The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

The main issue really is that stifling discussion will make some people angry, whereas a lack of filtering will hurt others.
In essence, you can't please everyone. I'll leave the nature of any compromise to those more learned.

As for politics... I think a solution might be similar to what we might do with the Categories. If we could, perhaps, separate some channels off as ones where discussions about politics could be tolerated, without making a #politics. The idea behind this being that it would allow people who didn't want to get into politics to mute certain areas and avoid that kind of thing, but it wouldn't be the kind of please-talk-about-politics-here thing that #heavy_stuff was. And, I think, some sort of stop button or threshold. Like, calling a vote or something and over a certain threshold stopping the discussion and moving on to something else.

And I personally wish we could avoid political discussions and talk of tragedies entirely on here. But I understand why that isn't necessarily feasible. It's just that I come here to escape such things rather than be surrounded by them.
But not everyone copes that way. I can understand why some may need a space to talk of these things safely. And therein lies the rub.
Namely that one person's coping mechanism or healing may be another's trigger.
And both have theoretically an equal right to speak and be heard.

I mean, seriously, let's take a look:

Genres:
Indie Pop, Alt-pop, Synthpop, Dance-pop, Alternative Electropop (by which I mean artists like Oh Wonder and Twenty One Pilots), Indietronica (basically the same thing, but it's considered a separate genre, for some reason), Alternative Rock, a bit of Folk-pop, and uh... normal Pop, I guess.

Artists (hoo boy, there's a lot):
AJR, Alessia Cara, Amber Run, Andrew Belle, Bleachers, Bridgit Mendler, Carly Rae Jepsen, CHVRCHES, Colbie Caillat, Duffy, Dustin Tebbutt, Echosmith (only their synthpop stuff, though), Ed Sheeran, Enya, Fleurie, Grace VanderWaal, Halsey, Hedley (again, only the synthpop), Hey Violet, Imagine Dragons, Ingrid Michaelson, Katie Herzig, Lenachka, Lindsey Stirling, Lorde, Maggie Whitlock (to be fair, I wouldn't have started listening to her if she hadn't been my babysitter), Mansionair, Meghan Trainor, Nina Nesbitt, Oh Wonder, One Direction, Rachel Platten, Regina Spektor, Ruelle, Ruth B., Sara Bareilles, Seafret, Syml, Taylor Swift, Twenty One Pilots, VÉRITÉ, Walking on Cars, and Yuna. Shout-out to Betty Who, Lemaitre, Passion Pit, The Chainsmokers, Vance Joy, and Zedd for making a few songs that I love, even if I'm not a fan of all their work.

Gosh, that took forever to type out. But, anyway, I recommend all of these artists; especially the really unknown ones that deserve a lot more love.

I'll leave the bulk of this to those more coolheaded than myself, but I'd like it to be known that the creation of a dedicated writing channel in discord has my full support.

Beyond that, I'm staying out of this. I'm exhausted, and I'm got way too many irons in the fire to worry about this at present.

It's looking to me like we need an on-Board discussion about this so we can get a sense of the consensus (or lack of consensus) about how the chat would like to handle the whole politics thing.

On the one hand, many folks want to talk about politics in the chat. It's an important topic that's often relevant to Boarders (and even more so in the case of some Boarders in marginalized groups - we've got at least a few trans folks around here). We're also a community that prides itself on the ability to have mature, civil discussions about this stuff, and we very often succeed in doing so.

On the other hand, as Delta put it a few days ago, "[T]his is not a space that focuses on politics." Furtheremore, there's other folks who've expressed their desire to not have certain heavy political topics (like mass shootings) pop up when they open up the chat, and there have been a few cases where some person has been asked to tone it down with the political posts because it was getting a bit much.

The "I don't want all this mass shooting stuff" is the main reason why #heavystuff (which just about immediately became #politics) was created. Unfortunately, "let's cordon off the politics into its own channel, so people can mute it if they don't want to see it" didn't seem to work. My theory is that an effect of making the channel was to encourage way more political discussion than previously, now that there was a place to put it, which wasn't something we wanted as a server. (This is, incidentally, why I'm supporting some form of #writing - we want to promote discussion of it.)

What seems to be the case is that there's such a thing as "too much politics [right now]" for most people in chat (which is person- and topic-dependent). It's rather unclear where the line is, other than "the point at which folks start asking you to tone it down".

I'm not sure how to articulate the standard here (or if there even is a way to do that), and so I'd like people to please chime in on this.

I do, however, want to repropose a suggestion that I remember someone making (even though I can't find it) from after the #heavystuff debacle: links that're very likely to tank someone's mood (the main example being heavy politics - shootings, police brutality, etc., but probably also suicides and similar) should be rot13'd. The reasoning here is similar to spoilers - let's not expose people who don't want to see this to such things by default.

- Tomash

Have a Ned Flanders themed metal band called Okilly Dokilly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejzde32zdVw

Someone with appropriate permissions could take away the permissions to post in a channel from @everyone. This is how #upstairs works at the moment (only people with the role "Moderator" can post in it).

It's also possible to take away @everyone's read access, thus additionally hiding the channel from view.

The channel contents could have been copied before deletion. It appears this wasn't done.

I agree that, in the future, if something like the #heavy_stuff deletion needs to happen again, logs should be kept. I propose that we avoid actually deleting channels in the future.

- Tomash

Why not just keep all political discussion at the door? Seriously, we riff on bad fan fiction. Collectively intelligent political discourse is out of our league.

Is there a way to “freeze” a channel, so that nobody can post on it, but the history is still available? Or to copy the log to an archive before the channel is deleted?

HG

It's not like we don't talk about writing on the Discord. We've definitely had "could I get some advice on X in the thing I'm writing" discussions at times (we don't have too much of on the Board either), along with stuff like RP and "hey here's a badfic".

I'll add a vote for a "here's some info about how our server works (and a link to the Board/Constitution)" channel for newbies to land in. That info's currently sitting on the wiki, which isn't too discoverable.

I'm still considering whether some Discord channels need splitting (other than the addition of #writing). (#recsandplugs does double duty as the actual "recs and plugs" channel and the overflow badfic talk channel, for example). There seems to be a general principle, that, up to a point, having a channel about X in a server encourages people to talk about X. (I suspect this was a good chunk of the problem with #heavy_stuff, which I'll try and elaborate on elsewhere.)

Now, do we want to keep uneditable logs just in case this sort of incident comes up (where an entire channel got deleted)... I'm not sure. I'm not quite convinced that "people editing their way out of trouble" or "evidence getting deleted" (and the like) are common enough occurrences to make that sort of thing worth it.

- Tomash

With a third "landing zone" category for newbies to the Discord which explains everything to them instead of dropping them straight into the generic channel. I can understand why you don't want two servers, but despite saying the writing and community aspects are rather intertwined, that only seems to me to be true on the Board.

With regards to logs, I say that those bots would be useful for things like this, where having the logs is actually really important and I'd say it's important enough to overrule privacy at this point. For the things that people want deletable like personal photo's I'd say the PM's would be a better place for them. The bots wouldn't have any say there.

Novastorme.

I'm opposed to having two servers. The writing and community aspects of the PPC are rather intertwined, and I'd prefer to keep them together.

However, adding a #writing or similar would be a good idea, just to make it clear there's a place to discuss that sort of thing. I don't think we're in danger of having too many channels at the moment (too many channels can lead to channel-selection paralysis).

In addition, Discord recently added a "categories" system that lets you group channels. If we wanted to implement something like your split, we could possibly use the much lighter weight solution of grouping our channels some.

If anyone has any other suggestions for how to reorganize the chat, I'd invite them to post them here.

As to logs, Discord generally keeps a permanent record of anything that isn't deleted. However, unfortunately, the #heavy_stuff channel got deleted, which got rid of all the messages there. If we wanted editing and deletion-proof logs, there are bots for that (but there's also reasons that people might want things to be deletable - accidental/temporary posts of photos of themselves, for example).

- Tomash

Like sure, going after old shames. But creating badfics specifically for your missions? That feels just so wrong to me.

When you point at the constitution here, it's not written in the context of creating badfic for missions. That's been done in the past, several times. When it says to write goodfic, it means... you know, fanfic-fanfic.

I'm otherwise staying out of this conversation because I don't want to get embroiled in more drama.

My favorite genres are rock and metal, maybe with some occasional electronic dance mixed in. I don't tend to listen to EDM, though, because I think a big part of why I like it is the thumping bass (headphones don't quite cut it).

Bands: Linkin Park, Queen, Imagine Dragons, Metallica, Tool, Papa Roach, Fall Out Boy, Five Finger Death Punch, Shinedown.

Also known as "what comes up on Pandora because I don't know enough about music to find new artists".

Was it actually clear to him? Did he get an explicit "No, I will not explain. Stop asking." or a "I am very uncomfortable talking about this, please stop pestering me." or even a "I don't think they're comfortable talking about it, so drop it"? I don't know about what happened in the HS channel, but the clear, explicit request to stop didn't seem to be present in the final ban. Or maybe I missed it.

I do not intend to mean that a person deserves it for not being clear about their refusal nor to mean that they are obligated to do so, but it would give Grimalkinii a clear message and if he kept pestering them, then Grimalkinii's ban would be less questionable (saying this because some people have objected to the ban at first).

With regards to the current purpose of the PPC Discord Chat, Grimalkinii is right, it is *not* a place for anyone to come in and talk about original fiction to say it is is a massive mistake. What it is is a place for real time conversations about various things, both serious and inane, although the serious ones tend to end... badly. For a newbie coming in who just wants to talk writing, especially writing that doesn't involve the PPC Universe it is simply not suitable and as Grimalkinii says and I (for the most part) agree " I feel that the bottom line here is that the discord chat is barely even a writing community anymore and more of a political one focused on socialist ideology." But then, should it be? While the PPC Community as a whole promotes good writing, nowhere that I can see does it say that the Discord is a place to go for talking about writing. Should it be? Would a Writing Stuff channel be a good idea for those who want that sort of thing? Maybe. I don't know, it's just a suggestion that I think should at least be discussed. And it would put the writing back in writing community for the chat.

As to the rest of the post and the rest on the conversation at the moment, from the logs that are currently available I can see where people are coming from with regards to saying that Grimalkinii broke the Constitution, specifically Section One, Rule 4. But you never see any warning about strikes, you never see anyone telling Grimalkinii to check the Constitution as to why what they were doing could be seen as wrong. At the same time, I think that you could just as easily get Maslab under Section One, Rule One for not respecting Grimalkinii and kicking him 'because of his (Maslab's) blood pressure' and not respecting Grimalkinii and their views. In my opinion I would then question what should be done with Maslab's status as a mod. I think it also highlights the fact that the Constitution is, to me, not followed anywhere near as much as it should be on the Discord chat.

When it comes down to 'write your own badfic' for all of those pointing at the Constitution in this conversation while saying it's OK to write your own badfics, I'd suggest you read Section 7, more specifically Rule 25. But then again, that's just me.

Overall this complaint has made me realise several things. 1) I know I lurk in the Discord a lot of the time, but I should speak up more, especially when things are not right. 2) The Discord is flawed. Simple. Should it be removed? No. Should it still be called the PPC Discord chat? eh, I'm out on that one. My current idea is that we should split it into two, one for writing things, including RP like Rudi's and one for the chatting/community, that'd solve a lot of the problems I think. Name one the PPC Discord and the other The Chat Lounge (or something like that). 3) If Grimalkinii deserved to be kicked and banned from the Discord there are others who should also be kicked for breaking the Constitution (and I'm not just talking about Maslab, there are others too) 4) We need more permanent logs for Discord, even if it's just screenshots of posts before they're deleted/asked to be edited, we need to see them. 5) Maybe Des was right after all.

Novastorme.

On real-world heavy topics, I've like to point out we managed to have a rather civil conversation about gun control back in early March of 2017, so I'm certainly not calling for a "no politics"/"no heavy stuff" rule at this time. The discussion in #heavy_stuff was, from what I remember of it, rather inflamed by Pentagon's (and maybe some other people ... I won't try and name nams without the logs, since I eventually just left that whole debate) approach to it.

There not being a Board post about this ... yeah, come to think of it, why didn't that happen? I'd propose, as blanket policy, "chat kicks/bans are to be announced on the Board".

For extra context, the official announcements of the kicks (and then bans) in #upstairs were:

Maslab 🦊 - 03/05/2018
Pentagon has been kicked from the server: Multiple counts of purposefully stating incendiary statements designed to elicit an emotional response. A permanent ban is being discussed between the moderators.

Maslab 🦊 - 03/05/2018
Grimalkinii has been kicked for same.

PoorCynic - 03/05/2018 [later that day]
A permanent ban has been put into place for users Pentagon and Grimalkinii.

Now, to (mainly) my memory, there appeared to be an association between Pentagon and Grimalkinii. Among other things:
1) They showed up very close to each other (to the point that I wrote a "please introduce yourself on the Board" message aimed at both)
2) They both tended to use terminology like (rot13'd) "phpxrq", which is associated with the far-right, /pol/, and other groups of people that tend to violate Article 2
3) There was a general sense that Grimalkinii was backing up or joining on on Pentagon's almost-certainly-trolling, especially since they both had a few cases of "I insist you talk/keep talking to me" Article 4-violating behavior (and tended to agree with each other's points).
[there might be other factors applicable here, but that's what I can think of at the moment]

Now, it's possible that this was all a really unfortunate coincidence and we banned a newbie because they shared an arrival time and political views with someone who very clearly needed banning. However, I would say there was enough evidence of a Pentagon/Grimalkinii association that we can't claim the mods were acting unreasonably or terribly out of line based on the information they had.

- Tomash

P.S.: Assuming Mikel is right about what incident "We then switched the topic and asked another member about something they had said; we were outright told to change the subject by the same admin or be banned right then and there." refers to, I confirm that the moderators' response of "Drop the topic. Now." was entirely appropriate.

One, the Heavy_Stuff channel was removed for a very simple reason: in the week or so it was up, it had caused at least three major arguments and large amounts of drama. It was removed because the place for people to vent about the bad things happening had become a bad place for anyone not looking for an argument.

Two, the topic change mentioned was a very serious affair regarding a member. For the sake of privacy, I won’t give details, but I will say that they were shut down again because they were demanding an explanation from someone who was very clearly uncomfortable and did not want to give it. It was not as if they were shut down because it was them.

As for the final banning, it was the same sort of situation, with Delta clearly unhappy with what was being asked, and the demands for answers not stopping. Given the actions in HS shortly before that, it was clear to me at least that they were banned because they were repeatedly violating Section 1, Part 4 of the constitution.

So I was bore, and decided to see what kind of music everyone is into. Like me, for starters:

Genres:
Rock, Alternative, Metal, Jpop/rock, Jazz/Swing/Big Band, Electronic/Dance, Celtic, R&B/Soul and instrumental.

Bands/Singers:
Linkin Park, Aurelio Voltaire, Gorillaz, Queen, The Beatles, Imagine Dragons, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Daft Punk, Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Miracle of Sound, The Protomen, Adam Warrick, and the Dave Matthews Band

Yes I have a weird taste in music...