Moderation Question

[Phasestar]

Yes. This community is unapologetically inclusive, and falls deliberately and firmly on that side of the line. I was hoping it sent more than "a bit" of a signal; I would hope that was blindingly obvious to anybody (in fact, I *know* it is from the nasty names I've been called on social media because of it).

I'm sorry to hear that you've had to deal with that on social media. I left it for similar reasons and I've done forum moderation so I understand how difficult it can be.

What is not clear to me is why being unapologetically inclusive means taking a political side, which by definition means that the community is exclusive.

I have no issue with the general rules, but why not simply say that this is not a place for personal attacks of any type and list examples across the political spectrum (of which there are many)? If you go as far as declaring the phrase "virtue signalling" out of bounds, then there should be many similar comments on the left that should also be. Private forums have a full right to enforce rules that keep their community constructive and avoid personal acrimony that can drive people away. However, if you want to be unapologetically inclusive of the whole RPG community, then such rules should in my opinion be blind to politics.

 

[Phasestar]

I’m an Irish academic whose spent 25 years not only correcting students writing, but also coaching them to give helpful, non confrontational feedback to each other. I feel you dropped a blanket ban on that phrase very quickly; there’s a lower level of alert, like ‘That’s a contentious phrase, please be careful how you use it’ for example. Because when anyone bans a word or phrase, it hurts my soul.

I agree with this, but because the internet is what it is, you will rarely find a private forum that allows full freedom of speech. Unfortunately there are some remarkably nasty trolls (from all sides) out there who do their best if given such an opportunity to abuse it and spoil everyone's enjoyment, even when there's say a sub-forum set aside for that it can still cause more harm than good. I do miss the early internet days when freedom of speech online matched it offline, but I understand the decision for forum rules in the current context, while I am steadfastly against banning phrases or words in the real world.

I do think in this case the rule has gone too far, but it is Morrus' right to disagree and it's his forum. I also think that such rules are best applied without favor or political discrimination.

 

[Morrus]

What is not clear to me is why being unapologetically inclusive means taking a political side, which by definition means that the community is exclusive.

Popper's paradox of tolerance.

A little (probably not very interesting) insight into my personal relationship with that line of thought: as mentioned in the rules, I don't subscribe to the argument that tolerance means that we need to tolerate intolerance or that inclusivity means that we need to include non-inclusiveness. In fact, I personally find that common argument childish, disingenuous, and asinine; it irritates me most unreasonably every time somebody tries it out on me (and that's often). So much so that I specifically called it out in the rules.

I think it irritates me so much because folks seem to assume it's simply never occurred to me.

 

[mcosgrave]

What is not clear to me is why being unapologetically inclusive means taking a political side, which by definition means that the community is exclusive.

Yes, if you have solid moral compass, even if it’s as simple as the Wheaton rule (Don’t be a dick) then, yes, you exclude people who don’t measure up. By all means engage, debate, call foul on a play but there is a point at which you have to say to people, even long term friends, ‘Sorry, I’ll miss you, but you’re out’

While there may be conservatives who are decent, the reality, I feel, is that if your basic ethical principle is ‘Be nice’, then the odds are your politics will be “progressive”. So for me, ethics comes before politics, but I’m a contrary old liberal* grump who feels increasingly alienated from this century!

*as in late C19 Gladstonian Liberal, not C21 neocon!

 

[Celebrim]

I think it irritates me so much because folks seem to assume it's simply never occurred to me.

No, it irritates me so much because I knew that's what you would use to defend yourself. I anticipated it in that "gish gallop" that you axiomatically would other anyone that disagreed with you as "intolerate", and that would axiomatically make you in the right. I could have put money on the fact that you'd pull out Popper's Paradox.

The problem is that in this case it is bull crap.

I had an interesting experience on Enworld a few days ago. I got into a conversation about the nature of chaotic clergies, and whether a religion could be non-hierarchical with someone I couldn't recall ever interacting with before.

In that conversation, at one point he out of the blue related almost all of my life story. He got a few details of it wrong, but the substance of it was largely correct. I was baffled. How in the world did someone I'd never interacted with no so many intimate details of my life. I have friends I game with that probably don't know parts of that background. He explained that he had went back looking for my writing, and had pieced it together from these sorts of controversies. And I started thinking about that, and the times I'd said things about myself at EnWorld and invariably they were of this structure. Someone would say to me, "If you disagree with me, it has to be that you are afraid of strong women." And I would say, "That's ridiculous. If you knew me, you'd know that I married a woman with a PhD who is a long distance runner, and that one of the things that attracted me was that she was a non-retiring, opinionated woman, who wouldn't fully subordinate herself to me as was the typical expectation in the culture I grew up in." Or someone would say to me, "You just hate black people.", and I would have to explain, "How can you make that claim when you know nothing about me? When I was a kid, my doctor, my teacher, my pastor, my best friend, and indeed just about everyone I knew and everyone I loved outside of my immediate family had 'black' skin?"

At this point on EnWorld, that crap has happened so often that a complete stranger can reconstruct much of my life story just by browsing the forum. Yes, it's a lame debate tactic to try to say anything about who you are in reality in an internet debate where nothing can be verified, but given that I find myself continually arguing with someone whose mode of argumentation is "I know you are wrong because of who you are." or "You are inherently wrong because of who I think you are.", it's all I've got. So now, here we are again. Let me make it really clear. I had a gay black man and his lover as players in my group for like 4 years before they moved across country. I love that person. I broke bread with him. I gamed with him. I fellowshipped with him. If the basis of your argument, is I am 'intolerate' or trying to 'exclude' someone from gaming, or that I'm trying to defend people excluding people from gaming, you're already wrong. The whole basis of your logic is flawed. You've cut the world into pieces and you've thrown everyone into your boxes and labels, and generally speaking when people do that they surprise, surprise, give themselves the most self-flattering labels. They put themselves on "team nice", and then axiomatically everyone else is wrong.

 

[Morrus]

No, it irritates me so much because I knew that's what you would use to defend yourself.

"Defend myself"? Is that what you think is happening here?

This conversation is over. You broke it. I answered the OP's question, but don't mistake Meta for "the place where you get to be obnoxious to Morrus". Because it really, really, is not.