RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)

[Ratman_tf]

Unrelatedly, speaking of funding...

Is it really true that TBP brings in 5-10 million dollars a year?

I was looking here: https://www.similarweb.com/website/rpg.net/#overview

That stuck out to me as weird.

Actually, this seems very related. I guess being American Maoists pays well if you've got the right audience.

That is pretty insane though for such a shitty website about TTRPG's.

Man, I just watched a talk with Dr. James Lindsay about the American Maoism that is taking over our society. We're doomed.

I watched the same video. The social engineering is damn frightening, but I don't think we're doomed. It's just going to be a long slog.
Thank God for people like Lindsay, who's austistic enough to do all this research, and coherent enough to explain it to the layman.

[Valatar]

So I think it's pretty normal. (My older son took Algebra II as a freshman, but he was ahead of the curve.)

I shall take your word for it, as it's been nearly thirty years since I was in high school; your experiences with your kids is definitely more current.  I was too lazy a student to tryhard into the AP courses, but I was coasting just fine with the curve and definitely was in pre-calc in public high school back in the 90s.

[KindaMeh]

So I think it's pretty normal. (My older son took Algebra II as a freshman, but he was ahead of the curve.)

I shall take your word for it, as it's been nearly thirty years since I was in high school; your experiences with your kids is definitely more current.  I was too lazy a student to tryhard into the AP courses, but I was coasting just fine with the curve and definitely was in pre-calc in public high school back in the 90s.

You may just have been at a solid locality for schooling. I did Calc in the 2010s, or however you name that decade, in high school, but it was towards the very end of high school and that was basically the case more generally for that school and part of why it was considered better. They even partnered with a local college to offer cheap and/or free classes, depending, to those whose progression and capacity justified it. Bad schools exist, but some I feel are genuinely ahead of the curve. Part of why actively supporting the resources necessary for meaningful school choice matters, in that there's a pretty big gap arguably between the worst and the best, or even average. And the ones most likely to be at the worst are also typically the least able to go elsewhere currently, from what I'd guess.

[jhkim]

So I think it's pretty normal. (My older son took Algebra II as a freshman, but he was ahead of the curve.)

I shall take your word for it, as it's been nearly thirty years since I was in high school; your experiences with your kids is definitely more current.  I was too lazy a student to tryhard into the AP courses, but I was coasting just fine with the curve and definitely was in pre-calc in public high school back in the 90s.

It's hard to generalize from individual experience, especially since U.S. schools have traditionally been locally funded and controlled. Out of curiosity, what was the neighborhood like for your public high school?

I went to high school in 1987-1991, but mine was a private prep school in New York. My older sisters went to public high school 5 and 7 years earlier, though.

From the data, high school calculus was very rare back in the 1970s, and became more common up until 2013, when rates of taking it started to decrease. I suspect some of the decrease might be in preferring alternate subjects like Computer Science or Statistics, even if a student is capable of calculus. (My son opted for advanced statistics rather than calculus his senior year, which contributes to my thinking that.)

In general, I think there's no magic bullet with school policy. There are a lot of little marginal choices and trade-offs. School choice is good, but it's not a quick or complete fix to all ills.

[Valatar]

It's hard to generalize from individual experience, especially since U.S. schools have traditionally been locally funded and controlled. Out of curiosity, what was the neighborhood like for your public high school?

My high school was in a middle-classy neighborhood in the burbs; we definitely weren't the rich kids' school, but were much better off than most of the city schools, which get much more money per student than the county schools but still manage to be like bombed-out hellholes.  A friend of mine attended some charity event at one of the city schools and said the bathroom walls were full of holes and there was a sink literally ripped out of the wall.

[oggsmash]

  Public schools have two very big, very serious limitations.  One is the raw materials...people expect a school to do the same work with an 85 iq person that they can do with a 101 iq student.  They also expect all the other things that are typical of people who are for lack of a subtle word, stupid, to behave as if they have good impulse control, make good decisions, etc.  The other big limitation is parental involvement and support.   A lot of these dipshits who in years past would have quit or failed a few grades (now they just get passed along till they are out of school...still functioning on a 3rd-4th grade level) have parents who are just as big a dipshit as they are.  These people offer zero support to the efforts of teachers and staff in the form of support/discipline/academic rigor. 

   People do not send their kids to private school just for "better" educations in the sense of course offered or resources available.  They do so to insulate their kids from booger eating knuckle draggers that are going to absolutely nothing for their kids except offer a source of distraction (at best) or danger (at worst).  Rules are for some and not for all and it shows in public school. 

[KindaMeh]

  Public schools have two very big, very serious limitations.  One is the raw materials...people expect a school to do the same work with an 85 iq person that they can do with a 101 iq student.  They also expect all the other things that are typical of people who are for lack of a subtle word, stupid, to behave as if they have good impulse control, make good decisions, etc.  The other big limitation is parental involvement and support. 

This is actually a decent series of points I wasn't fully considering at the front of my mind. School choice will help for some, but it may perhaps be too much to hope that it will fix everything for all. I'm not looking for equal outcomes, though, and I think excellence and better outcomes can still be achieved at least in part through choice and competition. Hopefully. 

[KindaMeh]

Also, unrelatedly, do we have any genuine confirmation that rpg.net draws in 5-10 million annually? That's been bugging me, and I kinda just want to know if this is an accepted fact.   

[Jason Coplen]

Also, unrelatedly, do we have any genuine confirmation that rpg.net draws in 5-10 million annually? That's been bugging me, and I kinda just want to know if this is an accepted fact.   

That's a very bad guess. I highly doubt they bring in a million.

[wmarshal]

If TBP was bringing in that kind of money I'd expect the moderators would expect some form of compensation. At least the ones doing most of the banning.

[Kyle Aaron]

People do not send their kids to private school just for "better" educations in the sense of course offered or resources available.  They do so to insulate their kids from booger eating knuckle draggers

In Australia we've got a website myschool.edu.au, where you can look up various schools. They list the budget, number of students, teaching and non-teaching staff, everything. They also list the school's SEA quartiles - socioeconomic advantage. How well-off and well-educated are the kid's parents? And then there's the academic results in the form of a standardised test called NAPLAN. People argue over how useful that is, but it is what it is.

Anyway, what determines the results? It's not the money spent per student - poorly-performing schools actually get more money per student, the government's trying to help them. Certainly not the capital spending, the buildings and halls and sports ovals, there's zero correlation there. Student:teacher ratio? Well, the poorly-performing schools, the extra money they get tends to go into hiring more staff. They still perform badly - possibly it'd be worse without those extra staff, but we don't really know.

It's the SEA quartiles. A school where 50+% of children are from the top quartile does well. One where 50+% are from the bottom quartile does badly.

Statistically, 60% of the variance in academic results in Australia is explained by asking, "where do you live?" This rises to 80% if you add the question, "are you indigenous?" The other 20% is all the shit everyone argues about, and uses to pretend the other 80% doesn't exist - class sizes, whole word vs phonics, whatever. Probably that other 20% is just random shit, like does the kid fall in with a good crowd of kids for a couple of years, or a bad one, do they have a particularly good teacher they get along with for a few years instead of changing every year, did they lose one grandparent a year from grades 1-4 and get a bit distracted, did mum and dad split up, do they have an uncle who really loves maths and help them with it, and so on.

Private schools don't do any better than demographically-matched state schools. Private schools you're guaranteed to have 50+% of kids in the top socioeconomic quartile - the bottom quartile can't afford it. But if you can find a state school in a nice area with well-off and well-educated parents you'll get the same end result.

School fees are how ambitious parents keep the poors out.

I think schools are actually better now at teaching students who would not have previously had enough interest or the educational resources they would have needed to graduate. But that also probably means that proportionally more resources go to that as opposed to encouraging excellence and opportunity for our best students

Well, there's also credential inflation.

Famously, while most MPs have law degrees or similar, one of our Prime Ministers, one Paul Keating, left school at 14 (early 1960s) and went to work as a pay clerk for some natural gas supplier. A relatively smart 14yo could be a pay clerk, then - now they want a degree in accounting. From 10 years in schooling to do the job to 16-17 years, and at considerable expense, too... are our outcomes much better? I don't think so.

Mostly it's just pointless fuckery.

[Abbo1993]

Rpgs don't bring that kind of money unless they are dnd, the fucktards have a tech and media company behind them that cover their asses most of the time but I seriously doubt they have that kind of dough.
I remember when they banned Macris from the site and mentioned not being able to afford a lawsuit, this isn't the kind of stuff you worry about if you make that kind of money.

[jhkim]

Anyway, what determines the results? It's not the money spent per student - poorly-performing schools actually get more money per student, the government's trying to help them. Certainly not the capital spending, the buildings and halls and sports ovals, there's zero correlation there. Student:teacher ratio? Well, the poorly-performing schools, the extra money they get tends to go into hiring more staff. They still perform badly - possibly it'd be worse without those extra staff, but we don't really know.

It's the SEA quartiles. A school where 50+% of children are from the top quartile does well. One where 50+% are from the bottom quartile does badly.

Statistically, 60% of the variance in academic results in Australia is explained by asking, "where do you live?" This rises to 80% if you add the question, "are you indigenous?" The other 20% is all the shit everyone argues about, and uses to pretend the other 80% doesn't exist - class sizes, whole word vs phonics, whatever. Probably that other 20% is just random shit, like does the kid fall in with a good crowd of kids for a couple of years, or a bad one, do they have a particularly good teacher they get along with for a few years instead of changing every year, did they lose one grandparent a year from grades 1-4 and get a bit distracted, did mum and dad split up, do they have an uncle who really loves maths and help them with it, and so on.

I agree statistically - but if the question is about how to run your schools, then that 20% is the only thing that matters. Schools aren't going to make students richer or make students non-indigenous. So they should be doing what they can to teach kids better.

As for random factors like losing a grandparent -- those average out over thousands of students. Within a poor district, some schools really do teach better than others, and there are techniques and teachers who are responsible for that.

Private schools don't do any better than demographically-matched state schools. Private schools you're guaranteed to have 50+% of kids in the top socioeconomic quartile - the bottom quartile can't afford it. But if you can find a state school in a nice area with well-off and well-educated parents you'll get the same end result.

Agreed, generally. The problem is, most people don't look past the flat average test scores -- when the thing that really matters is test scores *relative* to SEA rank.

They see that private schools have higher test scores, and assume that if any student goes to a private school, then they'll get better scores. But if you arrange to have a lot of poor students to a private school, then the scores will go down. It's not because the school got worse at teaching. It's because they're trying to teach a different population of students.

[Scooter]

Unrelatedly, speaking of funding...

Is it really true that TBP brings in 5-10 million dollars a year?

No. Similar web looks at a traffic numbers and guesstimates revenue as if it were a retailer selling stuff.  Which of course TBP isn't doing.  So the 5 - 10 million is not what is happening over there.

[GeekyBugle]

But muh anecdotal "evidence"!

Truth is your educational system is even worst than the Mexican right now.