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This is an important discussion. Unfortunately, real life issues keep me from writing down my thoughts, which would mostly be repetitions of something already said elsewhere anyway. I may have mentioned occasionally that reading and writing this foreign language is a slow process for me.

HG

We make our decisions based on consensus here most of the time. What does that look like?

How do I know if we've decided on something?

Does six people agreeing to something with no objections voiced demonstrate consensus? It apparently has at least once, since I'm posting this and no one seems to mind.

Then how about three people unanimously in favor? Two people? One?

Is asking for comments on a proposed course of action and being answered by a long, apathetic silence mean that everyone agrees to it by way of not having an opinion?

Is agreement among a simple majority of voters evidence of consensus? (I don't think so.) Is it enough to go forward with a decision anyway? (I don't think so either, in most cases. Certainly not for permabans.)

Does the presence of even one dissenting voice change the process of consensus-detection significantly?

Does an unresolved objection automatically trigger a vote?

Do the answers to these (and other) questions change depending on what we're trying to decide on?

Is this post probably not going to get many responses because discussion fatigue is a thing that happens? (Yeah, probably. I'm making it anyway.)

And finally, does answering these questions require us to hold an elaborate ceremony on the island of Paxos? This is, after all, itself an asynchronous consensus problem.

- Tomash

There's value in having a theoretical discussion about behavior, since, like Nesh said, it'll establish our principles, which we can then check against how we've behaved in practice (or against specific cases).

However, the main purpose of this thread is to heal wounds in the community, and those wounds weren't caused by abstract principles. They were caused by specific people doing specific things. Eventually (maybe once the theoretical bit has mostly run its course) we need to point out the actual things that happened so we can address them directly and (ideally) begin the process of reconciliation. In addition, some people might not realize that one of the things that's being discussed in the abstract is something they've supposedly done, so I think it would be rather useless not to point it out to them. After all, if they're doing a bad thing, how will they change if they don't know about it?

We certainly shouldn't be looking to punish people, generally. I agree that permabans are for behavior that's, in some sense, severely toxic to the community where we expect that the person doing it almost certainly won't change.

Temporary bans are a slightly trickier questions. I know mine was meant to make me feel bad, because that's why I imposed it on myself! (Well, and also to make it very clear that what I did was an extremely bad thing that was worthy of some sort of punishment.)

As to people arguing that the person they accused didn't do anything wrong, it's possible that the people doing this didn't connect the abstract behavior you described with the specific incident they told you about. That is, could it be that they didn't think the incident in question was in the bucket you put it in?

I agree that the low participation rate is concerning. Unfortunately, it's rather hard to tell why no one's posting. If you haven't posted in this thread, could you take a moment to give a brief (fits in the subject line, or maybe spills slightly into the body), off-the-cuff response as to why? I think that'll help us understand what's going on.

- Tomash

Do people think I've done something that I've evaded banning on? Or Neshomeh? No. All they've ever meant is 'hS and Nesh don't want July to get banned'.

Well, first off, she's gone already; she was successfully harassed out of the PPC for the second time. Good job, oldbie clique! No wait.

Secondly, almost none of the people saying it were even here when she left the first time, and since she's been back the only time she's done anything vehemently objected to is the time I worked with her to get a full and frank apology. Which is what the Constitution requires.

All this is based on Data Junkie's repeated attacks on July. Data Junkie, I will remind you, took to trolling as Toroll to prevent their own ban and disrupt the community. They were never a reliable source.

I'm not going to demand apologies from the people claiming there's an oldbie clique. But I am going to ask that they either prove it or stop saying it once and for all.

hS

My only current comment on statute of limitations stuff is that dragging up that bad thing someone did years ago if it hasn't been a pattern of that kind of behavior since then is inappropriate. People do reform, after all, especially teenagers.

I don't have any proposal for a hard guideline at the moment, other than there's an "we'll know it when we see it" element to dragging ancient drama out of the mud, I think.

As to precedents, the most we should do, I think, is to, a while after any ban votes and the like, write down somewhere what the incident was, what the possible solutions were, and what we decided to do about it. This wouldn't be binding or anything, but it'll give us a potentially useful reference point for how to handle sufficiently similar situations that come up in the future. Right now, we rely on people's memory for that, which might not be the solution? I'm not sure.

First of all, thank you for your input! It's good that you're speaking up, since this is a community-wide discussion and you are part of the community just as much as me or the other folks that've been around for a long time.

However, a few words in your post caught my attention, namely "mediocrefic author that I keep talking about". It's highly likely that I'm taking that out of context or overanalyzing it, especially since I haven't been following what you've said about this author too closely, so this might be way off base, but are you looking to stir up the Fandom Police (tm) against someone? If so, that's not us (unless I've missed a memo recently).

A lot of bits have been spilled about beta conduct and concrit. So, my points, some of which are rather terse because the detailed versions have already come up:

- Don't jump the gun on your betas. That's rude. Not banable, though.

- If you're a beta, don't slink off without warning for long periods of time.

- Obviously, you have final say over your work. However, completely ignoring your betas isn't good. Explaining why you disagree with beta comments is probably a good thing. Not bannable either, or particularly enforceable.

- Offering to beta and then not actually doing it is also rude. We shouldn't ban for it, though.

- Bulldozing as a beta: Rot cool. If it veers into bullying, that's potentially cause for consequences.

- [insert Nesh's comments about writer/beta communication here]

- A few folks have said they don't ask for betas publicly because it's hard to turn someone down or because turning someone down causes drama. This is a cultural issue. Folks, just because there's a call for betas doesn't mean the person calling has to take your offer. The fact that they didn't take you up on an offer of beta reading isn't (generally) an attack on you or your abilities.

- Ignoring concrit. Um, if you're doing that, it makes you a bit hypocritical. That being said, disagreeing with concrit isn't ignoring it.

- We should, like several people said, be encouraging better concrit-taking behavior politely and firmly.

- Sergio (among others?) proposed Permission Suspended for serious, persistent quality issues without improvement. The one case I think that might have been appropriate, there was a retraction. Therefore, that proposal is so very hypothetical that we shouldn't enshrine it as policy at this time. If a situation where we need to consider that sanction comes up, we can discuss it in that context and have a specific vote.

- Overreacting to concrit isn't good either. Again, Nesh said it rather well, so consider her thoughts on this incorporated into my post.

- I don't see us as the fandom police, and neither does just about everyone else here (right?). So we shouldn't be handing out bans for writing badfic (and certainly not for having written it in the past, since we're about improvement here). That being said, if you're simultaneously publishing badfic that you're not taking concrit on and doing PPC stuff, you might suffer a loss of reputation here because you're being a bit of a hypocrite. If you don't have Permission yet, that sort of thing could be potential grounds for a denial, I think.

- I'm pretty sure there's a widespread notion (even here) that being un-canonical in fandom based RPs isn't really that big a deal. They're generally one of those just for fun, critique free spaces Neshomeh mentioned in her response to this topic.

Now, just because I said something shouldn't be a banable offense, that doesn't mean there shouldn't be consequences for it in some cases. It's just that those consequences will be social consequences, like a loss of reputation, or, say, not getting asked to beta stuff anymore.

I prefer, however, that this loss of reputation not happen completely out of the public eye. If someone's a super-lazy beta, for example, the solution isn't to whine to all your friends about it and never say anything on the Board, especially if you never tell this person what you think of them. I'm not saying we can't discuss this sort of stuff in private, I'm just saying that it'd be much better if there were some indication of these collective opinions on the record.

There's another thing I think we should think about as far as our collective behavior, and that's what happens to missions after they're been posted. Missions don't usually get very many responses (usually it's a small one digit number), so it's rather hard to tell if they're being read at all. Some of this might be that the chat-dwelling parts of the PPC get a lot of their acknowledgements in chat, so you don't see them on the Board, but that doesn't seem like the whole story.

I suspect that part of it is that we don't have a technical or cultural equivalent to things like the Kudos button on AO3. That is, there's no way to express a vague sense of appreciation or "Well, I like it, but I don't have any detailed thoughts", as opposed to leaving a full review. Does anyone have any suggestions for an appropriate way to do that sort of thing here?

On a related topic, I've noticed that sometimes, missions get a bit long in a tedious way, which makes them less fun to read and review. There's no rule that says you have to get all the charges or mission the whole fic. In fact, you often shouldn't. (This point could just be a case of individual writing styles and tastes differing, though)

- Tomash

P. S. I think this puts me into the very small group of people that've replied to all four subthreads. Is there a prize?

While we certainly have some guides here and there on betaing, it does seem that the emphasis we put on improving writing isn't really quite as, er, emphasised, in the case of betaing. It'd be nice, anyway (I say this as a person who betas occasionally, and is probably rubbish at it and wants to get better) if there was the same encouragement and expectation to give criticism on betawork, as there was to give criticism on stories and writing in general. I suppose there are a variety of differing factors between how writing and betaing work, and how they're represented, et al, but I know that I, at the very least, still find that sort of stuff helpful.

I recall, a bit back, we had a little 'give lots of criticism on stuff you read' challenge we had a bit back, to get heaps of that going. Perhaps we could do something like that, with betaing? Some form of challenge to get the concrit in it up? But, then, perhaps betaing just doesn't happen enough for that to work? I wouldn't know - betaing's a very sort of 'behind the scenes' thing. Which is probably one've them differing factors. Anyhow! Them's my thoughts on that.

Or maybe I'm just in on doc's scheme, who knows.

Battlefield mentality: Bad. Please don't do it. If you see people doing it, please point it out, probably with a request for folks to calm down.

Jumping to conclusions and assuming the worst of people: Also bad. Please don't do it. Same comment about calling it out if you see it.

If you're starting to think that someone's a bad person or deliberately doing bad things to you, please try to give them your perspective (possibly via an intermediary) and get theirs (and then try to understand where they're coming from/what they were thinking). I think that's a much more helpful thing to do than running around going on about how "X is a jerk", and that it would resolve a lot of conflicts. Of course, this process might reveal that X actually is a jerk, but I don't expect that to happen often, and, if it does, this exercise will give you more evidence.

Assuming things are true about people just because they or someone else said them: Not a good thing. Getting all sides of a story is important. This also ties into this trial by rumor mill stuff I complained about elsewhere. If people are saying bad things about someone else behind their back, look in to them. Get the full story. Then, if you think it's necessary, raise the situation here, so we can address it as needed.

Personal issues elsewhere: [Insert Neshomeh's comments here]

I agree that these things do need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

I also agree that we can't solve problems if we don't know about them. However, the Ignoring Complaints thing makes people hesitant to speak up about their problems, which makes everything worse, so that needs to be addressed too.

The tournament is incapable of continuing until a victor is declared.

Keeping issues private isn't, as other people have pointed out, an issue that can be fully solved.

However, if we ignore complaints, or are perceived as ignoring them, it will influence people towards keeping their issues private. If you expect that a public complaint won't do anything, or might even make things worse by generating a bunch of drama, you're not going to make one.

We do actually tend to ignore complaints (possibly unintentionally), especially if there's not one specific alleged egregiously bad thing that's being complained about or if there's a whole bunch of other discussion going on at the time.

Solutions? Not sure. Pulling the less-discussed complaints out of a big pile of drama and discussing them a while later like I think we should eventually do here is probably a good move. Also, even though, like Nesh said, form matters, if someone's making a not-entirely-specific complaint, it might be good to ask clarifying questions instead of shrugging and moving on.

Also, just because we haven't been asked to do anything doesn't mean it's not a complaint.

As to abandoning and/or not joining discussions, please don't do this if you can avoid it. Among other things, it contributes to perceptions that we don't care about complaints. Obviously, there's this thing called real life that might limit the time you have to be involved in PPC discussions, but I don't think that's the sole explanation for our high abstention rate.

If you're hesitating to step into a thread because it's a big argument or debate and you're not quite sure what's going on or which "side" to take, that's the signal for you to go in there and ask the people involved to explain things to you.

Bearing grudges is not a good thing for people to be doing around here. However, I suspect that some of those grudges come from complaints that were ignored, which makes them somewhat understandable. On the other hand, if someone does apologize and try to do better and you don't accept that, that's not their problem. It's yours.

Repeated bad behavior, especially if it's unrepentant, isn't a good thing. However, it's important to remember that, a lot of the time, reform involves changing thought patterns, and that's not an easy or quick process, and that, despite someone's bast efforts, there might be some backsliding. Therefore, these "patterns of behavior" cases need to be considered on a case by case basis.

In general, if people offer apologies, they should either be accepted or, if they seem insincere or otherwise not valid, that should be stated explicitly to prevent miscommunications. Furthermore, if you don't think the apology you got is enough repartitions for whatever it is happened, please say so instead of stewing about it silently. Sure, it might cause drama, but I think that's better than the alternative.

1) The point I'm still trying to find words for here is that I really feel that a split in technology is a symptom of a split in the underlying community - enough people are upset enough about something that they feel like they need a separate space. This is inherently not a situation where we can just say "that is bad" and apply punishment- all that doing so is going to do is drive those people further away.

2) Ah, right, I'd forgotten that one. Yeah, that was decidedly not cool - declaring intent to facilitate ban-dodging, or some such?

But at the same time, it was an overreaction to, IMO, an overreaction: "let's just ban everyone" was shot down pretty hard by multiple people, and that was the context in which Granz said "what the hell, no, I like this community and I think that's ridiculous".

3) I was being a bit silly with my example - to be more serious, say that Maslab and I are making some people feel excluded, and we're ignoring the normal mechanisms that should be telling us that such isn't cool? That goes beyond "I am interacting with the community in a way it doesn't like" and escalates right up to "I am flagrantly violating the constitution", and people calling me out for doing such isn't so much an attack as it is the right thing to do? (Obviously, there are right and wrong ways to call people out, the list goes on, etc.)

"People attacked you so you must have needed attacking" is fundamentally invalid, I agree; it's classical victim-blaming and IMO demonstrates a pretty solid lack of interest in actually solving the conflict at hand.

Bully: intimidate or frighten someone
Harass: torment someone by subjecting them to constant bullying or interference
Stalk: harass someone with unwanted or obsessive attention

I believe that intent matters for bullying, but not for harassment or stalking. Deliberate harassment or stalking would be bullying, in my mind, but it's possible to harass someone without intent. Of course, once it's pointed out to the perpetrator, any further instances of the behaviour should probably be considered to involve intent; you can only claim ignorance once.

Basically, I'd add "deliberately" to the bullying definition, and also add "upset" to the possible results of it, but the dictionary otherwise lines up with my understanding of the words.

(Also note that "deliberately" doesn't necessarily mean that you consciously understand the victim's feelings - it includes things like deliberately building yourself up in a way that makes others feel bad, regardless of whether you recognise the effect you're having on others. I think hS's "reasonable person would anticipate" clause covers my feelings on this.)

It's great that the newbies are participating, even though I also disagree with some of their points (I'll get around to expanding on that eventually).

My point was a bit more specific than that. Namely, that if someone effectively brand new were to, say, start the Concilliary or call and tally a ban vote, there might be some unease about that. Unless I'm wrong about that and this whole thread would basically be about the same if we took the same initial posts but had Twistey as author instead of Huinesoron?

To be clear, I think that if we switched all the initial posts' author fields from Huinesoron, to, say Larfen (or possibly even AC) not much would change. Direct democracy and all that. Now, if having one of the middlebies running this thread instead of you (but making the same posts) would make a significant difference in our collective behavior, then that's a potential issue (see, the "impenetrable oldbie clique" that some people claim exists).

Aw, come on, they've got "I don't suppose we ever have to see them again", and "Ride hard, don't come back" (^_^), how have they missed the best one?!

I mean, it's kind of terrible that they missed this excellent trio from FotR:





... but the ultimate best Engrish subtitle comes from Return of the King:



And a million fangirls squeal "YES!" all together...

hS

(To be fair, it's really hard to find the RotK ones online; I've had to pull that out of the Wayback Machine.)

Last month I specifically highlighted the fact that ninny4370 stepped into a very fraught thread as the newest person in the PPC, and offered concrete suggestions on what to do. As I said there, I disagreed with their suggestions, but I'm super impressed they made them.

Likewise, in this thread I'm going to give a shout-out to Twistey for being brave enough to speak up. Once again, I don't agree too much with their point - but I am so pleased that they felt both willing and able to make it, after so little time in the community. That's what this direct democracy stuff is all about.

hS

(This subthread seemed like the most appropriate place to put this post, so here it is)

First, I agree with Neshomeh and PHobos.

I especially agree that more people need to start taking up leadership here. Specifically, it seems that the job of administering discussions (keeping things moving, counting votes, etc.) falls onto hS most of the time. Whyever this happened, it seems unfair to hS that we're collectively dumping most of the hard, annoying work of maintaining a consensus-based democracy onto him.

It also seems rather rude to sit around and blame hS for this state of affairs without doing anything about it. I claim that if you're unhappy about dictator!hS (I don't think this is a thing, but some people apparently do), you can "usurp" him by doing the same sort of things he's doing, at which point he's not the dictator anymore. There's no formal barriers to this, and I'd like to think there aren't any social barriers either. (OK, if you've only been around for, say, a week or two, you might get some funny looks because of how humans work, but other than that...)

On a related note, when it comes to calling out (or otherwise trying to address) bad behavior, each and every one of us has an Article 10 responsibility to participate in that if necessary. That is, if people are being idiots (see, uh, me, about a month ago, for example), don't wait for hS or another oldbie to call it out. We voted against mods, so the person responsible for speaking up about bad things is ... you.

Finally, because I don't anyone's said it yet and it needs saying, thank you, Huinesoron, for all the work you've done over the years to keep this small corner of the Internet from falling to pieces.

Canto 1

O Calliope, I pray you sing of love,
A romance great and set in stars above,
To me grant voice to tell this history,
The tale of love that is this Song of Sea.

A story beginning not too long ago
A story not far from all the world you know
But I shall tell you what background I can
For you deserve to know how this began.

In era filled with lawlessness and strife
Piracy, war, and robbery were rife.
The seas were ruled by the Pirate King,
But land was the domain of Warrior Queen.

Perseus was the Pirate King's true name,
They say he was born of the sea and dame.
Through every sea his ship the Blackjack went,
'Till all who dared defy this name had bent.

None know from where the Warrior Queen did come,
But she did wish to rule, her will be done.
From humble depths she rose with striking speed,
Amazon strength, keen mind, heroic deeds.

Their worlds apart, beyond each other's ken,
I know 'twould seem to be no good omen
For two to be so far away and gone.
Fear not, the Royals intersect here on.

[Canto 2 coming soon. Or maybe not that soon. Man, heroic verse is hard. At least I decided to stick with English heroic verse (Iambic pentameter & couplets) rather than Greek heroic verse (dactylic hexameter). Maybe I'll switch to prose for the main story... but on the other hand, that would mean giving up on the challenge.]

While I disagree that the PPC at large should be obligated to police its members across the Internet, because that's extremely creepy and unsettling to me...

If you do feel that something ought to be done, may I suggest making it your business to be a really great reviewer? Brush up your concrit skills, go out there, and give thoughtful, thorough, excellent reviews that people can use to get better.

No flaming or shaming anyone, though, because attacking authors is 100% not okay by our Constitution.

~Neshomeh

It's not specifically targeted at you—and you at least spoke up to say why you're not participating, which I respect even if I'd rather it were otherwise.

As I said somewhere above, though, I'm frustrated with the low participation rate in general, especially after all the recent hue and cry about how Something Must Be DONE! Well, hS is trying to provide a constructive, coordinated platform for things to get done, and lots of people aren't helping, and some of the people who aren't helping were shouting before. That annoys me. Nothing is going to change without an effort from all of us. It would at least be nice to know that the people who aren't discussing are still paying attention, not just sticking their heads in the sand until the scary hard work goes away, y'know?

~Neshomeh