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You’re not making any clever point, you’re just making extra work for the moderation team. They have to delete your post, all the people who reply to you and then they have to answer the emails from confused posters who said nothing objectionable but who got swept up in the purge.
There is a way to discuss moderation policy - email community@paizo.com or begin a new thread in the website discussion forum. Introducing complaints about moderation into an ongoing thread or defiantly posting something you know is against the forum rules is always unhelpful.
The website moderators are currently understaffed and relatively new to moderation duties. We can make it easier for them by considering any post that includes “this will all be deleted in the morning anyhow” and just hitting cancel instead of submit.
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(Hopefully it’s clear this is directed to everyone and not some dig at anyone in particular. It’s a depressingly common phenomenon here and it’s pretty obviously unhelpful no matter what “side” of any particular controversy you happen to support - if you are about to deliberately post something you think is against the forum rules, do the forum moderation team a favour and stop yourself).
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And if someone says as much - that they know they’re breaking the rules - please, please don’t waste time and words on replying to them anyway. They want your attention, and to derail whatever the actual conversation is; deny them both.
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You’re conflating common decency and keeping to a company’s forum rules with general ability to speak up…..
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It's probably against the "no politics" rule, though that has been a bit relaxed a bit lately because of the inherently political/socio-cultural nature of issues that paizo has been having.
It's been selectively relaxed depending on which political side the poster is on.
Want to discuss the broader issue of unions in UPW's recognition thread? This thread is narrowly focused on Paizo's recognition of UPW, political discussion is "unrelated."
Want to discuss the broader issue of systemic racism in the Jim's and Adam's promotion thread? Sure, let's allow 5 scattered congratulatory posts and 500 political posts, political discussion is "related."
Contrary to what you may assume from the above, I think selective enforcement can be fine. Specifically, I think it would be fine if it were transparent. "We ban 'Let's Go Brandon' but not 'late stage capitalism' on our boards; the reason is simple: our message board, our rules," is both more accurate and more acceptable than people think it is.
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No precisely it's Paizo's forum. They determine what is and is not allowed. Politics is one of those things, and thus many of the posts in this thread will be gone on Monday. Ironic considering the topic of the post, but it seems like some people just don't understand how private spaces work.
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No precisely it's Paizo's forum. They determine what is and is not allowed. Politics is one of those things, and thus many of the posts in this thread will be gone on Monday. Ironic considering the topic of the post, but it seems like some people just don't understand how private spaces work.
Yeah, freedom of speech is NOT something that works the way most people think it does. It just means that the government can't tell you what you can or can't say - it says nothing about whether a company that owns a website can choose what to allow on said privately owned website.
Paizo owns paizo.com, and under US law (the law they operate under), and most other nations laws, they can restrict any speech they want.
(Hopefully it’s clear this is directed to everyone and not some dig at anyone in particular. It’s a depressingly common phenomenon here and it’s pretty obviously unhelpful no matter what “side” of any particular controversy you happen to support - if you are about to deliberately post something you think is against the forum rules, do the forum moderation team a favour and stop yourself).
Is this because I walked on your lawn?
What can I say, it's a nice lawn, and I've got places to be!
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One is a dog whistle (you need to be in the know) for humanity's most murderous ideology, the other is a meme (was top song in itunes) expressing disproval for an administration.
While one is more problematic than the other, neither is appropriate nor worth alienating a significant porcentage of the player base by giving preferential treatment.
Remember, that this isn't your forum, its ours. Or more precisely, Paizo's site for community discussion.
Bumbly,
Yawar
Huh, seems an awful lot like you are talking about politics there.
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You’re not making any clever point, you’re just making extra work for the moderation team. They have to delete your post, all the people who reply to you and then they have to answer the emails from confused posters who said nothing objectionable but who got swept up in the purge.
Likewise, responding to a good point in an improperly worded post is more work for us commenters. I have to word my post so that it won't be deleted, too. I have to write my comment so that it looks like a response to the soon-to-be-deleted comment and also write it to be clear after the comment is deleted.
And sometimes my post is deleted anyway, when the moderators decide the best way to resolve the flame war is to delete the topic drift from the thread entirely. The moderators are not just guardians of civil discourse: they are also gardeners who nurture engaging discussions, and some topics are too toxic to engage well.
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No precisely it's Paizo's forum. They determine what is and is not allowed. Politics is one of those things, and thus many of the posts in this thread will be gone on Monday. Ironic considering the topic of the post, but it seems like some people just don't understand how private spaces work.
Some of us understand the concept perfectly. We just don't like the stealth methodology some of the moderators use to remove content they don't like or disagree with vs simply enforcing the rules as published. Yes, it is technically Paizo's space, and if they want to use their own political bias to pick and choose what they will allow, that's fine. I disagree with the ideology, but at least act like an adult and publish that as part of the rules. Don't hide and do it stealthily. It demonstrates a lack of conviction and suggests you are embarrassed by your actions.
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Yeah, freedom of speech is NOT something that works the way most people think it does. It just means that the government can't tell you what you can or can't say - it says nothing about whether a company that owns a website can choose what to allow on said privately owned website.
Agreed, however, I view freedom of speech as an ideology beyond the legalstic usage. Just because something is legal, doesn't make it right or good*. Yes, Paizo CAN restrict whatever speech they want in their forum. I just believe that they shouldn't for many reasons which I have expressed numerous time, including earlier today. I generally don't use "freedom of speech" as a Constitutional lever (unless the context actually does involve the government), but as an ideology to embrace to allow for open exchange of ideas even when we don't like the ideas. That is how the creators of the concept framed it. It was a philosophy long before it was a legal compulsion.
"I wholly disapprove of what you say — and will defend to the death your right to say it"
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Im not making a political point. I don’t really care where any specific user thinks “the line” is.
My point is that crossing that line deliberately doesn’t help.
It doesn’t help the users of the forum. It doesn’t help the moderators. It doesn’t help you.
If you want to argue about forum rules there are ways to do so. Deliberately breaking them is never going to win the change you want.
(Again, not directed at anyone specifically. I appreciate that might read as a reply. It’s not; it’s a general point).
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(Hopefully it’s clear this is directed to everyone and not some dig at anyone in particular. It’s a depressingly common phenomenon here and it’s pretty obviously unhelpful no matter what “side” of any particular controversy you happen to support - if you are about to deliberately post something you think is against the forum rules, do the forum moderation team a favour and stop yourself).Is this because I walked on your lawn?
What can I say, it's a nice lawn, and I've got places to be!
It’s not my lawn, it’s Paizo’s.
Paizo have set out a path with a nice little “please keep off the grass” sign. Walking on it anyway won’t make them take the sign down, it will make them put up a fence.
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(Hopefully it’s clear this is directed to everyone and not some dig at anyone in particular. It’s a depressingly common phenomenon here and it’s pretty obviously unhelpful no matter what “side” of any particular controversy you happen to support - if you are about to deliberately post something you think is against the forum rules, do the forum moderation team a favour and stop yourself).Is this because I walked on your lawn?
What can I say, it's a nice lawn, and I've got places to be!
It’s not my lawn, it’s Paizo’s.
Paizo have set out a path with a nice little “please keep off the grass” sign. Walking on it anyway won’t make them take the sign down, it will make them put up a fence.
Not everything needs an analogy. Sometimes a joke is just a joke.
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Not everything needs an analogy. Sometimes a joke is just a joke.(Hopefully it’s clear this is directed to everyone and not some dig at anyone in particular. It’s a depressingly common phenomenon here and it’s pretty obviously unhelpful no matter what “side” of any particular controversy you happen to support - if you are about to deliberately post something you think is against the forum rules, do the forum moderation team a favour and stop yourself).Is this because I walked on your lawn?
What can I say, it's a nice lawn, and I've got places to be!
It’s not my lawn, it’s Paizo’s.
Paizo have set out a path with a nice little “please keep off the grass” sign. Walking on it anyway won’t make them take the sign down, it will make them put up a fence.
I’ve always appreciated your jokes. I will also use every opening to make my point.
Our community is on the precipice in my opinion, so I struggle to joke back. I think Paizo had something very special and I think it’s falling apart. It’s breaking down in slow motion - it will look the same next week as it does now. Probably the same a month from then as it will then…the drift and decay is gradual.
Most of that is in the hands of Paizo, but those of us who post things we know will be deleted can help.
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I will agree that they haven't exactly been making the best decisions lately and I certainly agree that we can self police what we say in an effort to reduce moderation workload (which is why I generally keep to off topic).
But this is absolutely the time to make jokes to help alleviate the tension, and I'm also not convinced things are as dire as they seem on the outside.
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But this is absolutely the time to make jokes to help alleviate the tension, and I'm also not convinced things are as dire as they seem on the outside.
It’s absolutely the time for you to make jokes. I don’t have a sense of humour at the moment, sadly.
I hope you’re right. My fear is that it’s worse on the inside than it appears on the outside. But I’m clearly not in a great headspace at the moment, so I could easily be way off the mark.
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I wrote and rewrote this many times, deleting it each time because... well, it's just my perspective after the last few months and I've had to personally reevaluate my own participation and emotional investment here despite how long I've been around and how much this community and game actually mean to me. I've met many of you in person, had drinks with some and played games, socialized, and through it found entertainment and learned many things but... those days are gone and dead, they're never going to return but it isn't any one person's fault or that of Paizo, it is all to be blamed on internet culture at large.
If the choice today, in 2021, is to hire more moderation staff or rely on users in a public forum (let alone one that tries to be a safe space for people of certain beliefs and identities) then honestly... the most likely and reasonable recourse is PROBABLY going to end up being that the forums need to be permanently nuked and shut down.
They serve VERY little actual purpose beyond causing aggravation to the customers, staff, and being a place where folks can get their daily dose of serotonin from arguing with, debating, or trolling other anonymous people online, oh, and draining the company of valuable staff labor hours and more importantly morale. I am 200% certain that if these discussion boards were dramatically scaled back to strictly ONLY include discussion about their products (and NOTHING more) as well as allowing PbP games that the sanity and well being of the staff and many other members of the community would see a marked improvement.
Paizo can't just magically come up with another 40-80 hours of labor every week just to keep up with the garbage fire back and forth that this community is turning into.
At the same time, nobody can actually reasonably believe that in a space where there are effectively no real consequences for running your mouth off that people will choose to voluntarily stop chasing their addiction to outrage, schadenfreude, 1-upmanship, trolling, and pushing their own personal pet agenda... it's just never going to happen.
I'd hate to see this place disappear as a community that can talk, discuss, debate over, and fan-girl/boy over their interests let alone all of the awesome off-topic threads and PbP games that are hosted here but... forums are going extinct because people treat them like social media when they are basically the predecessor to that and themselves generate negative income by the mere fact that they have to be maintained, do not (typically) have enough clicks per day to turn a profit on advertizing, and staff are required to keep a watchful gaze over them when that time could otherwise be spent on making actual products.
Things have devolved into a state that I have no faith can be restored because the users have all brought their attitudes of the world and how they can or should interact with one another online here and ... this place just cannot survive any longer (let alone thrive like it did a decade or more ago) without being a risk to the company bottom line, the emotional well being of individuals who are invested in it, and to the mere existence of the products as... products. The whole system is, to me, like a junkyard dog exposed to rabies, even keeping it around is a danger to the owner, their employees, any customers of theirs, and itself. Maybe I'm just jaded and cynical, but asking "please, pretty please can you all just be nice?" is a waste of breath and energy.
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I wrote and rewrote this many times, deleting it each time because... well, it's just my perspective after the last few months and I've had to personally reevaluate my own participation and emotional investment here despite how long I've been around and how much this community and game actually mean to me. I've met many of you in person, had drinks with some and played games, socialized, and through it found entertainment and learned many things but... those days are gone and dead, they're never going to return but it isn't any one person's fault or that of Paizo, it is all to be blamed on internet culture at large.
If the choice today, in 2021, is to hire more moderation staff or rely on users in a public forum (let alone one that tries to be a safe space for people of certain beliefs and identities) then honestly... the most likely and reasonable recourse is PROBABLY going to end up being that the forums need to be permanently nuked and shut down.
They serve VERY little actual purpose beyond causing aggravation to the customers, staff, and being a place where folks can get their daily dose of serotonin from arguing with, debating, or trolling other anonymous people online, oh, and draining the company of valuable staff labor hours and more importantly morale. I am 200% certain that if these discussion boards were dramatically scaled back to strictly ONLY include discussion about their products (and NOTHING more) as well as allowing PbP games that the sanity and well being of the staff and many other members of the community would see a marked improvement.
Paizo can't just magically come up with another 40-80 hours of labor every week just to keep up with the garbage fire back and forth that this community is turning into.
At the same time, nobody can actually reasonably believe that in a space where there are effectively no real consequences for running your mouth off that people will choose to voluntarily stop chasing their addiction to outrage, schadenfreude, 1-upmanship, trolling, and...
I agree with you pretty much, I'm just not quite at the point of giving up yet.
One slight disagreement is on value - it may not be visible but most of the money I've spent at Paizo is because of the forums.
I've always regarded the community paizo have created as part of their product. Without that, my spending here would have been much, much less for sure.
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One slight disagreement is on value - it may not be visible but most of the money I've spent at Paizo is because of the forums.
I've always regarded the community paizo have created as part of their product. Without that, my spending here would have been much, much less for sure.
Honestly, me too, but that thread of fate was sewn back around 2010 when I found this place and made myself a kind of home. It's not a stretch as far as I see it to say that the neighborhood changed but... it's not just the neighborhood but more like the world itself.
I don't want to be another voice that admits to having been disillusioned and consumed by the wasting disease that is modern-day internet discourse. I honestly YEARN for the days of alignment debates and flame wars because what remains today is way, WAY worse, and it's heartbreaking because it isn't the fault of the management staff, moderators, or even the individual users but instead a culture shift that nobody, and I mean NOBODY has the power to change without essentially destroying what the Internet IS in this era.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I have loved this place, the games, and even some of the people I've met through this hobby and website, that's why it has frustrated me to no end seeing what has become of it. In my own way, I have to acknowledge that I contributed to making things worse at times trying to share my own viewpoint in unhealthy and disrespectful ways and ended up throwing gas on the flames... playing the part of someone "othering" objecting viewpoints, that's something I regret and spent time contemplating and trying to improve on... I just... I don't foresee a future where the rest of the community, let alone NEW users can try and be as measured as I've tried to be in recent weeks because it is HARD, extremely hard, and on many levels it goes against the basic programming and assumptions of how one behaves on the net, anonymously or not.
Don't let me discourage you or anyone else though, really, this is just another worthless 2 copper pieces. On a more personal note, Steve, it's always been a welcome sight to see your name in threads hereabouts and in other places and I want to just bid you a very sincere Qapla' in whatever you currently and shall in the future do.
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I think it’s much worse, but that’s irrelevant anyway. My suggestion holds true whether the Paizo community is facing an existential crisis or if everything is rainbows and kittens.
If you know it’s going to be deleted - hit the cancel button.
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It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I have loved this place, the games, and even some of the people I've met through this hobby and website, that's why it has frustrated me to no end seeing what has become of it. In my own way, I have to acknowledge that I contributed to making things worse at times trying to share my own viewpoint in unhealthy and disrespectful ways and ended up throwing gas on the flames... playing the part of someone "othering" objecting viewpoints, that's something I regret and spent time contemplating and trying to improve on... I just... I don't foresee a future where the rest of the community, let alone NEW users can try and be as measured as I've tried to be in recent weeks because it is HARD, extremely hard, and on many levels it goes against the basic programming and assumptions of how one behaves on the net, anonymously or not.
I've been thinking about this some more - I think I remember the moment a few weeks back you're referring to here and at the time I appreciated the abrupt u-turn you took in tone - without compromising on your opinions and views.
What I'm advocating for really is exactly that - amongst those of us who are used to how things work here. How often do you see a litany of "this will all be deleted on Monday, guys!" - often with some snark or dig which of course.....prompts further sniping. Then sure enough.....it is all deleted, no doubt taking twenty minutes out of someone's day when it could have been five. I think it wouldn't take much effort from some of us more prolific posters to improve the tone of the forums substantially.
I'm not trying to change the world, but I'm not quite prepared to give up on the idea that we can disagree politely with one another even on the internet.
(Before I came here I was on a forum where I regularly got into arguments on one side or other of the theism-atheism and capitalism-socialism debates. Given the scope and scale of those topics, it never ceases to amaze me that the level of grar I experienced there was less than what I see arguing about whether 5E or PF2 is a better way to pretend to be an elf. :p)
Anyhow - just repeating myself I guess, but for what it's worth I thought you did an impressive job of self-moderating a few weeks back which is exactly what I'm arguing for in this thread. So cheers - nice work!
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Who says you aren’t trying to save the world Steve? One grar filled forum at a time until they are all respectful havens of honest and robust conversation…
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I wrote and rewrote this many times, deleting it each time because... well, it's just my perspective after the last few months and I've had to personally reevaluate my own participation and emotional investment here despite how long I've been around and how much this community and game actually mean to me. I've met many of you in person, had drinks with some and played games, socialized, and through it found entertainment and learned many things but... those days are gone and dead, they're never going to return but it isn't any one person's fault or that of Paizo, it is all to be blamed on internet culture at large.
Couldent agree more I mean if much bigger companies like wizards or Games workshop couldent stop there forums from turning into dumpster fires and had to shut them down I dont see what hope Paizo has.
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Given the way Paizo's forums are being used at the moment, I'd get rid of them. Plenty of places for players to discuss game information. At this point the forums seem like a net negative for Paizo. It's like Paizo is paying for forums that are used to attack them in a variety of different ways. They would probably save money getting rid of them and could find a different medium to deliver information.
Doesn't seemed to have hurt WotC getting rid of their forums. They can leave the discussion moderation to someone who operates a forum web site and is built for doing so like EN World.
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If Paizo got rid of the forums I'd lose a LOT of my connection to things -- I'm not on Farcebook or Titter, so it'd really hurt.
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Personally, I think it would be better if Paizo had incremental degrading suspension system, depending on the transgressions you get a multiple hours to days of suspension that increases which each repeated offense getting a longer suspension, but said increase decays naturally overtime without further violations. Currently, someone might even be inclined to reply to a post just to force the mods hand. However, I don't think Paizo has the infrastructure to implement such measures.
More importantly, it is important that people know when and why their post are deleted at the very least so they can know how much is to much and appropriately correct their behavior. I made a similar request over a year a go.
Finally, Paizo needs to update their community guidelines. It is completely possible for forum newbies to engage in inappropriate behavior because they were unaware of the addendum to the guidelines in the Off-Topic subforum.
Humbly,
Yawar
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That’s all off topic.
If you’re posting “this is going to be deleted” you’re not ignorant of the rules. You’re deliberately making work for the moderation team. Nobody can do that and then throw their hands in the air with a “Who, Me???”