Dion

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

From experience in dealing with the staff in the past to extreme lengths on both sides as the reporter and the reportee, a small subsection of the community has always gotten to decide what's best for everyone else regardless, that will never change, it's the nature of the beast and it comes down to whomever can best rules-lawyer their way into getting other people in trouble and/or who has the best friendship/rapport with a given moderator. The only case where this isn't the case is where two completely unknown people in the community are involved and there can be no friendship nor rapport.

The succinct lack of features to support a) holding community members accountable, b) holding staff members accountable and c) streamlining the actual bloody process you need to go through to report anything or anyone means that this will never get better.

We can make rules all we want.

Fact of the matter is rules are flaunted left and right as is. Being friends with the moderators, as unfortunate as it is, helps quite a bit in doing so. This is simply an undeniable truth at this point and while moderators may be remiss to admit as such in public, I've spoken to many (ex-)moderators and admins who have shared this view with me and agree, so I don't think I can be moved from this stance in the slightest.

Something else I've struggled with for a long time in the context of moderating content is that art is stolen left and right (whatever, we RP, it's sort of just what happens) and that when an artist (sometimes in a foreign language, trying their best) posts about this or makes a remark, they have been ignored in the past. This, back then, really soured my taste of the moderator in question and really consolidated my view of the moderator team

Either way the point I'm making is -- none of this matters if the rules are just a small blip on the radar of literally anyone, lol. We can beg for all the representation we want, it's gonna be irrelevant because nobody gives a rats ass about the rules anyway and as much as we've asked for the rules to be streamlined, we basically still have the rule of Fonz Cool. Just in more words. And, if we go by the letter of the rule, you are already represented.

This isn't working out: Part 2

@Odin I'd rather not financially support such a person.

@Penny

I don't pay for books, so... de rien to me. :-)

This isn't working out: Part 2

@Odin Well I suppose you could ask the former about about Jordan Peterson too, but admittedly Myke Cole is less infamous.

@POOHEAD189

I'd applaud them for their ability to stay out of the loop, since it'd be genuinely impressive to not know about Jordan Peterson. I think it's a valid defense; "I didn't know, I just found his advice meaningful" would be a great way to reel me back in unless it's followed up with "but despite the fact that he's an arrogant hypocrite, I still think he's great".

But I disliked him before the accusations and a selling point of his books (and his one or two history books) is that he's a good historian and he's very much not. That coupled with his general personality and it would at least put a bad taste in my mouth seeing his book on the table. Though I suppose it wouldn't be enough for me to just bounce so touche'. Maybe if I saw it was a 3rd book in his second trilogy, that would be kind of worse.

I don't really know him so I don't know if he's a bad historian or a good one -- so, I guess on that end, sure. I was more so wondering about the allegations. I don't purity check authors whose works I enjoy nor do I ever intend to start; it'd be too time consuming and frankly I do think art can be separated from the artist -- we're still talking about novels, and not just any author .. right? Jordan Peterson doesn't necessarily classify as art to me and the self-help aspect of it sort of invokes that he knows what he's talking about when he doesn't.

But, a sexual assault allegation does not necessarily impact a writers book on history, especially if it's a novel. He'd be a detestable person, but the book wouldn't necessarily lose value based on just that (for me). He's a bad historian, so I'd judge the book on it just being bad in general.

This isn't working out: Part 2

I've unfortunately had the pleasure of getting to know some authors of potential books I had previously wanted to read, thanks to using twitter. My first example is any book by Myke Cole. He presents himself as an historian and a feminist, but he's a terrible historian, he is pretty mean, and as for feminist, he's had some sexual allegations come up about him which got him dropped from Grimdark Magazine. I suppose if I walked into someone's home and saw a Myke Cole book on their shelf I wouldn't retch, but if I saw my date currently engrossed in a book of his, no thanks.

@POOHEAD189

What if they're unaware of who he is or what he's accused of?

This isn't working out

@Odin You said you'd like to meet someone who enjoyed the Hobbit. The sarcasm bit was for your previous statement unless I was mistaken, and I assumed the sarcasm was at the gatekeeping comment and not the fact you enjoyed Children of Hurin. Also why would you find Turin both boring and your fave character? Usually if a character bores me that's a no go.

@POOHEAD189

I mean, I do think people who enjoy the Hobbit enjoy it because it's the flagship Tolkien book and not necessarily because it's actually better than the other books. But it's a great book and if someone told me why they liked it, it'd be a much better answer than those who like it because it's Tolkiens famous work.

Kinda like saying oh I like Harry Potter novels -- it's a bog standard answer with no real flavor to it. Hobbit is that but for fantasy, imo.

As far as Turin Turambar goes, he's incredibly boring as a personality, dude does basically nothing but try and exact vengeance upon those who cursed his house. He has a fucking awesome adventure but remains this sort of stoic personality that never really reacts to anything in a way that isn't stoic. So, Penny words it really well -- his saga is extremely cool and the adventures he experiences are tragic and interesting, but he himself is... not really all that interesting.

Which imho is a strength -- insofar as Middle Earth goes, Turin Turambar kind of shows that even ordinary or uninteresting people can experience and do great things, and I definitely appreciate how boring and stoic he is, but I also think it's not exactly the most interesting personality to read, and if it weren't for his adventures, it'd probably not be that interesting to read about him.

Also while Tolkien is the 'father' of modern fantasy, his characters are not high octane action heroes like most characters in fantasy today so I can definitely see why his prose might bore a few people.

Just the whole boring prose of his works is something that really makes me enjoy his works -- it makes it more relatable I guess because real life equivalents are, often, incredibly interesting but also incredibly boring and non-super hero. Compare it to, say, Warhammer which is high-octane action hero tier shit (which is enjoyable for different reasons) and super over the top, Tolkiens work feels more grounded, realistic and, well, like a real world that could exist. That's just how I see it though -- I also enjoyed reading the Silmarillion thoroughly so maybe I am just a Tolkien-circlejerker, because Silmarillion is definitely not an incredible action packed gripping story, lol.

This isn't working out

@Penny probably true, I think it’s a symptom of how Tolkien writes. I enjoy it greatly and Turin Turambar is to date my favorite character. He’s also very boring and Beleg was a far cooler personality.

This isn't working out

I thoroughly love the Hobbit, what's wrong with it? I honestly found Children of Hurin to be a little boring but still interesting.

@POOHEAD189

You definitely missed the last part of my sentence there buddy

This isn't working out

I will mention Jordan Peterson or anyone who falls in the category of “talking down on people while also not having your own shit in order” but as mentioned before, he doesn’t count even if he fits the bill perfectly. As a man I guess I wouldn’t run into this much, because women do not seem to look fondly on him in general. Rupi Kauhr would also be a good fit, but again, not a novel author, just pseudo-deep poems that don’t make sense.

WH40K, specifically if they favor the empire or the tales about what comes down to genocide-made-PC-because-aliens.

YA fiction — reasoning being that I’m 25 and I expect my partners to have a more wide scope of novels they enjoy than Divergent, Camp Halfblood, or Hunger Games. Good books! .. for an audience that isn’t me.

The Hobbit — #gatekeeping here but any true Tolkien fan knows the Children of Húrin is the only good answer. ;) OK, but seriously, this is sarcasm, I’d like to meet someone who enjoyed the Hobbit.

[1x1] Request for Broacien: a medieval, realistic universe.

Bumping.

Staff update

@Stormflyx despite our differences (lol) I have to say I enjoyed dealing with you whenever I forced our hands in the matter. I want to thank you for doing some real community outreach and involvement with the two events you ran and I really enjoyed seeing your vision for both events coming together.