The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

I've apologised for the Brink incident in the past, and offer that apology again. It was never my intention to engage in bullying behaviour of any sort, and I see ways the incident could have been avoided with benefit of hindsight. It's still my opinion that the whole thing was down to a series of miscommunications and misinterpretations, and not malicious behaviour on anyone's parts. Given this incident occurred a couple years ago now, I obviously have no intention of allowing any such things to occur. I'll admit to having been protective of the DIA in the past too; I do have some stories with them in the works, but obviously nobody should be claiming an entire section of the PPC for their own.

As for the accusations of manipulative behaviour and disingenuousness, well, I can certainly apologise if I've made people feel that's the case but I very much do not appreciate being called a liar, or having those people brush off what I have to say as insincere. So boo on them. That's just outright insulting and I don't plan to stand for it.

...I regret that post, and agree that confirmation bias was a strong motivator behind it.

I therefore unreservedly apologise both to JulyFlame, for accusing her of being a problem when she was, in fact, the victim; and to the community, for my idiocy in continuing to take a troll seriously despite everything they did.

In future, I fully intend to engage in this kind of discussion less rashly than I did this time around. I will endeavour to never again pass premature judgement. I will, of course, accept any sanction the community chooses to impose on me.

1. To quote Jim Carrey/Ace Ventura, allllrighty then. :)
   
   3. Yeah, I know. RPs are harder, though. :P
   
   1. I'll let her know that tomorrow.
   
   -Twistey

I ate your Swiss Bleepolate after happening upon one of those weird H**ler fan arts that make you usually think "eh, that couldn't exist, people are too smart" until you actually see it. The Bleepolate did a good job of helping me cope with the weirdness.

-Twistey

I've looked over the chat logs again now that I've gained more emotional distance from my actions.

In retrospect, it is vary clear that I participated in the witch hunt against July more than I thought I did at the time.

During the Discord discussion, I publicly presented what I know of Iximaz's allegations against various people, and included such evidence as I had. That is, like hS described me, I stood up and said "here is the evidence, let us pass judgment". I only gave one side of the story because that was just about all I had.

While doing that, I publicly alleged bad behavior on the part of July (along with Neshomeh and Huinesoron) while they weren't around to defend themselves. What I did was wrong.

My main intent was to make sure that everyone would be as informed as possible during any subsequent discussions of Iximaz's allegations. I realize now that, under the circumstances, my actions instead significantly contributed to (or even started) a lynch mob against JulyFlame. That is, I accused someone of misconduct, without giving them the ability to defend themselves, in front of an emotionally charged crowd that was already biased against them (thanks to the actions of Data Junkie et al.). I now better understand that those conditions don't give rise to anything resembling a fair hearing, they create angry mobs.

While everyone was riled up, I made a few comments trying to get people not to go after July, but it was too little, too late.

My only defense is that I didn't realize what I was doing. That is, that I negligently stirred up a witch-hunt, as opposed to intentionally doing so.

To make matters worse, while I was presenting evidence, I revealed July's real name and face in the Discord without her consent. That was completely unacceptable behavior on my part, even ignoring the aggravating factors that July is in the military and that she had previously been the subject of severe harassment here that included death threats. My only defense, as I said last time, is that, in the heat of the moment, I'd forgotten that the screenshot had personal information in it and that I made a very serious mistake by not checking what I was posting.

Therefore:
- I again apologize to JulyFlame for leaking her personal information, causing her to fear for her life.
- I apologize to JulyFlame for participating in (and stirring up) the witch-hunt against her.
- I apologize to JulyFlame for being a significant cause of the harassment she faced during the incident.
- I apologize to JulyFlame, Neshomeh, and Huinesoron for accusing them of misconduct in the Discord behind their backs, especially since the circumstances led (in July's case) or could have led (in the other cases) to witch-hunts against them.
- I apologize to the PPC as a whole, for severely eroding our ability to trust each other with personal information

I have recognized that my behavior was wrong, and I regret what I did. I am currently under a self-imposed 2-3 month ban (actually, let's make that a bit more concrete and say that the ban ends no earlier that the first weekend of June) from the PPC so that my actions might have actual consequences for me, instead of a slap on the wrist. This ban will, of course, continue. If the community chooses to impose additional consequences on me, I will accept them.

- Tomash

I guess I've addressed my feelings on my ability to force people out here. I'll add that people I've knowingly and deliberately contributed to "forcing out" include Jacer (proud bigot), Ammo Guy (troll/creepy), and zdimensia (extremely disruptive with overtones of racism), all of whom were banned by vast majority vote. The only controversial bans of any length that I've voted for are Data Junkie (not banned; ultimately revealed to be a troll) and Tomash (doxxing; undertook his own ban amid opposition).

I will cop to using the best logic, reason, and rhetoric I have at my disposal in attempts to sway people to my position. However, everyone does that. That's what discussion and debate are for: everyone presents their case, the merits of each case are weighed against the others, and ideally, the best possible solution emerges.

I think I've earned some respect by always making an effort to be, as Seafarer put it, "extremely thoughtful and reasonable" (thanks, by the way!), but nonetheless, I cannot force anyone to agree with me if they vehemently don't. I do not have mind-control powers. Also, I'm not above being talked out of any position I hold if someone or several someones come along with a better argument; and if I'm outvoted, I'm outvoted.

There's also the fact that, as I've complained about in this thread, I'm often one of only a few people talking. I'm not going to accept the blame for that. If y'all are sick of me and hS and other oldbies doing most of the talking and the doing of things, then the only solution is for you—yes, you—to speak up and to do things. There is, of course, a risk that others won't like what you say or do. If it's not worth it to you to take that risk, then you had better accept that you're leaving matters up to whoever feels it is worth it—or that, if there is no one else, then nothing will happen at all.

I reckon that goes to the last bit about my supposed ability to silence discussion, too. Since I cannot actually force a ban against anyone I disagree with, all that you risk by speaking in opposition to me is that I out-debate you. But you can't win a debate by not having one at all, can you?

TL;DR, I believe these accusations are unfounded. It seems like the general tenor of this thread is that most people agree.

If anyone would like me to explain my behavior in a specific incident, I will do so.

~Neshomeh

Mainly a lack of both time and energy to partake in serious discussions, mainly since Uni has started, and, to a lesser degree, the feeling that I would not be able to contribute much to the discussion.

Rather than infinite bans? i.e. the ban is permanent unless rescinded, but not automatically expiring after a defined period of time.

With demonstrated repentance and a genuine desire to come back and behave in a way in accordance with the standards of the community as a whole, a banned person might be able to return (however unlikely).

But I don't see how an arbitrary time basis for any ban addresses the problem of behaviour, and it seems more legalistic and punishment-focused than I'd like to see in this community.

Elcalion

Mainly because I haven't been around for the last six months at all, and only sporadically before that, and therefore haven't seen most of the issues that have prompted this thread, and short of me spending the next few hours reading back over the last few months of Board posts, I'd prefer to refrain from commenting on most specifics.

But feel I should put my $0.02 in on this one and say that I agree 100% with hS on this one.

A ban is the last resort, and a recognition that a person's demonstrated behaviours are incompatible with the standards of our community; standards that exist to make this a safe space where we can all be wacky loons. Or loony wacks.

An arbitrary time-based ban isn't going to magically fix behaviours; you're either in or you're out. And that decision to ban someone should be based on the broad consensus of the community as a whole (recognising that we're unlikely to be unanimous on anything, but it should at least reflect the position of a vast supermajority of the community).

Elcalion

I'd like you to know you've done a good job of reading my mind. I do like clear rules, well-defined processes, that sort of thing.

I completely agree that we don't have a problem with non-obvious ban vote results. Me and Data are the only two votes without a clear consensus result I can think of, and Data's had Torolling muddling everything up. Other than in those cases, it's been extremely obvious what we collectively want, so there's no point in trying to nail down specifics about how we vote. It also helps that, like you said, we don't ban people often.

My other concern was non-ban decisions. The example that was running around in my head was when we decided that it'd be fine for me to be galloping around this thread. That was decided by a few approvals followed by a declaration that the decision was made about a day after the question was posed, along with general silence from everyone else. The process was almost uncomfortably fuzzy, but that's on my brain, not the community.

However, like you pointed out, if anyone objected, they would've probably spoken out for fear of being outvoted. So it's actually reasonable to interpret silence as a weak vote in favor of whatever proposal is clearly winning. (That's a useful way to describe how we do things around here. Thanks.) This means we basically never have a problem with non-obvious decision-making results, which means there's no point to trying to codify a bunch of stuff in advance.

My only real quibble with what you said is the use of a majority standard for (at the very least) the major decisions like bans. A 50/50 split in the community doesn't feel like enough agreement to go forward on anything. Given that everything about how we make decisions is rather context-dependent, I'd rephrase that to say that for major things, we need "most" of the community to be in favor of (or at least not opposed to) significant changes.

To give a concrete example, I'd definitely consider there to be something off if we banned someone without at least 2/3rds votes in favor, and I'd expect way more than that. This is why, when I counted the Glarn votes, I set the length of the semi-automatic temporary ban for breaking the formal last chance to 3 months (which had near-unanimous support) as opposed to a year (which had just 75% support).

My best times are UK evenings, from... uh, 2pm to 5pm Board time, I think. Is that possible? I'm available at those times today through Thursday easily, if you're around.

hS

I saw a poster at the train station yesterday saying about a large exhibit all about robots at the NSM, it didn't seem to have an end date though, so I'll check again today in case, but if it's still on it may be interesting to go see.

I've addressed parts of this here (and some related comments). In general, I don't really know what people are talking about here. It's pretty much coming off as my being attacked because people are perceived as listening to me - which I'm sure isn't the intent.

hS

The disciplinary actions usually seen in the PPC are:

-Requiring an apology (and a change of behaviour thereafter).

-Requiring an apology (and a warning that backsliding will lead to a ban).

-Temporary ban from the PPC community (to allow people time to change their ways).

-Permanent ban from the PPC community (for persons whose behaviour is incompatible with the community).

There are also several Discord-specific punishments which I don't know the details of, and general social consequences of bad behaviour (eg, people not willingly talking to you). The latter is not usually explicitly stated.

hS

[Deep breath] Okay. It's been a week, and it looks like most of the discussions relevant to specific people have died down. We've had the weekend and everything, so... here we go:

The following is a list of individuals and groups who have been identified to me as having/causing potential unresolved issues that may need to be addressed. I have excluded two people over the issues being too far in the past - one for a single 2013 incident, and one for a pattern of behaviour which petered out a year or two ago. I've also excluded anyone who has explicitly left or been permanently banned from the PPC.

I am not saying these accusations are correct. Nor am I saying they are wrong. I am summarising what was presented to me. For each of these, at least one person in the PPC feels that this is a problem that has not been resolved. I am raising them all here so that, hopefully, we don't end up seeing them in people's farewell posts.

I would like to ask that for the first 24 hours of this post's existence, only the people named in it reply. I feel it is fair to allow everyone a chance (ie, a day) to state their own side of the issue before people begin replying to it.

Final note: in the list below, one person has three behaviours listed under their name. This should not be taken to indicate that there is a higher chance of them needing action taken against them, but simply that multiple non-overlapping actions needed covering. In other cases, as many actions were deemed close enough to cover under a single header. It's filing, that's all.

---

Ekyl

Behaviour for Discussion: It is claimed that Ekyl was asked to beta a specific aspect of a story, but that during the course of writing he extended this to betaing the entire story, and forced the author to incorporate his ideas, including stylistic changes. This behaviour was described several times as bullying.

Actions Taken: Ekyl offered an apology for 'coming off that way'. He did not offer an apology for his actions at any point. He defended all of his actions, at most allowing in some posts that he might have been over-enthusiastic.

Comments from Concilliary: Bad betaing practice is not something that should be subject to discipliniary action. Bullying is a serious problem which has not been dealt with well historically.

Link: Discussion of Ekyl's behaviour

Behaviour for Discussion: It is claimed that Ekyl has engaged in a pattern of manipulative behaviour. Specific comments have been made that his apologies have at times come across as inauthentic/insincere, that his reaction to the accusations made last month (regarding the previous issue above) was disingenuous/did not respect the gravity of the situation, and that he was manipulating the discussion of JulyFlame in the Discord to encourage the witch-hunt while maintaining plausible deniability.

Actions Taken: None, so far as I know.

Comments from Concilliary: 'Backsliding' is possible to forgive if it looks like someone is trying. If you have an issue with an apology, you should address them when it is given.

Link: This post links to the chat logs, which covers all three of the above points (since one of the apologies highlighted was made in the Discord at the time).

Behaviour for Discussion: It is claimed that Ekyl has repeatedly felt he has the right to intellectual ownership of various portions of the PPC canon/other ideas, and that even when he has not done anything with those ideas, he has taken offence at others doing so, even when there was no way for them to be aware of his perceived ownership.

Actions Taken: None.

Comments from Concilliary: None; most do not accept the abstract idea of this taking place. One comment that if you make a claim of this kind, you need to maintain it or lose it.

Link: The link from the first point includes an accusation of this, with the posts before and after it including some of Ekyl's thoughts on his relationship to the DIA. It should be noted at this point for context that Ekyl has written relatively little published fiction using the DIA; the only piece I can see is this one, though there may be more.

---

Nord Ronnoc

Behaviour for Discussion: It is claimed that Nord Ronnoc engaged inabusive behaviour towards another PPC member some years in the past (possibly before one or both of them joined the PPC), including stalking, emotional abuse, and attempted plagiarism. None of this behaviour is said to have taken place in PPC community spaces; however, Nord Ronnoc is said to have tried to treat it all as brushed under the carpet, and interact in a friendly fashion with the reported victim (without engaging in harassment/stalking).

Actions Taken: Portions of the claimed chain of events were discussed on the IRC, with the reported victim admitting to acting angrily. An IRC moderator attempted to calm the reported victim down. It is not known whether any action was taken against Nord Ronnoc, but it has been stated that they have not apologised. The most recent reported incident between the two took place in 2015.

Comments from Concilliary: This kind of issue should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Link: None, as this is an IRC/elsewhere discussion. As reported to me, Nord Ronnoc has not behaved badly in the PPC itself.

---

Granz the Ice Cream Monarch

Behaviour for Discussion: While the PPC community was discussing banning a number of Discord regulars, including Granz, Granz created a new PPC Discord server to get around the prospective ban. He stated that this was open to everybody, and that it was a response to the ban proposal.

Actions Taken: The server was protested by several people on the Discord, and apparently shut down shortly thereafter.

Comments from Concilliary: Several people feel strongly that this kind of behaviour should be treated as a reaction to events in the PPC, and that those causes should be addressed rather than the attempted splitting of the community.

Links: This post confirms Granz's involvement. Granz's most relevant comment on motives from the Discord discussion seems to be: "I am trying to say that this kind of mass ban is unjust and also cannot work".

---

Scapegrace

Behaviour for Discussion: It is claimed that Scapegrace has a pattern of behaviour wherein she will engage in bad behaviour (verbal attacks being specifically noted), apologise, but then engage in the same behaviour again after a period without it, with no consequences for this.

Actions Taken: Apologies by Scapegrace after specific incidents, usually very quickly after the incident.

Comments from Concilliary: No-one really calling for disciplinary action; most comments focus on mediation between two people specifically, rather than one individual engaging with multiple others.

Links: An example from 2015, and one from this year.

---

Huinesoron & Neshomeh

Behaviour for Discussion: It is claimed that they are in some way able to direct the course of discussion in the PPC, including both preventing people they like from being banned, and forcing people they don't like out. It is also claimed that they silence or otherwise stop discussion of issues, preventing their resolution.

Actions Taken: None.

Comments from Concilliary: General feeling that this doesn't happen.

Links: No specific incidents have been pointed out. This post contains an excerpted Discord log making the claim. This one makes a related claim

---

Multiple Discord Users

Behaviour for Discussion: It is claimed that multiple Discord users engaged in a 'witch-hunt' against JulyFlame in the Discord. A group-thinking anti-JulyFlame mentality has been identified several times as a potential cause, as well as a lack of awareness that feelings do not equal facts (ie, it is claimed the approach of "there's no smoke without fire" was taken against JulyFlame).

Actions Taken: Nothing coherent. Yes, there was a lot of discussion about this, but the subject of bans got taken over by the doxxing discussion. Outside of 'ban everybody', the only proposals were vague things about how people needed to think about what they did. I don't know what discussion there's been on the Discord, but I don't feel that there was any organised discussion of what the behaviour associated with the witch-hunt (as opposed to the doxxing) brought to light. (I'm saying a lot more words here because it's not as simple a question as the others.)

Comments from Concilliary: A vague feeling that bearing grudges over things that happened years back/that the person has tried to change is bad.

Link: In lieu of linking to the whole discussion, this is PoorCynic's post where he tries to identify who the drivers behind the witch-hunt were. His list specifically highlights Tomash, Alleb, Granz, Khrssty, Aegis, and Ekyl. I would also like to point out Seafarer's post here, which cited a troll and the person behind that troll as evidence against July, which speaks to the confirmation bias/groupthink aspect.

---

Again, a reminder to please allow 24 hours for the people named to reply. After that point, if you want to step forward as being the/a person who raised the issue, you may (but don't have to); please don't name someone else as doing so, however.

And no chucking people's personal information around.

hS

With a correlation of 0.86, I can prove that the only thing anyone in the PPC loves is Lord of the Rings:



I also have the dataset for Harry Potter fanfic, which shows no such correlation; the best I can get is 0.7 for a 4-year period. So I think that's conclusive proof. ^_^

(You just made me spend an hour on this. An hour. Still, at least it means I have the data for, um... next time?)

hS

(The best way to do this in a PPCish way would be to compare the fanfic numbers to various public data. Politics will be a good one, because it tends to swing up and down...)

In general, paging people on the Board isn't recommended, though it isn't strictly forbidden; I'd honestly see it as a last resort, especially since most of the people I've paged via e-mail have responded in a timely manner. I'm not outright against paging, but it's usually best reserved for a very big reason - otherwise your small question could accidentally push something way more important off the front page.

This is in no ill will to you - I've made this mistake a few times before in the past - but I'd recommend using e-mail to ask questions to specific people if you know their e-mail address. Works just as well, but doesn't take up Board space. ^_~

And one not equaling the other? :P

Interestingly enough, there's an XKCD comic on correlation and causation, with a rather amusing 'hover over the comic to get this' line. Might be funnier to people who've taken Statistics...

Also, this. I kind of want to see a PPC version of this now.

~Zing

Firstly, I'm horrible at reading comprehension, my own writings aside. Whenever I read anything with walls of text I tend to remember only the beginning and ending bits without really digesting the middle so effectively. It's a thing I've been trying to remedy for a while now but if I end up not being able to properly comprehend something super-important unless I really have to force myself to do so, I doubt I'd be able to provide an objective response.

Secondly, I'm horrible at group discussions. The one time when I stirred up drama with a group of people on DeviantArt once is proof of that, but so is the fact that when I jump into a conversation, I sometimes get so overtaken by my own emotions that I say the wrong thing at the worst possible moment. It hasn't happened all the time here on the Board, but it has enough that I've become reluctant to speak up. Especially since a lot of people have already worded things better than I could given what little time I have.

Thirdly and finally, I'm horrible at my time management. My family has very strict procedures with policing our leisure time because we're fast approaching the age when we can't rely on our parents' health insurance, mortgage, etc., and that means our parents are dead-set on making us good at doing grown-up things. Between that and my part-time job AND looking for full-time employment, I have very little time and resources to spare in any online conversation no matter how much I want to join (which I desperately want to, given that the incidents that have been plaguing us so far these past few months have affected everyone and I doubt just standing by would be the right thing). I've been pulled from online communities by my family for getting caught up in heated situations before - I was forced to take a hiatus from DeviantArt during the late stage of my graduate term because I accidentally told my dad about the aforementioned drama there, for example.

I fully acknowledge how important this conversation is, and I'll leave thoughts on specific topics later, but I'm hesitant about being involved for the above reasons even though I KNOW I should be regardless. I'm guessing a lot of people feel the same way for similar reasons, but to this I'd advise that it isn't a bad thing to speak up while you have the chance. Every little statement adds to the discussion and the broader the scope of the conversation, the better a general picture we can get and the closer we'll be to a general resolution to the problems at hand.

-SkarmorySilver, who's just gotten back from work, is tired, and is still being asked by his dad to practice Python because that's always fun.

To 2, I (and, from what I can tell, most other people) think the answer to that question is "No.".

To 3, I was thinking mainly in the context of mission writing.

OT: If your friend's getting random stuff posted to her account, she needs to change her password, preferably to a long, unique, random string generated and stored by a password manager

1. I can give you the account if you'd like, since AO3 is blocked on my computer and I can't give a link. The username is MissC3PO (guess who her LO is?!). Don't concrit the one about C-3PO (the robot) being pregnant, she told me that she didn't write it and somebody randomly stuck it on her account. There are a few other fics that are this way, too, but I don't remember what the other names were. She's also thinking of shutting down her account, so hurry up!
   
   2. I could be wrong, but isn't there a Department of Bad RP? (gets on the page and references it from here on out)...Yep. Except it's called the Bad Role-play Department. Bird, haha. ...Oh, okay. Upon further reading, it deals with RP fic. So if the RP becomes a fic, they get sent in. Not if it just stays undocumented. But the main question was "do we punish PPCers for doing something that breaks canon when they're RPing?" I still think (and it seems like you agree) that it depends on what the other players do as well.
   
   3. It's harder to do when there's a player behind the Sue. They can retcon out your outsmarting of them. It's like this:
   "I lured your character into a room with spikes about to crush them! Knowing that your character cannot escape this situation, given the list of powers you gave earlier, there's nothing you can do!"
   "Well I summon a huge blast of power and BLAST TEH ROOM 2 BITZ!!11!!!1!"
   "But... But but... Haaaaacks!"
   And so on and so forth.