Peer Review: Feedback on the new D&D.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Peer Review: Feedback on the new D&D.

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Yeah, neither myself or EHF were hand selected by mods in DnD as far as I am aware, my initial appointment to IK the Covid thread was pretty much all between Athanatos and me. I'm sure the mods had opinions about it but I wasn't already part of the mod clique or anything.

Re: derails, my personal opinion is if something is fun, harmless, or interesting/informative, I'm going to more likely to let it slide for a bit. Specifically referring to BIG-DICK-BUTT-gently caress's example, I don't recall anything particularly informative or interesting about the Warren 2020 chat, it was all pretty much reheated leftovers (DNA testing, was a Republican until 40) and tbh the only interesting bit that came out of it was the blood quantum stuff Fritz was able to speak on. Everything else was stuff we already knew/clearly saw in 2020 and there wasn't, iirc, anything new or revelatory about that discussion. In addition, rehashing old primaries tends to be one of the more contentious and drama-causing things in CE and I can understand why Fritz wanted to step in sooner rather than later.

In contrast, musical chat was funny, people were having a good time, and the actual somewhat critical nature of Les Mis discussion was neat to see. Makes me wish FoS's media thread had taken off, I'd love to see more DnDers critiquing media through political lenses, the kind of stuff that's typically frowned on in Games, TVIV, or CD.

That's just my perspective though, I generally try to have a lighter touch anyway and am not super active outside of Covid thread. I'm pretty dumb so I like to lurk more than I post.

Willa Rogers posted:

Get Rid of the Deadwood
No, not the guy who backseat mods every thread (although seeing a probation or two land in his lap for it would be novel), but rather the necromancy in the topic list of threads. Rules thread should stay at the top, like an admin/forums announcement. Not sure why the other threads are stickied rn, except for maybe the toon contest. (eta: And please gas CRAP-rated threads already. They're gassed for a reason--they're crap!)

Wanted to address this because I just brought up the Covid thread being stickied with the other mods last night and suggested that it was probably time to be unstickied, but we decided to wait until the feedback thread to see if it came up/see what posters think about it. So thanks for the feedback.

Professor Beetus fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Jan 29, 2022

# ¿ Jan 29, 2022 18:10

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 23:08

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

BIG-DICK-BUTT-gently caress posted:

Great, thank you! Also wanted to add: I didnt mean to single Fritz out, was just the most recent example I could find. I think the moderation has been pretty good, all told.

Since I provided the example, I�ll elaborate further: There was a point presented that Warren received favorable attention due to her gender which was entirely new and interesting to me. Also, it�s been a couple years and I wasn�t here for 2020 primary chat so I enjoyed seeing what other posters thought of it.

Fwiw, Hamilton had previously been discussed in the same CE thread, earlier this month. Arguably more of a rehash, less recent and less relevant to CE .. but the people clearly wanted to post about it, so who am I to cry foul? The point about primary chat causing drama is valid and completely understandable.

Also - I wanted to commend you for letting the obesity chat take place in the covid thread recently. It�s only tangentially related to covid but it was a good, fruitful discussion. That�s the kind of moderation I like best.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I understand your point of view completely and, unfortunately, moderation is always going to have a somewhat subjective element at play, depending on who views a report or sees a questionable post. This is one reason we've been utilizing the mod discord and team chat to bring things to the attention of other mods and admins if needed, which hopefully allows some conversation and some sort of informal consensus. And sometimes mods use their best judgment in a derail or if something is starting to get circular and people are getting more nasty to each other rather than waiting for a consensus. But I think communicating and collaborating on questionable results has resulted in more consistent and higher quality moderation.

So tl;dr modding can be subjective but we are doing our best to improve and moderate consistently.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2022 19:49

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:

Mods should need to peer review probations with people they are debating with. I'm sure it happens and I just don't realize it, but more than just asking another mod to probate someone without question, sometimes we all need a "dude your in the wrong here" to better self regulate our emotional responses. The fact that people are afraid of getting probed when a mod is arguing is not great. Y'all do good work, but knowing a probe is being looked at by a neutral person may coax those fears.

I agree with this quite a bit and I can tell you that, particularly since Koos has come on, there has been a lot of this. I am usually very quick to pop in if something's getting heated in the Covid thread, for instance, and ask for a sanity check. I'll usually say, "hey, can you look at my posting in there and see if it's getting bad/top strong/too harsh etc."

I will 100% own up to the fact that I was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder and I have been actively trying not to step in as much when I'm know I'm on a downswing.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2022 00:50

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

CommieGIR posted:

We also tend to rope in other mods like CSPAM mods or Admins to look over possible conflicts of interests when doing probations.

This too, it's incredibly helpful to be able to ask CSPAM mods for their takes as well, particularly since there a fair number of posters who choose to participate in both subforums.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2022 01:42

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Cpt_Obvious posted:

If moderation is only done by people outside of the discussion then that means only those who are completely unfamiliar with the thread will be moderating them.

It's pretty easy to read back a few pages and get a good sense of the context for the report. Also, some mods, like myself, do a lot more lurking then posting. So even if I don't spend a lot of time posting outside Covid thread, I still keep up with a number of DnD threads and am familiar with their discussions.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2022 23:34

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