Industry Information Influx?

[broghammerj]

So where does the buck stop on the interaction or lack of it with industry persons on Internet message boards (particularly here)? Do the posters bear the responsibility? The Industry persons? The medium? The moderators? Something else entirely? Perhaps a combination of all factors?

Perhaps it's hindsight being 20/20, but I always seem to remember people posting chats with designers. Can't remember if it was here or on Eric's site. Anyways, the medium seemed more protective as there was a moderator asking questions and others would write in. Then there was generally a transcript that was posted for everyone to view/discuss afterwards. This format seems to have generally disappeared.

I always thought it was very safe. Only fans of the work tuned into the chat time (ie no hecklers). The moderator kept the RPG designer/author somewhat clear of crap and it generally appeared to be pleasant. It was a great format as information was disseminated to fans and the designer didn't get "kicked in the junk".

 

[Maggan]

Perhaps it's hindsight being 20/20, but I always seem to remember people posting chats with designers. Can't remember if it was here or on Eric's site. Anyways, the medium seemed more protective as there was a moderator asking questions and others would write in. Then there was generally a transcript that was posted for everyone to view/discuss afterwards. This format seems to have generally disappeared.

I always thought it was very safe. Only fans of the work tuned into the chat time (ie no hecklers). The moderator kept the RPG designer/author somewhat clear of crap and it generally appeared to be pleasant. It was a great format as information was disseminated to fans and the designer didn't get "kicked in the junk".

I like that. Maybe EN World could create a format, where they do this once a month?

/M

 

[Obergnom]

yeah, I remember reading a lot of those chat transscripts a few years ago. (Monte Cook did quite a lot of those when starting Malhavoc, I think. As did others)

That might actually be one of the best ways to renew the wotc staff/D&D community relationship...

 

[Doug McCrae]

The main problem is the medium. First of all, only those with strong opinions on a topic are likely to post. Sadly it seems that negative emotions are a stronger motivation than positive ones. Result? The internet is filled with hate. Hate interrupted only by the arguments between those who love X and those who hate X.

Secondly, text alone is a poor communication tool. No visual cues. Misunderstandings abound. Result? Flamewars.

People with polarised opinions, mostly negative, failing to communicate. That's the internet.

 

[nerfherder]

The tone of an internet community depends on the moderators. The buck stops there. If moderators tolerate antagonistic posting, then it will happen.

If the moderators of a site want a place where game designers can interact with the fans, then it is on their heads to make sure it happens. They need to lay the ground-rules, and enforce them.

If a poster decides that the rules don't apply to them, and the moderators don't discipline them, then it's the moderator's fault.

Yes and no

I agree with Umbran that the person who is responsible for a post is the poster, not anyone else.

I'm a member of a community which has minimal moderation - ENW's off-topic site, Circvs Maximvs. It has only two rules - no porn and no creating an account impersonating another person. In effect it is self-moderating by peer pressure, just like in real life.

At CM, threads about Dragon and Dungeon magazines' demise have been remarkably free of wailing and over-the-top histrionics, and have instead been interesting discussions.

There are a number of industry people who post there, although it's always almost in an informal manner. However, I can only think of one Wizards staffer, and he doesn't post regularly (although he did just after the Dragon/Dungeon announcement, and yet there were no calls to burn him!). Oh, there's a Wizards freelancer, too.

I'm not saying that this model would work at ENW. For one thing, there are only 1,600 members at CM, and I think all are adults (so no worries about swearing in front of minors). But it does give an interesting insight into minimum moderation and taking personal responsibility for everything you post.

 

[Maggan]

I'm not saying that this model would work at ENW. For one thing, there are only 1,600 members at CM, and I think all are adults (so no worries about swearing in front of minors). But it does give an interesting insight into minimum moderation and taking personal responsibility for everything you post.

So what happens when someone is out of control? Who deals with that?

/M

 

[nerfherder]

So what happens when someone is out of control? Who deals with that?

It depends what you mean by out of control. If they break one of the two rules, then Morrus steps in. Anything else is dealt with by discussion, calling out, or by people putting them on ignore. It's not like they can break anything by being "out of control"

There has been one instance of a moderator stepping in and handing out short-term bans to allow things to cool down, and one of those turned into a permanent ban, but other than that moderators just handle administrative stuff (moving threads accidentally put in the wrong forum, etc).

 

[Umbran]

Obviously, not everyone has the same ability or leeway to deal with people who behave badly and not everyone is dealt with in the same manner.

Yes. However, peer pressure is one of the most power forces known to man.

Which is, of course, why I say the responsibility lies with the moderators.

Well, let's face facts - there are only so many mods, and we aren't on call 24-7. Even if we were, we are *horribly* outnumbered. If enough people wanted to be bad, we could not keep up with them. Moderators are by their very nature reactive. The badness has already happened by the time we can act on it. The best, and only proactive measure, available exists within the skulls of the individual posters.

With responsibility comes blame when things go wrong. So, you're effectively asking us to take blame for things we cannot prevent. Consider how much flack we'd have taken for "falling down on the job" this weekend - do you really think your mods are going to stay nice, happy people under such circumstances?

Allowing an individual poster to abrogate his own responsibility (because ultimately the mods are responsible to control them) is a very, very bad precedent.

 

[Jdvn1]

Ultimately, the buck stops with the individual expressing the opinion - if you can't do it like a mature adult, you shoot yourself (and several other people) in the foot by making the people who ought to hear that opinon reluctant to enter discourse with you.

Though, if industry persons are too sensitive or are not hearing what they want to hear, that'll drive them away too. I get the impression that some (more than likely not all) WotC people avoid EN World because some people dislike 3.5 or certain aspects of it--regardless of civility.

At which point, it could be really cool if WotC people came in, discussed issues, possibly admitted mistakes (since some aspects of the rules are worded very poorly), and gave us their side of things. At the very least, it'd be nice to know the WotC people were open-minded enough to consider possible issues.

I'm not saying they're not that open-minded, just that since they don't use WotC-hating people (the mature ones, of course) as an opportunity for ideas and really interesting discussions, I don't know they are.

 

[maddman75]

Yes and no

I agree with Umbran that the person who is responsible for a post is the poster, not anyone else.

I'm a member of a community which has minimal moderation - ENW's off-topic site, Circvs Maximvs. It has only two rules - no porn and no creating an account impersonating another person. In effect it is self-moderating by peer pressure, just like in real life.

At CM, threads about Dragon and Dungeon magazines' demise have been remarkably free of wailing and over-the-top histrionics, and have instead been interesting discussions.

There are a number of industry people who post there, although it's always almost in an informal manner. However, I can only think of one Wizards staffer, and he doesn't post regularly (although he did just after the Dragon/Dungeon announcement, and yet there were no calls to burn him!). Oh, there's a Wizards freelancer, too.

I'm not saying that this model would work at ENW. For one thing, there are only 1,600 members at CM, and I think all are adults (so no worries about swearing in front of minors). But it does give an interesting insight into minimum moderation and taking personal responsibility for everything you post.

That has to do with the size of the community. Places like Circvs and Nothingland can get away with mostly hands-off moderation because of their size. Everyone really knows everyone else, so acting like a huge jerk is going to make the boards in general an unpleasant experience. Here, if you act like a jerkface in Rules, odds are no one will notice in General or Off Topic. Too many people. It works so well the smaller boards even allow politics and religious discussions without the boards going down in flames.

But I'm also an active member of two larger boards, this one and SomethingAwful. ENWorld needs its moderation because when you have this many users it only takes a couple of trolls to turn the whole apple-cart over. And even if you assume that 99% of users are fine upstanding citizens, there's 2218 people online right now. That would mean there are 22 jerks on, just looking to pick a fight or troll a thread. Something Awful is even larger and more tightly moderated, and is one of the best general forums on the internet.

There's sort of an inverse quality to unmoderated discussions, where the quality of the conversation is inversely proportional to the size of the community. If can work well in small communities where everyone knows each other, but if it gets too big it just turns into usenet.