The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

I propose that we increase education funding, hopefully that will makes the parents happy.

Pressure the debt collectors, they are evil, I would know.

OrangeYoshi
Minister of Definitely Fair Elections

1. No Board mods. Between the Nameless Admin being able to change or take down posts if necessary (and deal with trolls and spambots and so on), and level-headed people in general stepping in when things get heated in the 'this is no longer a friendly debate' sense (seriously, we've had almost entirely polite political debates. In most cases, we're capable of not even needing someone to step in on the Board), I don't think mods are necessary nor do I see what they'd really add. At most, it'd be a tiny bit of extra authority for a level-headed person who's stepping in to tell people to go cool off, and since it'd also come with a bunch more extra stress for that person/those people, it doesn't seem like a great trade-off. My vote is no mods.
   
   2. I am not touching this. I do not want to touch this. This entire affair disgusts me and I do not want to spend even more time trying (and mostly failing) to sort out what I think an appropriate response would be. At most (okay, I'm touching it a little bit), I suppose I agree with Tomash (and a number of other people) that he should take a break for a bit. How long that break actually is, I'll let the rest of you decide. I support 2-3 months as the minimum, though I'm not sure anything less than that has even been suggested (I stand corrected, there's 1 month in there too. I don't support 1 month; put me down as 2-3 minimum).
   
   Actually, one more thing: there was a proposal a while back to mute some of the users who'd been involved in the anti-July...'discussion' (and I'm using that word loosely). That is, to mute them on the Discord for, I believe, 1-3 months, or maybe 1-2. I support that idea (at 1-2 months) for the people who were most involved--not for everyone, but for the people who were really spearheading it. Guys, you need to learn to take a step back and think for a bit when emotions are running high, especially your own. You need to learn to take a break and cool off. Even if that means actually saying 'I am not clear-headed right now and I'm going to take a break and come back in a few hours/tomorrow. Please don't make any important decisions without me. Please take a step back yourselves if you feel your anger is clouding your judgement as well.' If muting you will make you think about it and make the idea stick in your memory, I am all for it.
   
   This also applies when you don't yet have a strong opinion of your own. Take a step back if you need to, read up on what's going on, get more information. Don't judge blindly based on one bit of information that you have no context for. Again, you can explicitly state that that's what you're doing: 'I don't have enough information about this yet, and I'm going to step away from this discussion until I know more.' Either that or call for more information for everyone. It doesn't hurt to learn more, and it doesn't hurt to reserve judgement until you do. Try it.
   
   You are all adults or young adults (yes, I'm including the teenagers in this). If you don't have this skill yet, you need to try to build it. This is a community of real people, even if many of us will never meet; and you need those skills both for here in the PPC (and in any other online community you will ever join) as well as in the real world, for your jobs and your lives and your friends and your families and potentially your SOs. Learn how to take a step back and cool off in tense situations. I promise you, you need this skill. We all need this skill. I strongly suggest you work on it, and that goes for everyone here who doesn't already have it, whether you were involved in this discussion or not. It's a very useful skill to have, and developing it is one way to guard against things like what happened last week.
   
   Votes summed up: Break or ban for Tomash for 2-3 months minimum. Mute the users who were most involved in the July...'discussion' for at least 1-2 months on the Discord server. Everyone, work on learning how to take a step back to cool off when emotions are running high. Also consider waiting for more information before judging a complex situation in the future.
   
   3. The Discord. Hrm. Well, I agree with a few of the things that have been mentioned, and they range from serious to minor.
   
   A. Yes please do a 'best of the Discord' post (as proposed here). Or maybe make it a blog on the wiki that gets linked to from the Board whenever a new post goes up. It could also be linked to from the wiki page called "PPC Lounge," and if it's a post, the information should be archived and linked to there or else transferred onto the page. I think it's a great way to bridge the gap between Boarders and Discorders (both for Boarders who never go there and for Discorders who've been away for a while and want to know what they've missed). It's also a great way to share some fun things, and maybe even snippets of especially good RPs from time to time? This might actually work better as a collaborative Board post (one person starts it every, say, month, and other Discorders slowly or quickly add things to it. Please remember that if you want to share something that's a quote or an RP piece rather than just a general 'this is something that generally happens', you need to get the permission of everyone involved. In fact, do that anyway. Another idea for things to add to this: bits of some of the punversations. Again, with the permission of everyone involved). This could also be done in the format of putting the information from the Board post into a wiki blog post, which is then linked to on the "PPC Lounge" page. People could even take turns making the blog post, so that the responsibility doesn't all fall on one person.
   
   B. I think hS has some good points in his 'About the Discord:' post below. I'm just going to comment on the ones I either agree with completely or would modify slightly.
   
   Case in point: I'd modify the positive discussion a little, since I know how much easier it can be to express your opinion of a new mission in chat form: do that in the Discord if you like, but then post it on the Board. While it's very nice if the author happens to have a friend who hangs out in the Discord and will pass it on, it's really not the same as seeing the words yourself. So rephrase it, copy and paste what you yourself said, get a volunteer to compile a review from what several people have said/agreed with--and post it on the Board.
   
   As for making decisions in the Discord...yeah. If it's a big, important decision, if it's even something like a big PPC canon question (that would, say, change the canon or add something major to it) that could use more than 1-2 answers from people who know what they're talking about, I'd say put it on the Board. If it's a very emotional decision that isn't a personal, non-PPC related question (say, if you have a grievance or you're thinking of leaving or something and it's something you want to discuss publicly rather than talking only to the people or person involved in private or in private with someone willing to mediate there as well), bring it to the Board. Let it move slower, let it simmer, let people have time to weigh in and most importantly to think about it before they weigh in. Obviously some matters won't fall under this, and if you're only comfortable talking it through via DMs or group DMS as opposed to publicly in the Discord or publicly on the Board, keep it there. But if it's a big PPC-related decision, or something that you want a lot of hopefully well-thought out opinions on--bring it to the Board. I agree with hS that it won't solve everything--but it should certainly help in a lot of cases. And it also ensures that a, you get a mix of oldbies and newbies responding instead of just whoever happens to be on at the time, b, people who don't feel qualified to answer can leave it for someone else, and c, people who don't initially know how to answer get a chance to think it through and come up with something if they can.
   
   C. I vote against closing the Discord entirely, whether short-term or long-term. I don't think that's necessary and I don't think it'll solve anything.
   
   Discord votes summed up: A 'best of the Discord' post or blog post every month or so would be amazing. I support bringing most big decisions to the Board, especially if they're PPC community-related or PPC canon-related. And I do not support closing the Discord entirely, whether short-term or long-term.
   
   ~Zingenmir

Basically, what I meant was anyone who explicitly wanted to make July an example for posterity (I think those were more or less the words used?), and also anybody who was doomsaying and adding to the general swirl of panic, which may or may not encompass everyone who was there, I'm not sure right now. I've got the day off tomorrow, so I'll try to pull it together then, but I didn't want to leave you hanging for two days.

~Neshomeh

Since July herself made peace with Tomash, I think you're overreacting, and I'm sad to lose one of the few voices of reasoned dissent we had in this.

I hope you'll repent of that last wish of suffering on others. I don't think it's healthy or helpful for anyone.

May time bring you perspective and healing.

~Neshomeh

It was a good year for Silly Hats. We've finally run through our fez surplus from the Matt Smith years, so it's all Tricornes, Jesters' Caps, and Mitres from here on in.

On the policy side of things, the ministers of N-P Comms, ICA, Tech Adv, and Distressing Stats have some good ideas. I support most of their proposals.

I will say that Distressing Stats has it wrong with the Alcohol Tax. Everyone likes alcohol, and we want to make that pivotal Everyone group happy.

Another thing that Everyone likes is low rent. I have heard from sources that the rent is...let me get this right..."Too damn high"? Perhaps some rent control would be appropriate? That might even help the economy if people have more money in their pockets. Everyone likes having more money in their pockets.

-Phobos, MoSH

That said, this was at least a couple years ago, wasn't it? I've had a lot going on in my life.

It's true that you haven't been here for a while—though, wait, weren't you heavily involved with setting up the Permission prompts system in the first place? That was kind of a big deal.

But that said, maybe try to avoid vague casting of aspersions when you haven't really been around for a while?

Actually, we should all try to avoid vague casting of aspersions in general.

~Neshomeh

I can only say that I genuinely feel that getting the unresolved problems out in the open at a time when you're in a safe mental state, and can discuss them with some degree of objectivity, would be the best way to resolve them.

(Of course it's going to backfire horribly. It's me doing something in the PPC, that should be your default assumption...)

hS

Considering people love to swarm when I play Damsel In Distress, if this is going to stay as drama-free as possible then I'll stay out of it.

But... that being said, this has potential to backfire horribly to clean the slate, so to speak, and I think it's a good idea. Sending you the best of luck and the mental fortitude you're definitely gonna need for it.

I've thought about this a lot, and I don't have an answer. It's clear that the witch-hunt was only made possible because of the real-time chat nature of the channel - look at how quickly it collapsed once it moved to the Board. Given that there's no support for just getting rid of the chat altogether, I think we need the following rules/mindsets to be taken seriously by the Discord:

1/ Don't talk about people behind their backs. Ever. For any reason. Iximaz has just announced she's leaving? Talk about it on the Board, if she's not in there with you. She's accused four people of bullying her? Sure, talk to the ones who are there with you - but if you want to talk about the others, do it on the Board. No exceptions, no excuses.

This includes positive discussion. If I've just posted a mission, and you're all raving about it in the Discord - so what? That doesn't do anything to make me feel good about it. Whether you want to congratulate someone, or express sympathy, or condemn them - if they're not in the Discord at the time, do it on the Board.

2/ The Discord is not a place to make decisions. Ever. Unless you're in a game of some sort, if you're asking 'what should we do?', you need to take that to the Board. Put it on the permanent record, get the input of the entire community - heck, even in the Discord, not everyone's there all the time!

These aren't rules designed to fix every problem. They wouldn't do a thing about the GlarnBoudin incident, for instance. But I think they can, will, and should deal with the major issue with the live-chat format: the tendency for everyone in a conversation to just flow along with it, however insane it ends up looking from the outside.

hS

You keep answering this to Des' posts. By now, he either got it, or is just not going to listen to you.

Now, I don't know if Des accidentally dragged into his ban vote wrong name or not - I'm not going to read that log of wretched things again - but you're being far too insistent about this.

He's leaving. And, if I know him as well as I think I do, he's not coming back. Pestering him again on this matter won't solve anything.

Non-Propaganda Communications, Ice Cream Affairs, & Technological Advancements want us to improve our schools. N-P Comms and Distressing Statistics want us to subsidise small businesses. Distressing Stats also supports a high alcohol tax (and the evolution thing, but that's really expensive; we'll see). Surprisingly Important Things proposes a luxury goods tax. And everybody wants us to limit the debt collection agencies.

It's still a good eight hours before we can even think about starting the new year, so there's plenty of time to get your thoughts in.

PM hS

... is to ramp up our security presence. In my last/only game, I had slow-burning capitalist extremists for most of the game, but after the nuns tried to assassinate me, I paid the Intelligence service to make them go away. ^_^ CCTV on every street corner helped, too.

At the moment there are no serious terror threats to our fair nation.

PM hS

Votes carried over from the previous thread are *asterisked.

-Permaban: 2 (*Desdendelle, *PoorCynic)
-1 year ban: 1 ([EvilAI]UBEROverlord)
-3-6 month ban: 3 (*Iximaz, Sergio Turbo, Seafarer)
-1-3 month ban: 11 (Jay - Awesomeness Central, Phobos, doctorlit, OrangeYoshi99, Neshomeh, VixenMage, Novastorme, Tomash, Mattman the Comet, The Good Mod Addict, Akrinor)
-TOTAL BANS: 17 [50% of total]

-NO BAN: 12 (*Aegis, *SkarmorySilver, *Granz, *Hieronymus Graubart, Huinesoron, DrGonzo, World-Jumper, Delta Juliette, Badger421, The Triumvirate, VixenMage, Matt Cipher)

-Explicit abstain: 5 (leafeyes, eatpraylove, Scapegrace, Ekyl, ninny4370)

-TOTAL VOTES: 34 (*7 + 27)

Drawing purely from this thread:

-Mods: 6 (Jay - Awesomeness Central, Novastorme, The Good Mod Addict, Ekyl, ninny4370, [EvilAI]UBEROverlord)
-No Mods: 13 52% of total
-Explicit abstain: 4 (leafeyes, eatpraylove, Scapegrace, The Triumvirate)
-Implicit abstain: 2 (Phobos, doctorlit)
-TOTAL VOTES: 25

hS

I don't want to see friends leave the PPC. I don't want to see anyone leave. It hurts. We're all very emotional right now, reacting more strongly than we would otherwise, and I just want it to stop.

But it's clear that there are deep, gaping wounds in this community. That people from across the Board and Discord have serious issues with others, and with the community as a whole. Some of them have come to light in the last week; I'm sure others are still simmering away below the surface.

So I'd like to make a proposal that in one month - ie, around April 20th, or in the week after Easter - we sit down and calmly go through every single thing that's hanging unseen over our heads.

To do this, I'm going to make an extraordinary request: I want you to tell me what unresolved or outstanding issues you think the PPC community has. Whether they're between two people or one person and a group; whether they're a single incident or a low-level pattern of behaviour; whether they're a failure of the community as a whole or a private dispute.

Please do not tell me here. Email me at huinesoron@hotmail.com. Outline what happened - who was involved, what they did, how people reacted. If an incident happened on the Board, please link to it (the archives are here). If it happened in the Discord chat, please give a date; I'll chase someone up to get the transcripts later. If it happened by personal communication, please do not send me files: a summary will be much better, and I won't have any more accidental doxxing even by email.

I will go through everything I'm sent, and try to put together an impartial summary of each incident. Then, in a month - or later if we have more issues between then and now, I want this to happen when we're calm - I will put it all up for consideration. (If the incident involved me, you are still free to send it to me, and I will do my best to remain impartial in my summary. But if you prefer, you can hold it back and present it yourself.)

Before you ask: yes, this is going to be fething miserable for me. No, I don't expect it to magically fix everything. Yes, you might share an issue and find the community disagrees with you. But yes, I genuinely believe that if we can pull these hidden problems out into the light, look at them together, and decide what censures, reprimands, and even bans the community feels are appropriate, that we can finally put the majority of them to rest.

I am not setting myself up as a moderator. I am not setting myself up as a mediator. I will get everything together and start the discussion, but I will have exactly as much say in the outcomes as anyone else. This is a community matter, and it will be resolved by the community.

hS

PS: 'I think we need moderators but everyone keeps saying no' does not count as an unresolved issue. There is a vote right now which is 2:1 against Board moderators; the fact that you don't like the explicit community consensus doesn't mean it doesn't exist. ~hS, pre-empting that one

We can either increase old taxes and create new ones, then invest in ending homelessness or some other crisis, or we can cut spending. This depends primarily on how invested we are in keeping the Capitalists from wanting our heads. It's hard enough to effectively get rid of some of the crises in America, where there are a few outlets that can be used to relax the pressure from the Capitalist voters wanting you not just out of office, but dead. In the UK, it's far more difficult. Push taxes up too much, and they will try to assassinate you. Repeatedly. Until it works. And the one thing that makes Capitalists more infuriating to deal with than anybody else is that they hate basically every form of tax. So, basically, if we increase our income, we make the Capitalists want to kill us. So, if we do increase said income, it must be only as much as needed to focus on and eliminate one crisis. After one is eliminated, we can back off on those levels enough to give us funding for other areas, but not so much that we start the crisis all over again. However, should we do this, I'm not sure we should focus on Homelessness. It seems like we should focus our efforts on a crisis that, either by removing it or because these groups like the reforms that would remove the crisis, will win us the support of the Poor, the Liberals, and the Self-Employed, seeing as these are all groups that are neutral to us. We could also attempt to cultivate Farmers and Religious voters.

Red arrows are negative incentives; green (which there aren't any) are positive. We could try to do something about homelessness, such as increasing state housing or supporting private renting; the alternative is, obviously, lowering those taxes. (Lowering property tax would probably achieve both.)

PM hS

In the July-Iximaz incident, I emailled both parties to try and talk things through. I helped July in making her apology. I clarified the sincerity of that apology.

That did not work. The incident remained on Iximaz's mind for a year. What more do you feel a mediator should have done? And why do you feel that requiring someone to do it would be better than encouraging everyone to do so?

hS

Both in a general sympathy sense, that you're leaving, and in the sense that I held onto a grudge for far, far too long, and in indulging it, helped poison the well against you. I'm sure, despite not being in the logs, some of the ugly feeling about you could be traced back to things I've said.

On a more selfish note, I'm sad because I was hoping to rebuild some kind of a friendship, and though I hope you'll be willing to keep talking, it kind of sucks to lose your voice here just as I was hoping to reconnect.

At any rate, I wish you the best of luck in your life going forward.

(No problem on the delay. We all know this is a semi-asynchronous forum.)

So, I might have more concrete thoughts, but I think they need a short digression to come out right. So, several people have called for "mods". I think an accurate restatement of that is "The community shall select people who are expected to resolve bad behavior, and who shall impose, or threaten to impose, sanctions in order to do so.". As I said elsewhere in this thread, I happen to think that isn't needed.

Now, the call for "mediators" has a bit less meaning hanging off it, but I'll try to expand it it the same way. That is, the proposal is "The community shall select people who are expected to attempt to resolve bad behavior by offering to mediate between the involved parties. Community members are expected to accept these offers.". Well, that seems like a reasonable proposal, and I happen to agree that it might actually work, and at worst can't hurt.

As to actually implementing this proposal, I propose the simplest way possible. Declare it to be true! I don't have the precise wording of any needed changes to Section 2, but I'm voting in favor of making mediation an Official PPC Thing. I invite anyone else who thinks this is a good move to vote for it real quick.

Now, since I did say "the community shall select", I might as well start that too, so we don't have to be vague about it. Going off of my hazy memory and their behavior in this whole mess, I nominate VixenMage, Huinesoron, and Neshomeh as the poor schmucks who get to offer to help folks resolve disputes they're having.

On July, we have had a conversation. On my end, it gave me a much better understanding of what it is I did and why it was bad (you can see the results off of July's goodbye post), among other things.

Prime Minister,

As the newly appointed Minister of Distressing Statistics, I have noted with no small amount of trepidation the tanking of our economy and downgrading of our credit. As money is rather important to what we're trying to do, obviously this is something that must be addressed immediately. Job-producing programs, such as farm and small business subsidies, should be looked into. If we have the political capital, I would also suggest ending the teaching of creationism in schools and focusing entirely on evolution. This will upset our more religious citizens, but bolster our support with the liberals.

This will not be popular, but I might also suggest increasing the alcohol tax. The rate of drunkenness is too high, and affects the nation's health and economy. Plus, we need more money.

Finally, I would recommend limiting the ability of debt agencies. These pirates must be shown that we will not condone the fleecing of our people.

Yours respectfully,
PoorCynic, MoDS

Sorry for the delay. Life is crazy right now in several ways.

Yeah, that's what it felt like to me too. Again, obviously I still agree what you did was wrong, but the response seemed weird. Especially now that July herself has asked that you not be banned.

Also, yeah. I do think it's an easy path for humans - that's probably why it comes so easily to us here, too. I almost noted that it was a firmware problem in the OP. And I don't know how to solve it. Besides what we already have, which is asking people to try solving their issues with each other person to person. I do actually really like the idea of third-person mediators, but I'm not certain how it could best be implemented.

As for the screwup? I have no idea. I guess, ideally, the person directly harmed (July) would have a mediated conversation with you. I think it's a bit tough to say on that one because it was kind of a big deal, and you did move quickly to fix it before July actually got involved directly.

Your last point - having never actually considered that pattern, I do actually think you're right. That seems to be something that happens in cases like this pretty regularly. (Not that they are regular.)

And you didn't just say she didn't like the ending to Rose Potter, you linked "the PPC forgetting about stuff" with "the burnt month" and mentioned that you were quite angry about all of it. You also, during this same period of time, sent July a message in which you told her to leave the PPC and said other cruel things to her. Nova says that was about some unrelated thing, and you say this Rose Potter mention was about some unrelated thing.

So we've got: you're angry, you point out what you perceive July's role in the PPC's forget-about-scandals culture, and you send July an angry message.

Maybe they are all unrelated. I certainly would not know, I'm not in your head and I don't know your motivations. But they all strike me as behavior that contributed to the state of emotional affairs currently in place.

I'm sorry for bringing this up in a stupid, passive-aggressive way, and I'm sorry for bludgeoning you with it. And honestly, if I am waaay off base and taking you horrifically out of context, I'm sorry for that too. Look: everyone has been angry throughout this. It started as a misunderstanding of Iximaz's reading of a situation between her and July, was exacerbated by a frenzied conversation on the Discord which was, of course, fueled by very real concern for Iximaz, and then exploded onto the Board, first as a PPC Bullying/July (because of Iximaz's post) problem, then as a Wait, There Was Doxxing?! problem, now as a What Do We Do About It conversation. At no point, I'm sure, have we all been super calm and rational about this.

So in essence - I'm still confused about how you think you didn't contribute to the witch hunt, but I'm sorry for attacking you as a person on the Board, literally in a post saying we should stop doing that, wow I'm kind of an idiot.