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Why was this post allowed to stand, yet most all subsequent post that quoted part of this were removed?
Jessica Price (to name a specific moderator) seemingly has a gender-role axe to grind and frequently will let certain post stand that are in obvious and direct violation of forum rules/but in-line with her personal views on the matter, while she will delete posts that she disagrees with or moves off the (inevitable) subject of gender politics.
...Do modern values have any place in a fantasy game? About as much as medieval ones do.
A fantasy setting rarely has any connection to historic issues. Take homosexuality - it was perfectly acceptable in many places and many cultures until the spread of Christianity. We have solid records of Egyptian officials, Roman Emperors, Japanese Samurai and many other engaging in the homosexuality. Often on the side of marriage, true, because children were almost universally considered important to carrying on a legacy (and how many PC characters stick to that social custom?) but it was there.
Now take Golarion. The same level of homophobic behaviour makes no sense because at least three goddesses are engaged in a three way sexual relationship. How do you declare mortals are wrong to do it when the Gods themselves partake?
Same with woman. While there were exceptions to woman staying at home and being mothers, those women were often abused, raped and murdered for daring to be different. And that was considered a reasonable response. Again, something that makes no sense in setting like Golarion where there are female Gods - one of the primary warrior gods is Iomadae, a woman.
Let's face it - Pathfinder isn't a very good representative of the real world. If it was the Fighter would die to septic shock when a Kobold ran a dirty spear through his guts, the wizard would be burned at the stake for devil-worship, the Cleric would be a sociopath spreading his faith with sword and fire (and not casting pesky spells - withcraft again!)
I haven't read this thread yet, just replying to first post which I don't usually do but I just wanted to say one thing. I find a lot of the moderation here baffling and disquieting, but you mentioned Jessica Price. I just want to say, I was in a thread recently that was getting downright scary. Like, make females scared to go to cons and game stores bad. And Jessica Price was participating in a very, very measured, even-handed way. I was extremely impressed.
Just attempting to repost my power-outage-eaten comment on moderation.
I too was amazed at the time I read it in its actual thread that the fellatio comment (quoted by Auxmalous in the OP) was not flagged for breaching the profanity filters - especially as I had a post removed (yes it was SKR, and yes, during the ACG playtest) because I used some non-letters to write sh(te or f*(k or something similar. I was saying something critical of the Slayer's options in the post, and it felt opportunistic that the post was removed ostensibly for my perceived attempt at trying to circumvent the profanity filter.
Apart from that, although I do think Sean has a little trouble with double standards for what constitutes improper behaviour (after all, he's the professional) I agree with Doomed Hero that Sean is a stellar keeper-on-topic and I like Skreyn's Register a lot. ;)
* Also lost was a post by Doodlebug Anklebiter pointing out that he feels a bit alarmed when posters talk about the glory days before the forums devolved into sh... crap; I replied that I too had experienced some halcyon days/"the discourse has worsened" sentiments not long after arriving on the forums, and I opined somewhat cheekily that it must have been a golden age of reason and moderate inquiry. I think it helped Doodlebug a little...
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Moderation as a whole has sometimes irritated me here, as mentioned, entire posts get nuked (along with those who quoted them), regardless of how much of the post was offensive.
However, I have seen Jessica Price engage in posts and moderation in a very fair and non-aggressive manner, despite the tone and undertone of the thread. As a moderator on a different site, I understand all too well how much time it requires to devote, and my messageboards were never as busy as Paizo. So while she has undoubtedly made some mistakes, I'd like to stay off the dogpile and give her a hand for professionalism.
SKR as well. Sure he's aggressive, but he's a geek. Don't tell me you guys haven't seen or been an aggressive geek before. I was being a straight up jerk one time, and he still took the time to inform me his reasoning behind moderation. That's more than he needed to do.
People seem to expect to be able to spew vitriol towards product or ideas, and then back away under a 'it's criticism' shield. The playtests are a perfect example of this. There was actually a thread devoted to the idea that they shouldn't have to actually playtest (as asked) in order to provide feedback. It would be a mentally and emotionally exhausting task to find the diamonds in the rough from those forums.
TL;DR Moderation needs some improvement but moderators are a mix of good and bad, aka human, like every one else.
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Moderation is hard, and I feel the Paizo staff do their best. I don't always agree with the moderation but 99% of the time I get why they delete what they do. Honestly, I am one of the people who wishes moderation was more aggressive, but I respect why Paizo remains in, what is my opinion based on other boards I've been to, a more "hands off" approach, coming in only when someone's being a right nozzle.
The problem with zero moderation is that the people who are the loudest and most obnoxious and/or who can post the most frequently chase away the people who just want to have a nice, civil discussion. This happens here, in my opinion, often enough, even with the moderation that is here. If you've got poster A, who is just trying to share some ideas civilly and kindly, but they've got a job/life where they can post once a day, and you've got poster B, who aggressively shoots down everything anyone says that disagrees with him and takes other posts out of context to turn things into arguments, and they have a job/life where they can basically just sit on the message boards 24/7 ready to jump on every single post that comes after his and perpetuate his trolling.... poster B WILL chase poster A away eventually, because poster A realizes he will never have a chance to be heard amid all the noise poster B and others like him are making.
I have absolutely no problem with the "risk" of silencing/quieting down poster B if it means poster A gets a better chance to be heard, and the moderation here helps make stuff like that happen.
TL;DR: in my opinion, the moderation here doesn't limit discourse. It actually helps real discourse happen, by making sure the little guy gets heard rather than drowned out by the trolls.
Even then, in some threads here, the aggressive, bullying posters who post nonstop still "win" most of the time. That's not discourse, it's just a shouting match.
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I think the moderation gets a bit overzealous at times, particularly with off topic posts. Conversations drift, tangents appear and then get reabsorbed. I'd say they shouldn't really concentrate on off-topic posting with deletion, rather, just by chiming in with an attempt to redirect back to the topic at hand.
The other topic in which moderation bothers me is the paranoia over edition warring. I've seen entirely moderate criticisms aimed at 4e draw the edition war accusation from moderators. That's a bit too sensitive.
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Bill Dunn,
While Do not agree with your comments about the on topic/off topic deletions it is what it is and while you may or may not agree with it. I am of the mind that they do try and let it get back on topic but when you get so many postings that it is gets frivolous that the topic basically dies down.. I think that the deletion of the posts is not a bad thing to keep it going then.
Also on the topic of Edition wars.. That is such a hot topic and one that will be for a long time in to the future. I can not blame Paizo for wanting to shut that down before it even happens. Because there is no middle ground on it and no one that enters a debate like that will go any where in the debate itself because of disagreements and passions for said game systems. To me I think Paizo in it's zealousness is righteous in stopping it BEFORE it happens!! :)
Well you can have criticism of game mechanics without drawing the specific game / edition into it, and I would recommend it because it drowns out a lot of the noise and bizarre Internet tribalism that is invoked when you don't.
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Moderation as a whole has sometimes irritated me here, as mentioned, entire posts get nuked (along with those who quoted them), regardless of how much of the post was offensive.
However, I have seen Jessica Price engage in posts and moderation in a very fair and non-aggressive manner, despite the tone and undertone of the thread. As a moderator on a different site, I understand all too well how much time it requires to devote, and my messageboards were never as busy as Paizo. So while she has undoubtedly made some mistakes, I'd like to stay off the dogpile and give her a hand for professionalism.
SKR as well. Sure he's aggressive, but he's a geek. Don't tell me you guys haven't seen or been an aggressive geek before. I was being a straight up jerk one time, and he still took the time to inform me his reasoning behind moderation. That's more than he needed to do.
People seem to expect to be able to spew vitriol towards product or ideas, and then back away under a 'it's criticism' shield. The playtests are a perfect example of this. There was actually a thread devoted to the idea that they shouldn't have to actually playtest (as asked) in order to provide feedback. It would be a mentally and emotionally exhausting task to find the diamonds in the rough from those forums.
TL;DR Moderation needs some improvement but moderators are a mix of good and bad, aka human, like every one else.
I agree with this on all counts.
SKR. I look at the things this man says to people who he's supposed to be selling a game too, and I see a man who cares more about his passion for the game then toeing a line. That's a beautiful thing. I have different views about gaming then him in some respects but I love that he's not afraid to say what he feels.
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The "problem" with SKR pretty much boils down to:
X: So, as far as I can see the feat Y was designed by somebody who went through a failed lobotomy, which is actually a job requirement for working as a designer at Paizo lolololol.
SKR: Well, at least ours was failed, you had a succesful one apparently.
X: OMG OMG SO RUDE WHAT THIS IS HOW THIS COMPANY TREATS CUSTOMERS?!? PLEASE FIRE THIS MAN ASAP!!!!!!! MOM, MR REYNOLDS WROTE BAD THINGS ABOUT ME ON THE INTERNET!!!!!!!!
Yup, that's true a lot I think.
Way funny Orcbagz!
Sean has always seemed courteous and patient when the questions aren't ridiculous. And at the end of the Slayer discussion he seemed to be amenable to some of the proposed tweaks. Nice.
My posting of my experience with profanity and post-deletion was more about inconsistency - non-deletion of posts with actual swearing vs. deletion of posts with pseudo swearing. My deleted post wasn't inflammatory, but neither was it ground-breakingly informative or personally worth any sentimentality. I chalked it up to experience.
I have to break a lance for Jessica Price here.
While i´m not regularly reading such discussions as i have enough similar things going on in real life due to my workfield there are some points to be said.
This person surely has an agenda and a certain point of view. In my eyes she does a real good job though, since she actually seems very patient and tries to explain a lot of things over and over again. What is literally fighting against windmills. If sometimes there is no patience left, that is only human and normal, especially on the internet.
Unfortunately there are still many people with problematic worldviews and philosophies that are harmfull to themselves and other as well as the earth in general. Most of them are not aware of this fact even a little bit. Making such a statement as in the OP´s post would be ones social death around here.
Recently i got censored here myself by Liz Courts and i have to say, even though i don´t really like it and i would wish for some U.S.americans and Paizo to stand up to this topic and not only confess to some gender and sexual related stuff, but also to freedom, equality, justice and democracy (for people in general, not only for U.S. americans), that discussion took definately place in the wrong thread and didn´t belong there. Even though it was a side note on something in that product.
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Hayato Ken,
One thing about Freedom of Speech is that it does not apply on a private site and the Terms of Service that Paizo has everyone sign at registration reflects that. Not trying to single you out as much as commenting on the freedom aspect of your post above :)
Oh i´m aware of that and i´m not talking about freedom of speech there, what i mean goes way further.
I assume this is in sense of Jessica Price and others though, since those gender and equality debates most often can be broken down to issues of power and power distribution in societes and their various methods of self-reproduction, which need to be changed in order to have any progress there.
The word "private" is also a very critical word there.
On one hand, this is an private site yes, on the other hand, talking about those topics, there can not be anything private, since that logic just doesn´t fit there. In a political world you cannot be unpolitical, because you will be or are affected and have affects, either way.
Being a wrapper, looking the other way, pretending things don´t happen, ignorance, denial and stating there are no alternatives or individuals can´t have any impact are just lame excuses and make you just as guilty, since they actually help one side.
Every living human being counts and makes a difference, always.
But, that leads to a whole other discussion which should probably have it´s own place and time.
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I think the moderation gets a bit overzealous at times, particularly with off topic posts. Conversations drift, tangents appear and then get reabsorbed. I'd say they shouldn't really concentrate on off-topic posting with deletion, rather, just by chiming in with an attempt to redirect back to the topic at hand.
The other topic in which moderation bothers me is the paranoia over edition warring. I've seen entirely moderate criticisms aimed at 4e draw the edition war accusation from moderators. That's a bit too sensitive.
Edition-warring chased me away from another gaming message board, even though that one was otherwise more strictly moderated. I can understand a desire to be overzealous in preventing that. (ETA: that is preventing people in general running away from edition warring.)
Bag of DevouringThe "problem" with SKR pretty much boils down to:
X: So, as far as I can see the feat Y was designed by somebody who went through a failed lobotomy, which is actually a job requirement for working as a designer at Paizo lolololol.
SKR: Well, at least ours was failed, you had a succesful one apparently.
X: OMG OMG SO RUDE WHAT THIS IS HOW THIS COMPANY TREATS CUSTOMERS?!? PLEASE FIRE THIS MAN ASAP!!!!!!! MOM, MR REYNOLDS WROTE BAD THINGS ABOUT ME ON THE INTERNET!!!!!!
I am not going to name names because I do not want to turn this into a "this poster/this staff member is a bad guy," any more than it has become, but I have seen far more civil conversations where some Paizo staff members actually were the ones who were doing the baiting, not the community member. This happens much less frequently then it used to, thankfully. But when it does happen, it DOES make the Paizo staff look unprofessional. I HAVE seen stuff like:
Poster X: *in reasonable, civil tone* Why does feat do X?
Staff Member Y: Well because of very vague reason.
Poster X: *still in reasonable, civil tone* But doesn't your vague reason contradict this more specific ruling here?
Staff Member Y: Look, stop arguing, it is just the way it is, and all posts about this from now on will be deleted!
Or sometimes, perhaps more accurately, you do have idiots like the ones Gorbacz cites, but ALSO the reasonable poster, and the reasonable poster is completely ignored while the staff member decides to argue with the idiot.
There's also stuff like... I remember one time that troll guy whose name I've forgotten but he liked to use the funny gas mask avatar, and he was actually behaving himself for once, and three different staff members started trollbaiting him when otherwise the conversation would have remained civil.
The ONLY REASON I am noting this in any terms at all is because while on one hand, I get uncomfortable with some of the calling outs on this thread, but on the other hand, I am likewise uncomfortable with the taking of sides and the general attitude on these boards that if you disagree with Paizo staff, you are a terrible person, which I feel your post perpetuates, Gorbacz--you're painting the situation with a much, much too broad brush. Not all people who disagree sound like what you're saying, but sometimes some staff members have still chosen to take offense (instead of say, ignore it or do something else if they were getting frustrated). I'm not saying that staff members shouldn't get frustrated, but frankly, at least I do personally hold them to a higher standard of post style because they are not just representing themselves and their opinions, but the entire company they work for. I was trained in customer service, and I was trained that if you are speaking up in a public space in your workplace (and this board is both a public space and part of some people's workplace), you represent "the team" at all times; I hold myself to that standard at work so I tend to hold other people to the same when I observe their behavior.
Honestly, either way, it's definitely NOT a good thing for community members to pile on any given staff member. But blind fanboy defense isn't really the right reaction either. (ETA: I think what I am trying to get at is I don't think it's right to discount other people's complaints especially if they feel hurt, even if the same time we are both bothered by some of the call-outs in this thread.) Probably really best not to bring it up either way, and report issues privately, the more I think about it.
Look, we're all human beings here, and everyone's going to make mistakes. I've got my issues with some posters here, staff and community members alike; I'm sure there are staff and community members here who have their issue with me. If I think there is something bad enough, I will flag it, or I will write to webmaster@ or customerservice@paizo.com and share my concerns. That's probably the best, most productive thing we can do in any case.
Hopefully something up there made sense.
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Re: edition warring.
The REAL problem with edition warring posts is that somewhere there is a WotC legal department trainee who asks "hey, can we sue those Piazo guys over the fact that their messageboard is rife with libel against our product?".
Given that recently several courts over here ruled that the owner of a forum is partially responsible for user generated content, I can totally see why they're playing the safe ball, especially since we're talking the crazy bananas Amurican jurisdiction.
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Re: edition warring.
The REAL problem with edition warring posts is that somewhere there is a WotC legal department trainee who asks "hey, can we sue those Piazo guys over the fact that their messageboard is rife with libel against our product?".
Given that recently several courts over here ruled that the owner of a forum is partially responsible for user generated content, I can totally see why they're playing the safe ball, especially since we're talking the crazy bananas Amurican jurisdiction.
My understanding is that (or at least was that) more than a few Paizo employees still had friends at WotC and a fairly good working relationship/friendly rivalry, and also that they did not want any possible issues with using the D&D/D20 system.
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Having moderated a web forum myself in the past, I have to say, it is a nasty job. If you do it well, (as Paizo consistently seems to) most users won't notice, but you have to sort through the worst of the worst, read and consider every crap post, then weigh the trouble the post will cause with the trouble removing it will cause. Ugh! And at the end of the day, the result of all your hard work is a pile of deleted posts that no one will see.
Keep in mind that moderators are Human (or perhaps Goblin or Golem at Paizo) there decisions are heavily influenced by the deleted stuff that is thankfully invisible to the user. It is unfortunately also influenced by having to read through every post, of every thread, of every board... my eyes bleed thinking about it.
While I find nothing wrong with discussing moderation, I would ask that everyone just put themselves in the shoes of the moderator, and imagine having to do it day after day, even if you are not in the mood to deal with it.
PS I have had disagreements in the past with various designer/developers, but always found them to very dedicated and passionate about their work. It means a lot to get an honest answer from them, even if I disagree, then some canned "Your opinions are important to us, blah blah blah" response. And don't tell them, but I even learned something in the process, and they may have even been right about one or two things...
My understanding is that (or at least was that) more than a few Paizo employees still had friends at WotC and a fairly good working relationship/friendly rivalry, and also that they did not want any possible issues with using the D&D/D20 system.Re: edition warring.
The REAL problem with edition warring posts is that somewhere there is a WotC legal department trainee who asks "hey, can we sue those Piazo guys over the fact that their messageboard is rife with libel against our product?".
Given that recently several courts over here ruled that the owner of a forum is partially responsible for user generated content, I can totally see why they're playing the safe ball, especially since we're talking the crazy bananas Amurican jurisdiction.
When you work in a niche industry, you're going to get a lot of instances of friends working for the competition, and that competition could well be your prospective employer tomorrow (and in many cases especially evident at Paizo *was* your employer yesterday.) Maintaining good (or at least avoiding bad) relationships is pretty much a must.
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Wizards messageboards always sounded like, hostile to me. But these messageboards make me comfortable, what a comfy, comfy chair!
My opinion about the topic:
Any phrase that makes you visualize something offensive it's risking, rightfully, the mods censor stick.
But, in the male urinary organ case, it was really bad, there were urinary organs suffering suction everywhere! Moderation intervention was comprehensible.
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When you work in a niche industry, you're going to get a lot of instances of friends working for the competition, and that competition could well be your prospective employer tomorrow (and in many cases especially evident at Paizo *was* your employer yesterday.) Maintaining good (or at least avoiding bad) relationships is pretty much a must.
Sure. I didn't mean it to sound like a bad thing, I was just pointing out that from way back in the day that is the reasoning that was often given as to why they didn't want Edition Wars.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Separating one's own personal views from a supposedly impartial moderation process is pretty hard in the first place. I might not even notice posts with which I agree, but which otherwise violate messageboard rules. OTOH, if a post pushes my particular hot buttons, I'm much more likely to notice and flag it.
Paizo's mods do a pretty good job of maintaining impartiality for the most part. They do have their own opinions, and are not afraid to take sides on some issues of particular importance in their company culture (women's equality and homosexuality come to mind). I'm obviously not privy to the details, but I imagine their moderation policy could be summed up as "don't piss off the customers, but don't compromise your principles, either." I have appreciated the times when Paizo employees have told particularly offensive posters, basically, "we're OK with losing your business, because your views are so offensive we don't want to be associated with you in any way."
TL;DR Moderators are human like the rest of us. Their biases are inevitably going to creep in no matter how hard they try to be impartial. Paizo does try and, for the most part, succeeds.
Customer Service Dire Care Bear Manager
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Which seems to make me think more and more the reaction should be not to pile on but to report inappropriate staff member behavior (if there is any) to Paizo via email. Flagging it couldn't hurt either. And if they're not being inappropriate, one shouldn't drag the tone of conversation down oneself and force them to do their job.
This. Absolutely. If you see inappropriate or offensive behavior, flag and move on, even for staff posts.
The REAL problem with edition warring posts is that somewhere there is a WotC legal department trainee who asks "hey, can we sue those Piazo guys over the fact that their messageboard is rife with libel against our product?".
Pretty sure kvetching about something on the Internet doesn't legally constitute libel, otherwise Amazon wouldn't have those product reviews. Paizo doesn't need a legal excuse for banning mindless edition warring anymore than they need a legal excuse for banning mindless religious or political filibustering.
The REAL problem with edition warring posts is that somewhere there is a WotC legal department trainee who asks "hey, can we sue those Piazo guys over the fact that their messageboard is rife with libel against our product?".Pretty sure kvetching about something on the Internet doesn't legally constitute libel,
I'm not sure where you attended law school,.... but you're not really doing it proud with that comment. Yes, kvetching about something on the Internet can be libel just like any other type of (written) commentary can. [Moldea v. New York Times Co., 22 F3d 310 (D.C. Cir. 1994)]
Pretty sure kvetching about something on the Internet doesn't legally constitute libel,I'm not sure where you attended law school,.... but you're not really doing it proud with that comment. Yes, kvetching about something on the Internet can be libel just like any other type of (written) commentary can. [Moldea v. New York Times Co., 22 F3d 310 (D.C. Cir. 1994)]
I didn't go to law school, and I assume (from this and other posts) that you are actually a legal academic of some sort, so I am happy to stand corrected.
I hope that cite actually uses the word "kvetch".
Yes I would agree. I don't think anybody wants to hear it, but maybe there is something to be said for moderators not getting too involved. Doing so basically guarantees they'll look as biased in one way or another. Also I think to an extent, what they post carries a little more weight. When they think a discussion is getting out of control, they start the locking or deleting, so when they pipe up, people pay attention, whether it's related to the moderation of the thread or not.