MakeGamesSA, 2016 and beyond.

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  • Note that that is the problem as I see it for experienced developers, the students and newer devs may have a different set of issues. But it's best if they speak for themselves, rather than me.

    I'm too much of a grumpy old man to know what troubles the youth these days, with their outrageous facial hair and hippity hops. Pull up your pants, young man! @Bensonance, where are you, sonny!?!
  • edited
    I am still taking my time reading through this as there is a lot to get to but from what I've read so far I would like to add my two cents.

    1: The most commented and interacted with threads are arguments. After revisiting the site week after week and just basically reading argument/complaints I got very tired of making regular visits.

    2: As someone interested in the community but also in audio I try use this space to share and talk about audio or just share work. I barely ever get even one comment of response and it's not just me I see this for other audio peeps and other people presenting other mediums of art. I'm not expecting everyone to be nice but some interaction would be nice...a community as it were that is interested in other peoples works.

    3: If I go to other websites such as chipmusic or various other game development sites, the main interactions involve sharing and commenting on other peoples work and I don't get that from MGSA and I don't see many people getting that kind of interaction which is demoralizing.

    Beyond the semantics about how the community is run I don't feel people are working together to build a better community, it feels very fragmented, separate and competitive. Not a very welcoming vibe...

    I know I may have missed some points mentioned and also brought up stuff others have but these are my personal reason why i don't visit MGSA much any more and I used to make an effort to check almost every day. Just adding my voice to the discussion.

    Slight Edit: I do feel the argument thing has been less prevalent but when I stopped visiting it was a big thing. As I can see from most people posts they are happy that the forums seem less antagonistic (or so it seems)

    P.S I'm hoping this all goes in a good direction. I miss using MGSA as a regular interwebs hangout spot... used to love spending lots of time here.
    Thanked by 2Tuism mikethetike
  • @garethf I get the generalisation problem -- the "let's do this for everyone (but really other people need it, not me)" is a classic and frustrating situation! I also want people who think they don't need help to nevertheless be regularly exposed to it, and learn despite themselves.

    And @EvanGreenwood has hit my sentiments pretty accurately, well done. :P I'd like to offer one last defence of a de-personalised policy: I think that the actual shortcomings of conflict resolution on the forums are so sore and widespread that any focus on personalities are a worrying distraction from broader solutions. I imagine that it would be the formalisation of the "not my problem!" problem for anyone who lies *outside* that targeted group. And I think that would bite us in the ass.

    I'm thinking of this while hearing you, like, 210% on the Always Knows Better situation. Holy crap, there have easily been cases where even I have felt practically wrathful about it. Like, a whole thread where people with categorically no experience/knowledge in an area are telling me what I *should* be doing, while I smile, nod and resume work on projects that they've only had half a minute of exposure to. And those are just the cut-and-dried cases. One of the reasons why I dedicated a presentation to game feedback in CT was to lay the foundation for the sort of humility we need to approach one another with, because every time I read one of those threads I want to take out my red pen.

    There are others on this forum, more patient than I, who have nevertheless found themselves snarling ever-so-slightly at this trend. But it's a trend that comes, I feel, from forumwide culture. The times I want to facepalm the hardest are the ones when it seems that *nobody* in a dozen-strong conversation seems to get that they're part of the same mistake cycle.

    I feel that our goals aren't in any sort of destructive opposition, but actually quite harmonised. We're disagreeing on a subplot, I think, but the crises we think about, the difficult situations we care about, seem to regularly converge on the same things.

    And I think universality of learning could be a really good thing: I've been really stoked about my hotshot learnings in conflict management recently, but simply sharing a post about my presentation helped me remember just how much learning there was out there, and comparatively how experienced other forum members are with techniques of management.

    I hope to continue massaging my dialog in a direction which feels connected and meaningful to you, so that we can achieve more of a marriage of minds on these issues.
  • Oh, and moreover, I don't want to deny that some people could find more value from these learnings than others -- in this, @EvanGreenwood actually communicated sentiments that I failed to put across myself. But I do believe that the maximum value will come from setting a basic bar for everyone.
  • edited
    Happy to see this discussion is progressing mostly amicably. I'm hoping that through discussion like this we can come out with a better community. I am a bit skeptical about how likely we are to have the ideals people are touting (I still feel like we need to very carefully choose what we are maximizing, at the cost of other things), but I'm still hopeful to see what we can manage to come up with. I also haven't been following in 100% detail, so I need to go back and re-read some of the more meaty posts.
  • garethf said:
    How it goes on MGSA:

    Person A : I've found that gambling game development and video game development are very similar.
    Person B : You're wrong. So wrongity-wrong-wrong. Let's argue for 3 pages.
    Person A : Merciful Death, take me now!

    So yeah. To isolate the general problem from any particular individual or subject matter, it's (IMO) trying to share your experiences and expertise as someone with a lot of experience to share, and butting heads with people who Always Know Better And Who Are Willing To Argue Until You Quit In Frustration.
    If this is the particular thread in question, then I would hazard that many people felt that way about it, including me. I would be very careful in assuming that this was a true characterisation though... All that happens is that the actors assigned to the roles outlined in the quote are assigned differently by different people.

    The issue is the polarisation of argument and the demonisation of other people. I'm curious to see how @Nandrew and the others here that are talking about cultural impacts would defuse polarisation like that.
  • edited
    If this is the particular thread in question, then I would hazard that many people felt that way about it, including me. I would be very careful in assuming that this was a true characterisation though... All that happens is that the actors assigned to the roles outlined in the quote are assigned differently by different people.
    Yet the negative feedback is specifically and consistently in one direction. People aren't saying "that Gareth guy, what a dick. I won't stay here as long as he's around".

    I'd suggest really taking that to heart and doing a bit of soul searching here.

    *Edited to be less pointed*
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  • garethf said:

    Yet the negative feedback is specifically and consistently in one direction. People aren't saying "that Gareth guy, what a dick. I won't stay here as long as he's around".
    @garethf: Actually I have had a few people say things along those lines to me in person. From my point of view, the only real argument I see you making, although not directly, is that @dislekcia is somehow the root of all these problems and that's the main thing we need to resolve - just remove him and things will magically come right. I think that's laughable and not what others are necessarily arguing for. If that's not true, then I look forward to clarification please.


    I think most people here understand that @dislekcia is coming from a good place and has the community's interests in heart when making decisions. This is just plain true, even if you don't agree with how he goes about it or his view on the facts, it's clear that he's not coming from a place of maliciousness or self-interest, no matter how hard people try to insinuate that. It is difficult to have a discussion about the community management without referring to @dislekcia, and I'm not advocating that, but I think it would be useful if these comments were at least kept factual (and correct), and insinuations and off-topic remarks rather not added. If they're not relevant, hash out your differences in another place. Also, maybe don't paint someone as the villain (or some sort of unmentionable evil) when they aren't?

    Back on topic, in all seriousness, I am also interested to see the conflict-resolution approach applied to that linked thread. I don't think it can't be done, but I do think that's a particularly difficult example so it's a good test :)
  • From my point of view, the only real argument I see you making, although not directly, is that @dislekcia is somehow the root of all these problems and that's the main thing we need to resolve
    It's interesting that I'm now the focus of this criticism. It's like 4 or 5 people now who've called out @dislekcia's behavior directly and clearly as being a problem...and I'm the one who gets targeted for monstering.

    It's cool though. My skin is pretty thick, leathery even, you go ahead and make me the villain in your play, if you like.
    Thanked by 1quintond
  • edited
    Just back from a week away from the internet at AfrikaBurn to discover that *this* is what's dominating the forum. *Every* time I'm away for a little while, one of these threads collect attention above any other. It's just as @cairnswm and other less frequent visitors say: It's really disheartening to return to this every visit.

    My participation on MGSA is hinged on this very simple thing: People who love and live something needs a good community. I myself am included in this, I need this space, and I myself have been finding myself becoming more and more distant from it, though in my personal case it's a mixture of personal and structural elements. So... I'm considering myself to be half a leaver, though I'm pretty sure I never would.

    I know we're talking about forum culture, moderatorship and "soft" issues, but I think it's prudent to also think about the hard, design issues that we might have - it feels to me that the soft issues are exacerbated by the hard issues, and while it's great for everyone to receive sensitivity training and for us to all be great at conflict resolution, I think that smaller, more practical steps may be, well, more practical.

    ----------------------------------------

    As I went through the thread, and the many many others that have come before it, It seems to me that the "good" qualifier is very vague. How about thinking about this as a design problem? That means it should starts at the brief. The definition of "good". I think we've been down this road before.

    What is the goal of MGSA? Going through our history and this thread, I tried to compile a list:

    A. A Type 2 safe space?
    B. A Type 1 safe space?
    C. A knowledge community of game dev?
    D. A space where NEW game developers could come and find a reason to stay? (intrinsically tied to the next point)
    E. A space where OLD game developers could come and find a reason to stay? (intrinsically tied to the previous point)
    F. A space where people of all disciplines of game dev could come and find a reason to stay?
    G. A space where people interested could organise and pool time and resource into collectively interest-bearing happenings?

    Are these all the goals? I'm sure I missed some, please please give your input.

    After the goals are identified, we must then prioritise them in order of importance, then measure every aspect of the forum against them, in order of priority.

    ----------------------------------------

    A point of observation about our current design structure:

    The landing for newcomers/infrequent visitors:
    The idea of having a non-fragmented forum was great when there were a smaller membership, but as the forum has grown both in terms of diversity and numbers, I'm seeing these problems:

    1. Newcomers land very haphazardly - they see a bunch of threads, and will usually gravitate towards the most visible and trafficked threads, which often inevitably equals multi-page debates and threads like this. This is most unwelcoming and taxing.

    2. Having the category buttons to the right is all fine and well, but they don't do enough to negate the effect of 1, as is evident by all the voices of the infrequent visitors and view count in this week-old thread.

    3. I suggest that we default the view to something like "general" (which is mandated as a watercooler-type space of light and fluffy), and move "heavier" discussions like this one and other controversial discussions to another sub-forum, "heavy" or whatever it'll be called.

    4. Or to default to a sub-forum selection that allows users to self-guide to relevant content instead of being haphazardly guided towards stuff they really shouldn't be guided towards, as is the case right now.

    5. This would solve issues for newcomers, for infrequent visitors, for specialists who feel alienated or unappreciated. Of course, care must be taken not to create a sub-category which only involves two active members - there'll be game dev general, game programming, arts, etc, but not necessarily one for game writing (yet). We want to prevent fragmentation as far as possible, but not to the detriment that it currently seems to have.

    6. This could also create some Type 1 safe spaces where, for example, game programmers can talk programming without non-programmers butting in frequently (it can still happen, but someone who would skip over to sections out of their expertise to chime in is an entirely different problem)

    7. The idea isn't to remove general view, but to make general view the advanced option rather than the current default of category view the advanced option.

    8. A type 2 safe space is more likely if more inflammatory discussions are moved out of immediate reach by every joe soap, and people who don't want to engage in such flammable discussions can EASILY choose not to do it by doing nothing out of the ordinary. Opting in to controversy is better than opting out of controversy.

    ------------------------------------

    Of course, all inputs, criticism and etc welcome. Everyone knows I have among the thickest skin here, and give no shit about face as long as shit gets done and better.
  • it's clear that he's not coming from a place of maliciousness or self-interest, no matter how hard people try to insinuate that.
    I haven't seen anyone argue about his intentions being from a place of binary evil. I am perfectly clear that he comes from a place of trying to help. In the same breath, I can really, honestly say the same of just about anyone here (and was here) - I have very very rarely seen a troll by intent. Those who got fed up and leave, they didn't leave because the joke wasn't funny anymore, they left because they meant to do good through their actions, and was pushed out for the actions (without their intentions being considered). So... To me, talking about intention in this discussion is almost moot, as we are all bound, judged and executed by perceptions rather than our intentions.

  • Tuism said:
    I haven't seen anyone argue about his intentions being from a place of binary evil. I am perfectly clear that he comes from a place of trying to help. In the same breath, I can really, honestly say the same of just about anyone here (and was here) - I have very very rarely seen a troll by intent. Those who got fed up and leave, they didn't leave because the joke wasn't funny anymore, they left because they meant to do good through their actions, and was pushed out for the actions (without their intentions being considered). So... To me, talking about intention in this discussion is almost moot, as we are all bound, judged and executed by perceptions rather than our intentions.
    Intention has a huge part to play in perception. Perception is not fixed, someone's first perception of a situation, a person or a statement is very often not that close to reality - especially not in a medium like text. We can only inch towards shared understanding collaboratively, by being willing to accept that our perceptions were wrong and our understanding of someone else's points imperfect.

    I am well aware that magical intention does not excuse an action: "I didn't intend to drive into that person! I just had a couple of drinks!" is not a defense for anything. But in a setting like this one the intentions ascribed to other people when reading what they write can and will decisively colour our perception of what they meant. What I'm not seeing is "Hang on, that perception hinges on this person's intentions being purposely hurtful, surely that's not what they intended at all?"

    ...

    Furthermore I have to disagree with your statement that there haven't been trolls. There have. Less once we moved away from Game.Dev, but trolls do still register and post horrid images for shock value or try to spam the board for other reasons. You just don't see them. The most recent incident was late last year after SubjectZero was banned, I believe that may have leaked through the controls briefly, remember it?

    And people come here with very different intentions. Some people seem to want to be congratulated for having ideas. Some people want to help others. Some people want to find jobs. Some people want to make easy money. Some people want to find collaborators. Some people want to argue. Some people want to justify their choices. Some people want friends. Some people want networking. Some people want help. Some people want a space of their own. Some people want to learn. Some people want to teach... All of these intentions (and there are many more) can be both positive and negative: Intending to teach can be great, but it can also be bad if the hopeful teacher doesn't know what they're talking about; Intending to have people congratulate your game idea can be a good motivator for continued work on something, or it can lead to anger and resentment if they don't love something immediately.

    That's why your list of goals for MGSA above is potentially an issue: There's a big difference between finding A reason to stay and THE particular reason that someone expects to be paramount. The reasons people stay and the intentions that they approach a community/forum with are directly tied to each other and there's almost no way that MGSA as a designed system could fulfill all those different needs. That doesn't mean that different needs are wrong, but we do need to be open to the possibility that some needs might interact poorly. Intending to receive adulation for a game idea doesn't gel with the intention to give helpful (and often difficult) critical feedback. Intending to make easy money doesn't usually gel with the intention to help grow the local industry (I wish that were different). Intending to learn doesn't really gel with intending to talk shit and hang out (signal-to-noise suffers).

    I believe that a strong rule statement could help with a lot of these issues and differing expectations of MGSA, as I've said before, that depends on the IESA switch.
  • edited
    I said, "very rarely seen trolls by intent", not "there has never ever been any trolls ever".

    Your mention of a handful of outliers and instantly-recognisable and thus banhammered trolls do not at all counter what we're talking about here: the fact that the bulk and majority of issues we are having with dissatisfaction and leavers, are NOT trolls, but people with real actions and good intentions that are made to feel bad for the perception of their actions being bad.

    Thus, if intention was ever entertained as saving grace, none of these leavers should or would ever have been treated in the way that they were and felt that they had to leave.

    That was my point.

    And thus when @francoisvn mentions that you have had nothing but the best intentions, I said, I don't disagree, I know you do, but that doesn't really help, because a lot of people who have been hammered here also had the best intentions. But they had to go, and (put bluntly) you got to action what you thought were appropriate.

    So my input here is to check this "well-intended actions are fine" thing at the door because very few others had their well-intended actions judged by those good intentions.
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  • Tuism said:
    So my input here is to check this "well-intended actions are fine" thing at the door because very few others had their well-intended actions judged by those good intentions.
    So, just to check, it isn't possible to change what you understood someone as saying or meaning by coming to a better understanding of their intentions?

    And no, people's intentions are very often taken into account, which is why I pointed out all the intentions above and why and how they can clash. In an argument about the impact of game-industry-adjacent jobs and the advertising of those jobs, intentions are extremely important: If someone intends to hear justification for their own life choices, they're going to perceive what someone else says very differently if they're not aware that they're talking to someone that intends to try and maximise conversion to actual game industry jobs in the future. If the different intentions were understood better (through allowing that we might not know someone else's intentions instantly and that our perceptions can and will be wrong) then it's possible for those two people to reach common ground, perhaps by focusing on how they moved into game industry jobs from their previous game-industry-adjacent ones and what they had to do to achieve that.

    So, what ARE the intentions of those who are dissatisfied with MGSA as it currently stands? Those are clearly resulting in needs that aren't being met. @garethf has kindly clarified what he sees professional game developers wanting: "We're mostly here to enjoy a sense of community, talk shop with like-minded individuals, swap war stories and pass on our knowledge/mentor." Those are very different needs to what I, also a professional game developer, want from a forum so his intentions don't match mine. I don't think those are bad wants or needs, I just think that they are at odds with other intentions, navigating those conflicts takes care and attention and a certain willingness to understand that other needs may perhaps trump when they can have larger impacts.

    How can the relative impacts of things be measured? Well, there's history, there's attempting to test and collect facts, there's experience and there's learning. Interestingly I don't get much engagement when I propose a test to see if the forums can be "more accommodating to programmers". This stuff takes debate and it takes good faith, it certainly doesn't work if the focus is on polarising discussions and demonising people.
  • edited
    To me it feels like you're taking one point someone else has made and used the meaning of a word (in this case "intention") and then turned the conversation to talk about something else you want to without addressing the original thing being talked about.

    To humour you:
    So, just to check, it isn't possible to change what you understood someone as saying or meaning by coming to a better understanding of their intentions?
    You're asking this knowing full well the reasonable answer, and so I must fall in and agree with you or be ridiculed. Yes you can change what you understand of someone means by coming to a better understanding. And no, your question does not relate to the point that was made previously.

    The point I was making was in counterpoint to what @francoisvn said:
    I think most people here understand that @dislekcia is coming from a good place and has the community's interests in heart when making decisions.
    and
    it's clear that he's not coming from a place of maliciousness or self-interest, no matter how hard people try to insinuate that.
    Which attempts to shift the conversation from "let's do something about this behaviour (impersonalised) that is doing harm because many people (impersonalised) have reported the same harm." to "you (personalising) all are trying to demonise the person (personalising) who behaved in a certain way, therefore there is nothing to fix".

    So again, I reiterate once again, I haven't seen many outright trolls, and the leavers are not trolls. They have concerns, and I haven't seen anyone try to demonise @dislekcia by saying he is binary evil.

    What we are discussing here are behaviours and how behaviours affect the community, and if we don't check intentions at the door in THIS conversation, we (or admins who actioned against aggrieved parties, or @dislekcia, that caused the dissent and thus leaving) will have to unreservedly apologise to everyone who behaved in certain ways WITH GOOD INTENTIONS. Which is, again, the vast majority of the cases that we're talking about here, no matter how anyone tries to demonise or otherise their behaviour. Especially since you cannot read minds.

    Man, this is tiring.

    -------------------------------------

    "We're mostly here to enjoy a sense of community, talk shop with like-minded individuals, swap war stories and pass on our knowledge/mentor."

    These are REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY reasonable goals. And I find it quite sad and mechanical that this space can't cater for that AND whichever goals you have as a professional game developer, as insinuated by your saying:
    other needs may perhaps trump when they can have larger impacts.
    It's quite distressing to me to see that this space, as you've administratively wrangled, can't cater for both. And I'm ever more convinced that we need to split the main landing into more digestable chunks rather than the big brothy soup that everyone is more or less made to drink from (again, yes the options exist but they're not default, and design principles will recognise that the subtlety of having options for an advanced user does not mean that the average joe will use those options, and we need to cater to average joes more than the advanced user)
  • edited
    A quick point to note: It's not demonizing to identify problematic behavior and raise the issue of the person needing to correct it.

    If someone came on this forum and started making sandwich jokes at female members, it would not be demonizing them to identity their actions as problematic behavior that was driving away members, and ask them, specifically them, to alter it.
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  • garethf said:
    Yet the negative feedback is specifically and consistently in one direction. People aren't saying "that Gareth guy, what a dick. I won't stay here as long as he's around".

    I'd suggest really taking that to heart and doing a bit of soul searching here.
    garethf said:
    It's interesting that I'm now the focus of this criticism. It's like 4 or 5 people now who've called out @dislekcia's behavior directly and clearly as being a problem...and I'm the one who gets targeted for monstering.

    It's cool though. My skin is pretty thick, leathery even, you go ahead and make me the villain in your play, if you like.
    garethf said:
    A quick point to note: It's not demonizing to identify problematic behavior and raise the issue of the person needing to correct it.
    So is monstering or being a villain the same as being demonised?

  • Tuism said:
    To me it feels like you're taking one point someone else has made and used the meaning of a word (in this case "intention") and then turned the conversation to talk about something else you want to without addressing the original thing being talked about.
    What am I trying to talk about then, according to you?
    Tuism said:
    You're asking this knowing full well the reasonable answer, and so I must fall in and agree with you or be ridiculed. Yes you can change what you understand of someone means by coming to a better understanding. And no, your question does not relate to the point that was made previously.
    You seem to think my intention is to ridicule you, and you're treating me as such. When you say "to humor you" it doesn't come across as positive.
    Tuism said:
    Which attempts to shift the conversation from "let's do something about this behaviour (impersonalised) that is doing harm because many people (impersonalised) have reported the same harm." to "you (personalising) all are trying to demonise the person (personalising) who behaved in a certain way, therefore there is nothing to fix".
    This is not fair. This thread started out as impersonal and indeed @Nandrew and @EvanGreenwood tried to keep it that way and were fastidiously impersonal. It was only after @garethf downplayed the impersonal angle that things became personalised.

    If it were true that you want this to stay impersonal, why didn't anyone engage with the questions I asked following @EvanGreenwood's post about programmers feeling they couldn't post on MGSA? That was honest action to attempt to address those problems.
    Tuism said:
    So again, I reiterate once again, I haven't seen many outright trolls, and the leavers are not trolls. They have concerns, and I haven't seen anyone try to demonise @dislekcia by saying he is binary evil.
    Is "humoring me" and assuming that I'm trying to ridicule you demonising me or not? I don't feel like it's friendly or co-operative.
    Tuism said:
    What we are discussing here are behaviours and how behaviours affect the community, and if we don't check intentions at the door in THIS conversation, we (or admins who actioned against aggrieved parties, or @dislekcia, that caused the dissent and thus leaving) will have to unreservedly apologise to everyone who behaved in certain ways WITH GOOD INTENTIONS. Which is, again, the vast majority of the cases that we're talking about here, no matter how anyone tries to demonise or otherise their behaviour. Especially since you cannot read minds.
    What's wrong with apologising? It seems like apologising to people who feel aggrieved is a bit of a first step towards potentially fixing their unhappiness. Provided, of course, that they accept apologies. Many issues at the moment seem to be caused by things that are not allowed to be clarified, learned from or apologised for.
    Tuism said:
    "We're mostly here to enjoy a sense of community, talk shop with like-minded individuals, swap war stories and pass on our knowledge/mentor."

    These are REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY reasonable goals. And I find it quite sad and mechanical that this space can't cater for that AND whichever goals you have as a professional game developer, as insinuated by your saying:
    other needs may perhaps trump when they can have larger impacts.
    It's quite distressing to me to see that this space, as you've administratively wrangled, can't cater for both. And I'm ever more convinced that we need to split the main landing into more digestable chunks rather than the big brothy soup that everyone is more or less made to drink from (again, yes the options exist but they're not default, and design principles will recognise that the subtlety of having options for an advanced user does not mean that the average joe will use those options, and we need to cater to average joes more than the advanced user)
    1. I was pointing out how long term differences of needs can cause seemingly large amounts of anger and frustration. Like I said, "A" need is not "ALL" needs. We've seen time and time again how predominantly social spaces online have turned out even more hostile and exclusionary than MGSA currently seems, we've seen what happened with SAGD. As a professional game developer, I don't want a social space, I want a place that allows me to run things past my peers where I know they're not going to blow smoke up my ass just to be nice and friendly. For years that want has driven so much growth, that feels like it's being ignored now.

    2. I did not "administratively wrangle" anything - I didn't pick Vanilla as the forum software, I'm just working with what I was given. But sure, blame me for that too.
  • edited
    dislekcia said:
    Tuism said:
    To me it feels like you're taking one point someone else has made and used the meaning of a word (in this case "intention") and then turned the conversation to talk about something else you want to without addressing the original thing being talked about.
    What am I trying to talk about then, according to you?
    Seems to me you want to talk about how the failures here (resulting in dissatisfaction) is a result of intentions not being understood by everyone all the time, rather than a set of behaviours that result in dissatisfaction.

    If the issues are purely the former, then we can wish it all away by making sure everyone either knows what everyone else intends and thus love and accept the shit out of everyone else. Which is patently impossible due to the nature of humans in plurality not being programmable.

    If the issues are the latter then we can address it by changing behaviour in select individuals, in select parts of the system, instead of trying to change everyone ever.

    -------
    Tuism said:
    You're asking this knowing full well the reasonable answer, and so I must fall in and agree with you or be ridiculed. Yes you can change what you understand of someone means by coming to a better understanding. And no, your question does not relate to the point that was made previously.
    You seem to think my intention is to ridicule you, and you're treating me as such. When you say "to humor you" it doesn't come across as positive.
    I say humour because I don't find the point pertinent to this, seemed like a joke, and thus did not wish to address it. To indulge in another's humour.

    -------
    Tuism said:
    Which attempts to shift the conversation from "let's do something about this behaviour (impersonalised) that is doing harm because many people (impersonalised) have reported the same harm." to "you (personalising) all are trying to demonise the person (personalising) who behaved in a certain way, therefore there is nothing to fix".
    This is not fair. This thread started out as impersonal and indeed @Nandrew and @EvanGreenwood tried to keep it that way and were fastidiously impersonal. It was only after @garethf downplayed the impersonal angle that things became personalised.
    There are two points of personal/impersonal at work here. Let me try to outline them for you:
    1. Saying that @dislekcia's behaviours have resulted in dissatisfaction is not personal. It is focused on the behaviour, not the person. If the same was true of any single individual, it would have been equally called out. Has it? Let's call them out, should they really exist.
    2. @francoisvn saying that "you come from a place of good intention" attempts to say that you do and others don't. For if the belief was that everyone else (especially the dissatisfied, the leavers) also had good intentions, it would/should be mentioned in the same breath, or the point of "@dis has good intentions" would be moot.

    I'm really not sure what you mean by this is fair or unfair.

    -------
    If it were true that you want this to stay impersonal, why didn't anyone engage with the questions I asked following @EvanGreenwood's post about programmers feeling they couldn't post on MGSA? That was honest action to attempt to address those problems.
    Are you assuming that the right people saw the question? Or that people all could be arsed to read the entire thread all the time? The wall of texts are really, really heavy. And also when people are focused on one thing and you raise something else it is seen as a diversion when the first and original point isn't being addressed. No matter how awesomely valid your questions are, they're both not in the right place nor at the right time. They look like smokescreens or afterthoughts. Also maybe people are just tired of engaging with *you* specifically and tune you out. Unfortunately this might have resulted from your behaviour.

    Which goes back to what some people were trying to address, I believe, dancing around the big white elephant in the room.

    -------
    Tuism said:
    So again, I reiterate once again, I haven't seen many outright trolls, and the leavers are not trolls. They have concerns, and I haven't seen anyone try to demonise @dislekcia by saying he is binary evil.
    Is "humoring me" and assuming that I'm trying to ridicule you demonising me or not? I don't feel like it's friendly or co-operative.
    I feel like you're trying your utmost to frame me as a troll. I'm going to ignore this and move on. I feel like you have very little leg to stand on regarding friendly or co-operative tact when you seem to think it's perfectly legit and okay to address people by opening with "Jesus Christ".

    -------
    Tuism said:
    What we are discussing here are behaviours and how behaviours affect the community, and if we don't check intentions at the door in THIS conversation, we (or admins who actioned against aggrieved parties, or @dislekcia, that caused the dissent and thus leaving) will have to unreservedly apologise to everyone who behaved in certain ways WITH GOOD INTENTIONS. Which is, again, the vast majority of the cases that we're talking about here, no matter how anyone tries to demonise or otherise their behaviour. Especially since you cannot read minds.
    What's wrong with apologising? It seems like apologising to people who feel aggrieved is a bit of a first step towards potentially fixing their unhappiness. Provided, of course, that they accept apologies. Many issues at the moment seem to be caused by things that are not allowed to be clarified, learned from or apologised for.
    Nothing is wrong with apologising. I haven't met anyone who would reject a sincere apology, and sincerity is something probably different for everyone, akin to the five languages of love, in that everyone needs something different from others and express themselves differently from others. It's up to the giver to find out what the receiver needs and give them that. A blank "I'm sorry" without expressing an understanding of why the aggrieved was aggrieved isn't going to go down very well.

    I don't know why you think what I said brought you to the conclusion that I think there's something wrong with apologising, actually. And you just shifted the topic from something to apologise for to apparently I think it's wrong to apologise. I do not.

    -------
    Tuism said:
    "We're mostly here to enjoy a sense of community, talk shop with like-minded individuals, swap war stories and pass on our knowledge/mentor."

    These are REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY reasonable goals. And I find it quite sad and mechanical that this space can't cater for that AND whichever goals you have as a professional game developer, as insinuated by your saying:

    [quote]other needs may perhaps trump when they can have larger impacts.
    It's quite distressing to me to see that this space, as you've administratively wrangled, can't cater for both. And I'm ever more convinced that we need to split the main landing into more digestable chunks rather than the big brothy soup that everyone is more or less made to drink from (again, yes the options exist but they're not default, and design principles will recognise that the subtlety of having options for an advanced user does not mean that the average joe will use those options, and we need to cater to average joes more than the advanced user)
    1. I was pointing out how long term differences of needs can cause seemingly large amounts of anger and frustration. Like I said, "A" need is not "ALL" needs. We've seen time and time again how predominantly social spaces online have turned out even more hostile and exclusionary than MGSA currently seems, we've seen what happened with SAGD. As a professional game developer, I don't want a social space, I want a place that allows me to run things past my peers where I know they're not going to blow smoke up my ass just to be nice and friendly. For years that want has driven so much growth, that feels like it's being ignored now.

    2. I did not "administratively wrangle" anything - I didn't pick Vanilla as the forum software, I'm just working with what I was given. But sure, blame me for that too.
    1. Notice the way you're drawing your parallels: "As a professional game developer, I don't want a social space" - You are A, and you don't want X. Therefore all As don't want Xs. Whether you mean it or not, you're expressing as such, and this really sheds a lot of light on what I feel is the problem we are dealing with here.

    > Do all professional game developers not want a social space?
    > Is it okay for MGSA to be both a social space other devs may want AND the critique space you want?
    > If such a goal can be reached by changing the structure a bit, is that okay?
    > Who makes these calls? Is it collective, or individual?

    2. By administratively wrangle I was referring to the moderation. Just as you insta-closed @AngryMoose's thread that was entirely goodwill. Just as you shut down I don't know how many people's thread for not conforming exactly to your ideal of "social-less critique space", etc etc. The tool was never what I was talking about. But sure, blame the tool.
    Thanked by 1quintond
  • Tuism said:
    it's clear that he's not coming from a place of maliciousness or self-interest, no matter how hard people try to insinuate that.
    Which attempts to shift the conversation from "let's do something about this behaviour (impersonalised) that is doing harm because many people (impersonalised) have reported the same harm." to "you (personalising) all are trying to demonise the person (personalising) who behaved in a certain way, therefore there is nothing to fix".
    That wasn't my goal. I don't want to shift the conversation in that way. I don't actually want to shift the conversation at all, I wanted to get it back on track (in my view) as quickly as possible. My goal is to point out that I think @dislekcia is being personally attacked by some of the comments in this thread, and those are not cool. I think that if someone else (or a committee) was admin, some of these comments would have been shut down, but @dislekcia has a bit of a moral dilemma and therefore tends to let things directed at him stand. Good for him. Not very useful for this discussion.

    I only point out @dislekcia's intention as a signpost to those I think are throwing some personal attacks at him so they can maybe empathise with him a bit, not to say intentions are somehow more important than actions. I am also not implying that others' intention are somehow worse, I am not making any comment on anyone else's intentions

    I don't think people are making out that @dislekcia is "binary evil" or anything as nefarious as that. I do think he has been unnecessarily attacked in this thread by more than one person. I understand that this might not be evident and I'm happy to collect some quotes that indicate this. I would prefer to not post them here, because I don't want to single people out, and then those people will feel the need to defend themselves, and things will likely derail further, and my goal is not to have an argument about attacks against @dislekcia.
  • Wow @Tuism, you're really having a go at me.
    Tuism said:
    1. Notice the way you're drawing your parallels: "As a professional game developer, I don't want a social space" - You are A, and you don't want X. Therefore all As don't want Xs. Whether you mean it or not, you're expressing as such, and this really sheds a lot of light on what I feel is the problem we are dealing with here.
    No. You're very much mistaken. That formulation of "Professional game developers want X" came directly from @garethf, I was merely pointing out how that makes the exact claim you're accusing me of: Speaking for all professional game developers. I'm a professional game developer, I don't want X, thus not all professional game developers want X. Nor, even though I want Y, do all professional game developers want Y. I'm not even claiming that anyone needs X or Y to be a professional game developer...

    That was my point. I feel like accusing me of that sort of thing and then saying that such an accusation "sheds a lot of light" really does shed a lot of light on how you're working to make me the bad guy.
  • edited
    No, not "the bad guy", but the member who has empirically been named by the most people as the driving force behind their leaving. If what I'm reading from your words aren't your words and I've mistaken them as motivation for your actions when in fact they are not motivations, then sorry. It's really difficult to see whether your own words that you use are your own when you don't label them as someone else's, and then later say that they are. Please don't make things difficult for people who are trying to read and understand. Thank you.

    That was me trying to find motivation behind the behaviour that drove people out, so we can talk about that behaviour.

    Or we can alternatively say that there is nothing wrong with the behaviour that drove people out, but rather the people who left who are the problem.

    I'm not "trying to make you the bad guy". I'm trying to get to an understanding and disarming of the behaviour that has already labelled you as the one with the behaviour that drove people out. I didn't make that claim, many other have. I didn't make them make that claim, they made it independently of me. Don't shoot the critique. Look at the feedback.
    Thanked by 1quintond
  • Ugh. I'm just going to come out and say it, and so be it.

    @dislekcia, yay! you are the god of SA game dev and the king of the interwebz. You are obviously relishing your role here, while everyone else (mostly) are actually trying to find a proper way to make this community work. Stop dismissing what is being said as you being "demonised" when everyone so far have actually been insanely gentle towards you and your attitude. Just get over yourself ffs. Jeepers man.

    Ban away.
  • edited
    Um... I'm the one that brought up stuff around "demonising" and didn't say anything should be dismissed, just that personal attacks are not necessary.

    So... does that make me the god of SA game dev? Where do I get my trophy? /sarcasm

    If you think your comment is worthy of a ban, then why make it? Surely it is not in fact "trying to find a proper way to make this community work" as you say. Not making any comment about what is bannable, but you know you can just stop posting here if you want to be banned?
  • edited
    Clearly @farsicon made the comment he did out of frustration. No, I don't think his contribution adds to the actual practical outcome, but it speaks to me that there is still frustration here.

    Clearly there's a lot of that going around.

    So like @garethf said, we can try and listen to it, or we can make use of sarcasm and downplay that frustration.

    I'll repeat this again, since it hasn't been refuted yet, I'm going to keep using it as truth. Feel free to debunk it if it's in fact not true:

    There are people who feel dissatisfied and thus driven to not interact on these forums. The leading reason of that being cited is @dislekcia's behaviour.

    Again, if untrue, please debunk, and I'll unreservedly apologise. So far I've said this a few times and NOONE has spoken out against it yet. Here is yet one more chance for anyone to speak out against it.

    Based on this point of feedback, we have these options:
    1. If people's dissatisfaction and leaving is undesirable, we should examine the behaviour and adjust it.
    2. If people's dissatisfaction and leaving is fine, then nothing should be done, we're all good, we should carry on.
    3. If people's dissatisfaction and leaving is undesirable, and @dislekcia's behaviour is not actually @dislekcia's own volition, but the product of a system, then we should examine that system and fix that to fix the behaviour.

    Again, if there are other better options, feel free to input. Or to throw everything out if you have something better.

    I keep having to repeat my same points over and over, and I keep getting no opposition on my main points, over and over. But a lot of small semantic stabby attempts at making me out to be attacking people personally.

    I'm not attacking people personally. I'm following the evidence and the feedback and attempting to address concerns. If my behaviour is undesirable feel free to examine it and explain why it is undesirable too.
    Thanked by 1quintond
  • I'm sorry for being harsh and I am certainly not for personal attacks, but at some point we have to start being honest. It really gets on my nerve when people's voices are being drowned by strawmen responses while the actual points are ever so gently being ignored. I get that there are friendships here, but come on guys, let's look beyond the blind spots for a change.
  • I don't get why we don't rather have a skype/teamspeak meeting where we can better express ourselves and have a full blown conversation instead of trying to explain to each other over a forum post on how we feel about things when we cannot even understand each other's emotions or what they are trying to say 100%.
  • @Tuism: I was downplaying the personal attack aimed at @dislekcia by @farsicon using a single sentence of clearly-indicated sarcasm (i.e. not my 1st paragraph of that comment). That doesn't downplay the fact that he's frustrated, but I can definitely see how it might seem like that might be something I want. At the same time, I don't think that saying "he clearly did that out of frustration" is an excuse for such behaviour. Otherwise I think it would be easy for anyone on these forums to just wave away things as done in frustration (this ties back into actions vs intentions).
    Tuism said:
    There are people who feel dissatisfied and thus driven to not interact on these forums. The leading reason of that being cited is @dislekcia's behaviour.
    I believe that the leading reason that has been made publicly available on the forums is that. Whether or not that matches up with reasons given in private or not is not clear. I'm not just trying to dismiss your point, I have first hand information where individuals have complained about other users directly to me, but I'm not able to share that. So as said, I believe the people that have publicly complained about @dislekcia in recent times are in the majority by my count.

    However, I do also think that anyone (individual or group) that manages a community like this (fairly large and diverse) will have some sort of "clash" with some of the members. The fact that these clashes often happen in a public scenario here is kinda of an unavoidable part of the situation of a public forum. This is most closely aligned to your point 3, but I would consider rephrasing it somewhat. I think that the discussion on conflict resolution is perhaps trying to fix the system as you indicate (I honestly still need to catch up on the details there, @Nandrew has graciously provided us with some good reading material and I haven't had the chance yet). I don't think the conflict resolution would address the underlying cause of disagreements, but that it's intended to ensure they are resolved in a more pleasant manner.

    In light of this view, I think my call for a consensus of what the community goal is might be tangential to the topic of conflict resolution and might have had a hand in derailing that train of thought a bit (sorry if that was the case!), although I do still think there's value in having consensus on the goal, as there does indeed seem to be a fair bit of differing opinions on that.
    Tuism said:
    I keep having to repeat my same points over and over, and I keep getting no opposition on my main points, over and over.
    I think a lot of people are making points and not all of them are always addressed. I don't think this is an effort to ignore your points (or anyone else's), the nature of a forum is just that some things sometimes go by the way side in long discussions like this. I also don't think the fact that you haven't addressed all the preceding points in this thread is an effort by you to dismiss them. If everyone responded to every little point (not that this is necessarily little) then the topic would have exponential explosion and I don't think that's very practical, I mean, we'd run out of bandwidth or something (joke ;) ). If you feel strongly about something just keep restating it by itself (when it's part of a much larger post I personally find things get missed more easily) and people will eventually have to blatantly ignore you, which I don't think is what anyone is trying to do here.
  • Zaphire said:
    I don't get why we don't rather have a skype/teamspeak meeting where we can better express ourselves and have a full blown conversation instead of trying to explain to each other over a forum post on how we feel about things when we cannot even understand each other's emotions or what they are trying to say 100%.
    One could argue that this thread is the ideal proving ground for a conflict resolution approach ;) ;)

    I definitely get what you're saying here, but unfortunately I'm not sure if it would work practically. We would need to find a time that works for about 20 people in the not-too-distant future, we would have to ensure that everyone can get a word in (the forums are better at that IMHO) and there's something to be said about such a meeting excluding more people and ending up in the situation where a "decision" is reached but it has no actual weight behind it.

    That said, I honestly think it would be terrific if it does work, so I would try and pitch up for such a Skype meeting if it was organised and I have no issue with anyone taking the initiative, but I suspect we would need a whole bunch of them and I'm skeptical about the solving things quite so elegantly.
  • It's been sad to watch this thread devolve. I do believe in Nandrew's conflict resolution strategies, but given the mass of accumulated trauma on display here I think that's perhaps that's a stretch goal for now.

    As a pragmatist - here is the creator of Stack Overflow about how Meta conversations kill communities:
    http://blog.codinghorror.com/meta-is-murder/

    I like it because it's actionable: keep these posts separate (different forum maybe - easily set up at a subdomain). Have a place to hash out things like "is this sexist", "should this job post be allowed" and "why does this suck so much" away from the main community. Solves the problem of people being driven away because the only engaged with posts are flame wars.
    But for the people who are regulars, the people who develop a certain amount of passionate attachment to the sites, or really, really need to make their voice heard out of day one beyond just normal participation, you have this safe place you can let people ... let their freak flag fly, as it were, without damaging the core function of the site. You don't have big messes on the front page.
    image
  • edited
    I hope it's okay to not respond to the posts since @Tuism's first post. I thought we were making progress (like @francoisvn pointed out), but it feels like since that post we fell into the kind of old patterns of argument that were (at least part of) the cause of so much of the hurt.

    [Edit, I missed @TheFuntastic's post, I started building this post before he posted]

    I'm glad that old thread that caused so much animosity came up. I have a lot to be embarrassed about in that thread. For precisely the reason @garethf mentions, that telling people who have actually worked on gambling applications what the work entails, and for that matter what game development is, when I don't have the experience to make these claims, can only be arrogant. I've said sorry to a few people in private, but not everyone.

    I got some more feedback from outside the forums. Again I'm going to try paraphrase it as accurately as I can.

    The point was made that too much of the feedback on the forums is discouraging. I think this is something that @Nandrew's presentation about feedback techniques addresses at least somewhat. The specific situation cited was when someone joins the forums and wants to work on game technology, and their goals are quite forcefully rejected (and not really listened to). This I expect also bleeds into other complaints of a game design point of view bias on the forums (as in this case, making lots of prototypes in middleware teaches you a lot of game design, and might be the right approach in a lot of cases, but if the newcomer actually just wants to build tech its not going to satisfy them, and no matter how forcefully the prototyping first approach is argued this is still going to be true and is only going to be more discouraging).

    The point was made that sometimes issues of social justice overshadow other considerations. That giving good game development feedback and advice is ignored when the opportunity to discuss social issues presents itself. And the point was also made that this makes these forums less inclusive.

    The point was made that while these forums need moderation, that the moderators need to be people that don't escalate situations further in their non-moderator interactions.

    The point was made that a lot of the interations are negative and argumentative and there isn't enough constructive dialogue (much like what @Nandrew is trying to address in this thread).

    Just regarding the feedback. I don't think we need to discuss this in this thread, but I personally think a major part of the purpose of social justice is to make places like these forums more inclusive (not less). The feedback (that I related here) was more focused on the manner in which the critique was delivered, rather than the content of the critique.

    To respond to @Tuism's initial post [Edit, and now somewhat to @TheFuntastic].

    @Tuism suggested making some changes to the way categories are presented. This is something he's suggested more times than I care to count, and I think there's consensus that we want to see these changes, particularly a landing page to the forums? (please correct me if I'm wrong).

    The problem is no-one has the time to do this. And so it's waiting on money from IESA.

    Free Lives could just pay for this. (We could also do some kind of fund raising if it needs to go through community channels).

    The main thing I'm concerned about is the landing page of Make Games having these sorts of threads on it front and centre. This isn't a great way to present ourselves, I'd much rather newcomers have the choice to check out "Projects" or "Programming" and not see "General Discussions", instead of newcomers having the "General Discussions" thread weaved into the front page and being disproportionately interacted with (which is the current situation). [Edit, and of course I agree with what @TheFuntastic pointed out, which also supports @Tuism's points I think]

    I'm definitely not suggesting that the structure of these forums are the core issue here. But the structure of the forums is a thing that can be solved with money and that's far far easier than changing the minds and hearts of people.

    Let's do this?

    (Also I don't think we need to discuss the details changes we want to this forum here, we can do that in a separate thread if we agree that some changes should be made.)
  • I'm sorry for my part in the recent arguments due to their impact in effectively derailing the conversation.


    I think those website changes would be great. IIRC there were some great mockups of how things could look in the website thread. I think they will help keep meta discussions like this more isolated, which I think is good all around.

    @EvanGreenwood: just dropped you a PM about a possible practical way to get the website changes made.

    However, like @EvanGreenwood said, those changes won't solve all the problems.

    Specifically, to point out the issue that I think is perhaps the most difficult one to solve: how should situations that bring social justice issues into conflict with something like feedback on games be dealt with? Should the social issue be "ignored" to give feedback on a game? Should we refuse to give feedback until the issue is resolved? How are (likely) disagreements about what constitutes an issue handled? Where should these disagreements/arguments take place? What moderation approach (if any) should be taken against people that give feedback or raise issues when the highest priority thing (the issue or feedback) is outstanding? Maybe it makes sense to leave this point till a bit later, but maybe it also makes sense to tackle the tough problem first? Seems kind of inevitable that it needs to be addressed at some point. Maybe having a consensus on what the goal(s) are is necessarily for this? Probably not completely. Maybe a better conflict resolution process will handle it?

    I'm not giving answers here cause I honestly don't have them. My opinion is that putting social issues above game feedback is the "right" thing to do and will ultimately result in a more numerous and inclusive (type 2) safe space, but that doesn't answer how things are dealt with, just my perspective on the priority of relevant goals.
  • Out of interest, I was digging a little into Vanilla forums and what they can do, and it looks like it's possible to have the default landing page be something along the lines of "Recent discussions", and then to have certain categories be excluded from this list. So the recent discussions could be made to only show Projects, or to never show Non-game jobs, as examples. Which sounds like a cool thing that can be done pretty much immediately.
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • @Elyaradine: it can?! I was looking into basically just that without much success earlier today/yesterday. Can you drop a link somewhere pls? I have a little local instance setup that I was testing on, so I'd be keen to try it on that
  • In the Edit Category menu, there's a checkbox I see that says "Hide from recent discussions".

    (I don't know how the MGSA forum is set up -- whether it's currently making use of the "recent discussions" that Vanilla sets up by default -- but I don't see why we wouldn't want it to be set up this way anyway.)

    image
    Thanked by 2Tuism mattbenic
  • @Tuism: I was downplaying the personal attack aimed at @dislekcia by @farsicon using a single sentence of clearly-indicated sarcasm (i.e. not my 1st paragraph of that comment). That doesn't downplay the fact that he's frustrated, but I can definitely see how it might seem like that might be something I want. At the same time, I don't think that saying "he clearly did that out of frustration" is an excuse for such behaviour. Otherwise I think it would be easy for anyone on these forums to just wave away things as done in frustration (this ties back into actions vs intentions).
    If I were handwaving what he said as being okay I wouldn't have said:
    Tuism said:
    No, I don't think his contribution adds to the actual practical outcome
    If that was misunderstood as taking the stance that I thought it was okay, then apologies, I'll give things the fullest condemnation in future (it's like ANC-speak).

    --------------------

    As for the conflict resolution things, I think the goal is noble, and ultimately it's one that admin and core group has to adopt first of all, which goes back to point 3 - fixing the system that produces that outcome. Yes, everyone who participates should be good people who excel at conflict resolution, but the practicalities of that would go something like this:

    Admin: Conflict! Let's resolve this amicably!
    Offender (most likely new to the forum): You don't own me!
    Admin: Here are some great reading material on conflict resolution.
    Offender: Are you shitting me here right now.
    Admin: Here's the Official Conflict Resolution Pipeline (TM), it'll help us move forward.
    Offender: ...

    So yeah, let's get conflict resolution down, but let's be aware that it'll be more an internal change (internal to us, for example establishing a separate forum for meta discussions as is being discussed, or speaking to offenders in a manner that's more conducive to engagement than a shutdown) than an externally enforceable change.

    ---------------------

    And thank you to @TheFuntastic and @EvanGreenwood and @Elyaradine and @francoisvn and everyone who's supporting the actionable actions while softer things are still being (and should be) talked about.

    @Elyaradine, so "Recent Discussions" is a very specific thing that's not actually a category? How would one get back to this recent discussions easily, can we have a button and treat it as its own category and/or homepage? Just want to make the experience of it be as omni-present as possible, so that users (especially new) don't wonder out of it accidentally. For example it would probably be best, should we implement this, to remove the category "All categories" from the right-side list, and link the home button to this recent discussions with exclusions thing.
    Thanked by 1quintond
  • edited
    This thread started out as impersonal and indeed @Nandrew and @EvanGreenwood tried to keep it that way and were fastidiously impersonal. It was only after @garethf downplayed the impersonal angle that things became personalised.
    Sure, I was the one who made this personal. I'm so good at making things personal, in fact, that I traveled back in time and called you out directly by name even before I'd posted for the first time in this thread!

    Fire up the Delorean, Marty, we're going back to 1968!

    This is what I'm talking about, guys, this clique thing. Somehow, despite multiple people identifying @dislekcia's behavior as a direct cause for people leaving, I'm the one responsible for making this "personalised". I'm the one who his mate comes out to challenge angrily.

    The reality here is, I didn't make it personal. I intentionally avoided comments directed at individuals as long as I could. What I did do was point out that the problem of a specific individual's alienating behavior won't be solved by floating off into generalities and jargon.

    You're all welcome to disagree, but I made my case for that stance and I stand by it.

    That was after the individual had been identified by others. That was not me, and it's extremely frustrating having to argue with people who try and rewrite history to suite themselves. It's really, really hard not to lose my temper at this point.

    But, on a lighter note, take note of just how accurate my previous prediction was! Note the last line in particular.
    @garethf said:
    I don't have the necessary community influence needed to stage the intervention, I can only report on the problem as I see it. If I can't rally people who have said influence to see and act on the problem directly, I'll be written off as just another angry bastard making unnecessary waves in your harmonious pond.
    It's up to folks inside the clique to push this. Because the process of painting me as a snarling, unreasonable Orc is well underway.

    Oh, and speaking of prescience, I'm 2 for 2.
    @garethf said:
    "How it goes on MGSA:

    Person A : I've found that gambling game development and video game development are very similar.
    Person B : You're wrong. So wrongity-wrong-wrong. Let's argue for 3 pages.
    Person A : Merciful Death, take me now!"
    Do you long for the sweet release of death yet, @Tuism?
    @Tuism said:
    Man, this is tiring.
    Thanked by 1quintond
  • Person A : Merciful Death, take me now!"
    Pretty much this.

    Also, I believe the quote that mentions danny indirectly first, was my own post in another thread that @EvanGreenwood used in the first post in this thread. So, @garethf was certainly not first (sorry to steal your thunder there).

    Another thing. to respond to @franciosvn - removing someone who has been identified as super problematic *is* actually a good solution. I'm not sure why you would think this is laughable?

    Danny has been identified as problematic by a *lot* of people. Not just a few or a couple or a handful. A *lot*.

    And do you notice that for all the talk of safe spaces, I believe (and stand to be corrected) that I'm the only woman posting in this thread, that even the most active women in our community hardly ever engage on these forums and that Amber Key Collabratorium was (a) created and (b) never links back to this forum.

    Still waiting on a response to my questions about the resignations from the committee and I'd like to add a new question about what our constitution says if the organisation doesn't have a committee or an AGM for a certain period of time.
    Thanked by 3garethf Tuism quintond
  • Tuism said:
    As for the conflict resolution things, I think the goal is noble, and ultimately it's one that admin and core group has to adopt first of all, which goes back to point 3 - fixing the system that produces that outcome. Yes, everyone who participates should be good people who excel at conflict resolution, but the practicalities of that would go something like this:

    Admin: Conflict! Let's resolve this amicably!
    Offender (most likely new to the forum): You don't own me!
    Admin: Here are some great reading material on conflict resolution.
    Offender: Are you shitting me here right now.
    Admin: Here's the Official Conflict Resolution Pipeline (TM), it'll help us move forward.
    Offender: ...
    That's an important concern about the "soft" nature of conflict resolution! What you've added even more significantly, is that if we use it as a tool to control people it will defeat its own purpose. Let's not have that.

    I'm also sorry that there's been a lack of the hard design revisions you proposed. I've seen your concerns on that going unaddressed for a while now and I'm glad this thread is moving towards solutions there.

    If you're interested in more information concerning more practical conflict-res measures, including ones which strike at your secondary goals/identified problems, I'll be elaborating bits and pieces as I go along. Starting with what has now becoming an oft-cited thread: the gambling discussion.

    And sorry for talking past some here, and going at length, but in making this reply when I did, I haven't possibly been able to pay attention to that AND the latest momentum in this thread. ;)

    --------

    So: I don't want to claim that I could "fix" that discussion by any means, because any attempt to put a solution out there would alienate at least someone who was presenting an earnest and well-thought-out argument in that thread. In fact, it was quite interesting to look at the amount of validity, sincerity and care that was present, while simultaneously realising that we had a definite downward spiral going on.

    Some of the most beautiful, engaged and moving posts were also among the least "effective" in that discussion, because we weren't echoing the strengths of each other's arguments and reaching a marriage of minds. This is understandable: a common concern that we have is that being supportive/empathetic of a detractor's goals, needs and stronger points encourages them to entrench themselves in aspects of their argument with which we disagree.

    But we can take the challenging and unintuitive step of first looking at how we agree with them, and paraphrasing them, for various important reasons:

    1. We immediately build credibility and rapport with our detractors. We're proving that we can read and understand their point -- and if we do misunderstand, they still know that we're being co-operative and active listeners, and it's a simple matter of rephrasing until we get it.
    2. We are showing strength. When we beeline for an argument's weakest points, or dismiss a detractor's arguments in favour of overriding with our own, that's the manifestation of fear, insecurity and weakness. True confidence in our own view allows us to agree with and even support a rival without feeling threatened. Strength.
    3. We actually give our detractors psychic relief and lower their resistance when we demonstrate listening skills, because a bizarre underlying motive for people in any argument is, surprisingly, not to win the argument, but to make sure they're being heard and respected.
    4. We start to build a genuinely better understanding of the situation, because in paraphrasing someone's point of view, you genuinely do start to understand it better. If they're only seeing their side of the story while you're seeing both sides, you have the knowledge advantage

    But to be fair, we have to closely look at why we don't usually do this. Conventional wisdom dictates that if we give any ground to someone entrenched in an opposing ideology, they'll abuse our good faith and become more irretrievable for it. And this sort of evasive behaviour can definitely manifest and become challenging to overcome, especially in group conversations. But we can also understand that people become just as unreachable when aggression is used, if not moreso. Empathy-based approaches won't always work, but they're not inherently less effective than our more natural language.

    There's a good video illustrating this concept with a martial arts analogy. You can watch for two minutes from about 8:38 here:

    Conversation works much the same way as the physical encounter outlined: we can resist an opponent's energy, divert it, or use it. The latter options are generally *way* more effective.

    -------

    But enough about the gambling thread, we have great anecdotes right here! This thread has strengthened and weakened over the course of its existence, due to the very same hits and misses being exercised. Let's look at mine, and especially the conversation with @garethf and to an extent, others.

    My arguments here have easily been at their weakest when talking past people (approaching A by discussing B), and only strengthening when I began to make my point in terms of the values and concerns raised by my critics. Even this was an iterative process: one or two posts were actively rejected as still "missing the point", but that's actually okay. If we go back and read the language and attitude shifts in people, we can already see that I was beginning to be addressed with more respect and compassion, for the simple reason that I'd demonstrated active listening. And where others might perceive hostility, I could see someone who was working very hard to co-operate with me: by restating their points and sticking with me in the conversation until I understood.

    Stubborn people are great. They're patient and have no end of energy to re-explain their points until they know you understand them. ;)

    By the end of the process, I can write a full-blown post advocating the core points and values that I was starting with anyway, and instead of meeting resistance, I get a little "thanky heart" at the end of the post.

    I did not manipulate anyone, or control them, or silence them. I pulled in close, and worked around the problem.

    I did not undermine the values of my opponent. I reinforced them and became one with them as much as I was able.

    I did not undermine my own values. I went silent briefly, but came back strong when I needed to. And looking back, every single one of my posts is hammering on about the same thing -- but some posts were definitely more effective and connective than others.

    I would not consider the conversation resolved, but I DO consider it to be in a much better space than previously. It is likely that my future comments will be received warmly, openly and in better nature, through no greater force than voluntary compliance and the faith that I'll listen. Literally none of what I said above forced my opponent to change anything about their approach, and yet here we are on better terms, with my conflict res actually becoming a debated point in the parts of the conversation where it's most appropriate. ;)

    There are a few things which made this easymode for me, admittedly:

    1. @garethf quite clearly and literally stated the problem he was having with my comments. It painted a bright red target on the values and concerns I needed to engage with. You don't get that opportunity every day.
    2. I'm already armed with some of the feelings he has, though we disagree on particulars. So I'm not dealing with a troll
    3. @EvanGreenwood buffed the conversation by stepping in as a paraphraser for me and reinforcing the techniques I use myself to work on a better understanding.

    Point 3, especially, is why I think a forumwide conflict-res culture is necessary. I've seen this thread veer towards and away from the brink several times. There's a lot of toxicity here, but things are also being kept together by a critical mass of management knowledge among various participants (both conscious and unconscious conflict managers, I'd wager).

    If it was up to me to keep the peace, things probably would have gone to shit and locksville long before I had a chance to post this. If we can get, like, 80% of participants working on a healthy resolution, we could vaccinate this entire discussion and snuff out toxicity because like I said above, when there's two people arguing, only one of them actually has to work hard to ensure that the conversation gets better. There's none of that slap-you-in-the-face conflict pamphleting that @Tuism is worrying about, because we don't need everyone to know, but rather just most people.

    ... actually, hell, there's another example of what I advocate. @Tuism's arguments against conflict resolution clearly show no knowledge of what conflict resolution is actually about (sorry man, gotta pull that band-aid off quickly). But instead of wasting time talking about strawmanning, or why I'm actually still right, or how I've already written counter-arguments to the points he raises, or something equally insecure and ego-driven, I home in on what I've managed to read about his concerns: he believes that conflict resolution is a "soft" measure, a weak and impractical solution, one which couldn't possibly be taught to every single forum member (especially newbies) and one which will, inevitably, just collapse to a new form of control. This is further reinforced by him stating that he cares about practical measures such as new user landings.

    So I echo these concerns, put myself in his shoes, and validate what's going on in his mind because this is troubling him and that makes it an important component of the discussion we have. I haven't backed down from my point, I've sought to understand his. And if the previous paragraph didn't completely alienate him ( ;P ), I'll be able to build further on this good faith and have a better and more co-operative conversation going forward.


    I wrote too much, soz. But hopefully this is useful to some people.
  • @Elyaradine: cool thanks, I'll check it out in more detail on my local setup, but i think what you found might be almost perfect for our needs, perhaps with a little massaging

    @dammit: I think it's laughable that removing @dislekcia will somehow solve all the issues. For example, I think a lot of the "issues" are somewhat inherent to the format of the medium and any new person would face similar issues. Sorry if that wasn't completely clear.

    That said, I personally think that the future of MGSA needs to include @dislekcia to a large degree to ensure it has the experience and support to continue and prosper, but I can also understand that not everyone feels this way and I wasn't trying to make that point in my original comment.
    The committee wasn't whittled down to 1 due to @dislekcia.
    I personally felt like that quote addressed your question about resignations, but I'm not able to give any sort of further answer. I also don't know the constitution in enough detail to give any perspective on what the implications of not holding an AGM timeously is. I believe it does technically have a committee, but it's just 2 people.

  • If I may, I would like to contribute my own analysis of the situation, purely to make sure that I'm understanding everyone correctly. It may well be flawed (due to not having all the facts), but it's an honest attempt to try and understand both parties.

    The core:
    MGSA wants to be a space where professional game designers come to get feedback from peers in order to make their products and businesses successful and financially viable. However, many who come to MGSA believe that their topics of discussions are being moderated and their voices silenced. The topics are not aligned with MGSA's core goals, but are no less important to discuss.

    To me, the problem is that people are seeing a divide, and are desperately trying to close the gap, rather than embracing it as a natural consequence of an industry maturing. And this dividing is nothing new, it has happened in countless other professional industries. As an x-engineer I belonged to ECSA (Engineering Council of South Africa). A farmer building a shed would not walk into a meeting of structural engineers saying "This is what everyone should do", not because his opinion doesn't matter, but because he most likely will not be taking legislation, best practices, financial viability and public safety into consideration to the same extent that we would.

    So if I am correct in saying that MGSA is a platform for professional game designers who want to discuss how to make their products and businesses financially viable enterprises, then yes, MGSA will definitely not be for everyone. It will be for the few that have these goals as their primary concerns. Not because they are better than everyone else, but because they need to consider salaries, PR, marketing, international tax and copyright laws, building communities around their brand and games, launch windows, monetisation models, and they want to discuss it with people who can help them realise their goals.

    But this is an absolutely brutal environment for anyone who is just doing game design part time as a hobby. They don't want their creative work to be analysed through this lens, they are making games for the pure enjoyment of creating something. But if not MGSA, where should they go?

    I believe the South African Game Developers forum is the perfect space for these individuals. It was born out of the desperate need for creators to showcase their work in an environment that didn't subject them to the same rigorous analysis that MGSA does. I truly believe that this community will have a very important roll to play in elevating game development in South Africa. It will be the safe space that will see young designers mature from Unity tutorials to writing their own game engines, and I fully intend to support this community. I have signed up and will be providing my expertise on the forum, but in a kind and nurturing manner, in order to help encourage young designers to grow. The SAGD community has too much value to see it fail.

    But I honestly believe both these entities need to exist.
    MGSA with it's focus on business and product viability.
    SAGD with it's focus on nurturing young talent, until such a time as they are ready to step into the professional arena.

    Because, these are two very different arenas, with very different goals.

    By extension I also expect to see the following organisation in the near future:
    ADSA - Audio Designers of South Africa
    GEDSA - Game Engine Developers of South Africa
    ISTSA - Interactive Story Tellers of South Africa
    DASA - Digital Artists of South Africa

    Each one tailored to look after the interests of the professionals that they represent.
  • I personally don't have a big issue with @dislekcia but I can definitely see why a lot of people do have a problem with him. I have had some good chats with him in the past few days but I have never heard his voice or seen him to see how he approaches things other than reading his messages.

    @francoisvn I think that you have probably met dislekcia in person quite a lot and know him very well because it seems as if you defend him regardless of what others have to say because you know the intentions better than anyone else here.

    I would not vote to remove or keep dislekcia but I do feel that there is need for another active admin that should be in charge of more sensitive matters where dislekcia takes care of more serious issues because I think the biggest issue with dislekcia is that his approaches are very forward and crude and that most of the times people would not understand his way of expressing it.
    any new person would face similar issues
    I don't think its true as people don't all express themselves in the same manner and govern in the same way. Some people would be worse admins than dislekcia and some could even be better.

    I do think that having more than one admin will also make it feel less like personal attacks because now its only one admin that is constantly policing the forums so it seems like he is the evil guy where if there was more than one active admin it could seem more like a good cop bad cop situation.
  • Tuism said:
    @Elyaradine, so "Recent Discussions" is a very specific thing that's not actually a category? How would one get back to this recent discussions easily, can we have a button and treat it as its own category and/or homepage? Just want to make the experience of it be as omni-present as possible, so that users (especially new) don't wonder out of it accidentally. For example it would probably be best, should we implement this, to remove the category "All categories" from the right-side list, and link the home button to this recent discussions with exclusions thing.
    "All categories" can be removed pretty easily, either in the php or as a css hack. Sub-categories are possible too, potentially requiring more clicks/effort for someone to find stuff that we don't really want to be associated with (e.g. heated topics, non-game jobs). "Recent discussions" would be the thing you see when you visit the forum by default (i.e. before having selected any specific categories). We'd just need to remember to propagate our changes through to the mobile versions of the site too, if necessary.
  • @Nandrew if I can get a summarised form of what conflict resolution is actually about that'd be cool, I can't imagine it being anything other than the stuff I've, uh, imagined, which you outlined quite correctly :P

    If it's the stuff that you've outlined in your entire thread, then that's the soft skills that I was talking about, that everyone has to learn, and would be hard to teach newcomers or indeed even most old hands?

    -------------------
    @dammit: I think it's laughable that removing @dislekcia will somehow solve all the issues.
    I don't understand why you think @dammit said "all" the issues, and that removing "all" the issues were somehow the only desirable outcome. This emphasis on "all" confounds me?

    If removing a set of behaviour can solve *some* of the problems, then perhaps it's worth considering? And again I'm not attributing danny personally. I'm not saying ostracise him. I'm saying let's examine his behaviours and not his person. He's a lovely person.

    -------------------
    That said, I personally think that the future of MGSA needs to include @dislekcia to a large degree to ensure it has the experience and support to continue and prosper, but I can also understand that not everyone feels this way and I wasn't trying to make that point in my original comment.
    Was there any suggestions to remove him from the future of MGSA? I don't see that either. I think he's great as a part of MGSA. The problems being outlined are his behaviour, especially pertaining to the moderation and engagement with people in a public forum such as this.

    Danny is a cool guy, I've stated and restated that many times over. I don't think he comes from any place of ill intent. That thing and the thing that his behaviour has been cited as a source of dissatisfaction on the forum self are two separate matters. We're dealing with the latter. We're not kicking people out, or claiming anyone shouldn't be involved in the future of MGSA, etc.

    I don't understand where all these other things come up out of when they haven't been stated here.
  • @Nandrew said:
    If we go back and read the language and attitude shifts in people, we can already see that I was beginning to be addressed with more respect and compassion, for the simple reason that I'd demonstrated active listening. And where others might perceive hostility, I could see someone who was working very hard to co-operate with me: by restating their points and sticking with me in the conversation until I understood.
    You SAY it was active listening that achieved that, but I put it down to the phrase "decolonize our revolutionary mind boxes". That was an inspired piece of writing on my part, I shall treasure it forever. ;)

    In seriousness though, there was always respect and compassion, even if it may not have come across that way. My trademark wryness and sarcasm comes across gentler IRL. People are often surprised by that. ;)
  • pieter said:
    But I honestly believe both these entities need to exist.
    MGSA with it's focus on business and product viability.
    SAGD with it's focus on nurturing young talent, until such a time as they are ready to step into the professional arena.

    Because, these are two very different arenas, with very different goals.

    By extension I also expect to see the following organisation in the near future:
    ADSA - Audio Designers of South Africa
    GEDSA - Game Engine Developers of South Africa
    ISTSA - Interactive Story Tellers of South Africa
    DASA - Digital Artists of South Africa

    Each one tailored to look after the interests of the professionals that they represent.
    Soooo here are some of my practical concerns with such an approach:

    1. I've seen SAGD in action and I have to say it's honestly not very "nurturing". There's already a thread in there by someone who's trying to understand what the value of the place is. From what I can see, there are a handful of people (out of 100 supposed members) who actually contribute, and even fewer of them contribute with any meaningfulness. It is littered with spam-esque self-promotion which seeks nothing but more clicks and exposure, which a gamedev community is almost the worst place to go to for - most of them have a "seen by" count of under 50, and comments are few and far between.

    Yes, one could argue that it's early days, but all of this is a very clear indication of how hard it is for a community to become useful, and how that usefulness is intrinsically bound to its growth, which is now a catch 22 situation. As such, again, I don't see how "nurturing" SAGD is as a facebook page where it is impossible to keep track of topics and feedback is off-the-cuff, on the spur of the moment.

    Yes but there's a website "coming"! It would be interesting to see how many people would be bothered to continually visit something out of their usual scope of daily visits (facebook) when that comes up, because again, that has to do with the value proposition of the website. I took a visit. There is one lone discussion there about whether IESA should be able to make announcements with SAGD. There is a dispute whether information from the only government-recognised game development body would be valuable to a game development-centred forum/body/community. This boggles my mind.

    2. So because it is evident that it has problems getting off the ground, I see any extensions of that idea to be subject to the same if not harsher problems. And so what you say up there about ADSA, GEDSA, ISTSA, etc is pure pie-in-the-sky thinking that doesn't factor in the actual state of each of the disciplines. There simply isn't enough critical mass and information throughput and driving force to legitimise each of those as their own community, and I don't see so in the foreseeable future. If all the game engine devs and gambling game devs were aggrieved by MGSA and would still like to be part of a community, why haven't they mobilised yet? Because there's no critical mass, because there's noone taking initiative, in those respective niches. And I think it's perfectly okay for audio, engine programmers, digital art, interactive fiction, etc, to have a space in MGSA - given enough critical mass. If they want to organise outside of MGSA, feel free! It's just probably not going to happen due to factors outlined above.

    tl;dr: If there are aggrieved parties within the MGSA community, it makes more sense for everyone that we open up safe spaces for those niches rather than for them to go out and start their own community, because that's hard work, and there's already enough damn hard work done by all the predecessors in MGSA. If we need a bit where hobbyist game devs want to be subject to less rigorous scrutiny, then let's have that section (of course we'll describe it in a sensitive way and not "noobs here"). Perhaps categories like "commercial" and "prototypes" and "betas". Or something. I don't have the solution to that yet, and that's okay.

    3. I'm not saying SAGD shouldn't be allowed to exist. I'm hardly going to go and picket and make any noise. I haven't. But I'll say that from what I've seen in this world, it's going to be a damn uphill battle to reach even 30% of the imperfection here at MGSA, and that there are better and more productive ways to spend time to result in a "good community" than that.
  • @Tuism I often forget how young our industry still is and that our numbers haven't yet risen to the point where creating these individual bodies are feasible. I concede that that was totally wishful thinking on my part.

    The idea of having different threads for different skill levels does sound a lot more unifying than having everyone scattered between different websites. These threads can then each have their own set of goals they hope to achieve. However if this is implemented, that would of course mean that people would have to step up to help moderate these threads. I know it's not just a question of rocking up and getting admin privileges, but I would be more than happy to nominate myself to help out with whatever forum duties MGSA thinks I can handle. Even if it's informal like giving two thoughtful critiques a day (which I think I should do anyway).

    If there's somewhere official volunteers can sign up, please let me know.

    I'm just desperate to help get the community out of this rut it seems to be in. I'm sure we all are.
  • ^ +1 those criticisms of that group.

    I think it's actually pretty cool for other game communities to exist. I mean, I think there's value to being unified for a lot of things. But I think there's this awesome potential for competitive game development (which personally inspires me a lot; I know it turns some other people off though), where "Oh crap, they made more game prototypes this week than we did! WE MUST DO BETTER!", and that sort of friendly competition would be awesome. Heck, if their having a website up means we get our crap together and accelerate this way-overdue website too, that's awesome.

    But there's a bunch of stuff that puts me off completely. It seems important to them to say who the founder is, as if that matters. It feels like an ego/power trip to have that front and centre in the description, with himself being called "senpai". And there's a list of moderators there, with two women have justification listed for why they're moderators, where none of the men have to have those qualifiers next to them. What? Then there's their not actually seeming to know what "politics" is. And the fact that while it pretends to do things democratically, but it's not "owned by the community". If the majority of that community decided that their founder was an idiot, there aren't systems in place that force a change of management/leadership. (Which is something that I think we should be fixing this side too. I want that MGSA AGM and voting for leadership.)

    So while I think it's awesome for other places to start up, especially if it means even more games or more jams, ZAGD/SAGD/whatever their acronym is is something I can't support. And I can't join the group either, because I know they're using member count as an indication of their success, and I know having a bunch of experienced developers as members will be used in some way too.
    Thanked by 2francoisvn Tuism
  • @Tuism I hear you say "your(my) thread" about conflict resolution and I assume it means you've read this. (Though if you haven't, that's what I'd first link you to.) ;)

    I think you'd be right in calling that "soft". I'm already self-conscious about that experimental talk and would like to harden the fuck up. :P Though perhaps you're also talking about "soft" in a more "software versus hardware" sense, so I think I can get behind that.

    Is my writing thus far a good summary of conflict resolution? Hmmm. No. First, this doesn't represent everything I know. Second, I think it would be arrogant of me to assume I've got good conflict management nailed or summarised anyway. At the very least, the insights and replies of others on this thread has been humbling. I've been having to work very hard to get my point across on this thread, but about 90% of that work has been introspection, I tell ya.

    I think management would only become more "widely" learnable after the community think cloud has started comparing enough notes on it -- swapping insights, acronyms, books, charts and having enough conversations to make more elegant presentations possible at meetups: maybe even condense the "good insights" into a Hypertalk format, a single infographic, a set of handy forum guidelines. @TheFuntastic kinda nails it as usual: reaching a point of maturity on this would be a long-term goal, and I think he's speaking as a more senior student on this than most.

    But I do believe the work has to start now, and has to be approached vigorously to achieve the level of practicality (if not immediacy) that we all demand.

    So if you want a solution that works tomorrow, I'm happy to see forward progress on the web design and I think the suggestions here have been rad. But I still have 100% confidence that rolling up our sleeves and looking for the longterm "soft" solution will give us very "hard" results. ;)

    -----------

    Inspired by Tu and other thoughts: will "old hands" will readily learn these skills? Well, even if they don't care about the forums but are serious about their careers, they damn well should. :P

    I think it's no coincidence that most of the people talking about pro-conflict resolution are in jobs which demand it, especially if we look at indies (who often have to be flexible+wearers of many hats). I'm willing to bet the Free Lives mansion on the fact that @EvanGreenwood knows what he does now because he felt the pressure of managing a dozen humans and three dogs. @TheFuntastic has been freelancing since the age of five, in complex projects which generally have him glued to the phone. @francoisvn has to cope with the fact that he lives all the way in Stellenbosch. Etc etc.

    None of us are the nicest by nature, but we do see the results of what we do, so we keep doin' and improvin' those things, because Money, Connection and Respect come more easily than they did before we started these things.
  • edited
    dammit said:
    And do you notice that for all the talk of safe spaces, I believe (and stand to be corrected) that I'm the only woman posting in this thread, that even the most active women in our community hardly ever engage on these forums and that Amber Key Collabratorium was (a) created and (b) never links back to this forum.
    It bears reminding that this is a pretty important situation, and fortunately many people here don't need Verbal Judo to understand that. As isolated as your voice may be, I'd imagine it's reassuring to understand that you've actually got quite a lot of sympathy amidst readers here, and we can make that clearer. I think active listening and echoing gives something important to safe spaces, whatever kind.

    When I hear complaints like this, it sounds like there's no effective balm for a bad situation, and a negative culture. In the framing which I imagine, we have patterns where the forum is mostly under control, then there's an act of some discrimination, some people have a hard time but there's not enough emotional catharsis / cultural support being put in place for what happened. So basically things are either neutral or bad, and proactive emotional labour is scarce. Not an appealing scenario to face.

    I think that with some mindfulness learnings, it naturally spills over that we'd see a visible rise in voice and response to unpleasant situations. It wouldn't be "safe", so to speak (edit: or maybe it will?), but we'd have a visibly positive and engaging culture, which feels super important, and I believe it would translate into less toxicity moreover.
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