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I don't entirely disagree with you here, but I think I'm with Delta for the most part. I feel like just up and going "people in the chat can't discuss things among themselves" is going way too far. Especially since some issues might not merit a unanimous response from the entire community, or might be specific to a few individuals.

Obviously no one approach is going to work for every possible issue. That's something that needs to be handled on a case by case basis. Possibly with some kind of noted scale of responses to specific incidents/behaviours? Stalking is infinitely worse than getting into an argument about a story, etc.

It bears repeating that every single item on these lists has either been said to me by email, said publically on the Board, or directly observed by me - almost all of them in the last month and change. So you can of course say that you don't think it happens (I did it myself at least once), but be aware that there is at least one person who disagrees with you.

hS

1) I don't know that Coordinating in Private is necessarily a problem. I mean, don't get me wrong, it can absolutely be as you've described, but it isn't always (or often?) the case.

I think it all boils down to intent and what does this coordination look like? For example:

"Hey, I'm having issues with this person/story/activity, can you give me some advice?" Totally fine. Asking someone, in private, to advise you before you take action or say something is a really good idea if you are unsure how to proceed. I know that some PGs do this *cough*me-and-Nesh-in-our-apartment*cough* if we don't know how to approach a specific permission request or issue.

"Hey, come back me up with this person/story/activity, I feel like I'm the only one speaking up." Probably fine. Asking someone you know feels a certain way to speak up can sometimes be necessary. We have a tendency to stay quiet when we're uncomfortable and we tend toward introversion. This is part of why important topics drop off with no resolution as often as they do. Just be careful that this doesn't turn into this next example.

"Hey, this person/story/activity needs to not be talking/happening anymore, help me shut them/it up/down." Not fine. Enlisting people to attack someone or something you don't like is Not Cool. The major difference between this and the "Probably Fine" example is that this is gathering an army to silence, while the other is gathering voices in an attempt to be heard.



I guess the point I am trying to make is that taking to emails, PMs, and private chats is a necessary tool for communication on the internet. It can allow people to, for instance, anonymously voice their concerns through a third party *cough*this-thread*cough* if they feel uncomfortable bringing them up themselves. It can be a path toward making one's-self heard, if done properly. And I don't want to do anything that might make that harder.


2) I can see how Assuming Authority over a piece of the community or canon can be a problem, but I don't think it is one we currently suffer from. If I'm wrong on that, someone please let me know.

3) Argument from Oldbie is complicated, isn't it? Let's break it down.

3a) I don't believe I've seen anyone say anything even remotely like "We should do this because I say so, and I've been around since the Stone Age." What I have seen is people using their relevant experience as part of an argument. Something akin to "I don't think we should do (Thing). We tried (Thing) back in the Stone Age and it was a huge mess." That's not a bug, it's a feature. I think it is right that Oldbies should use their experience in the community to help inform newer members of the community's history when making decisions as a group.

3b) This one may be true. There is a tendency among newer members of the community to get stars in their eyes when someone who's stories they've enjoyed talks. This may cause them to give preference to that person's arguments. However, I have two problems with the assumption that this will happen. Firstly, the idea that there is anything we can do about it. I don't think there is. Secondly, the idea that even star-stricken Newbies will blindly follow someone who has no real point. It is a disservice to Newbies to think that way.

3c&d) I think these both go back to something Nesh said recently, it is easier to give the benefit of the doubt to someone you know the character of. The longer someone is around, the more of their character we get to see.

That said, these two points have never really been relevant until recent years. We were pretty good about being civil and respectful, so there was little need for punishment. This is troubling, but I don't have any idea how to fix it.

4a) I agree with Delta Juliette that people who make an exclusive space tend to have a reason they did it. I think that is the absolute wrong way to deal with their reasons, but they do have them.

4b) I think making decisions for the group, in an exclusive location, is not good. That said, I am a fan of getting a small group of like-minded individuals together and saying "we all believe that (topic) is a problem, what are some solutions that we can present to the community?" before then making a post about it and offering your solutions for discussion. Again, it depends on intent. If the intent is to get your thoughts together and then present to the community, then fine. If your intent is to get your thoughts together and then try and dictate to the community, then not fine.



Anyway, I've gone on quite long enough here. I might address other areas of this thread, or I might not.

-Phobos

First, attempting to allay the assumption of authority: I have fairly strong opinions on these topics, formed over much experience from both sides. I word my opinions strongly. Please don't take self-expression as dictation. {= )

On Disrespecting Your Betas:

This is bad, don't do it. If you ask someone for their opinions on your work, you are obligating yourself to at least give those opinions some thought. You are also obligating yourself to allow them the time to do the job properly. I raise an eyebrow every time I see a request for betas go up one day followed by a mission post the next day. I dunno how much free time y'all have, but surely it takes more than a day for multiple betas (because it's usually multiple) to all read through a work and give thoughtful concrit of it, and then for the writer to make thoughtful changes based on those remarks? I'd like to see us collectively take a deep breath and adjust our expectations to more like at least a week between asking for betas and publishing a story.

On Bad Conduct as a Beta:

I agree with Ix that failing to beta at all is far more common than abusing one's authority as a beta. To beta is, at its heart, to give concrit, and thorough concrit at that. If you can't find anything at all to say about a piece, positive or negative, other than "you're good!", you are doing it wrong.

Also, and this applies to both parties, I think there's a large issue with failure to communicate. A writer needs to be up front about their expectations of their betas, and betas need to be up front about their availability and ability to meet said expectations. In cases where someone has posted without the go-ahead from their beta(s), I seem to recall a lot of "I hadn't heard anything for a while, so I didn't know they weren't done."

Writers, if you're not sure, ask. Betas, if something comes up and the job is going to take longer than you initially thought, say so. It's as simple as that.

On Not Taking Concrit:

This is bad, don't do it. To elaborate on each point:

1. It is polite to acknowledge it when someone comments on your work. If they have a question or uncertainty, address it. If you choose not to make changes based on concrit, say so, with a little explanation as to why.

All this should be done politely.

(Need I say the concrit itself should also be polite?)

2. Look, folks. If you're not emotionally prepared to take criticism, don't publish your work. This goes for all writers, not just fanwriters.

The fact that one person may not like a specific aspect of your story does not mean it is garbage. People are allowed to have opinions that differ. It's okay. If you're not emotionally prepared to stand by your writing decisions—you did have a reason for making them at the time, right?—don't publish.

Also, y'know, have reasons for doing things the way you did them. That tends to help. {= )

On Falling Short of PPC Standards Elsewhere:

We are not fandom police, we have no right to go around dictating what people can and can't do in other fandom spaces.

That said, it's perfectly reasonable to want to get to know each other better and see what our friends have created. If we find out it's really not good, then the member responsible may certainly expect to hear about it, and to suffer a loss of respect in the PPC if they don't take it with some aplomb. If nothing else, nobody likes a hypocrite.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with wanting to create stuff just for fun in a space free from critique sometimes, but maybe don't expect to have a space like that on an open, public platform like FF.net?

I mean... I'm writing fanfic again. I'm doing it because I just want to have some fun and maybe please some people who like the same sorts of things I do in the fandom. I'm not out to create Great Literature, so when I publish to FF.net, I'm taking a risk that somebody will tell me it sucks. I accept that risk, and I accept my responsibility to myself, as someone who claims to care about good writing, to maintain some standards. If you guys read my silly fics and were like "Uh, Nesh, your OC is being Sueish here, you should maybe stop that," I would listen. I might not necessarily change anything in a piece I'd already moved on from, but I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, either, and I'd take it on board for next time. That's the aplomb I'm talking about.

General Thoughts:

Writers walk a fine line between confidence enough to publish and arrogance; between humility enough to accept criticism and self-hate. Most of the writers I know suffer more from an imbalance of the latter than of the former, and perhaps that can make us overly harsh toward people who suffer from the former because dammit, don't we wish we had that problem, those lucky jerks?

I don't think any of it needs to be punished beyond the social consequences of loss of respect, which arise naturally. That said, let's make sure we don't get carried away with judging people. Remember that the learning process never ends. We've all come a long way from where we once were, and we all still have a long way to go. Some of us may need to learn to be more assertive than we like to be in order to communicate effectively. Some of us may need to learn to turn down our egos so we can listen more. Either way, we all make mistakes in the process, so we all need patience and forgiveness sometimes.

~Neshomeh said a lot of words, and hopes they make sense.

Beta and concrit problems: These are all kind of tricky situations, due to the perhaps uniquely subjective nature of stories. I know I've received comments criticizing individual lines within my missions in the past, and gave (I hope) reasonable explanations for why those lines were there/were written as wrote them, and didn't change the line. This is something that the community as a whole can't really enforce through punishment; it's very much a matter of personal responsibility. (Except in cases where beta-bulldozing devolves into outright bullying—that should be treated the same as bullying in any other situation.) I think we all need to keep in mind that our community, more than other fanfic community, perhaps, needs to stay aware of what the story is trying to be, more than what we want it to be (and that applies when we're looking at our own story and at another's). To paraphrase Stephen King, "It is the tale, not s/he who tells it or betas it."

One caveat, though, in response to what Iximaz mentioned about betas who only agreed to look at Ix's stories to get previews and failed to provide valuable feedback: that is poor. That is lazy. Our community needs to be better than that; it's ridiculous that someone in our community would ever have such difficulty getting a proofreader. Taking on a beta job can be a fair investment of time and effort. If you're not up to that, don't take it on.

Extra-PPC stories: Frankly, we just don't have juridiction over this. In my archiving adventures, I've certainly come across stories on the Pit accounts of former PPCers that I've found questionable, but . . . it's just not our business to police our members's writing outside the bounds of this community.

—doctorlit

Statute of limitations: I'm sure no one will be surprised that I'm against dredging up long-ago mistakes, considering I made the same argument last year. Huinesoron's observation that our community has always been teenager-heavy is apt; we need to give people room to grow and change. Honestly, I'm not sure if assigning an arbitrary number value to the time required, or even a time guideline along the lines of hS's "half their time at the PPC" suggestion, is really going to help such situations. It's very much a case-by-case matter; each separate situation will need to be looked into on its own.

Precedents: I . . . I'm not too sure about setting precedents in such an official capacity. Sorry to repeat what I just said in the other section, but I feel like it's more valuable to look at the facts of each issue that comes up for scrutiny than to have a set of rigid, "this is the official response as per protocol" reactions. We're a small enough community that we basically all know each other, at least to some degree—even newbies, once they've been active for a few weeks or so—and I feel like we're able to address a new problem based on the facts as its presented to us.

—doctorlit

Ironically, Granny Weatherwax's hat might best serve as an antagonist, if you were absolutely hell-bent on having a talking hat as a character. Pterry's later works, as might be expected given the embuggerance, were heavily about passing the torch (Moist von Lipwig is being groomed for the Patricianship and nobody shall convince me otherwise); Granny Weatherwax's talking hat is a symbol of clinging to the past, wishing it was still her knocking about and not this Tiffany Whatshername girl. Especially if it became a symbol for the old ways amongst more reactionary crowds in witchcraft; of mindless subservience to tradition rather than respect for it. It'd almost be as bad as Mrs. Earwig's lot, though from the other way...

In fact, I believe that giving Tomash only the ability to vote, but not to discuss in this thread would've been rather pointless.

Rather, I wanted to make plain why I wasn't taking part in the discussions. I apologize for any offence caused.

I must not have noticed I wasn't logged in when I said that. Whoops! ^^;

This may eventually turn into a ramble, but I feel like I should comment here about my experiences with these issues in the FBA. I think it might be helpful to bring up my experiences there since, honestly, some of these issues HS has laid out actually aren't issues that only the PPC has: in some form or another, the FBA has these issues too, and I've gained perspective there that I think might be helpful to the PPC.

So yeah, I'm gonna try to talk about some of of HS's stuff from all four categories, at least the ones I've seen fit:

Keeping Issues Private: Honestly, the reason this is such a problem is because it's in some way tied to all of the other four things in this category. There are way too many factors for why someone keeps an issue private, and it's so dependent on the specific situation that I don't think there's a reliable systematic way to deal with all the possible scenarios. But honestly, what needs to be done here is to rethink the role of the administrator: do you engender a culture of trust, or do you just stamp down trouble in an attempt to keep it quiet? I think, in order to do any real problem solving, you have to engender a culture of trust, particularly if you're in charge of the circus. And on that front, hS, I actually feel this might be a crucial first step. On that note...

Ignoring Complaints: Mods, please don't do this. Ignoring complaints engenders mistrust between people, not to mention it basically sweeps an issue under the rug instead of solving it. On the first hand, people will generally only bring up their issues with someone to someone else they trust: it's been my experience in the FBA, and I think it applies to the PPC as well. And then on the other hand, ignoring a complaint today means that whatever issue is attached to it is guaranteed to blow up. So please, don't ignore complaints. Taking them seriously may not lead to solutions, but ignoring them will definitely lead to drama.

Assuming Authority: The FBA used to have a HUGE problem with this (it got so bad that a former contributor actually had to be banned from the project for a year because he broke a bunch of rules trying to assume too much authority), and in some ways the FBA still has that problem. And from my FBA experiences, I will say that HS's thoughts on this are absolutely right: having plans for canon isn't a problem as long as you talk to people about it first. Otherwise, don't complain when someone is displeased. As for people who assume authority in terms of issuing demands of people, I have four words for anyone who does that: "swallow your goddamn pride". And I'm actually going to differ from other people here and say that assuming authority should at least result in a slap to the wrist, if not operate on a three-strikes system that can lead to a ban: the people that assume authority usually will try to do so as often as they can get away with it, and it's not something that will go away on its own.

I will append a footnote to all of the above, though: I don't think assuming authority will ever be a truly big problem in the PPC. PPC canon is far too open for that to happen.

Argument from Oldbie: To be honest, I don't really think this is as much of an issue for the PPC as it used to be back in the IRC days, but I feel that discussion of this should really center on the issue of "age as argument", because the other three forms generally don't happen, and if they do they're usually harmless. I will say, this is not exclusively a PPC problem, and this has a fairly easy source to pinpoint: it's generally an ego issue.

Battlefield Mentality/Lashing Out: Seeing as how I'm probably the worst offender on Battlefield Mentality/Lashing Out, I'm going to recuse myself from this conversation. (I did get banned from the FBA's Slack chat for two weeks over an incident that happened close to the New Year, after all: it's a very, very long story.)

Bad Conduct as a Beta: I'm reluctant to suggest that this should come with disciplinary action. However, that conflicts with the part of me that says this should be considered an issue under the umbrella of assuming authority, since the people who try to impose their ideas on the story in question generally also have problems with assuming authority elsewhere. (And on a side note, HS: thank you for helping me pinpoint a huge problem I had with how someone did a thing!)

Not Taking Concrit: I've actually seen one other reaction to concrit that wasn't good: the writer who holds concrit against people and uses it to say "you're not worthy of my friendship, and I'm going to use it to shut you up if you try to talk about my character again". Yes, I have seen that in action (trust me, it was not fun), though thankfully that reaction is exceedingly rare. All I will say is that if someone seems to not take concrit well, I think the best thing to do is to sit them down and tell them the usual spiel about concrit. If they take it, great! If not, well, there's not really anything anybody can do that, and I'm not sure it should be considered a punishable offense.

So yeah, those are some of my thoughts there. I hope these are helpful.

...could be solved, I believe, by having one third party or two act as mediator for the two in disagreement. Not everyone on Discord or the Board, at least not at first. Keeping it contained at the beginning would mean less damage spread out to others.

I'm not entirely sure what I was saying, either. I have a tendency to assume the worst, so that might have shined through.

This post comes over as quite aggressive towards either the concept of discussing the rules or the way I've tried to do it; if it's the latter, could you please... not?

hS

Hats can be people too, y'know? The Archchancellor's hat certainly is. Or don't you think 'Granny Weatherwax's snarky hat' is an interesting possibility for a character...?

hS

(Gneil has the hat. I hope he wears it a lot and we end up with a Pterry-Gneil hybrid hat. It will need its own silent letter!)

1/ Who cares? The whole point of the Discworld is that it isn't a fantasy about talking hats or magic swords or worlds that fly through space on the back of a turtle. It's about people, and who they are, and what they think. Not whether or not they can hold a two-way conversation with their own headgear (one-way conversations, of course, being much easier).

2/ This is answered at the end of The Wee Free Men, at least allegorically. Granny talks about Granny Aching making the sky her hat and the wind her coat; for me, this was an allegory for how pointy hats might be nice and distinctive, but what matters is the witch underneath. Granny Weatherwax was one of the best. Tiff Aching will be too. Neither of them needed Granny's hat to be so.

3/ Neil Gaiman was presented with it at Pterry's funeral, so if anyone has, it's him. Or his slightly irritating wife. Or possibly a pet, which is the kind of thing I think the dear departed would get behind.

My past conduct makes me feel disinclined to offer opinions on community rules, almost all of which I have at some point broken and been given an nth chance; I have no input on any of the discussions that would have a meaningful, positive impact upon them; I have very little ability, and even less compulsion, to change this. Consider my assent and consent given for whatever the changes may be, but please allow me the privilege of not taking part in this discussion. I know we're a small enough community to have a realistic stab at direct democracy, but engagement with any democratic institution requires an in-depth knowledge of the legal minutiae that I neither have nor want.

I'm sure you'll all come to some interesting conclusions, and await the updated Constitution with the usual anticipation. In the meantime, I refuse to enter into these discussions.

I agree that we need to look at the cause of the decision, but I disagree that that means we should disregard the action itself. If I sent round an email to a couple of dozen oldbies that said "The current crop of newbies can't spell to save their lives, and think Warhammer 40K is a model for how they should build their agents; let's make a New PPC Board to preserve the good part of the community", we would certainly want to look at why the newbies are like that - but I'd hope we'd also slap me down hard for trying to split up the community, rather than just brushing that off.

That goes double if what I was saying was "I'm fed up of these can't-spell-hammer newbies telling me to stop gossiping about them (when frankly they deserve it); let's make an etc etc etc".

Both of these situations are purely hypothetical, and deliberately tuned not to mirror specific real-life events. Actually I have no problem with the current crop of newbies, so that's pleasant. ^_^

hS