I'm seeing a pattern between people who say they understand what not to do but later do it anyway. I think they genuinely thought they understood, but they didn't really get what you wanted them to not do. Maybe either giving specific instructions or showing them examples of what not to do or what to do instead would help?

For example, if you were to tell someone not to keep interrupting you could try saying something like this:

"If you wanted to keep talking about x, but there's a discussion about y going on right now, either:

Try another (appropriate) channel

or

Wait until the discussion is done"

This may not be the best example, but this is meant to show what I mean.

I might be missing some conversations that went on while I was trying to read transcripts, so the only time I saw examples being used was when people were suggesting what to say when you want to disengage from a conversation or when Voyd kept talking badly about drow characters.

While Voyd should be making an effort to improve, and this isn't meant as a substitute for therapy, giving him some help wouldn't hurt.

-Ozzielot

One: I need to stop bringing my depression and anxieties to the chat. To that end, I’ve muted the generic salt channel (where such things are usually discussed); you’re not going to hear me bitching and moaning any more.

Two: some subjects are simply inappropriate to bring into the PPC chat. None of my lewd or explicit thoughts belong on the Discord server, even if mentioned obliquely or censored.

Three: I need to recognize when a conversation has ended, and figure out how not to stick so hard on a subject when everyone else is on a new one.

In short, I need to be a lot more careful about what thoughts and feelings I present in the public space of the Discord server and which ones I need to keep in more private discussions.

In terms of the easily observable formal rules, Voyd's had a tendency to wander past the line of acceptable levels of sex talk and similar NSFW things, even if it's all duly spoilered so people aren't necessarily exposed to it. Previous attempts to address this have only been somewhat effective, hence this thread. Consensus also indicates, however, that this behavior (libido oversharing and similar) isn't malicious or (given context) a bannable offense, but that it's something we'd like to see stopped and so we're clearly laying out tho problem here.

More broadly, there are aspects of Voyd's behavior that, while not against Da Rules, have caused several people to be uncomfortable with him and/or have had negative impacts on the community. These aspects include tending to try to force the conversation topic, seeming difficulty listening to what other people are saying, trouble changing his behavior in response to feedback, and a pattern of responding to certain pushback with extreme self-deprecation that frequently shifts the conversation to trying to reassure him out of that state. These things aren't being done maliciously, nor do they make Voyd a bad person. They do indicate that there are social (or mental) skills that Voyd should work on improving so that both he and the community at large have better experiences.

A lot of said work, if undertaken, will need to happen elsewhere, since the PPC isn't a group therapy session.

There's also significant support for the idea that Voyd should take a break of some kind from the chat to reflect on the situation and/or take some steps to address people's concerns (and since all the details of that would be Voyd's call, there haven't been proposals).

Please feel free to jump in if it looks like I missed something important.

I wasn't really involved in this particular incident, so I don't have much to say. However, I can attest that Voyd has repeatedly had problems altering his outlook and behaviors. He doesn't seem to stop doing things, no matter how may times he's asked. He's not very good at changing his perspective, even when new information comes to light. I've had literally the exact same conversation with him dozens of times on various subjects. And he always seems surprised when I bring up the same points.

I don't think this is malicious. I don't think Voyd is a bad person, and I don't think any of this is by intent. But it is a problem, and at this point it kind of needs to be a addressed.

Voyd himself bought this issue to me, and I know that stepping in will probably be a very bad idea given my track record, but just a few days ago I was actually involved in an eerily similar situation with a friend in a different community and Discord server, which is why I believe the below advice, similar to what I told said friend, is relevant here as well.

If Voyd has a problem, and he has told me via PM that he has more than a few, venting it to people online will only give them what they see on their side of the screen. As what Iximaz said below indicates, those he vented to would inevitably see what he was doing as attention-seeking or otherwise in bad taste, even if his problems were legitimate. This community just isn't the place to address them. Nobody in any online community can serve as a therapist with a keyboard and monitor alone, and even if a user is legitimately licensed for psychiatric help, talking to them in a forum or chat is just not the same as communicating with them in person.

My advice to Voyd is thus as such: the issues you may have are not and should not be shouldered upon associates who don't have the time, energy, or capability to help him fix them, but upon people who DO. Professional help, your family, other people you know in real life and in person, whatever works. But not a place where people can turn on you at the drop of a hat. It happened to me several times over the years, it's happened to people who got in trouble with this community for letting their problems bleed into their interactions with its members, and it will happen to anyone who puts their trust in words on a screen typed by a stranger from a different town or country with no experience in assisting people with their mental health.

While I obviously can't be condone the particular behavior that upset the Board, Voyd is still the closest friend I've had here, and I certainly don't want him to be evicted by the online community that helped me through graduate school. That's how important the PPC is for me even though I'm not as active there as I used to be. This does not mean that he isn't blameless, though, in the same way that people who believe that the PPC can magically fix people's problems just by talking to them aren't blameless. I know Voyd is capable of being better, in the same way as I was when I had fights with people online for hurting them, but I also know that he will need to make a genuine effort to do so rather than simply saying that he's sorry and repeating these mistakes again later - which is exactly the kind of behavior that got me forced out of more than one online group, because I used to exhibit the exact same pattern of behavior that Voyd is doing. I don't want him to follow the same hard path that I had to take, and certainly not the path that got people banned from here for thinking that the PPC is useless for failing to "help" them.

We aren't a therapy box. No online community is. And honestly, despite my efforts now, I don't think I could help Voyd with his issues in the same way that an in-person appointment with a psychiatrist can. But that's exactly the point I'm making here - I believe that instead of venting to people who have no idea what to do, he should instead see people offline, in person, who are qualified to give him the help he needs by this point.

One last thing: I myself owe this community and Voyd an apology of my own. My relative slump in terms of general online activity, which is due to several personal reasons I'd rather keep mum about, meant that I participated only nominally with regards to the PPC Discord server and its activity, including what led to this thread being made. Had I looked into things sooner and more intensively, I could have easily discovered the issues people were having with Voyd and then discussed them with him via PM in a bid to put a stop to them before they escalated as much as they are doing now. That was sadly not the case, and while I was busy with a lot of other matters and thus had no way of devoting nearly enough attention to these events to recognize what was happening, that does not excuse the fact that I more or less ignored them until they were bought to me by the man himself just this evening. So it is from the bottom of my heart that I say now that I am truly, sincerely sorry for this ignorance on my part. As a friend, I worry that I have failed Voyd, and to some extent this community as well for failing to keep a closer eye on things. I don't know if my horribly bloated real-life schedule will give me the wiggle room to be more attentive to this matter, but going forward, I hope I can find the time to help him rectify his poor behavior to the best of my ability.

He would move his whining to my DMs when told to stop in the salt channel. I honestly don't remember what incident finally made me sick enough of being used as a venting outlet to block him, because it happened so many times.

Just to cut out a lot of personal thoughts that wouldn't contribute to the discussion, I'll just say that yeah, something needs to change.

I used to be a far more toxic person than I am now. Specifically, there was this forum, and there were several topics that I would not shut up about even after being repeatedly told to stop. Even after acknowledging the problem with certain behaviors of mine and stopping them, I still failed to realize and address the core problem: I was a self-centered git who didn't care about others' feelings and would speak without regard to the consequences. (Even now, I still have mental breakdowns in salt on a semi-frequent basis.)

I haven't really noticed these qualities in Voyd until they were pointed out, but now that I see them, I see the similarities between him and me. And so I can say with confidence that Voyd will not change unless he is willing to put in the effort. And knowing how long this problem has gone on, he will not put in the effort unless something important is at stake. Punishment has also been effective for certain members in the past, at least those who are self-aware enough to improve.

I hereby propose that Voyd be banned from the Discord Server for 5 days. Then, for the next major infraction he commits, he will be punished with a 7-day ban from the Discord. If, after that, he refuses to stop, the bans will double every time, culminating in a 1-year ban from the PPC as a whole.

I'm sorry, Voyd, but it is just too easy to think you're putting in the effort to change when you're really not. Actions need to have consequences.

I don't look at gen-salt very much, fate-salt even less so, and I tend to avoid rot13 when it comes to Voyd, but I can corroborate that he has/does join conversations without adding anything to them besides his one opinion on the topic, and if the conversation changes he tends to keep at it. Looking at the backlog, I can confirm I've personally called him out on this more than a handful of times during the past few months alone, and on at least one occasion several times over just a few days.

That's not counting when he joins in for the sole purpose to disparage himself, which also happens strikingly often.

If anyone wants citations, further explanations, etc, I'll be glad to provide.

Defending my honor (my friend’s words, not mine) or discussing positive experiences with me probably won’t matter when others have valid grievances against me.

Put more bluntly: this discussion is only for people I’ve made uncomfortable or hurt.

For one, I have... a complicated perspective on sexuality, public, private, or otherwise, that I have some difficulty seeing past to put myself in the shows of other real people. But likely more importantly, my views on Voyd himself are very, very heavily colored, both by his own actions and by associations with other individuals who have done some remarkably bad things to me. There's a reason I tend to get a bit uncomfortable when he tries to offer assistance to the problems I voice in Salt, and it's only partially that his assistance consists primarily of shifting the attention onto himself and his frustration at his inability to help.

With all that said, there's definitely at least two problems here. Problem A, Voyd's... difficulties with oversharing the state of his libido on a regular basis; Problem B, Voyd's consistent refusal to listen when told what he needs to fix, his insistence on piercingly loud self-pity and moping, and then running straight back to sticking his fists in his ears when people try to actually help.

It would be one thing if this were the long and the short of it, but it's not. This is how he behaves in all things. Not just all issues he brings into Salt, though that's certainly where it's most prevalent - in all things, unless someone starts swearing at him and uses language designed to agitate, this is his pattern. Bringing up a thing, whining about it to the limit of a saint's patience, continuing to whine while people scuttle about trying to offer suggestions and solutions and sympathies and other relevant words beginning with S, and turning into a self-pitying mass when someone does manage to force him into acknowledging the sentiments of others.

And again, this is his behavior in all things. Commentary on his writing, discussions of games (the gods forbid anyone try to show him an alternate way to play in Fate/Grand Order), in casual discussions about any random topic. Speaking of, I feel the need to bring up a potential Problem C: an insistence on interruption and pulling the subject to himself, and the complementary refusal to let a subject die. I mentioned earlier that when others (not just me, though I certainly notice it happening to me more certainly than to others for obvious reasons) bring up issues in Salt, there's a tendency for Voyd to "help" by voicing his inability to provide assistance, which thus shifts the topic away from the problem of the original person and towards comforting Voyd and his endless self-pity. This happens frequently, despite generally being frustrating for every single person who is not Voyd himself, particularly when he repeatedly comments on his own uselessness within the context of a single problem. It's similar with other subjects. Once Voyd has a topic in his sights, he abjectly refuses to let anyone discuss anything else, to the point of leaving some community members with complete disdain for the subject material despite having absolutely no experience with it outside of this.

...but I WILL say that there are things I have stopped doing.

On the Discord server, I no longer qvfphff zl yvovqb, abe qb V zragvba jura V’z srryvat jbexrq hc bire vg (NSFW). I was called out on this, and I haven’t done it since.