The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

I particularly agree with the bit about the eternal invite. It did strike me that certain members could have just gone to the wiki page and thrown themselves back over and over again, and if there's account-banning, then they'd just make new accounts in order to harass people.

Let's not assume that a) those people are bullies (because that merits looking into and "guilty until proven otherwise" is a bad principle to go on) and b) that we've somehow failed in stopping them (because that depends on them actually being bullies).

The Discord, in this case, is kinda like plumbing — you only notice it when it starts acting up. Another metaphor is police: police mistakes/judgement errors tend to get blown out of proportion because nobody notices the good police does.

The point is this: your argument discounts all of the good stuff that goes over in the Discord in order to focus on its bad side, and further, Drama does happen even with no chat channel being around; we didn't have any Discord when the Data issue blew up, or when the whole mess with Brink and Ekyl happened.

I would consider getting rid of the Discord Chat altogether. I think just about every recent issue over the past two-three months have all started there. I think it might be something about the lack of time to consider before posting. On the board it does take longer, and that might be a fix. It gives a chance for cooler heads to prevail.

We need to be less reluctant to punish wrongdoers. I know I always want to think the best of everyone, and I think that the community in general gives too much benefit of the doubt, even when it isn't deserved. We need to act more quickly -- don't get me wrong, we need to treat people as innocent until proven guilty, but we need to act immediately once we get proof. I agree with what was said below: our ban votes are too long.

First step to take: we Discord mods need to be quicker to kick. I know no one likes punishing people we know, but this needs to happen, and kicks are pretty temporary.

However, we should stop having a freely available, eternal Discord invite on the wiki. This would require us to invite each newbie and returnbie separately, but would mean that kicked members would have to PM a mod to get back in, allowing the mods to impose cool-down periods/bans. These would not be unilateral actions by one mod: if one person was being unreasonable, the person being unfairly banned could contact a different mod and get back in.

--Key has lots of thoughts, this is just a start

What you get, then, is moderators who are where they are because they're popular and good at getting voted for, moreso than the most qualified.

I didn't take them seriously until Ix's post. Sometimes people with legitimate grievances turn to trolling to get their message across - Iximaz saying similar things made me think they might have had a point. Just so you know why I bothered bringing them up (and I'm sorry now that I did).

The post I linked to was the one she referenced in saying 'I just said I didn't'.

hS

It makes sense to me to take the burden of collecting evidence off the victim, and it seems like a natural direction for Discord at least -- we already have a mod channel where we log warnings given (mostly for language, etc.). It will also lend credibility to the victim: having accusations presented by a neutral third party would reduce the temptation to excuse the perpetrator's behavior.

In Discord, private messaging is simple, and I'm in favor of mods providing their emails (mine's clickable on this post).

I also propose that moderators be made to run for re-election fairly regularly, so that they have to do a good job if they want to keep the position. We'd need an impeachment process, too.

Having mod powers contingent upon re-election would also make me feel better about the idea of having the mods decide on bans -- which would definitely streamline a process which could use some streamlining.

. . .what this adds up to seems to be changing the PPC from a direct democracy to a representative democracy. I. . . I think I'm okay with that idea.

--Key

Assuming what she said about us as a community is true, we should educate ourselves on ways to a) know when we're bullying someone, b) know when we're being an apologist, and c) stop both of those. Seafarer's suggestion of handling JulyFlame before anything else also has a certain amount of sense to it.

I wish I had a more substantial answer, but I'm not as involved in the community as some of you. I do care about the mental health of everyone in it, which is why Iximaz's post troubles me.

Yeah, it looks like my memory's not as good as I thought. A lot of people seem to have felt victimised by July, but as I've never seen them post, I can't speak to their character, so I'm dropping that.

Oh, and Ix did leave because of July, in case you missed that. I seem to remember that it was just July blowing up prematurely rather than actively bullying, though, so that's fine.

I think we should talk about the other part of my post now. *apologetic*

The context.

Iximaz's leaving thread.

Iximaz saying she's not leaving because of July.

I think that's the relevant stuff.

hS

Let me just check the archives, though. And I'm still concerned about July apparently forcing Ix away last time.

They are, in order, a) a person who nearly got banned for abusive behaviour and then threw themselves out of the Board after seeing that their bad behaviour isn't welcome, b) a troll and c) a person who left the PPC after abusing hS and Nesh, returned to poke at sensitive things and throw names around, and left afterwards.
I'm inclined to think that this sorta accusation is baseless. Bad blood existing between people (like Ix and July, me and LilySinful AKA Tray-Gnome, etc) doesn't necessarily mean that it's immediately bullying.

Have the mods always put their email addresses in their title lines. I don't think YWA has proper private messaging, so I had to think of a workaround.

Data Junkie mentioned July's bullying, though. So did the troll. The part about people being driven out was my interpretation of something that came up a while ago, though I believe Tray-Gnome's name was brought up specifically. I can go digging, if you like.

If not, this might be a case of the current board not being ideal for our needs.

Who are those other two people who named July a bully, and who are the people who got driven out of the PPC because of her.

Firstly: we need some kind of moderator.

If someone's being bullied, how can they get help? What can they do? Every method of bringing the community's attention to this kind of thing involves posting something publicly - where the bully can see it. There's no safe, private communication that a victim can use to get help.

I would suggest a few trusted members of the community become that safe space. If someone feels victimised, they can contact one of those people directly. That way, the burden is off the victim - the mod (or whatever title you give them) can review and collect evidence (through forwarded emails, or being given access to the Google Doc, or whatever), and then they can be the one to present it to the community at large.

I'm also not really convinced that the entire community really needs a vote. We need clear guidelines about what punishment goes with what offence, and if we make those clear enough, a simple look at the evidence should be enough for the mod(s) to declare the punishment. Certainly, the evidence should be posted on the Board for all to review, and there may be some debate as to what level applies, but the final decision should be delegated to avoid the lengthy, time-wasting votes that we usually have.

But that isn't the thing that should happen first.

The community has been failing its members. Ix is the third person I've seen name JulyFlame as the perpetrator of bullying. July has driven at least three people from the community with her(?) behaviour. The first thing to do is decide what to do about her.

You haven't been protected when you needed it most. The situations with Ekyl and JulyFlame should have been taken more seriously, and we should have acted against GlarnBoudin more promptly. You've been treated horrifically and I understand why you want to leave.

I want to fix this situation. I've been a bystander or enabled abusive situations too often -- I'm going to read everything I can find on preventing abuse and implement it all.

I hope you find somewhere that will treat you better. I hope things start looking up for you. Best of luck and stay strong.

--Key

Since we're in the discussion phase, though, I thought it important to note down that step we'll have to take.