The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

I generally listen to Jpop and video game ost. At one point, I listened to mashups from soundcloud one after another.

This is actually the second Warhammer 40,000 version of "Big Iron" to which I've listened.

Proof:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFRa0KZsGhc

One thing I've been learning over the past couple of years is that everything can be political in nature. Politics affects all of us, and it affects some of us more directly than others. Trying to ban all politics risks ignoring a crucial part of (at least some) people's lives, and I don't want to be part of a community that refuses to care about its members in that way.

Besides, the PPC is supposed to be a bit broader than just laughing at bad fan fiction. Ideally, we'd help each other write good stories with complex characters and worlds. Nobody's tried to talk about politics as it relates to writing fiction to my knowledge, but we don't want to discourage people from asking questions about writing. We should be doing the opposite.

Have one of my own shed feathers and a complimentary kit of Spikes!

Welcome (again)!

If it helps, I wasn't much of a writer when I joined up either.

- Tomash

I'll just stand by the way the story kept changing being extremely dubious if not outright unbelievable, then.

~Neshomeh

1. (optional) People pointed out the possible ban evasion to me.
   1. Once I had suspicions, I checked with someone else whose opinions I trusted (it probably would've been several people if some of them hadn't already pointed it out to me first) to make sure I wasn't seeing things.
   2. I called it. The community enforces the Constitution, after all.
   
   - Tomash

Because it was possible that Mythcreant wasn't zdimensia, I pointed them at the Nameless Admin, who unblocked them. This was a good decision. Having an innocent newbie trapped behind someone else's block would have been bad.

However, the IP match combined with the subsequent zdimensia-like patterns of behavior (which several people agreed existed), in my opinion, combined to make a case that our initial assumption that Mythcreant was not zdimensia was an error, and so the block was reapplied. That was also a good decision.

- Tomash

To start off, I'd like to make some distinctions. I'll define "light politics" to be things like "[Country] is debating a net neutrality bill.", "[Country] just [legalized/banned] [gay marriage/weed/...]", "There's an election on/Here's some results." and so on. It probably also includes things like discussing political ideology and who you're thinking of voting for, so long as it's not straying too far into heavy stuff.

Another type of content under discussion is what I'll call "heavy stuff", which is usually also political in nature. Heavy stuff encompasses things like shootings, bombings, police brutality, and so on, and probably the follow-on discussion.

From what I can tell in both this thread and elsewhere, light politics isn't something we appear to be objecting to. It seems to fall into about the same category as "[Media company] just [announced/cancelled] [thing].". Therefore, I don't think we should really do anything about them, other than clarifying that if you have someone asking for a conversation/posting (especially about this sort of stuff) to stop or be moved elsewhere, that needs to happen.

In contrast, heavy stuff is a more divisive topic. Some people want to talk about it. Others plain don't want to see it. So, how do we resolve this? I'd like to point to an analogous situation - NSFW (or near-NSFW) badfic quotes. Some people want to see them, others (like Silenthunder) don't. The solution we hit on there is to rot13 that sort of thing so people trying to avoid it can do so.

I again propose the same solution. Heavy stuff (which someone needs to try and define more concretely, please) should be posted under rot13 with a warning, and, for lack of a better term, "heavy" discussion about it (discussion that's still referring a lot to the heavy thing in a concrete way) should also stay under rot13.

I again oppose labeling a chunk of the Discord "politics" or "politics OK" because we tried that and it blew up in our face. If anyone has reasons they think it'll be different this time, I'd be more than happy to hear them.

tl;dr: rot13 for tragedies and other heavy stuff, and back off on politics when people ask you to

- Tomash

It may mean any of the following:

• zdimensia used Mythcreant’s computer while she stayed with her.
  
• zdimensia brought her own computer, but used Mythcreant’s router/modem to connect to the internet (what we see is the router’s address, not a specific device within the local network).
  
• While pretending to be "Makarra", zdimensia used a public internet access point different from all access points she used before that, and she now uses the same access point pretending to be "Mythcreant".
  
• Before she became "Makarra", zdimensia switched to a different provider to get a new IP address, and she is still using that.
  
• Something I don’t think of.

Although having been an IT person for many years, I’m not very tech savvy concerning the internet; some other tech person may correct me.

HG

Having thought about this overnight, here's what I see as the main concern that needs to be addressed:

Are the mods doing their job to make the Discord a good, comfortable place for all* members?

This is not the first time I've heard concerns that, in the Discord, saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time can get you ostracized, shamed, ridiculed, insulted, or otherwise punished, with no way of knowing what to avoid ahead of time. I can think of several members in good standing off the top of my head with such concerns, actually, some of them for quite a long time. This is especially bad if "the wrong person" is a mod with the power to kick or ban anyone they don't feel like dealing with that day.

So, what I propose is to take this opportunity for a sort of performance review of the current mods and state of the Discord. I could set up a brief Google survey with a few fairly standard questions: do you enjoy being in the Discord, are the mods doing their jobs, if not why not, what would you improve, etc. I think I would require a username to help filter out any opportunistic trolls, but I'm pretty sure the results could be kept private, and I'd present the data free from any identifiers.

First, though, an important question: What is the job of the mods? We'll have to agree on that before we can usefully discuss whether they're doing it or not.

I believe the job of a mod is to ensure that the Discord is a safe, fun environment for all* members. They have a duty to first ensure that everyone knows the rules, then to ensure that the rules are fairly and consistently enforced, always assuming good faith when possible. I believe this requires a certain level of detachment, so that one's personal biases and moods are managed such that people you disagree with* are not treated differently from people you do agree with.

What do the rest of you think? Is a review a good idea? Is a survey a good idea? Is that definition useful? Let me know.

~Neshomeh

* Those in neither flagrant nor repetitious violation of the Constitution.

The Nameless Admin does have the power to, in clear cases, just block people without a full vote of some sort. For example, if someone start spamming ads for online pharmacies, we block the IP, delete the posts, and move on. There's no need to hold a full vote about it.

Now, in this case, we have someone, first of all, who was using zdimensia's last known IP address. This had to be unblocked by the Nameless Admin to allow Mythcreant to post, which was, to my understanding, done because they might not be zdimensia.

However, it became quite clear that this person was zdimensia (for another datapoint, here's some very zdimensia-like views on making people keep talking to you). In my view, the fact that we were re-applying an IP block on what was almost certainly a user who had been banned with full constitutional process (several times) puts us right at the edge of "we don't need another full vote on this" territory.

I'd like to note that, if it hadn't been for the whole "previously blocked IP" thing, a somewhat longer wait (probably not a fully counted vote unless people were objecting, but more taking a day or two to make sure people had had a chance to see the post) would have been in order.

So yeah, for me, this situation is almost one that requires a full "let's wait to make sure people could get their views in" discussion, but, because of the very strong evidence, isn't one.

- Tomash

And I'm pretty sure their explanation that they have Zdimensia's IP because Zdimensia was staying with them is patent nonsense. Like... that would mean Zdimensia gave Mythcreant her computer for some reason, right? Tech-folk, help me out here.

Also, the conversation is not over, as DJ made clear in her post. What would you like to say on Mythcreant's behalf if you don't agree they're another sockpuppet of a banned user? Persuade us.

~Neshomeh

This is an oddly specific formatting that set off flags. Note the divider.

Mythcreant: http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=199610;article=314792;title=PPC%20Posting%20Board
Bram (relayed by Tomash): http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=199610;article=310971;title=PPC%20Posting%20Board

-Ozzielot

I didn't want to talk to other community members about this one because it would be completely unjustifiable on the off-chance that Mythcreant and zdimensia weren't the same person. How would we, as a community, apologize effectively for doing that? I decided to leave it to other people to figure out.

I think those people came to the right conclusions, but I also feel bad about just waiting for other people to solve the problem instead of being more proactive. I realize that this is obviously a special case, but in case it does come up again, does anyone have suggestions for how to report ban evasion attempts in the future?

... beyond what has already been said? Mythcreant admitting that they actually are zdimensia will probably not happen. So, the only way I can think of: ask more Boarders, who have been around at the time, to read through this thread and the chat logs linked above, and then tell us what they think. I don’t feel comfortable depending on the few people who always do that.

HG, going to read the logs now.

Welcome aboard!

Sorry you had to show up during... this...

But that's no reason to not show courtesy! Here, have an edible computer.

No real vote, no real discussion, a few key members say they must be someone else so they get banned? That's not a community I want any part of.

I'm going to quote hS from the Makkara incident: "Once it was confirmed that 'Makkara' was Zdimensia, her ban was re-enforced. No escalation, just standard following of the rules."

We suspect, Mythcreant is Zdimensia, but nowhere is it confirmed.

"Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Or do. It'll be funny."

I'm sorry. But am I the only person here who feels like this was uncalled for?

They didn't come to the PPC to become part of the PPC Universe, they came to the PPC to find a writing community they could engage in. They explicitly said they didn't post on the Board in their post, so half of your post Scape is almost pointless. They're not trying to change the whole of the PPC, they're trying to alert the PPC who don't use Discord as to the current state of the Discord, and are requesting that at least if it is not changed, that others who want what they wanted are aware that the PPC Discord is not the place to do that at the moment.

Novastorme.