Scion sticky - Report, don't correct other posters

[CTPhipps]

If you have a problem with a poster or a post then report it to the mods. No one without the title "Moderator" gets to tell other posters how to post.

Edit:

A reminder of the forum rules and how we reinforce them:

If you think someone's breaking the rules, report it with the Flag button, rather than engaging them. Do not use the Flag button to disagree with a rules post or official ("redtext") moderator rulings. Again, the appropriate means is the Contact Us link.

1. Respect other people. Don’t personally attack other users, members of their gaming groups, and so on. Also, don’t attack groups of people. That means avoiding racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and similar insults. Racial, sexual, and other slurs, as well as misgendering, count as insults. Please also avoid broad declarations that attack a group of people to get around making a “personal” attack. Like all rules, this rule applies equally to people working for Onyx Path, White Wolf, Paradox, and CCP.

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XX. Onyx Path or the moderators may find it necessary to modify posts or curtail user privileges for circumstances not listed above. If we find ourselves taking action in response to a particular, repeated abuse, we may, again at our discretion, add it to the rules above. Individual forums may have their own rules and guidelines, which will be posted at the top of those forums.

[Sacerdos]

You have no reason to assume that I was referring to you unless you have engaged in them.

Not that I aware of. I will then assume I misunderstood you thinking that you were insinuating something with your original message. I think that only serves to underline how fraught trust in the moderation has become, and I can only re-emphasise that the solution to that is not to tell people who have become wary of contradictory moderation practises to leave, but for the moderation to do more to earn the trust of the userbase.

It's my hope that we can make this a bigotry free zone and appreciate reporters help.

If nothing else, that we can agree on.

[CTPhipps]

It would be a lot easier to trust you on this if we had actually seen any but the most blatant bigotry and cultural appropriation getting shut down. I will continue reporting it but honestly I am not that hopeful.

It's my hope that we can make this a bigotry free zone and appreciate reporters help.

[PXGentleman]

It would be a lot easier to trust you on this if we had actually seen any but the most blatant bigotry and cultural appropriation getting shut down. I will continue reporting it but honestly I am not that hopeful.

[CTPhipps]

I will say that I take being baselessly accused of "hatred and personal attacks" like that to be a personal attack on me by itself. Show me one message I wrote on these Forums in which I have been hateful or personal.

You have no reason to assume that I was referring to you unless you have engaged in them. I act on the reports of other posters.

I have written several messages about these issues to the Forum Administrator by now. I know others have done as well. None of us have ever received as much as a "K" in response. Yet I'm told to leave if I don't trust after that? Saying "we're not going anywhere" and invoking a perceived infallibility of the moderation shows a galling lack of transparency and openness to criticism on the part of said moderation. Messages to the administrator are ignored, replies to you here are rejected ("It also is not changing the policy."), but at the same time you promise that the moderation will never, ever change? That is many things, but healthy for this forum is not one of them.

Moderators don't generally respond to reports but act on them.

Not every correction, feedback, or suggestion is an attack. Like I said, the way you are presenting all of this here is intimidating users who stand for accuracy and respect, and PXGentleman's response shows as much. Not to mention that it is not upon an individual user to "build a better forum" while the moderation, at least by appearances, seems to be working in the opposite direction at times.

It's a basic set of rules: don't try to mod when you're not a moderator. Don't make personal attacks. Report posts that bother you. If you can't abide by these rules, the problem is not on the moderators.

This is basic forum etiquette and should hopefully lead to a calmer, happier forum.

[Sacerdos]

You just said you won't report it to moderators but instead will attack them yourself, which means you have no actual interest in stopping bigotry. That's how I'm reading this. If you actually want to fight bigotry, report it to the mods. If you don't, you are endorsing it. Personal attacks give the worst of this forum the attention they're seeking and legitimizes their posts.

Build a better forum. Support the system.

Not every correction, feedback, or suggestion is an attack. Like I said, the way you are presenting all of this here is intimidating users who stand for accuracy and respect, and PXGentleman's response shows as much. Not to mention that it is not upon an individual user to "build a better forum" while the moderation, at least by appearances, seems to be working in the opposite direction at times.

[Sacerdos]

Your opinion is noted. It also is not changing the policy.

I expected as much, but I still urge you to consider community feedback instead of trusting only in the correctness of your individual judgement at all times. You are going the wrong way by silencing ethical concerns out of hand and making people afraid to point out ethical issues or factual inaccuracies (covered, after all, by the rules 1 and 6 you cite) in a respectful manner. All I can see your ruling in its current form doing is pushing the more engaged and respectful part of the community out and protecting those who continue to offend others for the sake of being "risqué".

Hatred and personal attacks have no place in this forum.

I will say that I take being baselessly accused of "hatred and personal attacks" like that to be a personal attack on me by itself. Show me one message I wrote on these Forums in which I have been hateful or personal.

If you have a problem with the moderators, bring it up with the other moderators. If you do not trust the moderators to do their job, you have no place here. We're not going anywhere and an attack against them is considered an attack against the forum.

I have written several messages about these issues to the Forum Administrator by now. I know others have done as well. None of us have ever received as much as a "K" in response. Yet I'm told to leave if I don't trust after that? Saying "we're not going anywhere" and invoking a perceived infallibility of the moderation shows a galling lack of transparency and openness to criticism on the part of said moderation. Messages to the administrator are ignored, replies to you here are rejected ("It also is not changing the policy."), but at the same time you promise that the moderation will never, ever change? That is many things, but healthy for this forum is not one of them.

[CTPhipps]

If someone is being bigoted, I will point out that bigotry. If that gets me banned, so be it, but I urge you to consider what does it mean for the climate of these forums if people can get banned for calling out stuff like this.

If you won't report bigotry to moderators but instead attack posters yourself, you are not helping in stopping bigotry. Personal attacks give the worst of this forum the attention they're seeking and legitimizes their posts. Supporting moderators allows offensive posts to be removed and bigots to be banned.

Build a better forum. Support the system.

[PXGentleman]

If someone is being bigoted, I will point out that bigotry. If that gets me banned, so be it, but I urge you to consider what does it mean for the climate of these forums if people can get banned for calling out stuff like this.

[CTPhipps]

Ineffective and misguided. We all know what kind of threads inspired this ruling, and they escalate not because someone has "a problem with a poster or post," but because feedback or thoughts are asked for, feedback and thoughts are given on the matter of cultural respect, and certain users take that as an invitation to go on bigoted rants. By implication, this ruling prohibits negative feedback, even if asked for, and protects those peddling disrespect and outright hatred. Sad to see these Forums so firmly pick the wrong side.

Your opinion is noted. It also is not changing the policy.

Hatred and personal attacks have no place in this forum. Neither does bigotry of any kind. It is also not the place of forumites to do anything other than report these things. There are rules against them already.

I don't know if this post will be read, it's not exactly the moderation's duty to read everything written down and it feels a bit arrogant to give suggestions like this, when I'm sure the moderation is handling the forum just fine, but those are my two cents as little as they are. Regardless of the response, I feel like a simple rule like this is an effective preliminary measure, but I don't think it will suffice even remotely enough to address the problems that the Scion subforum has.

The peace of the forum is to the ultimate goal as is the enjoyment of as many posters as possible. This is meant to be a fan community where people have a chance to share ideas and appreciate the hobby that we all share. Gate-keeping and insulting of fellow posters has no place here nor does attempting to control the flow of discourse. People who insult other people's cultures, dismiss their objections to work, or attempt to control how other people play their game are ultimately detrimental to the enjoyment of Scion by the people posting on this forum. This is meant to be a respectful, relaxed, and enjoyable place where you can relax to talk about your hobby.

If you cannot talk about your hobby without attacking other posters, you have no place here. If you have a problem with the moderators, bring it up with the other moderators. If you do not trust the moderators to do their job, you have no place here. We're not going anywhere and an attack against them is considered an attack against the forum.

[ManusDomine]

I don't really post much here - also is there a way to change your user name btw, I would very much like that - but generally my feel is from having observed a few of these threads and participated slightly in some of them, I have some pieces of feedback and observations. First off, I have myself been a forum moderator and am currently acting Assistant Administrator on Sufficient Velocity, a sci-fi and fiction forum of some 37,437 members, a position which I have held since February 2019, although I had already been a moderator since 2017 (curiously also February), so without further ado let's get into it:

I think a mistake being made here is that it confuses three related problems with being one problem and addressing them as one problem rather than addressing them separately with a tailored solution. To look into those problems, I would classify them as:

• Lack of Faith in the Moderation Team: The first and most important problem, as I see it, is this. People largely do not respect the moderation and its ability to "keep the peace" so to speak, and more relevantly they do not trust it to mete out a just peace. Having spoken to quite a few, people are largely skeptical of the moderation on the site and see it as inefficient and usually trending more towards simply shutting conversations down rather than punishing guilty parties. I can't speak to the accuracy of this, but speaking as a forum moderator myself, I think one should always expect some form of skepticism towards moderation because literally no one likes internet moderators of any sort- the most recent stripe of Discord mod memes evince this most effectively. With that said, I think it should still be kept in mind, especially in the light of the fact that as I understand it the OPP moderation team is relatively small? This means that most moderators you see will largely be the same faces and can mean people will start attributing stereotypes and certain ideas of moderation to these "known names". Especially in the relatively small Scion forum.

• Atomization and Discord Communities: It is a fact that most people around here use Discord to some measure or effect, and that's simply unavoidable. Discord is fantastic because it's far sleeker than the vBulletin forum software of the Onyx Path Publishing forum and generally works a lot faster, but universally it has had some annoying effects on forum communities. Due to Discord channels allowing swift and efficient moment-to-moment communication and working on an invite-only basis, it leads to greater atomization and allows certain cliques to communicate highly efficiently among each other and in that sense "coordinate" their posting in a certain thread. It also means that if a user with a negative reputation posts some thread, a whole slew of other posters could already be posting in a private Discord channel and creating a sort of hyperbolic chamber effect where they hype themselves up and ready themselves for posting, contributing to a competitive "bear-baiting" sort of atmosphere. There's no real way for the forum moderation to handle this issue, but it's one they should keep mindful of and which I have no doubt they already do keep mindful of.

• Dissonance of Expecations: Ultimately, Scion is a game. But it's also a game heavily steeped in mythology and the beliefs of real people. It's also made by nerds, played by nerds and posted about by nerds online and the thing about nerds is that we tend to obsess over things that fascinate us. I think - to borrow from Sacerdos - that we all know what kind of threads inspired this ruling and fundamentally it's not tenable to expect people not to correct people on a forum partially dedicated to religion and mythology, two of the most contentious subjects known to humanity. With that said, I do think the moderation's assessment that there is a problem is correct, but would instead tentatively suggest the creation of guidelines for how to speak and how to correct other people. Fundamentally speaking, as a Zoroastrian myself, if someone says something I find offensive about the Yazata it's not reasonable for me to not reply and correct it, and it would be unreasonable for me to expect that the moderation is aware of the prejudices and stereotypes attached to Zoroastrians because it's not like we're the world's largest religion lol, and from that perspective I think it is much better to set down clear guidelines for how to speak to one another rather than simply commanding complete reliance on the moderation.

I don't know if this post will be read, it's not exactly the moderation's duty to read everything written down and it feels a bit arrogant to give suggestions like this, when I'm sure the moderation is handling the forum just fine, but those are my two cents as little as they are. Regardless of the response, I feel like a simple rule like this is an effective preliminary measure, but I don't think it will suffice even remotely enough to address the problems that the Scion subforum has.

Cheers.

[Sacerdos]

Ineffective and misguided. We all know what kind of threads inspired this ruling, and they escalate not because someone has "a problem with a poster or post," but because feedback or thoughts are asked for, feedback and thoughts are given on the matter of cultural respect, and certain users take that as an invitation to go on bigoted rants. By implication, this ruling prohibits negative feedback, even if asked for, and protects those peddling disrespect and outright hatred. Sad to see these Forums so firmly pick the wrong side.

[Eldagusto]

Thank you. This was long needed.