Friday, December 18, 2015

RPG.net, the gatekeeper

I'm thinking of starting a long written project about a tabletop RPG. The biggest tabletop RPG community I know about is RPG.net, and if I posted it there, some people would be sure to see it. Something posted on this blog, though, might not reach any audience at all.

I never even considered putting this RPG thing on RPG.net. Read on to find out why.

Eggshells and Snowflakes

On RPG.net, anything can be grounds for moderator action. I'm not exaggerating; under the written rules they can permanently ban people for arbitrary reasons like being "bad for the forum" (rule 10) or "otherwise sabotaging the peace of the board" (rule 1). There are also selectively enforced rules against "personal attacks" (rule 2) and failing to "contribute to discussion" (rule 3). Although many interactions with moderators are punishable, such as "reply[ing] to or discuss[ing] moderation in-thread" (rule 3), users are told that a moderator — when not giving absolute commands — "should be treated as an ordinary user in all respects" (rule 7). This means even pointing out that someone is a moderator is an offense.

The practical result is that moderators can freely punish anyone they don't like, and posters can use the confidential report system to leverage the moderators against anyone they don't like. I'm not saying moderators never ban people they agree with — they do, unfairly and unnecessarily. But as bad as that is, it's when their prejudices are urging them that they really slip the chain.

Social Justice is a sacred cow. Calling gridiron football "handegg" is enough to get you thrown out of a thread about guns if you're not there to support gun control. If you're not against "cultural appropriation," get permabanned. "We'd be better off allowing people to totally ignore social gender constructs" is a thoughtcrime worthy of a formal caution. Best never mention South Park!

Chosen development darlings are protected. Overlap between White Wolf/Onyx Path staff and RPG.net mods explains a lot of the mod favoritism shown to them. They also go to great lengths to protect Kickstarter non-deliverer Gareth Skarka from people saying they don't trust him to eventually give them the product they paid for, Far West (release date December 2011, but it's... slipped a little).

Targets are persecuted. There's no fair, rules-based explanation for something like this. The poster must be on a secret shit list.

Silence and Shadow

You'd better believe there are secret shit lists. An ex-moderator described how Backstage, RPG.net's hidden moderator forum, is used for the pursuit of vendettas against posters who for whatever reason are "on the staff's radar." He was permabanned in retaliation, with an accompanying message about how he'd broken the code of silence.

People are frequently banned for being sock puppets. The moderators never explain how they know this, and there's no way to verify it independently. Some sockpuppets (banneduser2) are obvious, but often there is no reason to suppose a banned user is a sockpuppet except that the mods said so when they handed down the permaban. This is a convenient way to explain a ban for which no case, even of the wafer-thin RPG.net variety, exists.

Another all-purpose ban excuse is the content of private messages, which usually isn't shown in the ban notice. In this especially glaring example, a user's private message is charged with being a "press conference," which is the moderators' accusatory term for someone who — in obedience to the written rules — opens a thread on the Trouble Tickets board to discuss a moderator action. (From Rule 3: "Do not reply to or discuss moderation in-thread, take it to Trouble Tickets or the Administrators." The waters are muddied considerably by a sticky thread in Trouble Tickets which permits threads on sitewide issues and questions for moderators, but directs protesting one's innocence to email, where it can be silently ignored.)

RPG.net also has a tradition of "[+] threads" and "[-] threads" where only positive or only negative sentiments on the topic are allowed. Slanted availability of hugboxes and hateboxes puts a heavy thumb on the scales of discussion, as can be seen in these infractions handed out to people with politely dissenting opinions in [+] gun control threads.

A Hundred Flowers

Feedback threads are a trap. The obvious problem with RPG.net is the moderation, but if you say so, the moderators will moderate you.

"I should point out that my comments regarding moderation have nothing to do with personnal interaction. I've never been suspended and I can't even remember if I even was warned. My comments stem from observing mod behavior with other individuals and just feeling things were really, really wrong. Eventually, a lot of interesting people were banned from here and the tone employed by remaining posters often seems artificial."

"you've currently got a moderator on staff with a history of organizing harassment campaigns"

"This is exactly what I mean when I say that you, the mods, have a disturbing ideological bias. [...]  I want to express my perspective, but since you insist on taking offense at my perspective, I feel threatened and bullied into silence. [...] Maybe this place is just way too hostile to anyone who isn't comfortable with groupthink and authoritarianism."

"[Do you have beliefs you don't share on rpg.net?] Yes, mostly on politics. [...] No-one should be burdened by what their ancestors / same colored people in past did."

"I am simply not interested in being dogpiled and attacked by people who suffer no consequence for their actions while being unable to hit back for fear of getting in trouble. Things aren't as bad as they were for a while but this stuff is still there entrenched in the forum rules and in the community. It's not going away any time soon. The truth is that RPG.net has been a hostile place for people outside of a certain slice of the political left for years and I doubt this is going to change."

From the moderator's message: "Accusing the moderators of 'exercising arbitrary authority' and being 'thought police' is unnacceptable. Do not post in the thread again." Thread title: Closing of the "I am Worried That We Are Becoming an Echo Chamber" thread

Two Hundred Flowers

RPG.net amended its Rule 2 to disallow "hate groups" and specify "Gamergate [and] Stormfront" as examples. Discussion of Gamergate is allowed... and if you say anything remotely pro-Gamergate, expect to be banned.
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?739410-Infraction-for-orphan81-8%29-One-Month-Ban
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?739622-Infraction-for-SweeneyTodd-8%29-One-Month-Ban
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?739624-Infraction-for-SunnyD-17%29-Permanent-Ban
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?739626-Infraction-for-Stryke-8%29-One-Month-Ban
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?739628-Infraction-for-hayabusa-17%29-Permanent-Ban
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?740532-Infraction-for-HeyYouGetOffaMyCloud-17%29-Permanent-Ban
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?741001-Infraction-for-DavidFoxfire-17%29-Permanent-Ban
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?761579-Warning-for-AlphaWhelp-Thread-Ban


EndTransmission/tarotamerican/Devon Oratz, an RPG industry professional, has written on related topics following his own permanent ban from RPG.net:
https://tarotamerican.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/sjw-crazytown/
https://tarotamerican.wordpress.com/2015/10/23/open-letters-to-rpg-net/