Don’t forget we moved!
https://brandmu.day/
Bannings
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I guess that thread got nuked while I was catching up, which is, frankly, just rude. Rude, I say.
In any case, I’ve got Thoughts, which I suppose is some forum version of a subtweet. They boil down to this:
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Administrators/staff/moderators are human, they have bad days, and there are definitely bad actors, but if you’re going to react to any sort of criticism, pushback, or even plain confusion/asks for clarification with kneejerk suspicion that it’s all some veiled attempt at shit-stirring or attacking you, then you should not be an admin. You especially shouldn’t be an admin on a board that has just had a major drama blow-up and mass banning/departure of a giant chunk of its userbase and is trying to rebuild cred with the community. This should go without saying, but that team is aggro as fuck.
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Moderating on the spirit of the law rather than the letter still requires that there actually be a law. Refusing to set clear boundaries because it’s inevitable that some folks are going to push those boundaries is just the wildest take I’ve seen on this topic. It also really smells like an excuse to be more arbitrary with rulings, which I don’t think is deliberate, but definitely seems present.
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Don’t ask people for their honest opinions on how to fix something and then reject it all with an accusation that the person who answered is clearly just holding a personal vendetta and therefore it’s good people aren’t taking that person seriously. Especially don’t start with some weird shit about how light self deprecation is evidence of a poster having an agenda, I don’t even know what moon logic dimension that came from.
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If you don’t want to share internal discussions on various bans, don’t keep talking about all these in depth internal discussions that were totally fair and judged with utmost neutrality but they happened we swear. Just say some version of “sorry, we discussed it and our decision stands”. People are going to call bullshit because a bunch of those bans were total bullshit, so if you aren’t budging on them (and frankly it’s entirely too late anyway) then I guess tough shit? People are going to have opinions on the bad calls that were made, and further opinions when the bad calls were upheld.
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Speaking of, if you’re going to say mistakes were made and you’re trying to do better, doubling down forever on how, actually, everything that was done was entirely justified and all the people who left or were banned were just shit stirrers who wanted to be mean all day is really contradictory. Pick one, you can’t have both. And if you pick “mistakes were made”, then you need to try to rectify those mistakes. I just said it’s too late to reverse the bans, but reverse them anyway. Folks who left aren’t likely to return, but the folks who are still there can see you actually do mean it.
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Other than serving as the main platform where the blow-up happened, it had absolutely nothing to do with the Hog Pit. This history re-write where it was all the fault of the Hog Pit and frequent posters is gross and transparently a lie. It’s okay, you can nuke the Hog Pit and make it something else, that’s not actually a big deal. You can do that independently of everything else. Focusing on the whole thing being toxic mean clique bully bitches (which anyone who goes back to read those threads can see it was not), guarantees something like it can and probably will happen again. Your house didn’t catch fire because the neighbor’s dog wouldn’t stop barking.
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Speaking to the above, some of the most toxic posters who have ever been on MSB are the ones calling the shots or are friends with those who are. That doesn’t change by piling the blame on people who are no longer around. Unfortunately, they don’t really change either. It’s going to be a problem going forward, and it’s already a problem now, because the atmosphere over there is incredibly hostile for a forum that’s patting itself on the back for ditching their flame board. If I were a new poster taking a glance at that thread, I’d have turned around and walked right back out.
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Hella is VulgarKitten and lmao
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@kalakh Honestly, these thoughts are similar to those that @tez, @Pyrephox, @tsar and I had when we were coming up with how to moderate this place.
Naturally, we who remain ain’t perfect either, and we’re gonna fuck up, but we plan to keep these thoughts in mind as we go and we’ll do a decent enough job.
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@kalakh I checked because I was worried my posts got deleted, but for the record, the thread didn’t get nuked. Derp just moved it into a thread of its own and locked it.
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While excising my initial criticism which was entirely on topic.
Whatever, I just caught up on the rest of the stuff that I missed while I was asleep, and all I want to say is that we know you can read what’s over here.
I only posted here when I said I was done, and just like Selira, the content of my posts in this thread were materially no different then what I had already been saying.
This isn’t some spooky cabal.
And while you’re at it? Hella is the player of Monique, who lied to the entire fucking player base of Arx about her identity, pressured them to fuck her even when they had do not contact requests, and purported herself as someone brand new while asking about the old version of herself in order to try to get people to shit talk her.
Wonderful new fans you have over there.
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@Solstice i also only posted here when i noped out there.
the contents of my posts here are very different tho, because then they proceeded to flame me and call me a bully afterwards, so again, a big FUCK YOU to runescryer. you can’t gaslight me into thinking that i am a bully because as one of three people posting on the opposite side of an issue, i knew that DM was about me.
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Yes, that was pretty fucking clear.
I’m not naming names, but there are three of you making people uncomfortable…
Anyhow, I’ll stop bumping this thread about it. Because frankly as much as it pisses me off, it makes me more sad than anything.
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@Solstice Which, I don’t fucking get?
How was Hella or Macha or whoever feeling like I might BULLY and TURN ON THEM when the whole focus of my posts was about how I thought the bans were unfair and they should be reversed, or at least explained.
I literally did not address or touch anything else. I had one point. A very valid point. A point that even faraday shared. Do they now think FARADAY is a bully? Or was it literally just my name attached to the point that makes me a bully?
ETA: sorry, i’ll stop bumping too. i am sad, too. i had my RL blow up in sadness right after all this shit, and now that i am getting over that, i am processing my sadness over what happened months ago, and honestly, i’m gonna make like elsa. idk why i had a niggling thought that the months would have healed something and made derp reflect.
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And while you’re at it? Hella is the player of Monique, who lied to the entire fucking player base of Arx about her identity, pressured them to fuck her even when they had do not contact requests, and purported herself as someone brand new while asking about the old version of herself in order to try to get people to shit talk her.
Bolded and italics for emphasis.
Sorry, that bit I never heard so it’s jarring to read that for the first time.
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@Meg I’m sorry about your RL blow up. And that this wound keeps getting poked at, too.
This isn’t the last time anyone in the community or you probably revisits this split. The bans serve certain people and it’s just gonna make them uncomfortable every time someone disrupts or brings their validity into question. For people like Hella, I imagine a lot of their experience is uncomfortable because that’s what their special brand of repeated behavior reaps.
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Hey, mods? Can I add to consideration a sub-board for warning about problem players? I feel like one of the problems with how MSB was laid out was that having them in the hog pit it let those threads gradually fall away into the distance. Even if it’s just a board that’s fully locked and those threads get moved to when someone is deemed sufficiently threatening?
VASpider, etc.
Just an idea, and won’t be saddened either way.
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@Solstice We’ll discuss it in private and only tell you the result but none of the subsequent conversation. (This is a joke, but we will discuss it.)
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A’ight, we discussed it (yes, it was fast, we just happen to be all awake at the same time). We were pretty unanimously in the camp of “opposed but could be convinced if there’s a substantial need for it”.
Main concerns expressed included making a place specifically to shit-talk specific people, the temptation to spread doxing information (like IP addresses) which we naturally wouldn’t condone, and generally making us feel kind of icky for ineffable reasons.
If you do find yourselves/ourselves needing such a section, I’d recommend putting up a post in the Comments and Feedback section for proper user-staff conversation on the topic.
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Also, Rough and Rowdy section exists and can be used for that kind of stuff as well, so long as it doesn’t include doxing, etc.
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That logic makes total sense, and thanks!
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Man, so. My serious of thoughts rattling around in no particular order.
MSB staff can share whatever they want of their justification for my continued ban. I don’t care.
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BMD is not a protest of MSB. Nor was it made in response to the Hogpit on MSB being renamed and having a new Code of Conduct issued for the site. BMD was made before that happened. It was made because a bunch of folks were banned and a bunch of other folks lost confidence in MSB moderation, so they made a new community. At most you could call it a vote of no confidence in MSB. But the repeated idea that a bunch of people were just mad at MSB saying everyone has to be nicer, that all these people just wanted the ability to be cruel and so they left, is bullshit. The timeline doesn’t hold up. People left because…
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The social contract between administration and a large portion of the active userbase was broken. Pretty much every other time I can recall an MSB staffer asking folks to chill out, move threads, take a breath, etc., it’s been respected. Or if it hasn’t been, people haven’t been affronted at seeing others get warnings. So why was this instance different? The popular answer I see trotted out on MSB is that it was all about Derp’s appointment, that people couldn’t stop arguing about Derp. Except, if you go back and reread the actual thread, that’s not what happened. Sure, some people were making quiet exits, because they didn’t trust Derp in an administrative capacity. But the reason people started getting vocally angry was one single ban that appeared to be entirely without merit. Two users had what could at most be called a tiff over DMs, they yelled some Last Words at each other over their shoulders, and then one side – the one who opened and continually extended the conversation – decided to report this under the guise that it was some sort of harassment. So you had someone who, at most, got a bit snarky in their exit, now being presented as someone guilty of actual harassment, and the community takes harassment pretty seriously. A number of people, myself included, had access to the log of the conversation, and found it a wildly out of touch response on the part of staff. And, when frustrations were voiced, staff doubled down.
There’s a social contract in every community, and when one side is seen to break it, it has a destructive effect on the community at large. That is why you saw such a strong reaction from a lot of posters who have never caused issues before and who only engage in debate rarely on the board. (I’m not talking about me here, as I know I’m argumentative, but people like tsar, Third Eye, etc.) If you lose the confidence of your userbase as a staffer, if you are no longer trusted to treat people fairly, then it is no surprise when your requests for silence aren’t respected. When people are angry about staff misconduct, then requests to not speak about the staff misconduct will be taken as silencing tactics.
That is what happened.
Had that first ban not occurred, I do think you would have seen some people leaving MSB due to not trusting Derp in an administrative position, but I don’t think it would have shaken out the same way.
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People who don’t even know Mietze, who aren’t even friends with her, should stop using her name as some sort of tool or proof or justification. Her name isn’t a weapon for you to wield, and it makes it very clear you have no idea what’s going on there.
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It is very, very clear that the decisions of who to unban were not based in any reasonable justification. The reasoning for not sharing anything about why some people were unbanned while others weren’t – and no, a general “we made reasons based on things” is not a reason – is thin enough to be transparent. If Derp had shit on me, he’d share it. There’s been talk at other times about keeping out the “line-pushers” now that MSB has a new Code of Conduct, except you can’t possibly make that argument for the vast majority of those who remain banned.
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The fact that MSB staff openly asked people what they could do better and then disparaged the responses before eventually splitting the thread (fine, makes sense) and locking it (not fine) just makes a public declaration that offering criticism of MSB staff is unwelcome and will be treated with hostility. If you actually want to engender trust, you are doing the opposite.
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You have not managed to cultivate some safe, polite atmosphere. There’s open snark over there, most particularly from the mods. Some of the people talking about how safe they feel now do so because the people who will call out others when they do shitty, creepy things are now gone. VulgarKitten changed her username to Hella and slipped right back on the board. She had previously disappeared after it came to light how she had been lying about her identity on Arx for months, manipulating others, and engaging in romantic and sexual RP with players who had NCOs against her. The safety she praises you all for now is the safety of a predator who knows that a lot of the people who would publicly point out their egregious behavior are now gone, so she can pretend everything’s fine and slip back in (to eventually do it again).
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Refusing to talk about any of the offending DMs of the banned parties, but then sharing a random anonymous DM talking about not liking three people speaking up, and then acting like it’s not about the three people who had been talking critically about MSB that night is – wow. Hugely manipulative.
Moreover, as indicated in the above point, the people who might feel safer are those who would prefer an environment where they are not held accountable for their actions. This isn’t actually a healthy environment. It is a pretense at civility. It’s surface deep.
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Also, if you’re going to hold the position that you “can’t speak to” the idea that Derp is bad at “women’s issues” because you yourself are a man, maybe you should listen to the numerous women who have said it? Maybe?
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Finally, good lord, if you are going to repeatedly harp on the necessity of irrefutable evidence and the ability of people to doctor logs, you cannot also then be confused as to why ANYONE would EVER hesitate to report ANYTHING to staff, Jesus Christ, please use a modicum of logic.
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Okay. That’s it. I am done. I have just had all these thoughts writhing around in my brain since last night.
she/her | playlist
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@Roz You forgot the bit about people being terrorists, that was my favourite part.
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I particularly enjoy seeing at least one of the meaner exclusionary folks I’ve met on games, who ran off some friends of mine for ‘playing their character wrong’, is now hand-wringing over feeling bullied. That’s fun.
Mummy Pun? MUMMY PUN!
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@Jennkryst Don’t look. Just leave them to stew in their pit.
The reactions to my departure told me a great deal. I haven’t looked back since.
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I just woke up (west coast shit) and I still have feelings I’m trying to process about this, so, sorry for bumping this again but I’m literally not sure where else to put it.
I was pretty emotionally fine through most of that. Legitimately trying to offer advice. Honestly, the bannings weren’t even my major concern – it’s accountability and improvement, the two points I listed, in whatever form they take. I think that’s what’s been missing, and seeing people falling right into the same toxic shit they’d been doing before was what prompted me to even post over there in the first place. I’d been good about keeping my distance. I wasn’t going to get into any kind of major debate, but then I was asked to give something.
I took it on good faith. What I posted yesterday on MSB amounted to hours of stress and thought, emotional labor that I really was putting out for the good of the board. I knew they wouldn’t be popular thoughts with the crowd there, but they were genuine ones. I kept my criticism laser-focused on staff actions, and the one time someone felt caught in the crossfire, I apologized.
And I was pretty okay, though I think my exhaustion was starting to show, when I was called a bully doing mean girl shit for that. I didn’t think I was going to change anything immediately, but maybe I could give them some things to think about and chew on.
The blatant attempt at manipulation and gaslighting (actual gaslighting, as in, trying to make me question my whole reality, not the colloquial way it’s been used as lying) at the end, though? That wounded me, I’m not going to lie. Partially because it was so clumsy and, honestly, how did they think that was going to work on me? But mostly because it was coming from the one person who looked like they were really trying to engage. That was some cold, evil shit.
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Honestly, and this isn’t official mod talk or anything, I don’t think it’s healthy to go over there (or bring their stuff here) to rehash and go over things. It’s picking at a scab at best and twisting a knife at worst.
Obviously I ain’t gonna stop you, but to put on my teacher voice for a moment: It’s your own time you’re wasting. They aren’t going to back down from their position any more than you’re gonna back down from yours. A clean break is better.
