What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't

[Kestrel]

Joy.

A healthy community needs joy. It’s one of the most vital ingredients, and one that’s too often overlooked.

Some gamerunners and administrators often fixate so greatly on all the many ways that misery can be caused, and must be prevented, that they neglect to allow enough room for people to breathe. A good community isn’t just one where people aren’t actively being harmed; it’s one where people are actively enjoying themselves.

In every community/project I’ve ever run, I’ve started from a point of wanting to offer people as much freedom as possible, and from there opted to limit only what really needed to be. I assume people won’t abuse a system or any trust offered; if I’m proven wrong, then I either handle the individual doing so, or reinforce the boundaries that need to be. I find that people generally want to live up to expectations, or inversely, down to them. If you treat them like children, they will act like children; I think that bad administrators often have those notions of cause and effect the wrong way around. There are always exceptions, but people want to be liked; don’t corner them, don’t make them feel unwelcome, don’t cultivate a hostile atmosphere, and the likelihood they’ll be on their best behaviour is in fact very high. I’ve seen notoriously toxic communities transform entirely when ported into an environment where they understand that both expectations of them, and the treatment they’re likely to receive in turn, are different. They have no reason to be hostile when they don’t feel like they’re constantly being threatened.

Try not to punish people if you can help it. Prevention is better than retribution. Sometimes you need the latter, but the former’s always better. On a game, this means designing systems that encourage positive behaviour rather than simply shaming people for bad behaviour. I’m going to deliberately use a fictional example that to the best of my knowledge doesn’t exist anywhere, because I don’t want to subtweet: a system that allows people to silently vote on your description, and rewards you with some kind of XP bonus upon crossing an approval threshold with other players, would be better than one that allows other players to report typos in it and affect you with some kind of malus for having them. But as mentioned, this is a deliberately fictional example and you can transpose it onto something more vital than a character desc; ideally, unless you’ve reason to be concerned about the quality of character descs on your game, I think it’s generally worth risking the occasional typo or Mary-Sueishness or minor quibbles over taste, and letting players have the creative freedom to do what makes them happy and fuck up from time to time. If it’s not utterly game-breaking or community ruining, then whatever.

One size doesn’t fit all. Sometimes you need to test the waters and figure out as you go what kind of community you’re dealing with, and what management style’s best suited for it.

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I agree with @Roadspike’s commentary about missing stairs. This helps preserve joy. Let’s say you have a community where adult language is allowed, and you don’t have rules against sex jokes. Occasionally someone cracks a sex joke, and it’s funny, and people laugh; joy is up. One weirdo shows up and starts making the kinds of inappropriate sex jokes that make everyone uncomfortable instead. The difference is subtle, but felt. You may choose to let the occasional incidence of bad actors ruin what’s until now been a fun and relaxed atmosphere for everyone, and say that sex jokes are now against the rules, all comments must be PG. Or you address the missing stairs, the one person who’s calling every woman they talk to a bitch/cunt, and go back to the relaxed approach where people can otherwise laugh, joke around, and lovingly call their friends rude names without it causing issues.

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Briefly, I want to address the topic of “receipts”, because it has been a hot topic of late, and I think it is worth touching on in good faith. I’ve deliberately not brought it up before, because I don’t want my words to be misused by people who mean ill.

Receipts are good. Keep receipts. Share receipts. Ask for receipts. That’s fine. If I hear about a bad actor, I want to know the specifics of what they’ve done that’s bad, not because I disbelieve you, but because that information can help me further protect myself and others. For example, there’s a thread about Breccan. Prior to reading it and some of the receipts @kalakh posted, the stories I’d heard about this person made me wonder if it’s someone I’ve dealt with before. When I read the screenshots, I could see that their writing style wasn’t a good fit, and am now less worried about the person I know (even if they still make me uncomfortable enough that I wondered).

Of course, there is a difference between wanting receipts and needing receipts. I don’t need them to believe someone’s been made uncomfortable, especially not if I hear from multiple people that’s the case. I’m not owed receipts when there are a myriad of reasons why they may not be available, or not available to me. And if I’m not a member of staff, and it’s not my job to handle and review the complaint, then I definitely don’t need them to just be a good community member and offer empathy. If I hear that Alex is pursuing Charlie and making them uncomfortable, then it doesn’t really matter how well I know either party, or what I know about the situation; I’m going to tell Alex to fuck off if I see them asking after Charlie. (With varying degrees of respect, depending on the discernible extent.)

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Nice is different than good. Wherever possible, we should try to be nice. We should avoid personal attacks. We should address each other respectfully. But I’m personally not interested in respectability politics, or in tolerating intolerance. We’re not obligated to be polite to those looking to abuse civil standards.

Tell people to fuck off, loudly, clearly and firmly, if they choose to actively engage in fuckery. Don’t let others run circles around your moral standards. I was recently on a game where a very obvious troll showed up and started breaking systems in ways that a newbie simply wouldn’t know how to, while endlessly asking questions on the newbie channel. A friend of mine chose to engage them in good faith, was unfailingly polite, and answered all their questions as best as possible. I told them not to; the “newbie” was clearly, and wilfully wasting their time. My friend said, ‘You’re probably right, but how I respond reflects on me more than it does on them.’ I disagreed; I ignored the newbie, and did not give them the attention and amusement they were there for. Bad faith doesn’t deserve good faith in return; don’t reward bad behaviour.

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These are my opinions, for all that they happen to be worth.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

Most has already been said so I’m just going to toss in: Respect.

Assume that people aren’t bad actors just because they disagree with you. Discourage ad hominem attacks and agree to disagree.

But also have the respect for the place to not allow a certain kind of actor to continue to disrespect the place by continuing to stir shit once everyone else is trying to disengage.

[kalakh]

@Kestrel said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

Nice is different than good. Wherever possible, we should try to be nice. We should avoid personal attacks. We should address each other respectfully. But I’m personally not interested in respectability politics, or in tolerating intolerance. We’re not obligated to be polite to those looking to abuse civil standards.

This is a great post all around, but this bit here has me thinking about something I was told…eesh, over a decade ago now, and that’s that there’s a difference between being nice, and being kind. There’s nothing wrong with being nice, but nice is superficial. It’s nice when someone holds the door for you. It’s nice when you smile at strangers in passing. It’s nice to watch your language. Nice is, as this conversation went, easily done, but also easily faked, and easily used as cover for insisting that peace and calm are more important than addressing deeper issues. It is never, for instance, nice to shout. It’s not nice to get angry. Nice people don’t inconvenience others, or ever make them uncomfortable. It’s not nice to say mean things about people, even if it’s really rather necessary to warn others about them. Nice can be wielded as an expectation with judgment: why can’t you just be nicer?

I try to be nice when it’s appropriate, but I’m always a bit wary about nice.

Kindness, on the other hand, is harder and requires more effort, but is more meaningful. Kindness comes from the heart, not from manners. It’s kind to volunteer your time at a homeless shelter. It’s kind to help a stranger jumpstart their car or fix a tire. It’s kind to bring food to a grieving neighbor, or to be a shoulder to a friend when they really need one. I don’t think kindness is rare, though our society is really dedicated to making us believe so. But it can be so easily overlooked, and sometimes, what is kind is not nice.

I dunno, that’s what’s in my brain, because respectability politics is a great way to put it.

edit: Actually, I want to expand with an example.

Years ago, there was a death in my family that was sudden and awful in every way. We had support from neighbors and church folks, many condolences were given, and space was had when needed. I don’t want to disparage any of that, I am and always will be deeply, deeply grateful for all of it.

But lemme tell you about this one guy. He used to be the head of our church, but at the time was no longer in any position, and had no responsibility whatsoever toward my family. The night this happened, my folks called three people: 911, the actual church leader, and him.

This dude arrived before the ambulance or the cops, before the church leader, he came sprinting up our lawn at full speed in the middle of the night, he hugged my parents and just managed to hug me, and then he stuck around trying to provide support well after everyone else had left. No idea if he got any sleep at all. He wasn’t the only one, but he went with my folks to pick up the body. He helped arrange the funeral. At every step, he was there to help.

It’s been nine years and this guy moved halfway across the country maybe six months after this happened, but every single anniversary, without fail, he sends my mom flowers. That may be the kindest person I will ever meet.

[GF]

Trust.

[Polk]

@kalakh Your last paragraph there is incredibly insightful. It took a lot of background info to get to that point, but that’s brilliant analysis of what people projected onto the Hog Pit - which came to dominate MSB as a whole because of the whole heckler’s veto thing - versus what it was run as.

People wanted a forum that kept a List. They got a form of ranting and raving.

If you want to be a clearing house of information about bad actors in a smallish Internet community, you need to value honesty and integrity.

But there’s another issue. Put on your mask before helping others.

A forum like this has to protect its own integrity and health, if it’s going to be of use to others. It’s a mistake to err on the side of anything goes, even when the reasoning is THE INFORMATION MUST GET OUT THERE so PEOPLE ARE PROTECTED.

If a forum like this wants to be an institutional pillar of the hobby, it has to be safe and healthy itself, if it’s going to assist game communities in keeping themselves safe and healthy.

So how do you keep a forum healthy? I think the way you do that is you cultivate a culture where we assume everyone is engaging in good faith. Observe good practices of civil politeness. Be gentle.

Politeness and a presumption of good faith are the lubrication that allow meaningful social interactions to happen, and it is in those social interactions that the truth are outed.

If someone engages in bad faith, take moderator action.

I’m not the first person to say this in the thread. L. B. Heuschkel is dead on.

Kestrel is right, too. On Twitter, there are ways to be pleasant, and ways to be unpleasant. I try not to engage with people there who are Always On. They never talk about their pets, or their hobbies, or food, or anything in their lives. They’re Always On, and it’s just soul crushing.

Have some joy. Step off of the soapbox (heh) now and then. “Touch grass,” as the kids say.

It is through things like this, that Trust can be earned, as GF calls for. When you have a community of people who keep perspective, and maintain good faith, then you can have trust that matters will be resolved sensibly.

[Tat]

All of this resonates with me, but especially:

@Polk said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

People wanted a forum that kept a List. They got a form of ranting and raving.

[Pavel]

@Polk said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

People wanted a forum that kept a List. They got a form of ranting and raving.

I would counter this thusly: People said they wanted a forum that kept a List. They engaged with a forum of ranting and raving.

ETA: Therefore, be clear with what you actually want. Express it. But be aware that what you want isn’t what every place in the community is going to offer.

[tsar]

Knowing when to walk away.

I’m writing this knowing that I haven’t done so well with it myself these last few months.

But not every fight has to be argued until we’re blue in the face. Sometimes it’s fine to just leave it when you can’t make forward progress in a conversation.

[GF]

I hate the word “civil.” “Civil” always feels like a trap to me, because I can never tell who means it the way I mean it and who means it in a way that wants to receive more than they’re compelled to give; who, to use an extreme but topical example, can claim that ruling half of the country shall now be codified as second-class citizens is civil, but yelling at you outside a restaurant for making that ruling is not.

Conceptually, I believe civility is a good thing, with a few caveats. It must not be mistaken for superficial qualities such as tone or demeanor, and it must be acceptable to return the civility or lack thereof which one receives. Speaking personally, I am exhausted to my fucking bone of being expected to swallow the hurt done to me so I can coo at the person who did the hurting and tell them what a good boy they are before I am allowed to address that they hurt me.

[Tat]

@Pavel said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

@Polk said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

People wanted a forum that kept a List. They got a form of ranting and raving.

I would counter this thusly: People said they wanted a forum that kept a List. They engaged with a forum of ranting and raving.

I think this is correct, but also it’s important to remember that ‘people’ is not a monolith. There has been a lot of talk about the people ‘scared into silence’ by the Hogpit.

I wasn’t one of those, really - I read the Hogpit with occasional attention, and posted even more occsaionally - but I WAS a person who did not engage with any regularity because of the amount and tone of public ranting and raving. It wasn’t the List stuff that kept me largely quiet, it was the other stuff.

And I’m okay with that - if, eventually, most the content on this board heads that direction again, I’ll just slip out in a ‘not for me’ fashion and read occasionally so I know what’s going on in the hobby. But I’d also be a little sad, because I’ve already had some really interesting conversations over here, and I’d love to have it as a TRUE resource of different viewpoints and experiences, rather than one where said differences frequently end in a shouting match .

[Pavel]

@Tat said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

but also it’s important to remember that ‘people’ is not a monolith.

True, this is one of those things that regularly annoys me about certain political slogans or mandates. “The people decided, the people did this, the people did that” which people? When? Why wasn’t I invited?

[Polk]

@Pavel Fair point.

People believed in the Ideal of the place where people could expose wrongs.

So they ventured into the Hog Pit. And, being people, they got caught up in it. Which contributed to it, and magnified what it was.

Humans are social. They emulate what they are surrounded by. It’s easy to have happen, and that’s why discussions like this are useful.

It’s important to know what you want, and proactively plan how to get it, because habits contrary to those goals can establish themselves in a hurry.

I think it’s possible for a forum to maintain a livable, healthy atmosphere, and still have a place where you say stuff like “I was on Game X and Person Y harassed me. ST Z explained it away when I reported it. I later found out Y and Z are friends. I’m staying away from Game X.”

You don’t have to treat it like a court of law. You don’t have to make a capital case of every allegation. Let people speak. Judge the words yourself. Ask questions. Discuss.

But maintain the social lubrication that makes discussion possible.

[KarmaBum]

@sao said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

I think one thing that is important in terms of defining the health of the community is figuring out that there is a difference between when people have differences in opinion - where reasonable minds may differ- and when people have differences in values to the point where their basic philosophies cannot coincide.

This is an incredibly good point. In a community like this, we’re going to have divergent opinions, but we are usually operating under the same basic values.

Example: I personally think the game most of the active posters here play (Arx) is a hot mess that confuses the shit outta me, and I don’t play there. Rather than let this be a divisive issue, we’ve learned to love each other in our way: you guys keep it to the Arx threads, and I stay outta there, and life is good. I don’t chase you around the forum, telling you how wrong you all are about this game you love, and nobody runs around pestering me to change my opinion of the place. If I really annoy people, they can block me, and vice versa; I can mute threads and ignore posters.

This is a difference in opinion vs a difference in values, and one the forum is already programmed to handle. If you don’t like my opinions, you can ignore me to no detriment of your continued engagement with or enjoyment of the forum.

If I were made an admin here and suddenly decided that all Arx threads must be SILENCED, then we’d have a difference of values, and my values would be fundamentally different than those of the majority of the posters here. I’d have the ability to enforce my values, and posters would have no recourse to ignore or go around my mandate.

So what makes a community healthy? When its members’ core values are aligned with each other, and when its leaders share those values and help keep the community inline with them.

How do we deal when it isn’t? Get banned and start a new forum.

[Pavel]

@KarmaBum said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

If I were made an admin here and suddenly decided that all Arx threads must be SILENCED

We’re saving that for when @Tez is sick, and I have to make all the decisions.

[shit-piss-love]

Civility is useful as a goal. It bakes in ideas of sharing the discussion space, equalizing the emotional tone and acknowledging the legitimacy of other’s thoughts and feelings, and being responsible for the health of a shared community. If your community is able to keep things civil most of the time, you can use it as a barometer both for how healthy your community is and for measuring your own emotional load relative to a topic in discussion. These are useful things for people who want to see their community thrive.

When someone starts to drift from civility in interaction with a community they actually care about, it’s because their emotions have got on top of them. That’s not a Bad Thing. Trying to climb on top of your brain is just what emotions do. And we apes like that and it can serve a purpose. Angry Gets Shit Done. But emoting that anger has a tendency to degrade many messages, even if just as a subconscious reaction in the reader/listener. Sure, it’s galling that if I want to be as well-received as possible when expressing myself, I may have to curtail the rage roiling like stomach acid in my furious punk heart. But demonstrably, if I do that, my messaging is received far better especially by the people watching me argue with the person I want to flatten with a rogue meteor. Imbuing my words with the full force of my anger by veering off the path of civility certainly feels good and it may even totally hit right with people that already totally agree with my position but those are the people you least need to reach in a public discourse.

The issue is really that dropping civility is assuming claim to a larger portion of the emotional space in a discussion or community than you are tacitly entitled to by default. It’s the verbal/written equivalent of an animal turning to their largest profile to ward off potential aggressors. This is why, for people who aren’t just fucking awful in their shriveled little souls, when someone from a privileged group punches down in a way that is also lacking in civility, we just want to vomit incredulity from every orifice. They are suddenly taking up way more emotional space in the discussion, that they are obviously not entitled to because they are bigots or fascists. And if you aren’t one of those things, then you also don’t want to be someone who breaches goals of equity by taking up more space than you’re entitled, if you can avoid it.

When bigots or fascists punch down, they may do it with civility or not. Civility can be disingenuously used as a shield to shroud regressive behavior and intentions. When they do that, one of their goals is to get you to be the one that breaks civility. Now you are the person who is taking up more of the emotional space than is equitable. You are reading negatively to the bystanders that are the ones you want to convince if you’re going to add bodies to the right side. That’s a positive outcome for the people you’re arguing with.

So, civility is useful as a goal. To keep us all sharing an equitable amount of the emotional space and to communicate effectively. It’s also a barometer for how well the community/discussion is going at meeting those goals, and for measuring what trajectory we’re on individually.

All of that said, breaking civility is not necessarily a failure mode. Sometimes, assuming more emotional space than is equitable is an act with positive outcomes. If someone is being awful in the space, whether civilly or not, it may be good to step forward and assume the aggressive stance in defense of others. You have to consider the situation, and the cost/return of giving up the shield of civility (and the advantage of perception in the eyes of potential bystanders) in order to back down a bad actor. You may be defending someone that is vulnerable, putting a stop to expression or action that is stomping on someone’s trauma, etc. Judgment call and risk.

Finally, there’s the situation where someone awful is already acting without civility. Now sometimes, maybe even often, acting with civility is still the right move because you can make them look like fools, really win over bystanders, etc. That can be really powerful. But oh, my peeps, there really is nothing quite so empowering as going full nuclear on a bigot who is masks off at the wrong fucking party. There is no drug better than letting loose feral monkey rage on a fascist especially where there’s really no risk to doing so and you’re surrounded by like minded folk who are suddenly also fingering their knives. Where you can do some real Bastille Day, Summer 2020, molotov chucking emotional violence against some intellectually incurious smoothbrain who missed the street sign.

And that is what safe spaces are for.

[Polk]

@shit-piss-love Yes. Civility cannot be the only goal. Good faith engagement is also essential.

Someone who lies while all the protocols are followed, is as harmful as someone who breaks all the protocols.

[IoleRae]

The need for “civility” is used to silence abuse victims, particularly in relation to their abuser and the accusations. I’ll leave it at that.

eta: No I won’t. I need to add that particularly victims of childhood abuse, it is a frequent enough result that they have an impossible time taking up ANY space, let alone the space that their anger IS entitled to based on what was done to them. Getting angry, being ABLE to get angry, about abuse? It’s healthy and reasonable. When somebody does terrible things to you (or people you care about), an emotional reaction is perfectly reasonable.

It’s not just about winning arguments.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

Agreed. Tone policing is essentially a tool to silence those whose polite protests got them nothing, in order to maintain the status quo.

[IoleRae]

Reacting with ANGER instead of SHAME to abuse is good, and shaming people for not being civil in these throes is not helpful or healthy. It won’t win over any hearts or minds, but that doesn’t matter. It truly doesn’t matter. No amount of civil discourse is going to change the behavior of people who prey on other people.

If I have to be civil to convince somebody else that I DESERVE to be safe, then they are not CAPABLE of creating an environment in which I can be safe, because forced civility towards my abuser is not safe.

[shit-piss-love]

It can definitely vary by life experience. My mother, who is in that corner of BPD that people used to call the Witch subtype, was physically and emotionally abusive to me when I was a young child. The physical abuse was always preceded by verbal abuse as she worked herself up to the state where she could conscience beating her own child. It took a lot of work for me to get to the point where people breaking from civility didn’t immediately trigger my hypervigilance.

I think there may be a distinction to be made about what avenue or community you’re talking about. Out in the wider world, civility is definitely, almost constantly, used to excuse at least subtextual but often overt aggression or oppression of others. Aspirationally though, in your own community safe space? Acting with civility can go hand in hand with kindness. Doing so may be the thing that allows those carrying traumas around high emotional charge to feel like they can safely participate.