Apr 2017 Archive, part c

Don't worry, the Chicago crowd was reassuringly large. It was a very relaxed atmosphere, though. There was some chanting, but in sporadic pockets. The march ended at Museum Campus, where there's the Adler Planetarium, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Field Museum of Natural History, and there was a science expo behind the museum, too. The crowd sort of mysteriously dissolved, and I suspect it's because we all went "ooh, science!" and wandered off to the various attractions. I'm not too sure about how that reflects our commitment, but it was fun, and it was visible! There were helicopters overhead, watching. I saw people wave at them sometimes. I did, too.

I took some pictures, but the only one with me in it was taken by a choir-friend of mine and also includes her grandkids, so I dunno about sharing. I got a few interesting things on my cell phone, though. I'll put them in a folder in my my Photobucket, assuming my computer decides to acknowledge my cell phone's existence any time soon.

As always, hS, your family is adorable, and those signs are great. ^_^ Gotta ask, what is that hair style you're sporting? It looks partly buzzed underneath... or am I seeing things?

~Neshomeh

I'm new around here so I don't know who you are. Still, nice to see you back.

Hats can be people too, y'know? The Archchancellor's hat certainly is. Or don't you think 'Granny Weatherwax's snarky hat' is an interesting possibility for a character...?

hS

(Gneil has the hat. I hope he wears it a lot and we end up with a Pterry-Gneil hybrid hat. It will need its own silent letter!)

Maybe to address the bad behaviour problem in the future, we could have someone talk to whomever was acting badly. They could ask that person questions, such as why they're doing this particular thing, how they felt at the time doing it, why they feel that way.

This is something I thought about because as tempting as it is to just call out the person like they're bad people, I think we can solve problems with less vitriol and less drama.

This may be just an obvious solution and if this was something already being done, I wasn't quite sure.

I think I've touched on most of the things you've mentioned, Tomash, but I honestly don't know anymore. >.>; So, my thoughts on your questions and the specific issues.

Questions:

1. Social dynamics. Frankly, as has been stated before, a lot of PPCers are teenagers and young adults. That means you're still just starting to figure out who you are and how best to deal with the world. On top of that, we're all a bunch of geeks and misfits, and some of us have additional challenges to face.

That kinda means the whole "social" thing is not going to run smoothly all the time. Mistakes will happen. The trick, I think, is to remember that it's not the end of the world. Everyone makes mistakes, no one is perfect, and that doesn't make us horrible people. It just makes us people. I think we should all make an effort to remember that, and to forgive ourselves and each other when we fail to live up to our ideals, and not to give up, but to keep on trying. I firmly believe our hearts are in the right place, and we'll do fine if we just try.

2. Who should do what. I guess I sort of answered this already. Further, though, I agree with whoever said we've done a lot of good work in this thread, and that it's showed above. Let's keep it up.

Issues:

1a. Brink. I agree there's not much more to say here. Unless someone else has a similar issue in the near future, I think we should let it go.

1b. DIA ownership. I'm content with what Ekyl has said about this. Personally, I'll be fully satisfied when he actually publishes something, anything, since he keeps on saying he's got all this stuff in the works. I know real life gets in the way—boy, do I know it!—but all the same, I have to admit I roll my eyes every time he says it at this point. I don't see any harm in it, though, as long as he recognizes that intending to do a thing doesn't mean anything if he never does it.

1c. Manipulative/insincere. I'd be happier if Ekyl would acknowledge the advice I've given, but I'll be content if he acts on it.

2. Scapegrace. See below.

3. Herr and Nord. I see that Herr has apologized at least in part, and yeah, it looks like they plan not to interact at all anymore. If that's as good as it's going to get, I'll accept it, and hope that's the last we hear about the two of them.

4. Granz. I never thought Granz was being malicious in the first place, and I am satisfied with his apology.

5. Me and hS. I can't speak for hS, but I'm inclined to embrace my role as a community leader, official or unofficial (but preferably un), and try to be better at it. I have personally made a commitment to be more aware of the example I'm setting by my actions and to be conscientious of the type of leader and teacher I want to be. Not a tyrannical dictator, but a helper, a guide, a source of advice and perhaps even instruction and discipline, when it's called for. Some have said they think of this community as a family, so maybe I'm a den mom. Maybe I'll start doing what Mum's the Word used to do and hand out virtual brownies on special occasions. ^_~ That doesn't absolve anyone else of responsibility, of course. If we're a family, then the older siblings (middlebies) are still expected to set a good example and help the younger ones (newbies), too.

6. Witch-hunt. I think most, if not all, of the people involved have expressed some sort of regret for what happened. I don't think there's any way to guarantee nothing of the sort will ever happen again, but if all of us who were here for this one can recognize the signs of groupthink and echochamberism in the future, we'll do better.

7. Oh hey, there is no seven. Yay!

So, that's what I've got at this point.

~Neshomeh

There is, unfortunately, one outstanding issue that has been brought to my attention. I've attempted to speak with Scape in private about this, but gotten no response after three days from my latest message, six since my first. Since I know she's been on the Board, and I believe she's been in communication with others by e-mail in this time, I'm forced to conclude she's attempting to dodge the issue. Therefore, it's up to the Board to make sure that isn't allowed to continue.

The issue is this: back in March, when people in Discord were worried about Iximaz and trying to pin the blame on July, Scapegrace sent a long series of text messages to July, which included some very insulting and hurtful remarks. July mentioned this and quoted one of the remarks in her goodbye post. There's more where that came from, but it's not mine to share. As far as I am aware, Scapegrace has yet to acknowledge that this happened or to apologize for it.

I am now calling for both to be done here, in public. I understand that Scapegrace was upset and worried about Iximaz at the time, but caring for Iximaz doesn't excuse attacking whoever she happens to be mad at at the time, especially when they have no idea what happened to prompt it. That's not how we want our members to handle their problems in this community, which is exactly what this thread is about.

Furthermore, I'm given to understand that July hasn't been the only target of this, meaning Iximaz's friends taking it upon themselves to have a go at whoever she has a beef with, whether behind their backs or to their faces. hS has been a target to a lesser degree, as seen here (apology for that is here), and SkarmorySilver's name came up, too, though I'll leave it to him to say whether he feels that's the case.

I think there's a fine line between commiserating with a friend over something you don't agree with and being a jerk to people you don't like. Not everyone has to be best friends with everyone else, that's fine, but if not getting along with someone spills over into actual attacks on them, that line has definitely been crossed.

A public apology to July and a promise not to do it again, to anyone, is required. If Scape fails to deliver said apology and promise, I leave it to the community to decide what the consequences should be.

As for me, until that happens, I must regretfully withdraw my previous compliments to Scapegrace, and register my disappointment both in my own judgement and in Scapegrace, who accepted my kind remarks knowing she had done this and had expressed no remorse for it. I've also extended my own apologies to July for straight-up forgetting that Scape had attacked her recently, even if I didn't know the full extent of it.

~Neshomeh

I think that the board is intimidating for some of us. I recently realized that I've been here for over a year and should stop acting like a timid newbie.

((Before I had permission, there was a discussion on the permission process. I felt that I should have been more forceful then. "Shut up, it's not your problem anymore." "Excuse me, it is my problem now.))

The fact is, the PPC is pretty huge now, even if we didn't count lurkers. (Lurkers, we love you, you don't need to lurk.) In a group that big, A) there are going to be some people who don't get along, not because either has wronged the other, but simply due to a difference in personalities, outlooks, or writing voices; and B) it's essentially impossible for all of us to interact with each other within a reasonable time frame. The Lounge/Chat isn't visited by everyone in the community, and even those who use it are blocked from being on all at once due to time zones, sleep schedules, and work/school/social obligations. Even the Board, while our official hub used by presumably everyone, isn't going to see every Boarder in every thread. We have different interests. It's a good thing, though, that we have such a large and diverse cast of characters set of persons present, with the variety of viewpoints and experience that brings. While I can see the potential for communication breaks, I vehemently oppose shutting down the chat to "force" everyone to only interact on the Board. I understand that it may feel to Boarders who don't use the chat that said chat is a source of drama, since such drama has leaked out onto the Board over the years, but there has been so much smart and fun discussion in the thousands and thousands of hours in between that I wouldn't give up for all this world. Not to mention the role-play channel in the current Discord chat: pages and pages of non-canon character studies and insights into the way Boarders's agents think. (9.73 MB of RP, in fact; you'd better believe I've been backing that up since day one!) I don't want to deprive any part of the community of the abilities to engage in easy, non-space devouring RP (except on doctorlit's hard drive, lololol) and plain, day-to-day, natural dialogue. I like the idea someone had of making regular "reports" to the Board on some of the discussions and #recsandplugs suggestions taking place in the chat to help keep the entire community more engaged with each other. But again: we're a huge group of n people, and I honestly don't think we'll ever see a discussion in any community space with all n participating. And I don't see that as an automatic bad thing. We can be members of the same team—coworkers, really—with the goal of making our writing setting the best it can be without everyone knowing everyone else on a close, personal level.

As for specific cases:

-Scapegrace: I do feel that Scape makes an effort to reign in her more negative reactions to things, and is overall a more positive contributor to the community than a negative one, so long as the improvement continues.

-Ekyl: I'm satisfied that his specific mistakes in the past have been recognized by him, and that he understands why they were incorrect. I also believe and that his apologies are indeed sincere, and that any perception to the contrary is due more to his writing voice than anything else.

-Huinesoron and Neshomeh: I'm still a bit boggled that anyone in the community viewed these two, or any other oldbie, in any kind of dictatorial light. From my viewpoint, they both are always calm and reasonable voices in any serious discussion; the only time I can recall when they made an error was with Lily-Gnome during Jacer's banning process, and for God's sake, folks, one mistake in over ten years of competent community service does not a dictator(s) make.

-all other instances: I'm satisfied that all other parties have been sufficiently made aware of their mistakes and understand why they were mistakes, and intend not to repeat them in the future.

—doctorlit

An Ancient Greek god swooping in on a chariot from above the stage to enact divine vengeance on the wrongdoers, clearly explain the ethics of the situation, and establish an annual feast to remind everyone of the incident, concluding the play.

The first two duties of a deus ex machina are obviously beyond the grasp of us mere mortals, but the last. . . we could do that. For me, as a new/middlebie, I often stay out of these kinds of discussions because I don't know the precedent and have to wait for people to link relevant past occurrences. If we wrote up an entertaining, informative report on what has occurred, and called attention to it and similar accounts annually via performances at the City Dionysia in a commemorative Grand Concilliary. This could be a step towards healing the newbie-oldbie split and make people aware of the forms bad behavior can take (allowing them to recognize it when it occurs and avoid committing it themselves), all while being pretty darn fun.

I'm a little nervous about putting myself out there, but I volunteer to compile and write up what occurred, possibly in the style of a classical tragedy. I'm sorry for being so skittish around actual decision making, but I can at least help pick up and organize the pieces afterwards? I have finals, so I wouldn't be able to really get started until a week from now. I know I don't have Permission -- either I could apply for Permission (given another couple of weeks), I could do it as a cowrite with someone who does (or a mixed team), or someone else could do it (I know I don't exactly have a reputation as someone who gets things done thoroughly, efficiently, on-time, or at all).

--αἴλουρος-on-the-Keyboard

I think it's not so much a matter of the people the witch-hunt was apparently targeting accepting apologies from everyone who participated in it, including myself, though granted, that is a big hope of mine and I'm still holding out on the possibility that it happens eventually, no matter how long it takes. What's more important, though, is that it doesn't happen again. I've been told consistently in real-life that apologies for a bad habit won't matter if you keep repeating it, and in light of that I'm beginning to worry about the risk of another smear campaign happening to someone else in the future, especially given the hitherto untold issues that have come out of the woodworks in this very discussion. This is, after all, coming from someone who, despite not at all being blameless, was victimized by that very tactic a few years back (with only very about two of the ten or so people involved apologizing for it later). What good would making amends with Desdendelle and JulyFlame do to this community in the long term if, for example, the rest of you go on to turn on me for being, and I quote, "an intolerable and domineering attention whore", without giving me the chance to explain myself and make up for my own poor behavior? Look, even if Des and July forgive us (and mind you, I've already stated above that I sincerely hope they do), what good would that do if we just let this behavior continue?

I tried as much as I could to stop everyone literally while this whole fiasco was unfolding before my eyes, but I didn't have any significant time on my hands, and I certainly didn't want my dad to walk in on me and force an explanation as to what was happening out of me for fear of being forcibly pulled out of this community because of it (as he has done with other online social networks before). From what I've heard, though, the heat of the moment meant that there were far too few people speaking out against the witch-hunt in any major capacity, with Des being the only one to have done so IIRC. Almost everyone else either actively participated in said witch-hunt, did nothing to stop it, or tried to speak up but got drowned out.

And I'm not even going to get started on the accidental doxxing. Everyone's talked about it better than I ever could, and I just hope that senseless act does not happen again.

In any case, I think there's more to be done about the witch-hunt than simply making peace with the targeted people, as welcome as that would be. If it looks like a smear campaign is about to form against anyone, period, then more people need to work harder and speak louder in a bid to nip it in the bud. It also upsets me greatly that I shouldn't even have to explain all this, and I won't have to in most cases. If by some anti-miracle this running out of people for petty reasons ends up becoming a habit, gods forbid, then I'll have lost faith in this community as a whole.

The way I see it, the majority of the community seems passive on these matters, unwilling to put their big-boy/girl/nonconforming boots on and dive in. Other times, helping seems like an arduous task. My second post on the Board was about my need to feel like I'm contributing, but it took a great act of will for me to even type this. This is why I propose the following command structure:

*A handful of people to be elected Community Managers. Those in this position are responsible for calling votes, approving proposals for the community, and if worst comes to worst, banning members.

*Several minor community roles are to be created. These roles may be things like running weekly CAHQ games or teaching the ropes to newbies. Roles should be simple things that make our community feel more like a community. Everyone who has been around for a few months is encouraged to take up a role.

*Some representatives. Those who do not wish to partake in votes or discussions can instead put their support behind representatives. Representatives vote on behalf of their supporters. This is far from ideal, but as-is we have a rather large participation problem, and need to grease the wheels in some way.

Ekyl: I refuse to comment on this behaviour, as it has been adequately covered elsewhere. There is also a simple conflict of interest in that I don't actually like him.

Nord Ronnoc: I don't know about the other two charges here, but I can definitely by the harassment charge. I distinctly remember Nord badgering people heavily on the Discord to look through his milsci Mass Effect fic and offer concrit; indeed, I offered some of my own over voice chat, even though I was at pains to point out that that sort of fiction is very definitely not my wheelhouse. I don't think it was entirely malicious, instead merely an overzealous approach to acquiring concrit from disinterested parties.

Granz: This was a stupid idea, as anyone who remembers PPC2 can tell you about. This was really, really dumb to anyone who remembers that part of history. Granz didn't. He wasn't around for any of that, and neither was I, and all I had to go on was various cryptic messages from people like JulyFlame and Desdendelle and VixenMage and other oldbies. This isn't to defend his actions; however, again, I don't think this was actively malicious. If memory serves, and it may well not, Granz was trying to prove a point to counter Desdendelle's little "ban everyone who has said the word Discord since last August" temper tantrum, that being that a mass ban would simply cause the community of those banned to reform their own discord and associate with each other like that. This was a stupid thing to do, but I think longstanding Boarders with long memories of the various drama outbreaks that happened here let their alarm bells ring a little too hard.

NeshomehS: "[T]he reason it looks like Neshomeh and I always get our way is because we're actually willing to speak up." A reason. Not the only one. Newbies see oldbie posts less as invitations to dialogue and more as pronouncements from on high; by way of evidence, I ask you to think about the awe you felt when a PPC BNF was talking to you eeeee back when you both first joined. This isn't your fault, nor is it entirely your problem, but it's something we all need to bear in mind.

The Discord Hive: Witch-hunting was and remains deeply wrong. We are not in the business of conducting ideological purges. That said, I don't think this was anything other than an angry mob. Outrage happens in fits and starts, it burns brighter than the stars... but then it fades away, leaving ashen resentment in its stead, and all those involved saw that it was wrong and wanted to return to how things had normally been. Therein lies the biggest problem with the PPC community; it is not our willingness to make the place a garden, but wishful thinking saying that it already is. This is something that we need to combat, far more than any Culture Of Bullying.

And Finally, Me: I get frustrated very easily; as I have often pointed out to myself and to others, that is a reason for my actions, not an excuse. Between the stupid drama on the Board and my paranoia flaring up like a dying sun (it is triggered by, of all the stupid things, my parents' house), I have not been in a charitable mood. Recusing myself from this discussion was mostly based on not wanting to say anything I regretted; this was an act of cowardice and one totally at odds with my goals of giving this all a positive outcome. The simple fact of it is I didn't want to engage with this side of the community. I'm more comfortable on the fringes and in the peanut gallery. This is cowardice. This has to stop. But it probably won't, because behaviours have inertia just like masses do.

A month ago the entire Discord was up in arms about how we have a Culture Of Bullying, how people always want to Brush Everything Under The Rug, and how Nothing Ever Gets Fixed. Now, when you have a list of actual complaints from actual people placed in front of you, the only people who've tried to find a solution to any of them - in a week - are me (repeatedly accused of forcing everyone to do things my way), Neshomeh (ditto), and Tomash (currently banned, for heaven's sakes).

Spoilers, folks: the reason it looks like Neshomeh and I always get our way is because we're actually willing to speak up.

Seriously. What the hell?

hS

So, the allegations against Nord seem to have gotten lost in the shuffle.

Is Nord still around? I haven't seen him on the Board lately. If he is, could someone please draw his attention to this thread?

Also, can anyone provide details of or otherwise expand on the allegations made in this post? It's probably ill-advised to judge anyone's actions off of a summary of one side of the story if it's possible to avoid that. (That being said, if this summary is accurate, apologies on Nord's part appear to be called for.)

- Tomash

could have been named on this list, I want to say that I have had severe anxiety over the PPC for a long, long time, but this Grand Concilliary and all the responses to it have been immensely helpful to my psyche. I am proud of everyone here for taking on a terribly difficult situation with thoughtfulness and care. I haven't contributed up til now, because I didn't feel qualified, but I think I am caught up enough now to say a few words.


Before I go further, even though I am not on this list, I want to apologize for my part in the incident a few years ago that seems to have lain the foundation for the current problems. I made some pretty big mistakes, and I hurt several people. I am sorry.


Someone suggested further down that the chat logs somehow be put onto an archive that is available to everyone. I think this is an excellent idea, though I have no idea how to accomplish it. It would give those who never go to the chat peace of mind and access, and make those who do chat remember that what they say there matters and is public.

Also, I know the situation between Bramandin and Iximaz hasn't been pleasant for anyone. I imagine especially coming so close to this thread, but as someone who is essentially an outside observer at this point, everything talked about here worked. It was immediately shut down on the chat and taken to the Board, which has allowed it to be dealt with much more rationally.

Even though it looks very much like people are still hurting from earlier problems, I think the PPC has a lot to be proud of in the handling of this problem. Seriously, compare it to the last one or even the linked threads in the above discussion. It might not be my place, but I think you all need to hear that you are doing a good job, even the ones who needed a push in the right direction.

The difference between dealing with a situation on the chat and on the Board is impressive. The Board gives everyone time to think about their responses and the responses of everyone else. Even if they don't always think about them enough it is much easier to step back and not let it become an echo chamber.

I think seeing issues dealt with thoroughly like this new one is will build trust. Trust that things are taken seriously and dealt with rationally will help avoid most of the problems in item 4 below. (Saying trust, I'm maybe speaking more from personal experience as someone who has difficulty trusting others due to past experiences than can apply to others in the PPC, so if anyone feels this last statement is just plain wrong for the group, please take it as only my personal issue)

tl;dr:
1. Good job to everyone who worked on this thread and implemented strategies from it in the latest conflict.
2. I am sorry for my part in the years ago problems, even if I wasn't named in this thread.
3. I second the idea of creating chat logs that all of the PPC could access.

... can basically be summed up as: "Be better."

The Discord attacked July. It did so because it likes Iximaz and saw her hurting, and because it was already primed to dislike July over incidents many years in the past. It collectively succumbed to confirmation bias and "there's no smoke without fire". Even those who weren't actively pushing the 'something must be done about July' message - and I accept after some fairly miserable rerereads of the chat log that several people were angling for 'this must be investigated', instead - need to think long and hard about why they let this happen in their presence.

When Desdendelle attacked Iximaz for having a mental illness, I (and others) stepped in and said that was not acceptable. But when people were saying things like 'It would be easier to just let the banhammers swing and get JF completely out of the picture before any more damage can be done', or '[we need to take action against] JF, I think'... people accepted it as part of the conversation.

Even those who didn't say it themselves accepted it as part of the discussion, accepted that targetting someone for banning without checking both sides of the story was a valid viewpoint. Which it isn't, and wasn't, and neither voicing it nor accepting it is acceptable behaviour.

I don't feel that any bans are appropriate. So far as I know, there haven't been any similar incidents before or since.

But if this sort of thing happens again, then yeah, I think anyone who was actively present and didn't speak up in either incident will need to be considered individually.

hS

Well. Maybe reminders, technically speaking. But that's irrelevant.

First on the titular list would be the apologies. I am sorry for abandoning the Board temporarily at a reasonably critical juncture, but I've been busy this past week. During the only opportunities I've had to actually respond, my thoughts and level of productivity have been about constructive as a moldy, damp towel. So while I do have thoughts on all of this, phrasing them at the moment is beyond my capabilities. I have no energy whatsoever, and I really don't know when that's coming back.

Secondly, as I have been pinged off-Board and had this pointed out to me, I feel it's important for me to offer my reasons for my actions in the JulyFlame incident, to do with as you will.

I believe the only thing I'm guilty of is failing to call for the deletion of the screenshot. I assumed it would be taken down, given that it was actually met with some opposition (Novastorme and Matt Cipher stick out in my memory), and, just like every other assumption I've ever made, I regret making it. They're a bad habit, and I need to stop.

I don't regret asking for access to July's side of the story, because I believe in collecting evidence, and I still believe that's all I was doing. At the time I genuinely thought that we'd be looking into the accusations of harassment of PPCers. However, there were obviously mitigating factors that made that investigation impractical at best—not least among said factors, the withdrawal of charges.

In summary (provided largely because I'm convinced this post couldn't be mistaken for cogent by a man with an astigmatism squinting from thirty yards away):

1.) I'm sorry I haven't been around, I've been alternating between frenetic real-life stuff and doldrums that'd make a sloth's moss-ridden hair curl, and

B.), or 2.), or II. if you're feeling fancy, I don't think I exacerbated the alleged witch hunt against JulyFlame, though I do regret my failure to actually say "Take down that screenshot." I admit, I thought I really wouldn't need to.

I was a complete idiot. It was a bad idea, if not, if you'll pardon my saying so, done with malicious intent. It was a stupid decision on top of several other stupid decisions I had made beforehand. I'm sorry.

I've apologised for the Brink incident in the past, and offer that apology again. It was never my intention to engage in bullying behaviour of any sort, and I see ways the incident could have been avoided with benefit of hindsight. It's still my opinion that the whole thing was down to a series of miscommunications and misinterpretations, and not malicious behaviour on anyone's parts. Given this incident occurred a couple years ago now, I obviously have no intention of allowing any such things to occur. I'll admit to having been protective of the DIA in the past too; I do have some stories with them in the works, but obviously nobody should be claiming an entire section of the PPC for their own.

As for the accusations of manipulative behaviour and disingenuousness, well, I can certainly apologise if I've made people feel that's the case but I very much do not appreciate being called a liar, or having those people brush off what I have to say as insincere. So boo on them. That's just outright insulting and I don't plan to stand for it.

...I regret that post, and agree that confirmation bias was a strong motivator behind it.

I therefore unreservedly apologise both to JulyFlame, for accusing her of being a problem when she was, in fact, the victim; and to the community, for my idiocy in continuing to take a troll seriously despite everything they did.

In future, I fully intend to engage in this kind of discussion less rashly than I did this time around. I will endeavour to never again pass premature judgement. I will, of course, accept any sanction the community chooses to impose on me.

I've looked over the chat logs again now that I've gained more emotional distance from my actions.

In retrospect, it is vary clear that I participated in the witch hunt against July more than I thought I did at the time.

During the Discord discussion, I publicly presented what I know of Iximaz's allegations against various people, and included such evidence as I had. That is, like hS described me, I stood up and said "here is the evidence, let us pass judgment". I only gave one side of the story because that was just about all I had.

While doing that, I publicly alleged bad behavior on the part of July (along with Neshomeh and Huinesoron) while they weren't around to defend themselves. What I did was wrong.

My main intent was to make sure that everyone would be as informed as possible during any subsequent discussions of Iximaz's allegations. I realize now that, under the circumstances, my actions instead significantly contributed to (or even started) a lynch mob against JulyFlame. That is, I accused someone of misconduct, without giving them the ability to defend themselves, in front of an emotionally charged crowd that was already biased against them (thanks to the actions of Data Junkie et al.). I now better understand that those conditions don't give rise to anything resembling a fair hearing, they create angry mobs.

While everyone was riled up, I made a few comments trying to get people not to go after July, but it was too little, too late.

My only defense is that I didn't realize what I was doing. That is, that I negligently stirred up a witch-hunt, as opposed to intentionally doing so.

To make matters worse, while I was presenting evidence, I revealed July's real name and face in the Discord without her consent. That was completely unacceptable behavior on my part, even ignoring the aggravating factors that July is in the military and that she had previously been the subject of severe harassment here that included death threats. My only defense, as I said last time, is that, in the heat of the moment, I'd forgotten that the screenshot had personal information in it and that I made a very serious mistake by not checking what I was posting.

Therefore:
- I again apologize to JulyFlame for leaking her personal information, causing her to fear for her life.
- I apologize to JulyFlame for participating in (and stirring up) the witch-hunt against her.
- I apologize to JulyFlame for being a significant cause of the harassment she faced during the incident.
- I apologize to JulyFlame, Neshomeh, and Huinesoron for accusing them of misconduct in the Discord behind their backs, especially since the circumstances led (in July's case) or could have led (in the other cases) to witch-hunts against them.
- I apologize to the PPC as a whole, for severely eroding our ability to trust each other with personal information

I have recognized that my behavior was wrong, and I regret what I did. I am currently under a self-imposed 2-3 month ban (actually, let's make that a bit more concrete and say that the ban ends no earlier that the first weekend of June) from the PPC so that my actions might have actual consequences for me, instead of a slap on the wrist. This ban will, of course, continue. If the community chooses to impose additional consequences on me, I will accept them.

- Tomash

I guess I've addressed my feelings on my ability to force people out here. I'll add that people I've knowingly and deliberately contributed to "forcing out" include Jacer (proud bigot), Ammo Guy (troll/creepy), and zdimensia (extremely disruptive with overtones of racism), all of whom were banned by vast majority vote. The only controversial bans of any length that I've voted for are Data Junkie (not banned; ultimately revealed to be a troll) and Tomash (doxxing; undertook his own ban amid opposition).

I will cop to using the best logic, reason, and rhetoric I have at my disposal in attempts to sway people to my position. However, everyone does that. That's what discussion and debate are for: everyone presents their case, the merits of each case are weighed against the others, and ideally, the best possible solution emerges.

I think I've earned some respect by always making an effort to be, as Seafarer put it, "extremely thoughtful and reasonable" (thanks, by the way!), but nonetheless, I cannot force anyone to agree with me if they vehemently don't. I do not have mind-control powers. Also, I'm not above being talked out of any position I hold if someone or several someones come along with a better argument; and if I'm outvoted, I'm outvoted.

There's also the fact that, as I've complained about in this thread, I'm often one of only a few people talking. I'm not going to accept the blame for that. If y'all are sick of me and hS and other oldbies doing most of the talking and the doing of things, then the only solution is for you—yes, you—to speak up and to do things. There is, of course, a risk that others won't like what you say or do. If it's not worth it to you to take that risk, then you had better accept that you're leaving matters up to whoever feels it is worth it—or that, if there is no one else, then nothing will happen at all.

I reckon that goes to the last bit about my supposed ability to silence discussion, too. Since I cannot actually force a ban against anyone I disagree with, all that you risk by speaking in opposition to me is that I out-debate you. But you can't win a debate by not having one at all, can you?

TL;DR, I believe these accusations are unfounded. It seems like the general tenor of this thread is that most people agree.

If anyone would like me to explain my behavior in a specific incident, I will do so.

~Neshomeh

I've addressed parts of this here (and some related comments). In general, I don't really know what people are talking about here. It's pretty much coming off as my being attacked because people are perceived as listening to me - which I'm sure isn't the intent.

hS

The disciplinary actions usually seen in the PPC are:

-Requiring an apology (and a change of behaviour thereafter).

-Requiring an apology (and a warning that backsliding will lead to a ban).

-Temporary ban from the PPC community (to allow people time to change their ways).

-Permanent ban from the PPC community (for persons whose behaviour is incompatible with the community).

There are also several Discord-specific punishments which I don't know the details of, and general social consequences of bad behaviour (eg, people not willingly talking to you). The latter is not usually explicitly stated.

hS

There's value in having a theoretical discussion about behavior, since, like Nesh said, it'll establish our principles, which we can then check against how we've behaved in practice (or against specific cases).

However, the main purpose of this thread is to heal wounds in the community, and those wounds weren't caused by abstract principles. They were caused by specific people doing specific things. Eventually (maybe once the theoretical bit has mostly run its course) we need to point out the actual things that happened so we can address them directly and (ideally) begin the process of reconciliation. In addition, some people might not realize that one of the things that's being discussed in the abstract is something they've supposedly done, so I think it would be rather useless not to point it out to them. After all, if they're doing a bad thing, how will they change if they don't know about it?

We certainly shouldn't be looking to punish people, generally. I agree that permabans are for behavior that's, in some sense, severely toxic to the community where we expect that the person doing it almost certainly won't change.

Temporary bans are a slightly trickier questions. I know mine was meant to make me feel bad, because that's why I imposed it on myself! (Well, and also to make it very clear that what I did was an extremely bad thing that was worthy of some sort of punishment.)

As to people arguing that the person they accused didn't do anything wrong, it's possible that the people doing this didn't connect the abstract behavior you described with the specific incident they told you about. That is, could it be that they didn't think the incident in question was in the bucket you put it in?

I agree that the low participation rate is concerning. Unfortunately, it's rather hard to tell why no one's posting. If you haven't posted in this thread, could you take a moment to give a brief (fits in the subject line, or maybe spills slightly into the body), off-the-cuff response as to why? I think that'll help us understand what's going on.

- Tomash

I do think there's value in discussing what we agree with and don't agree with in principle, though. If it turns out that what we've said in principle doesn't jive with how we've behaved regarding particular cases, that's an indication we need to rethink either our reaction to that case or our principles. Critical thinking with self-reflection is always a good thing.

Where I think this is going wrong is that only, like, ten people have commented so far, and only a handful on more than one or two issues. I know it's a heavy set of topics, and I respect that people may want to give it some thought before joining in. All the same, I am feeling frustrated about being one of the few to consistently make an effort at this sort of thing, knowing it may be perceived as me flaunting my authority.

Maybe more people will turn up over the weekend?

~Neshomeh

(Sorry for not taking part in this sooner, but I wanted to think carefully before writing anything)


I've seen a lot of abstraction, of "what ifs" in this thread - however, by what I've seen here, the problem is another, and it is the awareness of own's behaviour.

For example, during the doxxing incident many people believed they were doing nothing wrong, and some insisted on such a belief even after their fallacy had been brought out and explained.

This is not to say that we need to strike the people instead of the behaviours, but behaviours aren't an entity living on it own. There's a person behind it. And if that person (let's call them Boarder X) doesn't realize that their behaviour is a bad one, we're not getting rid of that behaviour by saying "behaviour X is wrong", because Boarder X doesn't believe they're doing Behaviour X and will keep going none the wiser.

So it could be a good idea to poke Boarder X and say "Boarder X, you're doing Bahaviour X. This is not good for Reason, can you do anything about it?". It would both make a good, non-abstracted example of the behaviour to avoid, resolve a potential ignored problem, and also give Boarder X a way to improve.

Does this make any sense, or am I rambling misunderstanding things as usual?

Disrespecting Your Betas

Like so many others in this thread have said, this is simple courtesy. Your betas not your employees; they are doing you a favor. It is therefore on you, as the author, to listen to their thoughts with an open mind. And if you disagree with their suggestions? Then discuss it with them! Explain your position and why you think something should be done in a specific way. Have a conversation with them. Who knows? Maybe one of you will change your mind. Maybe you'll both come away with a greater understanding of how the other person thinks.

Bad Conduct as a Beta

Once again: simple courtesy and communication. If you feel the beta is trying to overwrite your entire story or step outside what you asked them to do, tell them.

I also agree with Ix and Nesh here regarding weak betas. Volunteering to be a editor should be like how beta-testing a video game used to be. If you're going into it thinking 'Ooh, I'm getting to look at this cool thing first!' then you're doing it wrong. Being a beta is a responsibility. You have to find the parts that work and the parts that don't, then tell the creator about everything that you found.

Not Taking Concrit

Both of these are extreme reactions, and both are bad. If someone has legitimate points about your story, then ignoring them is arrogance. Plus, "it's published now" is ultimately meaningless when we're talking about the medium we work in. You can literally edit your stories at any time! Goodness knows I've gone back and made a few corrections and additions post-publishing.

That being said, don't go the other route and just take the story down. Obviously you should make sure that your work is as polished as possible before you publish it, but once it is? Defend its merits. Get into a conversation. Exchange views with the person providing criticism. If you come away from that still convinced that you erred, only then should you take the story down.

I'm going end this section by being completely blunt. Like Nesh said, if you can't take constructive criticism, then Don't. Write. Being a writer is hard. It's something you have to work at, to improve at, every time you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. If you're unwilling to improve yourself, or you don't think there's anything left to improve, then you need to reconsider what you are doing. There's always another lesson to learn. Concrit is often a vector for those lessons.

Falling Short of PPC Standards Elsewhere

I don't we as a community can stop our members from writing badfic. Obviously they shouldn't, because (as many have said) it's rather hypocritical for them to do so while sporking the badfics of others. I feel like if you join this community if you like good writing and want to make good writing, not just because you want to be a snarky wiseacre on the Internet. There are plenty of places you can do that which aren't here.

As for RPs? Whatever. RPs are goofy and ephemeral things. Go nuts! But not literally.

@writers: There is only one rule in the Riding of Sittorese, and the inherent punishment for disregarding its first part should be obvious.

@overperforming beta readers: There is only one rule in the Riding of Sittorese, but it comes in two parts, and you are not a ruler.

@underperforming beta readers: If you just want access so that you can learn from watching what the other beta readers do, please say so. It doesn’t work if the others came with the same intent.

Since beta reading is not public and thus usually cannot be learned from watching, I wonder how we could have learning opportunities:

Should experienced writers choose beta readers they know they can work with, but also admit a Newbie who may make surprising contributions, but is mostly there to watch and learn?

Should we have public demonstrations of beta reading, performed by betas who know their job, on a story deliberately written for the purpose?

Also, giving betas feedback on their feedback – doctorlit’s suggestion – may help.

HG

Feel free to react as you wish, but beyond the 'not taking concrit', I just realized there could be another issue which could arise :... 'not having concrit'.

I guess I'm going in a mineflied there, but I think improving can be hard if we don't get any reaction or input for ouur stories. Sure, Real Life will always takes a lot of time, an some fandoms can be pretty obscure, but the lack of reaction and comments can be a problem when you want to improve.

Taking me as an example, my latest mission didn't get any comments on the Board, leading me to do something I found (and still find) really bad form: directly bugging people for opinions on Discord. I know mandatory posting is not something to even think about, but how to improve if you don't know what other people think of your work?

A lot of bits have been spilled about beta conduct and concrit. So, my points, some of which are rather terse because the detailed versions have already come up:

- Don't jump the gun on your betas. That's rude. Not banable, though.

- If you're a beta, don't slink off without warning for long periods of time.

- Obviously, you have final say over your work. However, completely ignoring your betas isn't good. Explaining why you disagree with beta comments is probably a good thing. Not bannable either, or particularly enforceable.

- Offering to beta and then not actually doing it is also rude. We shouldn't ban for it, though.

- Bulldozing as a beta: Rot cool. If it veers into bullying, that's potentially cause for consequences.

- [insert Nesh's comments about writer/beta communication here]

- A few folks have said they don't ask for betas publicly because it's hard to turn someone down or because turning someone down causes drama. This is a cultural issue. Folks, just because there's a call for betas doesn't mean the person calling has to take your offer. The fact that they didn't take you up on an offer of beta reading isn't (generally) an attack on you or your abilities.

- Ignoring concrit. Um, if you're doing that, it makes you a bit hypocritical. That being said, disagreeing with concrit isn't ignoring it.

- We should, like several people said, be encouraging better concrit-taking behavior politely and firmly.

- Sergio (among others?) proposed Permission Suspended for serious, persistent quality issues without improvement. The one case I think that might have been appropriate, there was a retraction. Therefore, that proposal is so very hypothetical that we shouldn't enshrine it as policy at this time. If a situation where we need to consider that sanction comes up, we can discuss it in that context and have a specific vote.

- Overreacting to concrit isn't good either. Again, Nesh said it rather well, so consider her thoughts on this incorporated into my post.

- I don't see us as the fandom police, and neither does just about everyone else here (right?). So we shouldn't be handing out bans for writing badfic (and certainly not for having written it in the past, since we're about improvement here). That being said, if you're simultaneously publishing badfic that you're not taking concrit on and doing PPC stuff, you might suffer a loss of reputation here because you're being a bit of a hypocrite. If you don't have Permission yet, that sort of thing could be potential grounds for a denial, I think.

- I'm pretty sure there's a widespread notion (even here) that being un-canonical in fandom based RPs isn't really that big a deal. They're generally one of those just for fun, critique free spaces Neshomeh mentioned in her response to this topic.

Now, just because I said something shouldn't be a banable offense, that doesn't mean there shouldn't be consequences for it in some cases. It's just that those consequences will be social consequences, like a loss of reputation, or, say, not getting asked to beta stuff anymore.

I prefer, however, that this loss of reputation not happen completely out of the public eye. If someone's a super-lazy beta, for example, the solution isn't to whine to all your friends about it and never say anything on the Board, especially if you never tell this person what you think of them. I'm not saying we can't discuss this sort of stuff in private, I'm just saying that it'd be much better if there were some indication of these collective opinions on the record.

There's another thing I think we should think about as far as our collective behavior, and that's what happens to missions after they're been posted. Missions don't usually get very many responses (usually it's a small one digit number), so it's rather hard to tell if they're being read at all. Some of this might be that the chat-dwelling parts of the PPC get a lot of their acknowledgements in chat, so you don't see them on the Board, but that doesn't seem like the whole story.

I suspect that part of it is that we don't have a technical or cultural equivalent to things like the Kudos button on AO3. That is, there's no way to express a vague sense of appreciation or "Well, I like it, but I don't have any detailed thoughts", as opposed to leaving a full review. Does anyone have any suggestions for an appropriate way to do that sort of thing here?

On a related topic, I've noticed that sometimes, missions get a bit long in a tedious way, which makes them less fun to read and review. There's no rule that says you have to get all the charges or mission the whole fic. In fact, you often shouldn't. (This point could just be a case of individual writing styles and tastes differing, though)

- Tomash

P. S. I think this puts me into the very small group of people that've replied to all four subthreads. Is there a prize?

I haven't posted because I didn't know what to say, but now I do.

Disrespecting your Betas:

Both of these are rude, and disrespectful, but not punishable, in my opinion. This conduct is not something we want to have, and we can chide the offender for acting as such. However, I really don't think actual punishment is necessary.

Bad Conduct as a Beta:

This is definitely worse than the above, but ultimately not punishable. At least, not the first few times. After all, the author doesn't have to accept the beta's ideas.

Not Taking Concrit:

-Again, this is annoying but not punishable.
-If this happens, the critic should just explain what they meant. If the author still wants to take their fic down, that's on them

Falling Short of PPC Standards Elsewhere:

In response to the first question, the PPC should act. Perhaps by suspending Permission if they have it, I like that idea. If they don't, I'm not sure what should be done. I feel that something should be done about it, though. It is rather the opposite of PPC values. In response to the second question, I'm not sure any response is necessary. Roleplay is meant to be fun, and so I think we would be entering the territory of policing if we said that PPC-ers couldn't have fun with canons in their roleplay.

I personally believe that not taking concrit, especially when there are big issues with the relevant piece, should not be acceptable in the PPC. That's one of the typical behaviours of the authors of the badfics we mock - if the same happens in an official PPC mission it would make us all hipocrites.

Of course I don't believe this to be grounds of banning someone from the PPC - however, if there are repeated quality issues and lack of taking concrit in a spinoff, we might want to tell its author to stop releasing missions (Permission Suspended?) until the issues are solved.

For the role-play question:

I personally was involved once in a role-play hosted by the concrit-"allergic" mediocrefic author that I keep talking about, and it did break canon a bit (anybody with me on the fact that Xenomorphs can't be tamed as pets?).

So, I'd like to offer the idea that as long as the person themselves didn't do anything canon-breaking (especially if they made the noble effort to fix the canon and got retconned out/ignored), they'll be okay. Otherwise, give them a short warning about sticking to canon in role-plays and discipline them further if the behavior continues; more points to them if they reply to the warning and acknowledge that they did something wrong. Also, keep in mind the host's rules and what was considered acceptable in the role-play: the one I was in was a big sci-fi crossover, and even beyond that, players were allowed to teleport stuff in from other universes or even real life (which I did, since I very much dislike having the Force as my only weapon.)

Make sure they understand the consequences of their actions, and offer help to them if they need advice when encountering further situations where they'd need to break canon to get what they want (e.g. crazy admins and stuff like that.)

Is this a good idea? I hope you don't mind me putting in some stuff - see, I can be logical when I've calmed down from the "oh boy new people" hype. ;)

-Twistey

First, attempting to allay the assumption of authority: I have fairly strong opinions on these topics, formed over much experience from both sides. I word my opinions strongly. Please don't take self-expression as dictation. {= )

On Disrespecting Your Betas:

This is bad, don't do it. If you ask someone for their opinions on your work, you are obligating yourself to at least give those opinions some thought. You are also obligating yourself to allow them the time to do the job properly. I raise an eyebrow every time I see a request for betas go up one day followed by a mission post the next day. I dunno how much free time y'all have, but surely it takes more than a day for multiple betas (because it's usually multiple) to all read through a work and give thoughtful concrit of it, and then for the writer to make thoughtful changes based on those remarks? I'd like to see us collectively take a deep breath and adjust our expectations to more like at least a week between asking for betas and publishing a story.

On Bad Conduct as a Beta:

I agree with Ix that failing to beta at all is far more common than abusing one's authority as a beta. To beta is, at its heart, to give concrit, and thorough concrit at that. If you can't find anything at all to say about a piece, positive or negative, other than "you're good!", you are doing it wrong.

Also, and this applies to both parties, I think there's a large issue with failure to communicate. A writer needs to be up front about their expectations of their betas, and betas need to be up front about their availability and ability to meet said expectations. In cases where someone has posted without the go-ahead from their beta(s), I seem to recall a lot of "I hadn't heard anything for a while, so I didn't know they weren't done."

Writers, if you're not sure, ask. Betas, if something comes up and the job is going to take longer than you initially thought, say so. It's as simple as that.

On Not Taking Concrit:

This is bad, don't do it. To elaborate on each point:

1. It is polite to acknowledge it when someone comments on your work. If they have a question or uncertainty, address it. If you choose not to make changes based on concrit, say so, with a little explanation as to why.

All this should be done politely.

(Need I say the concrit itself should also be polite?)

2. Look, folks. If you're not emotionally prepared to take criticism, don't publish your work. This goes for all writers, not just fanwriters.

The fact that one person may not like a specific aspect of your story does not mean it is garbage. People are allowed to have opinions that differ. It's okay. If you're not emotionally prepared to stand by your writing decisions—you did have a reason for making them at the time, right?—don't publish.

Also, y'know, have reasons for doing things the way you did them. That tends to help. {= )

On Falling Short of PPC Standards Elsewhere:

We are not fandom police, we have no right to go around dictating what people can and can't do in other fandom spaces.

That said, it's perfectly reasonable to want to get to know each other better and see what our friends have created. If we find out it's really not good, then the member responsible may certainly expect to hear about it, and to suffer a loss of respect in the PPC if they don't take it with some aplomb. If nothing else, nobody likes a hypocrite.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with wanting to create stuff just for fun in a space free from critique sometimes, but maybe don't expect to have a space like that on an open, public platform like FF.net?

I mean... I'm writing fanfic again. I'm doing it because I just want to have some fun and maybe please some people who like the same sorts of things I do in the fandom. I'm not out to create Great Literature, so when I publish to FF.net, I'm taking a risk that somebody will tell me it sucks. I accept that risk, and I accept my responsibility to myself, as someone who claims to care about good writing, to maintain some standards. If you guys read my silly fics and were like "Uh, Nesh, your OC is being Sueish here, you should maybe stop that," I would listen. I might not necessarily change anything in a piece I'd already moved on from, but I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, either, and I'd take it on board for next time. That's the aplomb I'm talking about.

General Thoughts:

Writers walk a fine line between confidence enough to publish and arrogance; between humility enough to accept criticism and self-hate. Most of the writers I know suffer more from an imbalance of the latter than of the former, and perhaps that can make us overly harsh toward people who suffer from the former because dammit, don't we wish we had that problem, those lucky jerks?

I don't think any of it needs to be punished beyond the social consequences of loss of respect, which arise naturally. That said, let's make sure we don't get carried away with judging people. Remember that the learning process never ends. We've all come a long way from where we once were, and we all still have a long way to go. Some of us may need to learn to be more assertive than we like to be in order to communicate effectively. Some of us may need to learn to turn down our egos so we can listen more. Either way, we all make mistakes in the process, so we all need patience and forgiveness sometimes.

~Neshomeh said a lot of words, and hopes they make sense.

Beta and concrit problems: These are all kind of tricky situations, due to the perhaps uniquely subjective nature of stories. I know I've received comments criticizing individual lines within my missions in the past, and gave (I hope) reasonable explanations for why those lines were there/were written as wrote them, and didn't change the line. This is something that the community as a whole can't really enforce through punishment; it's very much a matter of personal responsibility. (Except in cases where beta-bulldozing devolves into outright bullying—that should be treated the same as bullying in any other situation.) I think we all need to keep in mind that our community, more than other fanfic community, perhaps, needs to stay aware of what the story is trying to be, more than what we want it to be (and that applies when we're looking at our own story and at another's). To paraphrase Stephen King, "It is the tale, not s/he who tells it or betas it."

One caveat, though, in response to what Iximaz mentioned about betas who only agreed to look at Ix's stories to get previews and failed to provide valuable feedback: that is poor. That is lazy. Our community needs to be better than that; it's ridiculous that someone in our community would ever have such difficulty getting a proofreader. Taking on a beta job can be a fair investment of time and effort. If you're not up to that, don't take it on.

Extra-PPC stories: Frankly, we just don't have juridiction over this. In my archiving adventures, I've certainly come across stories on the Pit accounts of former PPCers that I've found questionable, but . . . it's just not our business to police our members's writing outside the bounds of this community.

—doctorlit

... But I think that writing bad fanfiction outside the PPC shouldn't really be punished, or even necessarily brought up here in the first place. Setting aside questions of how it would be done ("as part of your introduction post, give us your usernames so we can scrutinize anything you post in the future" is a Bad Idea for a welcoming community), there are differing opinions on what counts as "bad". Parodies involving character bashing can be funny and thought provoking even if they're "bad writing."

You've probably noticed that I don't have betas for most of my work, and there's a reason for that. I've experienced the bulldozing betas only a handful of times. The ones that made me stop asking for betas were the ones who didn't even beta at all. For example, people who would use the beta access as a way to read my stories early, leave maybe one or two comments of vague praise that don't consist of concrit, and then are never heard from again.

Or the betas that don't understand the "Don't mess with characters' dialogue quirks" rule. Yes, I know 'ain't' isn't grammatically correct, but I had my character say it for a reason. If I reject your suggestion to change it to 'isn't', stop re-correcting me even after I explain it was deliberate.

Or the betas who offer to check for SPaG, only to start offering 'corrections' that are anything but.

I feel like I can't ask for betas on the Board any more because if you don't take someone up on their offer to beta (or 'beta', as it were), they get insulted. Even if you don't outright say "No thank you, I'd rather not have you as a beta", just not having their name put on a piece you asked the Board in general to beta is enough to get an angry email asking why they weren't given beta access when you picked other people who offered.

The steamroller betas are few and far between, in my experience. I've had many, many more who simply didn't care enough to do a decent job of it. If you're going to beta for somebody, do it well.

Being a bad beta shouldn't be a banning offense (save for instances where betaing becomes bullying, holy cow that's a lot of Bs), but it's definitely something the community as a whole really needs to improve on.

Disrespecting your Betas

My view here is that by asking for a beta, you obligate yourself to listen to and respect their views - but not to actually do what they say. Not waiting a reasonable time for them to offer their opinion on your story is bad, but if you disagree with them on how your story should look, you have the final say. It's best to offer them a chance to retract their name as a beta, though.

I don't think this is a disciplinary offence, frankly. It's a question of polite courtesy, not something we need to punish.

Bad Conduct as a Beta

I don't feel that this should be punishable in itself. After all, a beta has no control over the document - at any time the writer can just kick them off and move on.

But it's entirely too possible for the 'bulldozing' to turn into bullying behaviour, whether through insults ('you're not listening because you're stupid') or simple power dynamics (oldbie/newbie, extrovert/introvert, even male/female). And that is a ban discussion in the works, and if it's gone unresolved before, it should be resolved now.

Not Taking Concrit

I feel that this is bad behaviour, but not something for punishment. Taking concrit well is a hallmark of a good writer - when someone fails to do it, we should politely but firmly encourage the correct behaviour.

Falling Short of PPC Standards Elsewhere

I do not feel that we have the right to police people's actions outside the PPC community. Is it a bit hypocritical to write badfic while being in the PPC? Sure. Might mentioning it on the Board lead to you not getting Permission? Also sure. But it's not a bannable problem, at all.

hS

Over the course of this discussion, there have been many references to punishment (for example: "... this is bad behavior, but shouldn't be punished. ...").
This made me curious about what types of actions we can take.
The following are the ones I could think of.

Almost all forms of discipline mentioned so far are about bans.
These are typically only used for majorly bad behaviors or for an excessive amount of relatively minor bad behaviors.
Variations on this include the limited bans (e.g. 3 month ban) and the ban warnings (e.g. if it happens again, they will be banned).

The only other action I could think of is the revocation of permission.
This is generally only done for bad writing on a PPC fic.
Since you can still work on a fic in secret during the revocation, temporary revocation is not (as) viable.

Is there any other recourse we have for behavior we wouldn't like to encourage? (was there any I missed?)
Of course, any action that we would be able to take should not be a cruel and unusual punishment.
I'm especially curious if there is a lighter form of discipline for the less serious bad behaviors we have mentioned.

We make our decisions based on consensus here most of the time. What does that look like?

How do I know if we've decided on something?

Does six people agreeing to something with no objections voiced demonstrate consensus? It apparently has at least once, since I'm posting this and no one seems to mind.

Then how about three people unanimously in favor? Two people? One?

Is asking for comments on a proposed course of action and being answered by a long, apathetic silence mean that everyone agrees to it by way of not having an opinion?

Is agreement among a simple majority of voters evidence of consensus? (I don't think so.) Is it enough to go forward with a decision anyway? (I don't think so either, in most cases. Certainly not for permabans.)

Does the presence of even one dissenting voice change the process of consensus-detection significantly?

Does an unresolved objection automatically trigger a vote?

Do the answers to these (and other) questions change depending on what we're trying to decide on?

Is this post probably not going to get many responses because discussion fatigue is a thing that happens? (Yeah, probably. I'm making it anyway.)

And finally, does answering these questions require us to hold an elaborate ceremony on the island of Paxos? This is, after all, itself an asynchronous consensus problem.

- Tomash

Since these have come up a few times in the thread and in emails I had setting it up, I think we need to discuss what these words actually mean. The following are what I think of when I hear them; I think it would be good to get a consensus on what everyone means.

Harassment: a course of action which deliberately forces the victim to pay attention to you (whether by repeatedly trying to interact with them or by attacking them).

Stalking: following the victim to new locations, for example, between chat channels.

Bullying: a course of action taken with the intent of, or such that any reasonable person would anticipate, upsetting the victim.

In the last case, I think bullying has to be repeated (otherwise it's 'an attack', which is also bad, but different), and that something like 'I lash out when I get stressed/tired/depressed' doesn't count unless you're deliberately putting yourself into situations where that lashing out will hit the same person again. Bullying, to me, is either deliberate, or willful ignorance of the consequences.

hS

It bears repeating that every single item on these lists has either been said to me by email, said publically on the Board, or directly observed by me - almost all of them in the last month and change. So you can of course say that you don't think it happens (I did it myself at least once), but be aware that there is at least one person who disagrees with you.

hS

This may eventually turn into a ramble, but I feel like I should comment here about my experiences with these issues in the FBA. I think it might be helpful to bring up my experiences there since, honestly, some of these issues HS has laid out actually aren't issues that only the PPC has: in some form or another, the FBA has these issues too, and I've gained perspective there that I think might be helpful to the PPC.

So yeah, I'm gonna try to talk about some of of HS's stuff from all four categories, at least the ones I've seen fit:

Keeping Issues Private: Honestly, the reason this is such a problem is because it's in some way tied to all of the other four things in this category. There are way too many factors for why someone keeps an issue private, and it's so dependent on the specific situation that I don't think there's a reliable systematic way to deal with all the possible scenarios. But honestly, what needs to be done here is to rethink the role of the administrator: do you engender a culture of trust, or do you just stamp down trouble in an attempt to keep it quiet? I think, in order to do any real problem solving, you have to engender a culture of trust, particularly if you're in charge of the circus. And on that front, hS, I actually feel this might be a crucial first step. On that note...

Ignoring Complaints: Mods, please don't do this. Ignoring complaints engenders mistrust between people, not to mention it basically sweeps an issue under the rug instead of solving it. On the first hand, people will generally only bring up their issues with someone to someone else they trust: it's been my experience in the FBA, and I think it applies to the PPC as well. And then on the other hand, ignoring a complaint today means that whatever issue is attached to it is guaranteed to blow up. So please, don't ignore complaints. Taking them seriously may not lead to solutions, but ignoring them will definitely lead to drama.

Assuming Authority: The FBA used to have a HUGE problem with this (it got so bad that a former contributor actually had to be banned from the project for a year because he broke a bunch of rules trying to assume too much authority), and in some ways the FBA still has that problem. And from my FBA experiences, I will say that HS's thoughts on this are absolutely right: having plans for canon isn't a problem as long as you talk to people about it first. Otherwise, don't complain when someone is displeased. As for people who assume authority in terms of issuing demands of people, I have four words for anyone who does that: "swallow your goddamn pride". And I'm actually going to differ from other people here and say that assuming authority should at least result in a slap to the wrist, if not operate on a three-strikes system that can lead to a ban: the people that assume authority usually will try to do so as often as they can get away with it, and it's not something that will go away on its own.

I will append a footnote to all of the above, though: I don't think assuming authority will ever be a truly big problem in the PPC. PPC canon is far too open for that to happen.

Argument from Oldbie: To be honest, I don't really think this is as much of an issue for the PPC as it used to be back in the IRC days, but I feel that discussion of this should really center on the issue of "age as argument", because the other three forms generally don't happen, and if they do they're usually harmless. I will say, this is not exclusively a PPC problem, and this has a fairly easy source to pinpoint: it's generally an ego issue.

Battlefield Mentality/Lashing Out: Seeing as how I'm probably the worst offender on Battlefield Mentality/Lashing Out, I'm going to recuse myself from this conversation. (I did get banned from the FBA's Slack chat for two weeks over an incident that happened close to the New Year, after all: it's a very, very long story.)

Bad Conduct as a Beta: I'm reluctant to suggest that this should come with disciplinary action. However, that conflicts with the part of me that says this should be considered an issue under the umbrella of assuming authority, since the people who try to impose their ideas on the story in question generally also have problems with assuming authority elsewhere. (And on a side note, HS: thank you for helping me pinpoint a huge problem I had with how someone did a thing!)

Not Taking Concrit: I've actually seen one other reaction to concrit that wasn't good: the writer who holds concrit against people and uses it to say "you're not worthy of my friendship, and I'm going to use it to shut you up if you try to talk about my character again". Yes, I have seen that in action (trust me, it was not fun), though thankfully that reaction is exceedingly rare. All I will say is that if someone seems to not take concrit well, I think the best thing to do is to sit them down and tell them the usual spiel about concrit. If they take it, great! If not, well, there's not really anything anybody can do that, and I'm not sure it should be considered a punishable offense.

So yeah, those are some of my thoughts there. I hope these are helpful.

My past conduct makes me feel disinclined to offer opinions on community rules, almost all of which I have at some point broken and been given an nth chance; I have no input on any of the discussions that would have a meaningful, positive impact upon them; I have very little ability, and even less compulsion, to change this. Consider my assent and consent given for whatever the changes may be, but please allow me the privilege of not taking part in this discussion. I know we're a small enough community to have a realistic stab at direct democracy, but engagement with any democratic institution requires an in-depth knowledge of the legal minutiae that I neither have nor want.

I'm sure you'll all come to some interesting conclusions, and await the updated Constitution with the usual anticipation. In the meantime, I refuse to enter into these discussions.

A month ago, there was debatably consensus for giving Tomash a 3-month ban. In the absence of anyone closing the vote, Tomash declared himself banned, with the caveat that he would still vote in this thread, and respind if he himself was discussed.

He would now like to expand that to include him generally discussing in this thread (and has asked by email). I feel opinions are needed.

An alternative might be for him to email me the points he wishes to make, and for me to post them. I will do so if that's what the Board wants.

hS

We've had a fair number of incidents where people have dredged up things that happened years ago, when nothing had happened in between. Given that people can change - and particularly since a lot of PPCers are still teenagers, who are noted for changing fairly rapidly - I think we need to put a cap on this sort of thing.

Rather than giving a precise number of years, can I suggest 'half their time at the PPC' as a ground rule? If someone did something more than half that time ago, and they haven't repeated anything of the sort, it really shouldn't be dragged up or used as evidence against them.

~

Entirely separately, this thread is likely to produce a number of precedents for what is/isn't considered bannable behaviour. We've had a few others recently. I'm vehemently against cluttering the Constitution with them, but a 'Concilliary' page on the Wiki might be a good place to collect them. On the other hand, it might promote legalistic thinking and be a terrible idea, I dunno. It's not a suggestion I'm particularly invested in. (Obviously it would be a 'behaviours not names' page.)

hS

Battlefield Mentality/Lashing Out/Jumping to Conclusions

Obviously, these are all bad things. But they are bad things that are technically already addressed by the Constitution. Addressing this is ultimately a two way street. The community at large must do better about immediately responding to incidents, and the people involved must do a better job of trying to keep feelings from getting the better of them.

Personal Issues Elsewhere

I… am very much torn on this. On the one hand, there are compelling arguments that what happens outside the community is meant to stay there, and vice versa. That being said, I'm not comfortable with the idea of a member of the PPC acting reprehensibly elsewhere before slinking back here and pretending that all was well. If it's in the past, I'm a little more okay with it. People can change. But otherwise… I don't know. I think a case-by-case approach would be for the best.

Battlefield mentality: Oh, dear. I was guilty of this to a terrible degree, back in the days of the old Mibbit chat room, especially when July criticized something I said. It's still a source of embarrassment to me when I think about it. July's views forced me to understand the world better, and evolve my opinions to be . . . uh, more moral/people-centered rather than ideal/concept-centered, I would say . . . but worse than fighting against my becoming of a better person, I was also fighting the person who has now become my closest internet friend. And there isn't any way to take back all that stupid bickering on my part. (I even just recalled a particular conversation where I was whining about not wanting my views to change, because I might be a different person afterwards. Ye gods, but I was a pathetic little brat.) I think if this behavior is occurring between two Boarders frequently, the community needs to ask the two to at least stop interacting in Board posts, role plays, etc., if not to encourage them to talk things out in private. But everyone, take it from me: just don't do this. Listen to the other person, get to know them. You may be screwing yourself out of a most excellent friendship.

Personal Issues Elsewhere: A question that's both tricky and not tricky. If it's a minor incident, or a long-ago incident, it's hardly this community's business, and I do expect the two involved to be responsible and not let their personal dispute leak out into Board space. But if it's major, and let's be frank: I mean Jacer-nearly-driving-Lily-Gnome-to-suicide major, even if it had been years before either joined, that level of attack should not be tolerated, and the attacker should not be welcomed into this community.

Conclusion-jumping: The first type of jumping ties in with battlefield mentality above. Use your words, talk to people, listen to them. The second kind is the reason I often don't get involved in discussions of this sort, for fear of supporting the "incorrect" side of an argument—I certainly made a terrible mistake when I argued for allowing Data Junkie to return to the community, which caused a terrible amount of heartache for most of us. The solution here is to, again, use our words, and make the involved parties use their words, and make sure we have the whole story from both sides before moving forward with any decision-making. I'm going to try to force myself to participate in future events of this nature.

—doctorlit, the betrayed

Battlefield mentality: Bad. Please don't do it. If you see people doing it, please point it out, probably with a request for folks to calm down.

Jumping to conclusions and assuming the worst of people: Also bad. Please don't do it. Same comment about calling it out if you see it.

If you're starting to think that someone's a bad person or deliberately doing bad things to you, please try to give them your perspective (possibly via an intermediary) and get theirs (and then try to understand where they're coming from/what they were thinking). I think that's a much more helpful thing to do than running around going on about how "X is a jerk", and that it would resolve a lot of conflicts. Of course, this process might reveal that X actually is a jerk, but I don't expect that to happen often, and, if it does, this exercise will give you more evidence.

Assuming things are true about people just because they or someone else said them: Not a good thing. Getting all sides of a story is important. This also ties into this trial by rumor mill stuff I complained about elsewhere. If people are saying bad things about someone else behind their back, look in to them. Get the full story. Then, if you think it's necessary, raise the situation here, so we can address it as needed.

Personal issues elsewhere: [Insert Neshomeh's comments here]

I agree that these things do need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

I also agree that we can't solve problems if we don't know about them. However, the Ignoring Complaints thing makes people hesitant to speak up about their problems, which makes everything worse, so that needs to be addressed too.

On Battlefield Mentality/Lashing Out

I also think this is pretty clearly addressed by the Constitution. Personal attacks are not acceptable under any circumstances; just because someone else has lowered themself to ad hominem doesn't mean we have to follow suit.

Unless a particular person does this all the time without remorse, though, I don't think it's necessarily punishable. We all get carried away and screw up sometimes. We just need to keep reminding ourselves and each other to take a deep breath and think before speaking. If you can't be civil, walk away until you can. If an issue is really very important to you, don't you owe it to yourself and the issue to make your case in a rational way? Foaming at the mouth will usually make people take you and your cause less seriously, not more. If you practice self-awareness and restraint, you will get better at it every time.

We're not Vulcans, so there's nothing inherently wrong with having strong feelings about something, but remember that feelings are not facts. Just because you have strong feelings doesn't mean you're automatically in the right; just because your friend has strong feelings doesn't mean they're automatically in the right, either.

On Personal Issues Elsewhere

I think this sort of thing has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. On the one hand, nothing says that everyone in the PPC is required to be best friends with everyone else in order to participate. On the other hand, being hateful is bad no matter where it happens, so if we find out about it, depending on how bad it is, we may indeed wish to prevent it from happening here by removing the offending party. On the other hand, it's pretty hard to make a good call on a case where we might not have all the facts because they exist someplace the rest of us don't or can't go.

I guess all I can say is, if you do have a serious problem with someone else, like they're making abusive or threatening remarks to you elsewhere, or you think they've followed you here for the sole purpose of making you uncomfortable, you'll have to say so and tell/show us why very clearly, so that we can understand. All other concerns aside, we can't help with a situation we don't know about.

On Jumping to Conclusions

This is bad, don't do it. Let's all remember that it is never wrong to want more information, and see above note on thinking before speaking.

I think it's too ephemeral to be punishable, though, unless it inevitably turns into lashing out and attacking others.

~Neshomeh

Battlefield Mentality/Lashing Out

This is specifically highlighted in the Constitution (Article 3), and I feel it's something that should be dealt with at the time. I don't accept the idea that you shouldn't tell someone to calm down when they have a legitimate case against someone else, though I do acknowledge that doing so without also supporting that case is bad behaviour.

For past incidents where the person has backed down (afterwards), I don't think we need to look at it again now, though if they've done it repeatedly it may be worthwhile. Times when someone has gone attack-dog and then just fallen silent and never apologised may need a look.

Personal Issues Elsewhere

I... don't know. On the one hand, the idea of 'he flamed my story BAN HIM FOREVER' sounds really bad to me. On the other hand, ignoring stalking behaviour off-site and asking the stalkee to stay in the same space as the stalker sounds equally bad. I don't know.

Jumping to Conclusions

Don't do this. Just... don't do this.

I don't think individual past incidents of this need to be dealt with now, particularly when the jumper apologised for it. I think that if someone does this repeatedly, it's probably worth considering if they need to have it specifically raised as a concern; I don't know that it's a banning offence.

hS

As the title says. I'm going to start dividing these up into sections, as I have more concrete thoughts on these subjects going forward.

Coordinating in Private

Obviously, any sort of private collective action taken against one or a few members of the community should be discouraged. Like I said in my response to category four, if you have a problem with someone in the community then you should present it publicly and with evidence. Private coordination in general, however, isn't necessarily a massive ill. The Board is not necessarily the best place to hold a conversation, especially if you're trying to get your thoughts in order. Hashing out your thoughts with your friends can be especially useful. Like Phobos and Nesh said, intent is important.

Assuming Authority and Argument from Oldbie

I feel like these two can blend together in a strange sort of way. Let's be frank here: oldbies do have at least a small amount of unspoken authority. Not because of their length of membership, but because of their relevant experience. Experience should be used as a torch to lead the way, not as a club to pound a lesson into someone's head. Coming from the other side, newbies are not required to follow every word that spills forth from the mouth of an oldbie. They can chart their own path, make their own decisions, and find what works and what doesn't on their own.

As for the other aspects of these two points, I'll make things quick. Laying claims to parts of the PPC canon is obviously not great, but at the same time I agree with hS saying that anyone looking to make massive changes should coordinate with people who like to use that particular aspect of the PPC. Goodness knows I would like at least a little say if someone wanted to come in and make alterations to Bad Slash.

I don't think disciplinary action disparity between newbies and oldbies is much of a problem, if only because we barely get any disciplinary action done at all. Snideness aside, I would hope that in situations where some sort of measure must be taken, that the members of this community will put aside their concerns about length of membership or friendship and focus on the incident in question. Like Nesh said, it's about avoiding the battlefield mentality.

Splitting the PPC Community

I don't like the idea of someone creating a private PPC space, but at the same time our ability to control that is limited. I fail to see how the threat of a ban would convince someone who already wants to sort of split away. Perhaps activities to reemphasize community ties? I'm not sure.

As for the second part of the question, I agree with Nesh and Phobos: there are decisions and then there are decisions. As the admin of the PPC Discord, much of the things I have to determine are either little things (someone wants a special color-coding for their RP group, someone wants a new emoji, etc.) or they are things that require an immediate response (the threat of bots posting CP, the wave of trolls that popped in about a month ago). Things that affect the entire community (or most of it, anyway) should be and would be taken to the Board.

((I will post my thoughts on the final two categories either late tonight or tomorrow.))

On private discussion

I agree with a lot of folks that most sorts of private coordination aren't a problem. For example, there's nothing wrong with taking something you're going to propose to the community (like, say, a new FAQ section or a vote) and running it past a few people first to polish it up and check if it seems sensible. In addition, getting advice about something you're planning to do or say can be a very good thing. It's like beta reading for social interactions, and I don't think we should discourage that.

However, there are some sorts of private coordination that aren't good. One of the big ones I have a problem with is "trial by rumor mill". This is where people are having conversations behind someone's back about how they're a bad person (or a bully, a jerk, etc.) that create a group within the PPC that thinks "X is a [bad person, bully, ...]".

These trials by rumor mill are bad. They're bad for the community, since they lead to (eventual) drama and ganging up on people, or even the formation of pro-X and anti-X factions within the PPC. They're also rather useless, since it's a bit difficult to apologize, try to improve, explain yourself, or otherwise address concerns about your behavior if no one tells you there are problems. Also, from what I remember, this sort of thing has contributed to driving people out of the PPC, which shows that it's an issue that needs to be addressed.

So, we should ... not do this. However, doing things like this shouldn't unconditionally be grounds for a ban, especially it'd be rather hard to pin down or enforce a rule against it. I'm also not completely certain what we should do about these malignant subgroups when they form. My gut instinct is that we should calmly drag everything into the light so we can resolve it, but I think that merits further discussion, especially since there are tricky social considerations involved in slamming stacks of fuzzy allegations and attacks onto the Board.

PPC spaces

In the PPC, we have several spaces that we hang out in. The Board and the chat are the big ones, but there's several others, like the occasional game of Cards Against HQ or our former Minecraft server. We tend to self-segregate into these spaces, and this is, in general, fine (my long-term concerns about a Board-Discord culture split aside).

However, there is one sort of space I have a problem with: secret, long-term PPC spaces. That is, a space for PPCers to interact in, where they generally talk about the PPC, that's more than a temporary place for getting advice about something (or similar things like that), and that not everyone can join (if they want to). To give a concrete example: a PPC chat server for just you and your friends, especially if you don't tell everyone you're making it.

There's basically no good reason to make something like that. Don't do it. Seriously.

If you happen to hear about this type of space forming (it seems to happen every few years), please give whoever had the idea to do it a talking-to about how we don't do that here. If that doesn't work to stop it, bring it to the Board's attention so we can determine consequences as appropriate (probably not more than short taps with the banhammer if it's egregious and malicious).

On a clarifying note, private long-term spaces that aren't PPC related (say, everyone involved in an RPG putting together some sort of chat about the RPG to not clutter the Discord) are fine.

I'm going to second what Neshomeh said about how there's decisions and decisions, and how not every small thing needs to be exposed to the Board, especially if the decision is about something internal to a particular space (such as the fiddly details of what should be rot13'd in chat).

The chat

A lot of people (me included) have pointed out that the chat feels more private than the Board or the Wiki. There's also a common thought that this might contribute to bad behavior of some sort.

One aspect that makes chat feel more private, I think, is that you can't see what happened there historically without signing in. This is different from the Board and the Wiki, where anyone can quietly flip through the archives whenever they'd like.

Therefore, I propose that (assuming there aren't fatal technical obstacles to this, which I don't think there will be) we publish the Discord's logs somewhere public, so people can look through them without making it obvious.

Some of the advantages to this are:

1. The existence of a "click here for chat logs" button might temper a tendency to witchhunt or flame people who aren't around (I don't think this is something that happens super-frequently, but it has happened before, and this might contribute to it not happening again).

2. If some topic gets discussed both on the Board and in chat, the discussion on the Board can more easily refer to or be informed by what happened in chat. I expect that such discussions will (and maybe should) happen, since getting advice from whoever happens to be around is one of the things that chat is for. Of course, for major decisions, the discussion should be moved to the Board very quickly, but I don't think there's a problem with bothering chat with a "Does this seem like something we need to talk about or is it just me?" before writing the Board post.

3. It makes the Discord the same type of public as the Board and the Wiki are, so that the whole community can see all the public events that take place here if they want to. One reason this is important is that the goings-on in chat are part of the PPC's culture, and we don't hide our cultural artifacts or history. This is one of the reasons I proposed "best of Discord" threads about a month ago (unfortunately, the idea didn't take off).

A potential disadvantage is that there might be a chilling effect on the chat because it's a bit more obvious that everything's being logged. Publishing logs would also make it ever so slightly easier to go build cases against people (whether such cases are deserved or not), since it makes ancient chat logs a bit easier to go through.

Now, when it comes to this thread, there's been a request not to discuss it in the Discord, since that would move parts of the discussion off the record. I think it would be reasonable to relax the requirement slightly and say that, if you do discuss the thread in the Discord, please post the logs here on the Board shortly afterwards so we can get a clearer picture of how the metaphorical sausage that is community consensus is being formed.

- Tomash

On Coordinating in Private

I agree with Phobos on this: it depends on the intent. Wanting to have the support of your friends in a difficult moment is one thing. Ganging up on someone to shut them up is another.

It also personally gets my back up when people who hardly ever post on the Board pop up out of nowhere to join in criticizing someone. That, to me, is a serious red flag signalling collusion with malign intent.

On Assuming Authority

I've seen people acting entitled—to feedback, mostly—but I'm not sure I've seen anyone issue demands on the basis of imaginary authority. Can we have an example?

I do think people are entitled to a say when it comes to bits of the PPC into which they've put lots of time and effort. That's just polite.

However, I also think you have to actively maintain your stake or give it up. I think you can expect people to respect your claims as long as you're active in the community, but you can't expect people to wait for you forever if you've drifted away. When it comes to fic claims, developments on a storyline, or other things of that nature, at some point you have to nut up or shut up.

On Argument from Oldbie

a) I agree with Phobos on this one. I've definitely seen people say things to the effect of "I've been down this road before and had X experience, so trust me when I say Y," which I think is perfectly valid even if it doesn't necessarily make them right about the present case. I can't say I've ever seen a completely unqualified "I've been here longer than you, therefore I am right and you should do what I say without question."

b) I've got a couple of quotes that sum up how I feel about this. "Younger warriors are wise to listen to older ones. They've lived." "Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out."

In other words, it's probably smart to give some weight to the opinions of people who have a lot of experience with the thing under discussion, but it's never a good idea to turn off your critical thinking engine. If you do, it's not the oldbies' fault.

c) This is actually a serious concern, but I'm not too worried about it. First of all, the long-time members mostly get along with each other, and that's because of mutual respect and trust built up over years of association. We've written together, debated together, created together, played together, and worked hard together for years, and we've managed not to screw it up. So, like, if someone has been around a long time, it's pretty much because they care about this place and are a good person? People who don't care and aren't nice tend not to last.

I get that these close bonds between oldbies can make us appear as an impenetrable clique to newbies, but frankly, that's just too bad. I'm not going to stop liking and associating with my friends of the past five years or more. You can become one yourself, though, if you care and are nice to be around. "Oldbie" is not actually an impenetrable clique, it's something you achieve by being around and participating positively without ticking people off all the time.

Cases in point: People assumed I was a PG long before I actually became one, simply because I was active on the Board and I made an effort to know what I was talking about and then to help out when newer people had questions. People also lumped Phobos in with the oldbies almost immediately after he joined, because he knew me and because he made an effort to know what he was doing and then acted like it. Iximaz was voted a PG after, what, a year? because she showed enthusiasm and made an effort to be knowledgeable and do well.

You can, too. And then, if one or another of us gets into trouble, you can help put us back in our place.

d) This also is a serious concern, and the one I think we can actually do the most about. See Battlefield Mentality and Jumping to Conclusions. And then don't do those things. {= )

Splitting the Community

Ehhhh, there are decisions and then there are decisions. Not everything needs the full participation of the whole community. I'm thinking mostly of the wiki here, because that's where I have the most experience, but it applies to other spaces, too. Stuff like "hey, can I add a link I think is relevant to this page?" is probably okay to discuss on the article's talk page. The people most likely to respond there are also the people most likely to respond on the Board, because they're the only ones who actually care about the minutiae that much. {= P

Even a lot of the stuff I've gotten up to over there, when it changes the format but not the content, I haven't always brought up on the Board, because honestly, nobody cares as long as they can get the information they want. (This, from what I can tell, is mostly information about badfics, particularly the Legendary ones. {= P ) And then when it comes to content, as long as I'm adding and not removing it, that is something anyone can do as long as the content they're adding isn't spam or other garbage.

Things that may affect the perception of the PPC as a whole, though, or broadly change what content is available in what way, or broadly affect content that does not belong to me, I have brought up on the Board. (And mostly found that most people don't care, but I still do it.)

So I really think it's a matter of intent and degree.

Also, as someone else pointed out, a space can be available to everyone, but people will still self-select themselves out of it. Not everybody cares about the wiki; not everyone likes a live chat; not everyone enjoys RP or Cards Against HQ or Minecraft or whatever else you care to name that takes PPCers to other platforms. As long as what you're doing only has repercussions in that space, you're probably fine. If the repercussions grow broader, you should probably take it to a broader platform. The Board is the broadest platform. This is simple logic.

I'll reiterate, though, that if you don't regularly participate on the Board, but then pop up just to harangue someone, that's really not cool. {= /

~Neshomeh doesn't understand why the Citrus Scale page is so popular, with the second-highest number of views—highest after the main page—in the last four weeks. O.o

Private coordination: This is tricky for me. The behavior called out in this section is clearly in reference to last month's "witch hunt" that scared one of my closest PPC friends away from the community. It was a terrible thing that shouldn't have happened. But there's a matter of degrees that make it hard to pinpoint where this becomes a toxic behavior, and where it's mere discussion. Speaking as someone who has difficulty trusting his own judgment, if I were ever feeling harassed by another in this community, I would second-guess that that was the intent behind their behavior. I would never even consider making a formal complaint on the Board without talking privately to folks I trust beforehand to see if they had noticed anything off as well. Last month's situation was confronted and met with chastisement, as it should have; but do we really want to condemn people discussing problems in private, or in the Lounge, just in the form of people talking to each other? (Should I be punished for talking about events at work with my coworkers?)

Community splitting: I think this is the complaint in this thread that I take the most issue with. I'm personally just unable to see where the line is drawn. The example Huinesoron gives in his post above is that this ". . . doesn't include having a private chat with someone, or even several someones, but is about making a new PPC forum, chatroom, or other such location . . ." What's the difference? How is a "private chat with several someones" different than a new chatroom? What about missions on LiveJournal behind friend-locks, that those of us without LJ accounts can't read? What about the old PPC Minecraft server, which those of us without the game couldn't play? The fact is, people just interact with each other, through whatever means they have available. And they're entitled to talk about community decisions in those spaces. (Not make them, but certainly talk about them!)

— doctorlit needs to go to work, and will address the rest of this section's points when he gets a chance

1) I don't know that Coordinating in Private is necessarily a problem. I mean, don't get me wrong, it can absolutely be as you've described, but it isn't always (or often?) the case.

I think it all boils down to intent and what does this coordination look like? For example:

"Hey, I'm having issues with this person/story/activity, can you give me some advice?" Totally fine. Asking someone, in private, to advise you before you take action or say something is a really good idea if you are unsure how to proceed. I know that some PGs do this *cough*me-and-Nesh-in-our-apartment*cough* if we don't know how to approach a specific permission request or issue.

"Hey, come back me up with this person/story/activity, I feel like I'm the only one speaking up." Probably fine. Asking someone you know feels a certain way to speak up can sometimes be necessary. We have a tendency to stay quiet when we're uncomfortable and we tend toward introversion. This is part of why important topics drop off with no resolution as often as they do. Just be careful that this doesn't turn into this next example.

"Hey, this person/story/activity needs to not be talking/happening anymore, help me shut them/it up/down." Not fine. Enlisting people to attack someone or something you don't like is Not Cool. The major difference between this and the "Probably Fine" example is that this is gathering an army to silence, while the other is gathering voices in an attempt to be heard.



I guess the point I am trying to make is that taking to emails, PMs, and private chats is a necessary tool for communication on the internet. It can allow people to, for instance, anonymously voice their concerns through a third party *cough*this-thread*cough* if they feel uncomfortable bringing them up themselves. It can be a path toward making one's-self heard, if done properly. And I don't want to do anything that might make that harder.


2) I can see how Assuming Authority over a piece of the community or canon can be a problem, but I don't think it is one we currently suffer from. If I'm wrong on that, someone please let me know.

3) Argument from Oldbie is complicated, isn't it? Let's break it down.

3a) I don't believe I've seen anyone say anything even remotely like "We should do this because I say so, and I've been around since the Stone Age." What I have seen is people using their relevant experience as part of an argument. Something akin to "I don't think we should do (Thing). We tried (Thing) back in the Stone Age and it was a huge mess." That's not a bug, it's a feature. I think it is right that Oldbies should use their experience in the community to help inform newer members of the community's history when making decisions as a group.

3b) This one may be true. There is a tendency among newer members of the community to get stars in their eyes when someone who's stories they've enjoyed talks. This may cause them to give preference to that person's arguments. However, I have two problems with the assumption that this will happen. Firstly, the idea that there is anything we can do about it. I don't think there is. Secondly, the idea that even star-stricken Newbies will blindly follow someone who has no real point. It is a disservice to Newbies to think that way.

3c&d) I think these both go back to something Nesh said recently, it is easier to give the benefit of the doubt to someone you know the character of. The longer someone is around, the more of their character we get to see.

That said, these two points have never really been relevant until recent years. We were pretty good about being civil and respectful, so there was little need for punishment. This is troubling, but I don't have any idea how to fix it.

4a) I agree with Delta Juliette that people who make an exclusive space tend to have a reason they did it. I think that is the absolute wrong way to deal with their reasons, but they do have them.

4b) I think making decisions for the group, in an exclusive location, is not good. That said, I am a fan of getting a small group of like-minded individuals together and saying "we all believe that (topic) is a problem, what are some solutions that we can present to the community?" before then making a post about it and offering your solutions for discussion. Again, it depends on intent. If the intent is to get your thoughts together and then present to the community, then fine. If your intent is to get your thoughts together and then try and dictate to the community, then not fine.



Anyway, I've gone on quite long enough here. I might address other areas of this thread, or I might not.

-Phobos

In the majority of cases that I can think of, the people who have been looking for support in private or setting up new spaces for part of the community have been responding to bigger problems - they've felt attacked, or harassed, or generally made unwelcome in some way or another. Those situations seem far more significant to me than how people respond to them - if people are trying to get help dealing with a problem, or trying to stay in the community but get away from a problem, we need to be dealing with the problem itself.

I suspect that a lot of the issues we have with dealing with problems fall under Category 4's Abandoning Discussion. People don't want to start something if they know it's going to get dropped without any resolution - so both coordinating and splitting strike me as behaviors to get around having yet another discussion that's just going to get abandoned without solving anything. (I will post more over there about abandonment and resolution.)

So - I really disagree with having default punishments for these - especially Coordinating and Splitting really seem like they could be symptoms of a bigger problem rather than a root problem itself. When they are the root problem, of course, they should be dealt with.

Final thought: I really don't like the implication in Coordinating that the chat shouldn't talk about things that happen on the board. The chat is a part of the community, is it not?

Coordinating in private: I'm not sure about this one. It seems entirely reasonable that someone who feels wronged will first seek comfort and support from those close to them before bringing their case before an authority. It seems asinine to tell people "no, you can't talk to your friends first; you have to immediately put your issues up on the Board so we can all pick your case apart".
On the other hand, it is entirely possible for someone to coldly (or even accidentally) use their victim status to turn the tables, if you will, on the perpetrator. When this spreads to the wider community, you get what happened last month, which I'd rather not see repeated.
I don't think there's an easy line to draw between acceptable and unacceptable here. I do, however, think that the problem ties in with the next point.

Splitting the community: Let's face it: we're already pretty split. Even when a space is open to all PPCers, that doesn't mean that all PPCers will use it, which creates basically the same end result.
I think important decisions, including all dispute resolution, need to happen exclusively on the Board. I also definitely agree that deliberately creating a "PPC" space for only a limited selection of PPCers should be whacked before it gets going.
...but I also see a problem here. Anyone wanting to create a space for their PPC friends and themselves can do that - we can't stop them, unless they label it as a PPC thing (and we can't even stop that; we can only whack them with a hammer).
Man, I wish everything was easy.

Assuming authority: I don't think I've seen anyone do this for themselves, but I know I am guilty of sometimes giving more weight to the words of people like Nesh and hS simply because it's them saying it than I otherwise might. Of course, it helps that they tend to be extremely thoughtful and reasonable.
I'd definitely be unimpressed by anyone trying to claim authority here (unless it was God-Emperor hS finally claiming his rightful place :-p )

Argument from oldbie: I agree with hS: the far more likely bias is how much you know and like someone. It's just that all the oldbies know and like each other, so there may be a perception of them always banding together against the newbies. I think this comes down to everyone having to recognise their own biases. I don't think it is a genuine problem.

(Oh, because we're the PPC: hS, hierarchical has the i before the e.)

Coordinating in Private:
I have no thoughts on colluding in private, save that it probably deserves a slap on the wrist, at the very least. However, I have a question of what this means in terms of organizing the various RPG games that some of us play. Should they be hosted exclusively on the Board or the Dischord? On one hand, this runs the risk of attracting excessive amounts of players, which bogs down games. On the other hand, these games are in many ways similar to the regular rp that happens around here.

Assuming Authority & Argument from Oldbie
I consider these two issues to go hand-in-hand. I have this habit of blindly following people who act like they are in charge. I would appreciate actions to be taken to counteract this. A possibly horrible idea to remedy this is to detach the names from the arguments. Perhaps we had a plugin that altered the Board. Instead of names showing up next to comments, what if we had colors? When the page is refreshed, each unique name would be assigned a random color. This would help make all arguments equal while running the risk of turning into a dystopia.

Splitting the PPC Community
This is a dangerous issue. Our community is a small one, and I fear fracturing it could lead to grave consequences. I say splitting the community should call for a temporary ban. This might be a bit extreme, but anyone willing to split the community probably isn't very close to it.

Coordinating in Private

I really dislike this kind of thing. There can be legitimate reasons to do this - I remember a few Permission Giver email chains which went 'this person has been turned down so many times, what are we doing wrong/how can we get the point across', and I've seen a few 'this person is upset, pls email them' in my time - but when it's used to attack someone or stir up resentment against them it's just... bad. Don't do it. :(

I don't know if it's punishable. I don't know if it could be, unless it happens in the Chat. If it is, I think it's probably better to focus on the actual behaviour (talking about people behind their backs) than the specific nature of it.

Assuming Authority

I recuse myself from the first half of this discussion. :-/ For the second: I think saying 'I've done a lot of work with this concept, so please talk to me before changing anything' is okay. Saying 'I have plans for this so lay off' isn't. But it's not bannable.

Argument from Oldbie

I... honestly haven't seen this. I remember a bare handful of people shutting down requests for them to calm down with 'you weren't there, you don't know how bad it was', but apart from that I don't think this is an actual thing. When someone behaves badly, we make them apologise, whoever they are.

A far more likely bias is 'how much you like/know someone'. A relative newbie who's on the Discord can get a lot of support against an oldbie who stays on the Board, whichever side is right, purely because the Discorders (Discordians?) know them better.

Splitting the PPC Community

I feel this is bad behaviour. I think attempts to do it should probably be whacked with a hammer. I may have strong Opinions about this.

hS

First off, let me apologize for not saying anything in this thread in a more timely manner. RL has a way of making me feel tired and demotivated as of late. But that's beside the point.

Most of the issues in this particular category, to my eye, are not ones with easy solutions. It is not as if adding more rules to the Constitution will finally change how people react to major events. It's all very well and good to say "don't hold grudges," but trying to get people to actually do that is another thing altogether. As Tomash said, changing someone's thought process is not a quick and easy thing to do.

The recommendations I do have are ones that have already been brought up. If you have a complaint, bring it up to the community immediately. The entire community, and not just your immediate circle. Be specific. Provide evidence. Get involved with discussions. If someone gives an apology, take it as sincere in the moment. If that apology later proves to be hollow, however, then some sort of action should be taken.

Keeping issues private isn't, as other people have pointed out, an issue that can be fully solved.

However, if we ignore complaints, or are perceived as ignoring them, it will influence people towards keeping their issues private. If you expect that a public complaint won't do anything, or might even make things worse by generating a bunch of drama, you're not going to make one.

We do actually tend to ignore complaints (possibly unintentionally), especially if there's not one specific alleged egregiously bad thing that's being complained about or if there's a whole bunch of other discussion going on at the time.

Solutions? Not sure. Pulling the less-discussed complaints out of a big pile of drama and discussing them a while later like I think we should eventually do here is probably a good move. Also, even though, like Nesh said, form matters, if someone's making a not-entirely-specific complaint, it might be good to ask clarifying questions instead of shrugging and moving on.

Also, just because we haven't been asked to do anything doesn't mean it's not a complaint.

As to abandoning and/or not joining discussions, please don't do this if you can avoid it. Among other things, it contributes to perceptions that we don't care about complaints. Obviously, there's this thing called real life that might limit the time you have to be involved in PPC discussions, but I don't think that's the sole explanation for our high abstention rate.

If you're hesitating to step into a thread because it's a big argument or debate and you're not quite sure what's going on or which "side" to take, that's the signal for you to go in there and ask the people involved to explain things to you.

Bearing grudges is not a good thing for people to be doing around here. However, I suspect that some of those grudges come from complaints that were ignored, which makes them somewhat understandable. On the other hand, if someone does apologize and try to do better and you don't accept that, that's not their problem. It's yours.

Repeated bad behavior, especially if it's unrepentant, isn't a good thing. However, it's important to remember that, a lot of the time, reform involves changing thought patterns, and that's not an easy or quick process, and that, despite someone's bast efforts, there might be some backsliding. Therefore, these "patterns of behavior" cases need to be considered on a case by case basis.

In general, if people offer apologies, they should either be accepted or, if they seem insincere or otherwise not valid, that should be stated explicitly to prevent miscommunications. Furthermore, if you don't think the apology you got is enough repartitions for whatever it is happened, please say so instead of stewing about it silently. Sure, it might cause drama, but I think that's better than the alternative.

On Keeping Issues Private

No clue what can be done here. It's basically up to the person with a problem to decide for themselves whether they value trying to solve the problem more than not solving it. It's a matter of weighing the potential risks and rewards of each course of action, deciding what's worth it to you, and then living with the decision.

On Ignoring Complaints

Well... I agree with the text of the original post? Specific complaints should be discussed without jumping to conclusions.

I guess I should note that I think form matters, though. If you want to be taken seriously, it helps to present your concern in a serious, straightforward manner. You can't expect people to read your mind and magically know you have a serious problem if you only talk vaguely around it or act like you're joking or don't really care that much. It's also not particularly fair to throw a huge fit and then get offended when people suggest you might be overreacting.

On Never Even Joining Abandoning Discussion

... You know, I don't think I can talk about this without ranting right now. Too many personal feelings regarding recent (and current) events.

On Bearing Grudges

I think this refers up to Statute of Limitations and Keeping Issues Private. If you've got a problem with someone and you don't do anything to resolve it, at some point you have to accept the consequences of that decision and move on.

I don't think strictly encoding the "second chance" thing is probably wise. People are complicated, behavior is nuanced. A little more wiggle-room might be acceptable for someone with more challenges to overcome, less acceptable for someone who can reasonably be expected to know better.

It depends on the severity of the offense(s), too, though. Some things may exhaust the Board's collective patience more than others.

On Lack of Reform

Again, people are complicated, behavior is nuanced. Unrepentant bad behavior should certainly not be ignored, but backsliding, even repeated backsliding, on the part of someone who is legitimately doing their best might be worth tolerating if we find them otherwise agreeable. It's hard to encode this sort of thing into a specific response or set of responses. It's got to be case by case.

~Neshomeh

Ignoring Complaints and Abandoning Discussion really strike me as being fundamental problems that we need to address - every time we do them, and we do them a lot, people get hurt and we say "eh, whatever."

They're also pretty fundamental problems in a consensus-based internet community, unfortunately. These sorts of discussions, though important, are not terribly fun, and they have to grind on for a long time before we reach consensus on anything that isn't straightforward. And I think we do value consensus here - there were a couple of votes in the last major drama threads to the tune of "there is no consensus therefore I vote for no action." So, when a conversation is not fun, and everyone's had their say, it's easy for the quorum needed to drift away rather than building consensus.

I don't have the best of solutions. However, I've been here before, kinda - my previous team at work had a very similar problem. Everyone cared about everything. Everyone wanted to have their say on everything. We had meeting after meeting where everyone sat around and ground through all the options and possibilities for honestly trivial stuff, because everyone was invested in the project.

So what we did was we took a leap of faith. We agreed that A, we all cared about the project as a whole, and that B, we trusted each other, both to make good decisions and to take problems to the right group of people. And so we agreed that, in practice, we didn't actually need consensus on most things. We'd brainstorm options as a group, bounce them off of each other at large - and then give the problem to whoever was the expert in that section of the project. They'd usually bring in a few people - either experts in related sections, or newbies to give a fresh set of eyes, or both - and we went with their decision.

That was a bit scary the first few times. We were giving things that we really cared about away - and then it worked, and worked again, and we got used to it.

I don't know if something similar would work here, but I'd be willing to give it a shot. I would trust the majority of the community here to fairly resolve a dispute I found myself in, or recuse themselves if they couldn't do so fairly. It's a big leap, but... I believe in us?

Just a thought.

Keeping Issues Private

I don't know what we can do about this. We've rewritten the Constitution so many times to try and highlight it. Heck, even this thread's precursor barely got a handful of replies, and I can hardly believe that they're the only outstanding issues. I don't know.

Ignoring Complaints

I agree that this is a problem, and that the desire to not stir up more trouble is probably mostly responsible. We need to be sharper on this - probably not immediately if there's a broader argument, but after a couple of weeks. Which is basically what I'm doing here, heaven help me.

Abandoning Discussion

Please. Don't. Do. This. >:(

Bearing Grudges/Lack of Reform

These could have been lumped together as 'patterns of behaviour' (yes, that old bugbear). That's a concept which has previously been used to justify attacks as 'I remember you doing this thing twice, years back, therefore I interpret everything you do in that light', but it can also be a real problem: people who do something, apologise, and then do it again six months later.

I don't feel that it's reasonable to require an apology to be accepted before it counts. If the apology is recognised as sincere by the PPC community, then a grieved party who refuses to accept it (either by specifically rejecting it or by not replying) is being unreasonable; actions they take stemming from that refusal might be attacks under the Constitution.

I do think that throwing in a quick reminder (after an apology) that under the Constitution, doing the same thing again might lead to a ban, would be a good idea - it makes it clear that we're not just saying 'you apologised so we'll forget all about it'. This can be done by anyone - it doesn't need to be Official Language, just a note to say 'we remember this happened, make sure you change'.

And, uh, then we need to remember it happened, and hold them to that apology. If they keep doing the same thing over and over, or if they start acting in a way that suggests they don't feel bad over what happened, we should revisit the problem.

(Am I done? I mean, haha no, but I think I'm done for this hour or so.)

hS