Quote from: Zak S on December 16, 2024, 02:47:57 AM

Quote from: Ruprecht on December 15, 2024, 10:43:16 PMI have a question for Zak.
Why did so many people try to destroy you in the wake of the Mandy claims?

Ask Neil Gaiman, Kehinde Wiley and Ed Piskor.

There situations seem different. In those cases people are claiming sexual inpropriaties against the folks you named, either because its true or as part of a shakedown. In your case the people created sock-puppets (according to your link) hoping to destroy you with no expectation of gain. You have no theories on why?

edit: mistaken post

Quote from: Zak S on December 16, 2024, 02:55:53 AMBecause the RPG community is one continuous fabric, whether it wants to admit that or not--an attempt to improve the community that is only in isolated zone cannot protect itself from attacks from outside or make a meaningful impact--it has to be integrated (and share information with) adjacent communities.

Of the people I game with (and have ever gamed with), only two of them have ever dipped their toes into internet discussion of TTRPGs, and only one still does (not counting myself).  So while I don't dispute your "continuous fabric", I will point out that only a few spots on said fabric are perceptible to one trying to observe this fabric.  Are we to assume that they are distributed evenly, and thus the fabric is understandable from observation, or is it more likely that we are only seeing people who have strong opinions, or need help, or like to chat?  I think it's more likely to be the second.  I think that, for instance, forums during the D&D 3.X era, where players suddenly started assuming that all zillion splat books should be assumed to be the main essence of the game, twisted how the game was perceived by the developers, leading in main part to 4ed's much stricter and well defined rules and settings.  These were professionals, and by observing the section of TTRPG players who made themselves visible and heard (and bullied out all those who disagreed with them), they ended up making the wrong game.  It was their job to get this right, and they got it wrong.

I think almost all large places of discussion (reddit, rpg.net, and some of the bigger discords) are controlled by mods who want control of discussion and want to set up a type of informational toll booth.  To them, the users exist to grant their top-down whims legitimacy.  Have they ever had your thought of a continuous fabric of gamers, of actually having communications?  I doubt it.  I can post on reddit's bigger subreddits, but if I post in any thread about something controversial, I'll be silenced within minutes.  Tools invented to silence spammers and trolls are used with abandon on legitimate users.

Good luck changing that.  Your core position is correct, of course, but I don't think putting people with good taste into /r/rpg is going to meaningfully change the discourse.

One place you did mention in your Loyal Members Of The Rebellion post was /r/theosr.  This is run by Evil Dungeonmaster, and he seems to moderate only loosely- no forbidden topics or positions there (that I've seen).  With just normal amounts of participation it would easily be a great alternative to /r/osr, which is entirely lost to wicked mods.  If the goal was just to have a good subreddit that is worth looking at more than once a week (it moves real slow), then just more users there would be a wonder and make it more of a check-every-day sort of place.  By contrast, inserting good users in some of the large places you listed (main subreddits, huge forums, twitter) would be perfume in a sewer.

Anyway, good luck.

Quote from: Venka on December 17, 2024, 12:05:50 PM

Quote from: Zak S on December 16, 2024, 02:55:53 AMBecause the RPG community is one continuous fabric, whether it wants to admit that or not--an attempt to improve the community that is only in isolated zone cannot protect itself from attacks from outside or make a meaningful impact--it has to be integrated (and share information with) adjacent communities.

Of the people I game with (and have ever gamed with), only two of them have ever dipped their toes into internet discussion of TTRPGs, and only one still does (not counting myself).  So while I don't dispute your "continuous fabric", I will point out that only a few spots on said fabric are perceptible to one trying to observe this fabric.  Are we to assume that they are distributed evenly, and thus the fabric is understandable from observation, or is it more likely that we are only seeing people who have strong opinions, or need help, or like to chat?  I think it's more likely to be the second.  I think that, for instance, forums during the D&D 3.X era, where players suddenly started assuming that all zillion splat books should be assumed to be the main essence of the game, twisted how the game was perceived by the developers, leading in main part to 4ed's much stricter and well defined rules and settings.  These were professionals, and by observing the section of TTRPG players who made themselves visible and heard (and bullied out all those who disagreed with them), they ended up making the wrong game.  It was their job to get this right, and they got it wrong.

I think almost all large places of discussion (reddit, rpg.net, and some of the bigger discords) are controlled by mods who want control of discussion and want to set up a type of informational toll booth.  To them, the users exist to grant their top-down whims legitimacy.  Have they ever had your thought of a continuous fabric of gamers, of actually having communications?  I doubt it.  I can post on reddit's bigger subreddits, but if I post in any thread about something controversial, I'll be silenced within minutes.  Tools invented to silence spammers and trolls are used with abandon on legitimate users.

Good luck changing that.  Your core position is correct, of course, but I don't think putting people with good taste into /r/rpg is going to meaningfully change the discourse.

One place you did mention in your Loyal Members Of The Rebellion post was /r/theosr.  This is run by Evil Dungeonmaster, and he seems to moderate only loosely- no forbidden topics or positions there (that I've seen).  With just normal amounts of participation it would easily be a great alternative to /r/osr, which is entirely lost to wicked mods.  If the goal was just to have a good subreddit that is worth looking at more than once a week (it moves real slow), then just more users there would be a wonder and make it more of a check-every-day sort of place.  By contrast, inserting good users in some of the large places you listed (main subreddits, huge forums, twitter) would be perfume in a sewer.

Anyway, good luck.

Zak just proves that EVERYBODY that uses the term "Community" is searching to get power and control of the hobby.

This is true regardless of the hobby.

There's no "RPG Communiteh", period.

Lumping together theRPGsite and the Evil DM's Reddit, which are relatively free speech sites, alongside rpgnet and the other brutally repressive censorship sites where the mods silence anyone whose views they don't like, means that whatever Zak may say this is, it's not that Zak doesn't want brutal repressive censorship.
On the contrary, it seems that what's longed for is sites that engage in absolute and brutal censorship in his favor. If rpgnet was pro-Zak, and would ban, delete and block any posts critical of himself, I assume that would not be a "hostile" site.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 17, 2024, 04:50:20 PMLumping together theRPGsite and the Evil DM's Reddit, which are relatively free speech sites, alongside rpgnet and the other brutally repressive censorship sites where the mods silence anyone whose views they don't like, means that whatever Zak may say this is, it's not that Zak doesn't want brutal repressive censorship.
On the contrary, it seems that what's longed for is sites that engage in absolute and brutal censorship in his favor. If rpgnet was pro-Zak, and would ban, delete and block any posts critical of himself, I assume that would not be a "hostile" site.

You always make this mistake because its tied up with advertising yourself and your site.

What I want is a site which has the same legal and moral obligations of a person or a news source rather than the dodge designed by Zuck and other internet platforms.

A newspaper knows it needs to get its facts right or it hasn't done its job--if there's a mistake, there is a retraction. A _platform_ gets the out of saying "Hey this is a bar, if someone is lying over by the dart board that's not on us."

That's not about moderation in favor of me, that's the same ideal that is requested in best-case-scenario academia, in best-case-scenario journalism, in best-case-scenario court, etc--i.e. anywhere that the truth is supposed to matter and be high stakes.

Further, the idea is that when you can't judge the truth you can still judge truth-seeking behavior:

"What's your source?"
"Fuck off"

Is not truth-seeking behavior.

"What's your source?"
(Gives a source, then the conversation continues about the validity of the source)

Is truth-seeking behavior.

There are lots of perfectly nice places to hang out that don't follow these rules--a comedy club, for instance. Unfortunately we live in a world where ideas passed around on RPG forums have become in many cases the only places where many  pieces of information about extremely high-stakes life-affecting things are passed around all the time. Until that changes, A forum where people talk with rules more like the ones for defending your dissertation than the ones for telling jokes on stage is preferable.

This has been explained to you personally, Pundit, about 100 times. And you ignore it because it doesn't help you advertise your site.

Also, it requires more work on the part of the mod staff and most mods are volunteers and (like most kings) like things to be judgment calls instead of follow clear rules because then they have more power.

(Why isn't makin my own site the obvious solution?  Because that doesn't make the problem of people smearing people on other sites go away.)

As Upton Sinclair said "'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.'"

Quote from: Ruprecht on December 16, 2024, 04:02:50 PM

Quote from: Zak S on December 16, 2024, 02:47:57 AM

Quote from: Ruprecht on December 15, 2024, 10:43:16 PMI have a question for Zak.
Why did so many people try to destroy you in the wake of the Mandy claims?

Ask Neil Gaiman, Kehinde Wiley and Ed Piskor.

There situations seem different. In those cases people are claiming sexual inpropriaties against the folks you named, either because its true or as part of a shakedown. In your case the people created sock-puppets (according to your link) hoping to destroy you with no expectation of gain. You have no theories on why?

No in each case:

1. People are claiming sexual impropriaties against the folks you named, either because its true or as part of a shakedown, or the accuser is insane.

2. The internet aggressively repeats the accusation before any investigation.

3. People repeating it benefit by getting the same attention-economy benefits they get repeating any other claim that their audience wants to hear about any other controversial topic.

This is pretty much how this always works now. To the degree the motive of the people repeating it in my case might be different, that is very well explored in Dr Weisman's article, where people describe their own motives: https://archive.is/0Nv3c ( audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GJAJNbF2Tg ).

re: Kyla Aaron below

Obviously the reference to "sexual perversions" in this and previous remarks from KA means he's got nothing useful to say on any subject.

Quote from: GnomeWorks on December 15, 2024, 05:04:10 PMCan you please for the love of fuck go be retarded somewhere else?

Like many people with sexual perversions, he's someone who thrives on conflict. If you want him to go away, you have to not engage with him. Abuse simply encourages him.

Quote from: Zak S on December 17, 2024, 05:18:49 PMWhat I want is a site which has the same legal and moral obligations of a person or a news source rather than the dodge designed by Zuck and other internet platforms.

WHAT...

Quote from: Zak S on December 17, 2024, 05:18:49 PMThat's not about moderation in favor of me, that's the same ideal that is requested in best-case-scenario academia, in best-case-scenario journalism, in best-case-scenario court, etc--i.e. anywhere that the truth is supposed to matter and be high stakes.

THE...

Quote from: Zak S on December 17, 2024, 05:18:49 PMUnfortunately we live in a world where ideas passed around on RPG forums have become in many cases the only places where many  pieces of information about extremely high-stakes life-affecting things is passed around all the time. Until that changes, A forum where people talk with rules more like the ones for defending your dissertation than the ones for telling jokes on stage is preferable.

FUCK?

I firmly believe that nobody else here wants this place to be a regimented circus following your ideals. Hell. this is a place run by "The Final Boss of Internet Shitlords." That doesn't sound like the kind of place where a rational person has heavy discussion "about extremely high-stakes life-affecting things." No, you dumbass, it's a place to talk about GAMES and have fun.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 18, 2024, 01:52:36 AM

Quote from: Zak S on December 17, 2024, 05:18:49 PMWhat I want is a site which has the same legal and moral obligations of a person or a news source rather than the dodge designed by Zuck and other internet platforms.

WHAT...

Quote from: Zak S on December 17, 2024, 05:18:49 PMThat's not about moderation in favor of me, that's the same ideal that is requested in best-case-scenario academia, in best-case-scenario journalism, in best-case-scenario court, etc--i.e. anywhere that the truth is supposed to matter and be high stakes.

THE...

Quote from: Zak S on December 17, 2024, 05:18:49 PMUnfortunately we live in a world where ideas passed around on RPG forums have become in many cases the only places where many  pieces of information about extremely high-stakes life-affecting things is passed around all the time. Until that changes, A forum where people talk with rules more like the ones for defending your dissertation than the ones for telling jokes on stage is preferable.

FUCK?

I firmly believe that nobody else here wants this place to be a regimented circus following your ideals. Hell. this is a place run by "The Final Boss of Internet Shitlords." That doesn't sound like the kind of place where a rational person has heavy discussion "about extremely high-stakes life-affecting things." No, you dumbass, it's a place to talk about GAMES and have fun.

And if you agreed to never discuss anything important or you all wore a magical talisman guaranteeing nobody here ever believed what was written here that would be no problem.

Unfortunately experience has taught us a really fucked up thing:

No matter how overtly shitlordy a game site, people will believe and act on the things written there.

This is why we can't have shitty things.

Quote from: Zak S on December 18, 2024, 01:56:35 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 18, 2024, 01:52:36 AM

Quote from: Zak S on December 17, 2024, 05:18:49 PMWhat I want is a site which has the same legal and moral obligations of a person or a news source rather than the dodge designed by Zuck and other internet platforms.

WHAT...

Quote from: Zak S on December 17, 2024, 05:18:49 PMThat's not about moderation in favor of me, that's the same ideal that is requested in best-case-scenario academia, in best-case-scenario journalism, in best-case-scenario court, etc--i.e. anywhere that the truth is supposed to matter and be high stakes.

THE...

Quote from: Zak S on December 17, 2024, 05:18:49 PMUnfortunately we live in a world where ideas passed around on RPG forums have become in many cases the only places where many  pieces of information about extremely high-stakes life-affecting things is passed around all the time. Until that changes, A forum where people talk with rules more like the ones for defending your dissertation than the ones for telling jokes on stage is preferable.

FUCK?

I firmly believe that nobody else here wants this place to be a regimented circus following your ideals. Hell. this is a place run by "The Final Boss of Internet Shitlords." That doesn't sound like the kind of place where a rational person has heavy discussion "about extremely high-stakes life-affecting things." No, you dumbass, it's a place to talk about GAMES and have fun.

And if you agreed to never discuss anything important or you all wore a magical talisman guaranteeing nobody here ever believed what was written here that would be no problem.

Unfortunately experience has taught us a really fucked up thing:

No matter how overtly shitlordy a game site, people will believe and act on the things written there.

This is why we can't have shitty things.

Perhaps you can't, but many of us are doing just fine.

I'll let you in on a secret: This forum is not where I discuss my business in the game industry (primarily in proofreading, but I've dabbled with some writing). I have official (non-public) work sites for such conversations, and they do have much stricter rules, which everyone on them follows because we are being paid to do so.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 18, 2024, 02:01:08 AM

Quote from: Zak S on December 18, 2024, 01:56:35 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 18, 2024, 01:52:36 AM

Quote from: Zak S on December 17, 2024, 05:18:49 PMWhat I want is a site which has the same legal and moral obligations of a person or a news source rather than the dodge designed by Zuck and other internet platforms.

WHAT...

Quote from: Zak S on December 17, 2024, 05:18:49 PMThat's not about moderation in favor of me, that's the same ideal that is requested in best-case-scenario academia, in best-case-scenario journalism, in best-case-scenario court, etc--i.e. anywhere that the truth is supposed to matter and be high stakes.

THE...

Quote from: Zak S on December 17, 2024, 05:18:49 PMUnfortunately we live in a world where ideas passed around on RPG forums have become in many cases the only places where many  pieces of information about extremely high-stakes life-affecting things is passed around all the time. Until that changes, A forum where people talk with rules more like the ones for defending your dissertation than the ones for telling jokes on stage is preferable.

FUCK?

I firmly believe that nobody else here wants this place to be a regimented circus following your ideals. Hell. this is a place run by "The Final Boss of Internet Shitlords." That doesn't sound like the kind of place where a rational person has heavy discussion "about extremely high-stakes life-affecting things." No, you dumbass, it's a place to talk about GAMES and have fun.

And if you agreed to never discuss anything important or you all wore a magical talisman guaranteeing nobody here ever believed what was written here that would be no problem.

Unfortunately experience has taught us a really fucked up thing:

No matter how overtly shitlordy a game site, people will believe and act on the things written there.

This is why we can't have shitty things.

Perhaps you can't, but many of us are doing just fine.

I'll let you in on a secret: This forum is not where I discuss my business in the game industry (primarily in proofreading, but I've dabbled with some writing). I have official (non-public) work sites for such conversations, and they do have much stricter rules, which everyone on them follows because we are being paid to do so.

And if you were the only possible human being in history that anyone got it in their head to talk about then this would make sense.

But you're not.

People have literally proposed "But I just wrote it in this shitty place?" as a legal defense against defamation and it didn't fly. Because even the law knows that lies on a shitpost site still get believed, even if they aren't lies about you, Happy Daze the proofreader, specifically.

I will add that I am not suggesting that this change will be made or that you'll ever agree--I am just correcting the Pundit's silly proposal above. Instead of the silly thing he said I believe I am laying out the thing I actually believe.

I have no delusions that most people here or the Pundit will think it's a good idea--but it is better to be hated for the things you said than things Pundit made up.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 17, 2024, 12:32:39 PMZak just proves that EVERYBODY that uses the term "Community" is searching to get power and control of the hobby.

This is true regardless of the hobby.

There's no "RPG Communiteh", period.

For me, it's a massive red flag when someone comes into a hobby space or subculture talking about the community.  In pretty much every case, there is no such thing as the, singular community.  There are many smaller communities with some contact between them.  People who talk about the community want to create the appearance of a single community composed of everyone in the hobby or subculture.  Referring to it as the community also removes ownership from it.  It's not your community.  It's the community.  They create this imaginary community so that they can then try to assert power over it.  The community does not tolerate blah blah blah.  The dead giveaway is that, if they manage to get any power, they will quickly stop talking about the community and start talking about our community and then their community.  Then the people who built the community are out on their ass wondering how this happened.   

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 18, 2024, 05:02:57 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 17, 2024, 12:32:39 PMZak just proves that EVERYBODY that uses the term "Community" is searching to get power and control of the hobby.

This is true regardless of the hobby.

There's no "RPG Communiteh", period.

For me, it's a massive red flag when someone comes into a hobby space or subculture talking about the community.  In pretty much every case, there is no such thing as the, singular community.  There are many smaller communities with some contact between them.  People who talk about the community want to create the appearance of a single community composed of everyone in the hobby or subculture.  Referring to it as the community also removes ownership from it.  It's not your community.  It's the community.  They create this imaginary community so that they can then try to assert power over it.  The community does not tolerate blah blah blah.  The dead giveaway is that, if they manage to get any power, they will quickly stop talking about the community and start talking about our community and then their community.  Then the people who built the community are out on their ass wondering how this happened.   

"Red flag"-based conversations are the opposite of fact-based conversations.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 13, 2024, 05:29:52 PMSomeone privately sent me this:

Quotehttps://pastebin.com/QJNhcN3F?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3xT-k7XV4ms-4BrkLiTabuZBkw5Qpsv5k0Kgh1UdwjG9fQsm6Xqzx1nxo_aem_BhHYBVGVqwguMHufRMxJ3w

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Alright, the Compendium is free, and the work I did for my D&D game-including the Cube World pdfs-will no longer be available any other way. It will ship anywhere in the world, free.
 
Again, all this goes away Jan 1. It will not be available any more nor will any of this stuff. This is a limited edition collectors' item.
 
Here's the deal: there are a lot of you. You send messages of support, you ask for game stuff I make, you are lovely and-frankly-it's really hard to find you or talk to you.
 
So, in order to help do this, anyone who wants this Compendium should perform the following social media tasks. If this seems absolutely impossible and horrible, remember you can send me 1000$ instead and I will rush-ship the Compendium to you immediately (VenMo ZakZSmith ).
 
Otherwise-to get the book, do this stuff. If there is some specific task that is technically impossible for some reason, get in touch and we'll find something else you can do to replace that task.
 
If you're thinking "But I'm not on social media" well that's the problem: you aren't. But now you will be.
 
(Please note also that if anyone spots a mistake in the Compendium I may change it at this point, so the precise page order of the Compendium you see in the ads might be different than what you get, but all the material you've seen in the posts/ads will be there.)
 
Please follow the instructions carefully, they matter. Keep in mind the difference between a "post" and a "comment".
 
1. A lot of platforms are named below-within a week of receiving this email send me your screen names on those platforms along an email with the subject line, all-caps ******************. In the email you don't have to send anything else but your screen-names in that email. The screennames can be whatever works for you-some people like to be anonymous, some do not care. Put some kind of picture in your avatar on platforms that have avatars so people can remember you. Post what you like on these platforms but do not get thrown off.
 
[snip]

Wow.  Seriously?  This sounds more like a cult than a business.