The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

... almost everyone you've argued with on the Board is no longer here. ^_^

hS

Feel free to react as you wish, but beyond the 'not taking concrit', I just realized there could be another issue which could arise :... 'not having concrit'.

I guess I'm going in a mineflied there, but I think improving can be hard if we don't get any reaction or input for ouur stories. Sure, Real Life will always takes a lot of time, an some fandoms can be pretty obscure, but the lack of reaction and comments can be a problem when you want to improve.

Taking me as an example, my latest mission didn't get any comments on the Board, leading me to do something I found (and still find) really bad form: directly bugging people for opinions on Discord. I know mandatory posting is not something to even think about, but how to improve if you don't know what other people think of your work?

Is my story ready to publish?

It is important to acknowledge complaints and not just ignore them.

But this one does: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-569245248

This is the third time in a month and a half that personal data has had to be redacted in a PPC setting. I've had things shared with me by email after saying that I wasn't comfortable with it being done. I've had to switch which email I give out to people because I no longer feel comfortable sharing my real name - which is a problem I've never had in the PPC before.

So can you all please, please start watching what you're sharing about other people? It's making me - and I'm sure many other people - very uncomfortable.

hS

You should keep talking. Your opinions are important and useful.

In this specific case, you didn't realize. Not your fault.

I'm just . . . I can't stand the idea of losing someone I know, and I don't want a similar situation to occur again. I just don't know how to go about it.

—This is why doctorlit usually stay quiet. Harder to hurt people that way.

Admin, could you please the name from this post as well?

—doctorlit just shouldn't talk ever

I really am sorry. I was just being stupid and not thinking that through. It won't happen again.

-Redact personal information shared on the Board without consent.

-IP block users banned by the Board who refuse to stop posting.

-Delete posts by trolls.

-Delete spam.

-Other technical support as required.

Can I just point out that if arguing with me could get people banned, then I would basically be the only oldbie left standing? In particular, if you've never seen me argue with hS, either you just got here or you haven't been paying attention. {= )

More seriously, that's not how bans work. Nobody has ever been banned from here without a truly large number of people coming out in support of it. If someone ever was up for a ban after arguing with me (or any oldbie), but the majority was against it, all they'd have to do is say so in order to prevent it. Case in point: Date Junkie.

I recognize those exact words may never have been used, but still. Sheesh.

~Neshomeh

I was thrown by "[bullying to the point of suicide] is a problem that ... has been lurking in this community" and "How many other people might be affected [by bullying to the point of suicide] the same way in the future?"

Basically, I read your post as referring back to the subject line. Sorry if that was not your intent.

~Neshomeh

[[Personal information redacted. ~NA]] would like me to make it very clear, that that information was considered private, given in confidence, and not for the general consumption of the Board or anyone else. It was revealed here without her consent, and that is not okay.

[[Personal information redacted. ~NA]]

Since it may not be possible or useful to take it back now, I (Neshomeh) ask that you all please strike this knowledge from your conscious thoughts.

Iximaz, please apologize and make sure not to bring it up again in any context.

~Neshomeh

... and more like "the PPC tends to overlook this behavior when it happens", especially because, like you keep saying, we keep having failures to communicate.

That is, things we have any kind of power to enforce. It's basically just bans.

I believe revocation of Permission has not been used as a consequence because Permission is not (formally) a badge of social merit, it's simply a checkmark in the box next to "you can write stuff we want to read." Permission Givers are not mods, and we are not (formally) invested with the authority to judge anything besides one's ability to write missions. We're not going to give Permission to someone who has proven they can't function in the community before they request it—personally, I think the ability to get along with other PPCers is an indicator of the ability to grasp the kind of creativity and humor that makes missions work—but that said, I think we (certainly hS) would rather not blur the line any more than it is to begin with. We're Permission Givers, that's it.

There are also soft consequences, though, such as loss of respect and shunning (which is what's happening if a majority of the community avoids speaking to someone when they hadn't avoided them before). The trouble is, I don't think those tend to be very effective without explicitly saying that's what's happening, which we never have done, IIRC. It's too easy to rationalize away, especially since the Board doesn't move all that quickly all the time, and it requires that the subject be sensitive to that kind of social cue, which is often at the root of the problem to begin with.

I think informal social consequences are good and useful tools, but if they're not working, we need to recognize it's time to speak up clearly about what the problems are, not just let them go on festering. With proper dialogue, I believe most problems can be solved without resorting to hard consequences.

~Neshomeh

(Not aimed specifically at doctorlit despite being in a reply to his post.)

While each of the incidents Ix describes are serious and bad, they are also each separate, unrelated, and very different. Please, please avoid the temptation to generalize disparate incidents into "the PPC bullies people into suicide," because it's just not true. Most of us in our decade-plus history have absolutely never done that—and no one, as far as I know, ever did anything with the serious intent of driving anyone to kill themself.

I also know of at least two PPCers who have struggled with feeling suicidal for completely un-PPC related reasons, who received support from their friends in the community. I reckon there's more I don't know about, considering our demographics encompassing teenagers and young adults of whom a fairly high proportion are in some way outcasts in Real Life, whether it's because they're on the spectrum, or queer, or just people who care a lot about stories and writing in a society that generally doesn't.

If you want to make a generalization, say rather that we're a community with a long history of welcoming outcasts and giving them a place to call home when they might not otherwise have one. For that reason, it sure sucks a lot when that gets screwed up for someone, but I don't think the screw-ups define who we are. With the rare exceptions of individuals like Jacer and recently Date Junkie, most of us are here with good (or at least neutral) intentions toward our fellow PPCers. Let's not forget that.

Let's also remember that this thread is about helping us learn to resolve issues before they get to such a serious stage. I don't think we can do that by assuming anybody wants to hurt anyone else, as would be implicit in saying we have a culture of bullying here.

We really don't. We do have a lot of people who struggle with social interaction, though, who may need to be told clearly and more than once how to do things in a constructive manner. I keep barking about communicating clearly, and that's why. IMO, it's the only way we're going to help each other learn to do this "social" thing any better.

~Neshomeh

especially considering the small size of this community. [[Personal details redacted. ~NA]]

All three instances were caused by bullying behavior, as well: [[Redacted]]; a homophobe; and the backlash to your story. It's clearly our biggest weak point, but . . . I don't know how to ferret out those behaviors/the people exhibiting them going forward.

—doctorlit can't understand the impulse to do harm

This is a problem that I know has been lurking in this community for longer than I have. [[Personal information redacted. ~NA]]

I don't know what went on during that time, and I probably don't want to, but the fact that at least two Boarders that I know of ([[Redacted]] and myself, three if I count Lily-Gnome?) reached that point in the first place? How many other people might be affected the same way in the future? [[Sentence redacted]]

I'm not even going to touch on what happened with me. I said enough during my meltdown last month.

Battlefield mentality: Oh, dear. I was guilty of this to a terrible degree, back in the days of the old Mibbit chat room, especially when July criticized something I said. It's still a source of embarrassment to me when I think about it. July's views forced me to understand the world better, and evolve my opinions to be . . . uh, more moral/people-centered rather than ideal/concept-centered, I would say . . . but worse than fighting against my becoming of a better person, I was also fighting the person who has now become my closest internet friend. And there isn't any way to take back all that stupid bickering on my part. (I even just recalled a particular conversation where I was whining about not wanting my views to change, because I might be a different person afterwards. Ye gods, but I was a pathetic little brat.) I think if this behavior is occurring between two Boarders frequently, the community needs to ask the two to at least stop interacting in Board posts, role plays, etc., if not to encourage them to talk things out in private. But everyone, take it from me: just don't do this. Listen to the other person, get to know them. You may be screwing yourself out of a most excellent friendship.

Personal Issues Elsewhere: A question that's both tricky and not tricky. If it's a minor incident, or a long-ago incident, it's hardly this community's business, and I do expect the two involved to be responsible and not let their personal dispute leak out into Board space. But if it's major, and let's be frank: I mean Jacer-nearly-driving-Lily-Gnome-to-suicide major, even if it had been years before either joined, that level of attack should not be tolerated, and the attacker should not be welcomed into this community.

Conclusion-jumping: The first type of jumping ties in with battlefield mentality above. Use your words, talk to people, listen to them. The second kind is the reason I often don't get involved in discussions of this sort, for fear of supporting the "incorrect" side of an argument—I certainly made a terrible mistake when I argued for allowing Data Junkie to return to the community, which caused a terrible amount of heartache for most of us. The solution here is to, again, use our words, and make the involved parties use their words, and make sure we have the whole story from both sides before moving forward with any decision-making. I'm going to try to force myself to participate in future events of this nature.

—doctorlit, the betrayed