| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
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| #1jhkimSep 10, 2009 10:45:24 | I would like to discuss the closed thread Women and Minorities in Games 3. I had opened this thread because the prior thread had disappeared without explanation, and I wanted to try to reconstruct the useful material from it. Having reviewed the code of conduct, I don't think that I have violated anything in there. (Another poster in the thread mentioned that it was against the CoC to continue discussion of the topic, but I see nothing about that in the CoC as written.) I have not received any formal warning. Given this, I would like to continue to try to discuss women and minorities in gaming. It seems to me that the pattern is that someone comes in and makes a stink about the topic and posts a series of non-RPG-related posts, and rather than that person being warned off, the thread as a whole is shut down. I consider this pattern to be unfair. It may be that the moderators consider that shutting down the discussion is a neutral choice that avoids taking a political side, but I feel it is the opposite. By using moderator privilege to shut down discussion of minorities in gaming, the moderators are effectively taking a clear political side though they might not intend to. |
| #2solikSep 10, 2009 16:21:20 | The pattern may be unfair, but it extends far beyond this particular topic that interests you. It's happened in pretty much any other topic you can think of, including some threads I've created. Once you understand how moderation is done on these boards, it's actually relatively trivial to troll for thread closing without outright breaking the CoC (or breaking it in such a way that you pretty much guarantee that other people will also break it, hastening the lock). Not saying I've done it myself, but I've seen it done plenty of times. That's really just the nature of large site moderation, especially for sites designed for product or company customers. The alternatives employed by some other large sites involve allowing flame wars or using a greater level of human judgment in moderation, neither of which will work here. Also, if reopening closed threads isn't explicitly against the CoC, then that's a mistake; it has long been a policy that reopened threads get closed as soon as a moderator notices it. |
| #3RUMPLESTIXSep 10, 2009 16:43:17 | I think the gist is that often a thread is closed due to complaints because it is becoming disruptive. So, a new thread with the same topic is often considered disruptive as a matter of fact and thus automatically closed. At least, I think that is how it goes but I could be wrong. |
| #4tiwaztyrsfistSep 10, 2009 17:40:37 | Women and Minorities, in general, as a topic, is GOING to cause disruption. It's a highly charged issue, or rather Discrimination, which is the meat of that topic is a highly charged issue, and people have strong opinions which they are very violently attached to. Any such discussion, no matter how well intentioned, and how well started, will end up becoming a flame war of spewed hate, accusations, and general Forum CoC Violations galore. It's sad, because I think resonable people SHOULD be able to have a resonable discussion about this sort of thing, but they can't. Get three perfectly reasonable people, who are normally totally non-violent, put them in a room, give them all baseball bats, and start them on the topic of "Racial and gender equality" and leave for a hour. When you come back you'll have one living person covered in blood and two piles of what appears to be raw hamburger. Frankly, it just doesn't work. |
| #5jhkimSep 10, 2009 20:11:37 | The pattern may be unfair, but it extends far beyond this particular topic that interests you. It's happened in pretty much any other topic you can think of, including some threads I've created. Once you understand how moderation is done on these boards, it's actually relatively trivial to troll for thread closing without outright breaking the CoC (or breaking it in such a way that you pretty much guarantee that other people will also break it, hastening the lock). Not saying I've done it myself, but I've seen it done plenty of times. Well, sure, there will be examples of similar unfairness outside of the specific example that I'm complaining about. If it happens regularly, that makes it more of a problem -- which makes it all the more important to point it out and complain about it. I disagree that human judgment in moderation can't work. Moderation always works from judgment. For example, deleting the thread didn't result from automated rules -- it happened from a moderator's judgment of what to do about the situation. Women and Minorities, in general, as a topic, is GOING to cause disruption. It's a highly charged issue, or rather Discrimination, which is the meat of that topic is a highly charged issue, and people have strong opinions which they are very violently attached to. Well, that may be, but I'm pointing out that the moderators are taking political sides here. By shutting down discussion that someone is offended by, the moderators are taking the side of the offended party. Let's say that a hypothetical someone think that Robert E. Howard is a racist, based on statements in his letters like "I don’t know whether an Oriental smells any different than a **** when he’s roasting, but I’m willing to bet the aroma of scorching hide would have the same chastening effect on his surviving tribesman." cf. here Now suppose this person comes into any thread discussing Conan or other R.E. Howard based material, and making a big stink about his racism. They are offended by Howard and thinks that talk about his work has no place in discussion. Maybe that person could get the threads shut down, but it wouldn't be right. Regardless of Howard's personal views, people ought to be able to talk about his work. The point is that if the moderators shut down R.E. Howard related threads because of her, they are effectively taking the Howard-hater's side. Because they are offended by Howard, no one is allowed to talk about Conan or Hyboria. |
| #6tiwaztyrsfistSep 10, 2009 21:01:56 | Except, that's not what's happening here. See, if ONE person, or even a few people (2-3) were derailing the "Women and Minorities" thread over and over again, the mods would have responded by banning that individual or small group. As would happen in your Robert E. Howard scenario. The problem is "Discrimination" is such a broadly hot-button topic that the threads are being derailed by people pretty much at random, at least as far as I can tell, because EVERYONE who goes into the thread has a strong opinion. To make an analogy. What you talk about in your example is in effect like this. You walk into a bar, and everyone is drinking and talking quietly. Suddenly one person climbs up on a table, starts screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs. Racial slurs, threats, etc. A few people shout at him, maybe one or two try to run him out. When the cops show up, logically they grab him and cart him off, and everyone else can resume there evening. What you get in the charged topics, like Women and Minorities. You walk into a bar, and everyone is beating on each other. There are 50 people in the bar counting you, and there are 65 poolcues being used as bludgeons. Every single glass bottle has ALREADY been broken over someones head. There is one old man in the corner drinking, oblivious to the fighting, everyone else in engaged in a general melee. When the cops show up, they are going to cart EVERYONE away, and close the bar until further notice, or atleast until the fines are paid.
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| #7RUMPLESTIXSep 10, 2009 21:11:24 | Let me fix this for you...
Would and should are two different things. I made a post in the thread at about 0545 eastern this morning before going to work but did not get to see what happened later. So, I don't know what led to the closure/deletion. Edit Note: This is not a stab at moderators/ORCs. Sometimes things are just difficult to get a grip on. |
| #8jhkimSep 11, 2009 1:29:27 | Except, that's not what's happening here. I don't think that this is true of the threads in question, which I was a part of. I think that there were only 2-3 people at most who were consistently derailing these threads -- and mainly just one. There are some people who would respond to off-topic posts with off-topic responses, but most of them were respectful in their disagreements. For example, I had disagreements with Caladors on the original thread where we disagreed, but we kept it in relation to D&D and spoke civilly. The moderators made no visible effort to reign in the 2-3 people who were derailing prior to locking and/or deleting, though perhaps they made private messages.
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| #9teepeekaySep 11, 2009 11:40:29 | That the thread was closed was, well, OK, whatever. But why couldn't it just be locked instead of going *poof*? Interesting links and ressources had been posted in the constructive parts of the thread, having them disappear is not cool. |
| #10jhkimSep 11, 2009 14:05:56 | I see nothing in the Code of Conduct that forbids discussion of moderation. If that is in error, then the CoC should be updated. As far as I know, this forum is the place to discuss about issues with the forums such as threads disappearing. Reviewing the CoC, I believe that my post was about a reasonable topic for the forum, and was about game-relevant questions. If you have a problem with my personal politics, then you should PM me, or perhaps comment on my personal blog (jhkim.livejournal.com) -- but it isn't appropriate to disrupt on-topic gaming conversation. Conversely, I won't come into threads that other people start with off-topic disruption over their personal politics. |
| #11trappedsliderSep 11, 2009 14:15:05 |
It goes under the catch all of disruption |
| #12EscherEnigmaSep 11, 2009 15:09:49 |
Yeah... that... isn't what they do 'round here. They tend to just close the threads and hope it doesn't happen again. Heck, near as I can tell the moderators don't really keep any statistics on who's causing disruptions so unless you happen to get the same mod multiple times they won't even realize there's a pattern. Seen it time and again. |
| #13calronmoonflowerSep 13, 2009 1:01:05 | Except, that's not what's happening here. Like EscherEnigma said that's not generally what happens. Normally the disruptor gets a temp ban and the thread might be locked. |
| #14ogrehooperSep 13, 2009 12:52:18 |
So, I don't really truly see a reason for you opening another thread. You didn't bring up any particular questions you have regarding Minority Gaming, and just discuss moderation of the forums. Is there a question you have somewhere hidden in there that deals with this thread's title? If not, then there was no point in opening this thread. |
| #15jhkimSep 13, 2009 14:36:30 | So, I don't really truly see a reason for you opening another thread. You didn't bring up any particular questions you have regarding Minority Gaming, and just discuss moderation of the forums. Is there a question you have somewhere hidden in there that deals with this thread's title? If not, then there was no point in opening this thread. This thread was to discuss the deleting or locking of the three thread about minorities I mentioned. I did open threads to directly discuss minorities in gaming, but they were shut down. Before opening a fourth, I felt that I should have a meta-thread to discuss the issue. I was concerned that if I opened a fourth, it would simply be shut down again without any progress made. My understanding was that the "Community Business" forum was a place where one might discuss problems with trolling, moderation, and other community issues in the D&D boards. Do you think I should just have opened up a fourth thread?
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