is to now moderate the forums got that worked tacked onto their existing jobs.

The forums, are I believe an important community for Paizo. They drive engagement with playtests, and are filled with passionate fans who help the vast majority of occasional fans who drop in to ask questions about product timelines, rumors, and rules. They also represent some if the best, most diverse, most imaginative representatives for Paizo's games, as a thing you could proudly direct people to see.

They are valuable. They have become an increasingly unsafe place for our trans friends. That will spread to every minority group eventually, as it always does. They need investment.


5 people marked this as a favorite.

I think restorative practices, and social reckoning would be great. And it's failure on the legitimately bad faith is covered, if we just ban/suspend people.

Giving infinite "second chances" doesn't work. If you apologize, then go back to the same behavior, you get the consequence.

Quote:
'what is a Bad actor', and why does 'x' get Bad Actor status but 'y' does not?

That's a greyer question when people get heated about rules, but the moderation was mostly managing that stuff fine already. The moderation is failing because it's not differentiated to handle bigots debating whether trans people are human enough to determine if they know what's transphobic. Bad actors are bigots is just not a hard sell, and they prove it if they get a caution, but then blithely continue.

That's not even rhetorical, because we seen forced sounding apologies, then going on to repeatedly favorite the same vitriol they were cautioned for just by other posters.

Deleting the entire previous thread is "I don't want to hear this anymore" it doesn't erase the awful shit from that thread, or the stress/dehumanization it caused. It just gives the bigots free pass to do the same today, and tomorrow.

Deleting Posts Doesn't Make the forums safer, so I don't see it as effective moderation either. It's status quo preservation, and the status quo on the Paizo boards is not a safe place.


13 people marked this as a favorite.
Uchuujin wrote:
I'll be forced to disagree with you know who. You can't co-exist with someone who wants eliminate you just for existing. There isn't always a moral middle ground. If Party A wants to kill 0 puppies, and Party B wants to kill all puppies, you don't kill half the puppies.

And even if there were a middle ground: The middle ground between erasure of people, and those people just wanting to be alive is still reprehensible. It's another well-worn rhetoric to imagine all middle grounds are superior by nature of being the middle. That itself is a form of fanatical extremism.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I tried it, it looks great.


8 people marked this as a favorite.

Calm isn't better for free.

Well worded doesn't always imply better content.

Lot's of the worst stuff ever done by people to people was beautifully argued.

Maybe I am just used to a higher cultural tolerance for swearing, and combative friendliness, but I often worry that even totally well intentioned calls for cleaner / clearer discourse is used against exhausted victims who snap back more than it is applied to loquacious creeps.

I don't think, or even stronger I'm fully sure that's not the intention of this thread. And I think it's content is great in a setting where we feel most people want to engage in good faith. That's not a given on the boards at the moment, and reasoned debate requires a degree of safety.


7 people marked this as a favorite.
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Oh, a really cool concept I half-learned about recently is the idea that you should ideally aim to always make it as easy as possible for the other person to "self-soothe" when reading your arguments.

Reading some about this recently too, from cult deprogrammers in relation to people sticking by scams that are killing them because humans will fo nearly anything to avoid social death. To sometimes frightening extremes.


7 people marked this as a favorite.
Ruzza wrote:
Also, come on, man. No need to list years playing over various systems. This is the Paizo forums, most of us here have been playing for a very long time. We are not the young, hip forums. We are the old grognards.

First of all, how DARE you.

I'm extremely young and vociferously hip.

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