Extract from my sentbox

[tenbones]

Ironically what led to me being banned from RPGnet was this thread on Golarion being racist.

(and double-irony being that I ended up getting offically permabanned for being a racist against Japanese people... and I'm Japanese).

Edited: I got the chat channel confused with TBP.

[ShannonA]

I'm not an OSR-guy (not even sure how I'd define that) - anyhow, maybe Shannon you should actually give a little consideration to how the OSR folks have been treated by your mod staff.... and many many others, rather than just blow it off and imply 'too bad so sad'.

I don't how to perceive the gesture of your email posting, or your response. I didn't take any pleasure in the OP's post... but I do understand the sentiment (I don't agree with it - but I understand it).

Here's how to perceive my postings:

The first one: an open-armed acceptance of the folks who very cooly said that my article shouldn't be judged before it's written, an affirmation that I'm going to do the best to write a great history, and an open call for other folks to help me get it right.

The second one: Annoyance at my personal email being posted, and a decision to post the response myself under the (perhaps incorrect) assumption that it was going to be posted anyway.

More generally:

I don't think that RPGnet has a problem with the OSR. I think that some notable folks in the OSR have been asked to leave the forums and that's understandably colored perceptions. I'm going to choose not to engage on the broad issue of RPGnet and moderation here, other than to say that I think that RPGnet's moderation helps to create a pleasant community, and it certainly won't be to everyone's taste. There was for example some refreshing bluntness at the top of this thread that I don't think I'd see at RPGnet, but different forums can serve different communities with different cultures and different purposes.

I dunno if the OSR/RPGnet gap is bridgeable. Maybe my writing histories will help, but that's not the point; I took the concerns about the lack of those histories seriously, and with the additional growth of OSR that I can see now (and couldn't back in 2012 when I outlined Designers & Dragons) plan to address them.

[The Butcher]

"You were mean to me once so fuck you and take a hike."

@P&P, I certainly don't care for how ShannonA runs things over there, but that was petty as fuck man.

Yeah, well, basically this. I post on RPGnet every now and then. I manage not to get dragged into controversial stuff. The one time I got a heads-up from a mod it was because my signature was too big, how lame is that? But I don't think anyone has a God-given right to post on RPGnet, or theRPGsite (I was pretty close to getting banned here back in my Pundit-baiting days) or anywhere else. Admins gonna admin.

[Exploderwizard]

I don't think that RPGnet has a problem with the OSR. I think that some notable folks in the OSR have been asked to leave the forums and that's understandably colored perceptions. I'm going to choose not to engage on the broad issue of RPGnet and moderation here, other than to say that I think that RPGnet's moderation helps to create a pleasant community, and it certainly won't be to everyone's taste. There was for example some refreshing bluntness at the top of this thread that I don't think I'd see at RPGnet, but different forums can serve different communities with different different cultures and different purposes.

If drinking the groupthink Kool-Aid and not being permitted to offer opposing views in a rational manner that is healthy for discussion & debate is the definition of a pleasant community, then I am proud to be excluded.

I like to discuss things on a forum, and while shouting the same views along with the crowd in a vastly crowded echo-chamber as some kind of self validation may produce a pleasant community, it is not a very interesting one.

[GreyICE]

I don't think that RPGnet has a problem with the OSR. I think that some notable folks in the OSR have been asked to leave the forums and that's understandably colored perceptions. I'm going to choose not to engage on the broad issue of RPGnet and moderation here, other than to say that I think that RPGnet's moderation helps to create a pleasant community, and it certainly won't be to everyone's taste. There was for example some refreshing bluntness at the top of this thread that I don't think I'd see at RPGnet, but different forums can serve different communities with different cultures and different purposes.

I think that RPGnet's moderation aims for a small-town atmosphere.

Emphasis on small.

[Shipyard Locked]

But I don't think anyone has a God-given right to post on RPGnet, or theRPGsite (I was pretty close to getting banned here back in my Pundit-baiting days)...

Wow, you must have really been trying. :eek:

I mean, who was the last frequent poster to get banned from here, Ghost Whistler?

[Brad]

I like to discuss things on a forum, and while shouting the same views along with the crowd in a vastly crowded echo-chamber as some kind of self validation may produce a pleasant community, it is not a very interesting one.

It's obvious RPG.net is nothing more than a vehicle to push certain publisher's products. I don't have a problem with that, but I wish they'd stop acting as if the board is really about all roleplaying games instead of just whatever Onyx Path and Evil Hat have churned out recently.

[tenbones]

I don't think that RPGnet has a problem with the OSR. I think that some notable folks in the OSR have been asked to leave the forums and that's understandably colored perceptions.

The *vast* majority of permabanned people on RPGnet are not OSR folks. A casual perusal of the public-shaming forum (when last I cared to look) acts almost as precisely the same behavior that otherwise would get non-mods banned.

I'm going to choose not to engage on the broad issue of RPGnet and moderation here, other than to say that I think that RPGnet's moderation helps to create a pleasant community, and it certainly won't be to everyone's taste. There was for example some refreshing bluntness at the top of this thread that I don't think I'd see at RPGnet, but different forums can serve different communities with different cultures and different purposes.

If the atmosphere as exhibited by the "How to make RPGnet a better place" or whatever it was called, is to be a sterling example of what a 'pleasant' atmosphere should be like... I'll stipulate the rest of your post to being equally dissonant.

I dunno if the OSR/RPGnet gap is bridgeable. Maybe my writing histories will help, but that's not the point; I took the concerns about the lack of those histories seriously, and with the additional growth of OSR that I can see now (and couldn't back in 2012 when I outlined Designers & Dragons) plan to address them.

Good luck on your quest... I trust the mod-staff here will treat you better than the mod-staff at the RPGnet has treated most of us. But then again, I guess you're counting on that.

[One Horse Town]

Moved to Pundit's forum.

[P&P]

Good luck on your quest... I trust the mod-staff here will treat you better than the mod-staff at the RPGnet has treated most of us. But then again, I guess you're counting on that.

He's got a voice and he's allowed to quote things he disagrees with and reply to them, even if those things were written by a mod.  So yeah: infinitely better-treated.  The experience of trying to have an intelligent discussion on a forum moderated by someone like Ettin would be valuable learning for ShannonA, I think.

I'm not averse to the idea that one day OSRIC's history could be written based on conversations and documents from the period, ideally by one of the people who was on Gary Gygax's email groups in 2005-6 and will therefore be able to make sense of some of the emails in context.   I'm not looking for a whitewash.

[JRT]

I'm not averse to the idea that one day OSRIC's history could be written based on conversations and documents from the period, ideally by one of the people who was on Gary Gygax's email groups in 2005-6 and will therefore be able to make sense of some of the emails in context.   I'm not looking for a whitewash.

Well, as the person who maintained the Gygax Games list, all the archives can be read here.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/gygax-games/info

That's not every list he was on (the talk one was all about politics), but that was his primary one from 2001+  

I don't see OSRIC mentioned on it, however.

Unless we're just talking about e-mail chains rather than formal lists...

[Alathon]

I don't think that RPGnet has a problem with the OSR. I think that some notable folks in the OSR have been asked to leave the forums and that's understandably colored perceptions. I'm going to choose not to engage on the broad issue of RPGnet and moderation here, other than to say that I think that RPGnet's moderation helps to create a pleasant community, and it certainly won't be to everyone's taste. There was for example some refreshing bluntness at the top of this thread that I don't think I'd see at RPGnet, but different forums can serve different communities with different cultures and different purposes.

A whole lot of people have been made unwelcome at RPGnet, to the point that it's well-known for this facet of its culture.  I find it very strange that you would call it pleasant, when I find the defining attributes of RPGnet culture to be progressive bigotry and sneering contempt.  I hope you one day sell or hand off the RPG.net domain to someone running a general purpose RPG forum; it's shameful that the first stop on the internet for information about RPGs is something else.

[Zak S]

I'm going to choose not to engage on the broad issue of RPGnet and moderation here, other than to say that I think that RPGnet's moderation helps to create a pleasant community

Regardless of the purpose of your forum, what concerns us here is the purpose of your history book.

If, Shannon Appelcline, your primary goal in writing a history is to make money, write whatever you like and don't ask for sources or do research. I'm sure the many very conservative members of your pleasant community will buy it, after all, you can advertise directly to them on your forum.

If your primary goal in writing history is to help create an accurate historical record, then this purpose would be better served by refusing to allow people who provably lie about that record to moderate your forums and institute Wikipedia-style sourcing rules for any criminal accusations. As-is, anyone doing research in the future will have to wade through a mountain of unsourced and fabricated claims made on your forum by the people who run it in order to sort out what happened in recent years in DIY D&D.

Once you've proved at least that much dedication to the facts and the historical record, then you can come around and ask people to help with your book.

They're not unrelated.

[P&P]

That's not every list he was on

Damn straight.

ETA:  I'm really talking about the Yggsburgh one.  To be clear: nobody talked to Gary much about OSRIC, nor did he express much of a view about it when alive --- there was one occasion when he was severely pressed, but the fact is, he never read OSRIC.  Still, having been on the lists would definitely help put Myth's decision to write the first draft, and my decision to redraft and publish it, against its proper background.

[TristramEvans]

Obviously I have my issues with the direction RPGnet went and the methods of moderation, but this thread is just....petty.

YOu don't want to help ShannonA with their book because he hurt your feelings online a while back? Fine. Heck, I can empathize. I can only imagine what vitriol I'd manage to drum up if Ettin or Kai Tav ever contacted me looking for a favour  

But posting the exchange here? What do you want? A pat on the back? "Look how I stuck it to those rpgnet folks?" C'mon man. Therpgsite is at its best when its doing its own thing, and its at its absolute worste when it's imitating a poor man's SomethingAwful.