Townhall meeting this weekend!

[AwkwardDryad]

A lot of people left when Goon decided to adapt to be more politically correct. I personally feel like this is just a continuation of that story, with the people who no longer wish to see that development is wanting to bow out. It's blatantly obvious that Goon doesn't mind catering to certain groups, which is fine but should perhaps be more directly stated. I personally don't think Goon has been a politically neutral ground for a while now, with certain people choosing to treat it as a playground for their political motives instead of a community created a video game. Maybe that's just the natural development of things.

On second thought, this is worth replying to specifically.

I think there's a massive disconnect between your perceptions of community and the perceptions of racial/ethnic/gender/sexual/etc minorities.  As near as I can tell, and I could be very wrong here and invite clarification, your idea of 'neutral ground' is a space where your beliefs and assumptions aren't challenged without cause.  Which sounds fine in a vacuum.  The 'neutral ground' I have spent my entire administrative career in this community trying to achieve is a space where nobody's personhood is challenged.  To someone in your position, 'don't ridicule certain things' is political correctness and one of those annoying things you have to agree to so you don't get grumped at by someone with no real sense of humor.  To a member of one of those aforementioned minorities, 'don't ridicule certain things' is a shield that gives them a space where they can trust they won't be belittled because of who they ARE.  Make fun of someone all dang day for stupid things they do, but the minute you start ridiculing someone because of who they are, that's the point at which I'm gonna have something to say about it.  Just as nobody gets to pick their nation of origin or skin color, nobody gets to pick what sexual or gender identity they land on, or even whether or not theirs is concrete and not changing over time.  Think of that pesky 'political correctness' as the natural conclusion of the no slurs rule we instilled long ago.  No Slurs Part Two: The Secret Of The Ooze.

If that's a dealbreaker for someone, if they have no interest in engaging with a community where nobody's personhood is challenged, then I wish them every happiness in finding someplace else to call home.  This space will not be that home, for as long as I have anything to say about it.

There most definitely is no disconnect between how I perceive the community and racial/ethnic/gender/etc. minorities. I think it's pretty ridiculous to even suggest that those can even be seen apart as the latter group makes what is considered to be the 'the community'. And actually, my perception of the neutral ground is quite literally a space where beliefs and assumptions are kept to an absolute minimum as not to offend or affect anyone. Not only does it sound fine in a vacuum, but it would also work fine in the application if only this was someone genuinely wishing to genuinely not be challenged. Raising awareness that a certain group of people is being catered by the server is not challenging someone's personhood. Questioning if tokenism for any political/religious/ideological view is the way we wish to steer the server into is not also challenging someone's personhood. Pointing out that if certain individuals have been given the green light to personalize the in-game content with a part of themself then everyone else is free to do so as well. Especially if you are advocating for a stance where nobody's personhood is challenged, that means that you can't pick and choose. 

Also, I must have missed the point where anyone was being ridiculed due to their gender/nationality/race/sexual orientation. Last time I checked, the server had a ruleset against bigotry, slurs, and general hate speech, not a ruleset against hate speech towards particular nationality/gender/race/sexual orientation. Just because certain people (you included) have decided to make it their agenda to push and promote a certain community within this server (The LGBTQ+ community) doesn't exactly mean that you can push past the set rules of the server and just pick and choose on what is allowed and what is not without a consensus. So what is exactly the issue with that, a server ruleset that has not been updated to reflect the ideals of the server or a very loud minority within the server that is pushing their views and beliefs onto everyone?

 I don't think anyone of the older Goon guard or from the players has ever complained that removal of slurs was bad it was probably one of the better changes that have occurred to this blasted place. But I don't think this "pesky political correctness" is the natural conclusion of that. Or maybe I am wrong and it is, but it's not a question that neither you or I can decide for everyone who hops on our server. It is genuinely a thing that would require a server-wide vote on being accepted unless you prefer to do what was previously done, and just presume that everyone is fine with instilling political correctness within the server. I don't grasp at what point political correctness was assigned to be a necessary step of someone feeling welcome to play on the server or a part of them feeling equal to everyone else. If anything, allowing that to be widely used on the server just promotes further crowbarring for more rights through 'privileges'.

Also, if you wish to take the responsibility of creating this wonderful space where nobody's personhood is challenged, you'll wish to take the responsibility of sowing this minefield that lays between the people who genuinely have no interest in gender/sexual orientation/politics and the people who consider that to be something so vital about them, that they just can't push it in a community that is about spacemen and farting.  I've yet to hear from anyone that they felt like they were not treated equally in our community. And yet this minefield prevents healthy and needed discussion on how the actual in-game content should be handled. This necessary and healthy discussion also prevents other discussions with these people as they are instantly ready to take up arms if there is as much as a minor disagreement with them. Even within my short year of being an admin, I could have gathered so many separate incidents where stuff was shoehorned into gender/identity politics even though the question at hand had nothing to do with it.

It's not a dealbreaker for me that there is a suggestion of political correctness being used on the server. What is a dealbreaker for me is people like you who think that they can just force it on everyone without actually consulting the people who it affects. I don't think either of us knows if you are a majority or a minority in this case and as such, I genuinely think that is a thing that would require a server vote on how political/ideological agenda should be handled within the game. It's a very fresh phenomenon on the server as in the past, things have been kept very much in line with the flavor of the 1980's spaceman game. 

I'd be genuinely interested in hearing what the actual community thinks about this.

I legitimately have zero idea how to respond to this, but i'll do my best. Representation does not equal pushing an agenda on everyone. Perhaps there are things I, personally, haven't seen, but from my perspective, there hasn't been any hate toward ANY group of people, nor is anyone trying to bash people over the head with their political ideology. Also, I've seen nothing about the "political correctness" that's been repeated multiple times throughout this post. This all seems a little....worrying? to say the least.

"Raising awareness that a certain group of people is being catered by the server is not challenging someone's personhood." Heeeh?

 "Also, if you wish to take the responsibility of creating this wonderful space where nobody's personhood is challenged, you'll wish to take the responsibility of sowing this minefield that lays between the people who genuinely have no interest in gender/sexual orientation/politics and the people who consider that to be something so vital about them, that they just can't push it in a community that is about spacemen and farting." since when was acceptance of other people (non-bigotry) seen as something evil thats being crammed down the throats of the "MAJORITY" by the "MINORITY"

I see where you're idealistically coming from in the respect of a means of achieving a harmonious social envornment, but this entire post feels loaded as hell with the main idea of "if no one expresses beliefs, everyone is happy" and completely bypassing the fact that that in its own is bigotry. Shutting everyone up won't solve the issue of the people that ACTUALLY ARE forcing their ideals on everyone, which I haven't seen at all. You act like LGBTQ acceptance and awareness being part of goon is a bad thing. What do we have? A. No hate tolerance, B. some pride jumpsuits, C. rotating pride flags on the discord server icon. How is this a bad thing? You're making goon out to be an environment that freaking punishes people for being straight which is 100% not the case.

Majority, minority, its all bullshit because people are people and where goon is going, it's supporting all people. Just because there's awareness now doesn't mean the fabric of reality is falling apart and "the gays are taking over"™

This isn't a political agenda. Acceptance of all people is a social reform geared to welcome all people, not cater to a "minority", if anything, you sound like the one who wants to be catered to...

On the topic of bigotry your entire argument is a "Do what you want as long as it's in your room" argument which legitimately makes me pissed as hell.

And what the fuck? People left the server after it became more "politically correct"? Do you have any evidence for this massively biased claim? Since the bigotry rule exists, literally nothing has changed in that respect aside from a few cosmetics and the playerbase.

In short your whole post was all over the place, I don't even know how to process a central message without enough background

[Camryn]

I already used up all my spoons on writing those last two posts.

But yeah, @sacc, I was apparently misremembering an exchange with flourish on may 13th, 2018, in the mentor channel. That's my bad.


I got responses to everything else knocking around in my noggin, but I do not have the mental energy to conduct them enough to write well.

I'll write more tomorrow probably. I don't know. My brain is garbage and I hate it.

[Flourish]

Hi everyone. Please remember that this thread is for posting questions and concerns you want addressed during the town hall. While there's been a significant amount of discussion in this thread itself, please remember the main purpose of this thread. We'll cover everything mentioned here and way more during the town hall, so please don't feel like you need to say something right now or you won't ever have the chance to again.

Additionally, a lot of players don't have an adequate amount of context for some of the discussions that have happening (which we will provide to the best of our ability during the town hall). I just don't want this thread to devolve into a lot of arguing and/or misinformation, though at this point I feel like at this point the focus of this thread has shifted substantially. So, please at least be civil and respectful. If you cannot do that, I will be forced to lock this thread or delete people's posts.

I understand that we're touching upon a lot of very personal and sensitive topics, and I really appreciate everyone's investment and care. However, I really want us to stay on topic, if possible. There's plenty of time to address everything during our town hall, and also in the future. Unless you're not going to be there for some reason, I would appreciate your understanding. I'm not going to prevent anyone from sharing their experiences or opinions, but if you choose to do so, again, please be civil and respectful.

[Flourish]

Sorry, Flourish: I have no plans to attend the town hall but it is very important that people understand the decision that those of us who chose to leave made. Please do not attempt to shut that down.

edit: and it would have been super nice if people felt they were able to say "okay, that's bad, sorry that happened Wonk" without it being further shut down too - though I am sure with the current intent on insinuating I'm a Nazi (both on Twitter and now here in this thread - yay!) that the number of people keen to do that would be 0.

Oh, to be clear, I meant "please be civil and respectful or I'll have to shut things down". I've edited my previous post to better communicate that. Please feel free to share your experiences if you're not going to be at the town hall!

[Sov]

That's how mentor chat works. We socialize in public and we use the mentor channel specifically to handle mentorhelps. We get grumped at if we use it for anything else.

A lot of socialization occurs in mentorchat as well - I've personally even experienced times of socialization where midway through we realized a particular person wasn't a mentor yet and couldn't participate. I've also not once, in all the times I have socialized in mentor channel, been grumped at or seen anybody get grumped at for doing non-mentorhelp-handling activities.

To clarify on this point we have been told explicitly that there is no issue with discussing whatever in mentorchat so long as it doesn’t break the rules. This was stated to us by Pope if I recall correctly when we briefly discussed an actual mentor chat channel separate from the help one

[Sitoutumaton]

So we're having a clash between American and European political sensitivies bleeding into admin channels?

[Zamujasa]

Your reaction is kneejerk and over the top - I would use the word hysterical but I believe that has now become a gendered term and honestly have no desire to offend anyone. 

"No offense, but..." is a really tired trope. You know how you act on a desire to not offend someone? By not doing it. Doing this just shows that you're aware of exactly what you're doing.


As for this:

... was generally rounded on by some and turned into accusations of white supremacy. We saw that with Zamu's twitter posts.

My accusations towards SpyGuy were based on his association with Sweden Democrats. Last week, I was led to believe that the evidence of his association was not solid, thus I apologized and deleted those tweets, as well as offered an apology to Haine and the others.

[popecrunch]

Hi I'm back at the keys now.

This thread is not for speculating the political identities of anyone, especially people who are not currently members of the Goonstation administration staff. Further posts in that vein will be goned, and if I have to delete more than one or two, I'll just close the thread.

[popecrunch]

NEW TOPIC.

If you (a general 'you', not anyone in particular), for whatever reason, were unable to make it to the town hall, and were able to guarantee that THREE questions would be answered, what would those questions be?

[UrsulaMejor]

1) By and large, admin and wizard votes are held completely secretly. we are rarely, if ever, informed of what is being voted on, and usually we don't even get the results of that vote if the results weren't unanimous.

will any of those procedures get "declassified" in the future? I'm thinking a quarterly review of what votes were held and what the results were, with any identifying information stripped out. I feel like we don't really get an understanding of what wizards *do*, and so it's difficult to gauge whether they're doing it effectively.

2) because of the nature of certain topics, it doesn't make sense to be 100% transparent on all admin matters. it's hard to trust that the system is working when nobody has eyes on it, and it's also hard to get an idea for if the community's voices are being heard. do we have a plan for how we can "audit" the official goings on to make sure things don't fester in the dark, going unaddressed?

[popecrunch]

1) By and large, admin and wizard votes are held completely secretly. we are rarely, if ever, informed of what is being voted on, and usually we don't even get the results of that vote if the results weren't unanimous.

will any of those procedures get "declassified" in the future? I'm thinking a quarterly review of what votes were held and what the results were, with any identifying information stripped out. I feel like we don't really get an understanding of what wizards *do*, and so it's difficult to gauge whether they're doing it effectively.

2) because of the nature of certain topics, it doesn't make sense to be 100% transparent on all admin matters. it's hard to trust that the system is working when nobody has eyes on it, and it's also hard to get an idea for if the community's voices are being heard. do we have a plan for how we can "audit" the official goings on to make sure things don't fester in the dark, going unaddressed?

1:
I feel like simply answering the question as asked wouldn't give a full representation on what's going on behind the curtain, so to speak, so I'll answer it four times, sort of.

HOW IT USED TO WORK, BACK IN THE DAY
- Wizards pick people to be admins. Sometimes it's a vote, sometimes it's not, very very informal.
- Admins find out there's a new admin when someone shows up in their IRC channel that wasn't there before and nobody throws them out.

HOW IT WORKED AFTER THAT UNTIL FAIRLY RECENTLY, NO I DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHEN IT CHANGED AND I DON'T REALLY THINK IT'S IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO GO DIG IT UP
- Wizards pick people to be admins. Sometimes that comes from suggestions from other admins. Wizards vote, then admins vote.

HOW IT WORKS AS OF THIS VERY INSTANT, I THINK, I MEAN EVERYTHING'S IN FLUX, SO
- When someone, admin or wizard, wants to hire a person, they post a thread in admin forums to vote on it. The end.

HOW IT'S GONNA WORK GOING FORWARD
- We don't know yet. We know we need to figure that out. We're working on something else first (specifically, what 'wizards' are for)

2:
The general sense of 'how it's gonna work going forward' is proceeding in steps - the step we just finished is the admin guidelines, the current step is 'what are wizards'. The general idea is that for each thing, assume that that thing happens at the all-admins level, with it being kicked to the (whatever wizards wind up being) level if there's a compelling reason, for instance if it touches on legal matters, legally prickly details like personally identifiable information, stuff that has a compelling reason to minimize the amount of eyeballs on it. How will we make sure that's not abused? How will we audit that? We don't know yet, but 'trust-but-verify' and 'transparency is generally more important than mild embarassment' are Core Ideas, so they will definitely be kept in mind.

[Sundance]

I'll say this first - it's a tragedy that something so simple, so bipartisan as having an all inclusive environment is one so politically charged that the need to defend it becomes so strong. 

Its another tragedy altogether that we judge ones actions (or lack thereof) as a sum of their parts. To ignore that people are transient beings capable of change and rational thought. That fundamental discussion withers and bears no fruit and people resort to the tribalism of "with us or against". An unfortunate facet of many communities and it saddens me that goon is no exception. 

My question to the admin team, both current and ex - by the things kicked off, was there ever a serious discussion that members of your team were ostracized by the actions of others? Or was it even recognized at the time?

There is speak of admin guidelines in the pipeline, but is there a consensus now amongst the team on what needs to be done? 


(Not expecting an answer on this exactly now, i.e: will bring up in town hall event)

[Zamujasa]

Its another tragedy altogether that we judge ones actions (or lack thereof) as a sum of their parts. To ignore that people are transient beings capable of change and rational thought. That fundamental discussion withers and bears no fruit and people resort to the tribalism of "with us or against".

Nobody is ignoring that, though???

[Frank_Stein]

I'll say this first - it's a tragedy that something so simple, so bipartisan as having an all inclusive environment is one so politically charged that the need to defend it becomes so strong. 

Its another tragedy altogether that we judge ones actions (or lack thereof) as a sum of their parts. To ignore that people are transient beings capable of change and rational thought. That fundamental discussion withers and bears no fruit and people resort to the tribalism of "with us or against". An unfortunate facet of many communities and it saddens me that goon is no exception. 

My question to the admin team, both current and ex - by the things kicked off, was there ever a serious discussion that members of your team were ostracized by the actions of others? Or was it even recognized at the time?

There is speak of admin guidelines in the pipeline, but is there a consensus now amongst the team on what needs to be done? 


(Not expecting an answer on this exactly now, i.e: will bring up in town hall event)

Building off on this, how and when will someone from the Admin team step in to resolve disputes and conflicts between other admins?

For future staff selection, will group dynamics and values be considered over say, coding skill?

If there are fundamental differences in ideological values between staff that are deemed irreconcilable, would staff be removed and what would be the basis of that decision?

[popecrunch]

Okay so TOWN HALL STRUCTURE HERE'S HOW IT'S GOING DOWN.

1) I have created a channel in discord called questions-channel. You can't see it yet. I have gone through this thread and posted in that channel a line that is '$name: link to their post' for every post in this thread that appeared to be a question FOR, not ABOUT, the town hall. Not included in those posts are answers, side discussions, admins, the argument from a page ago that we are still not talking about in this thread for now, basically anything that didn't appear to be a question for the townhall. If your question was answered, I still included it in the list. Why does this matter? Well,
2) When the town hall starts, I will open a different channel for the town hall to take place in.  Administrators will be able to speak in it. I will lay down the ground rules for the town hall that are, well, basically what you are reading right now.  If you have a question to ask in the town hall, post it in the questions-channel. DO NOT USE THE QUESTIONS CHANNEL FOR DISCUSSION. SLOW MODE WILL BE TURNED ON. THE QUESTIONS CHANNEL IS SOLELY TO ASK QUESTIONS SO WE KNOW WHO TO GIVE THE TALKING STICK ROLE TO. What's the talking stick role? Well,
3) Starting with Camryn, who asked the first question in the thread, then going down the list of questions in the thread (via those posts), then to people who post questions in the question channel, each person will get the talking-stick role. They will be able to ask their first question.  Once me or another admin posts something that is intended to be an answer, a five minute timer starts.  The person who has the talking stick then has five minutes to ask followup questions, different questions, whatever's on their mind.  After those five minutes have passed, the talking-stick role will pass to the next person in line.  The person with the talking-stick role can choose to pass it on to the next person.  It can also be taken away if they break the rules of the town hall. We will continue until either there are no more questions, or no more admins remain who have the time to participate. I, personally, have carved out two hours definitely (modulo RL necessities) and will probably be able to stay another hour, maybe two.  Wait, what were those rules you mentioned, pope? Well,
4) No personal attacks.  I mean it. Zero tolerance here. Don't call anybody a fascist or a reactionary. I MEAN IT. do NOT test me on this.
5) It is completely okay to ask a question that takes a minute or so of research - that's why the five minute timer starts only after the first response.  However, if your question is really complicated or otherwise is gonna take A While, we reserve the right to tell you we'll get back to you within a reasonable amount of time (day or so if it's super complicated or requires input from someone who's difficult to nail down).  You can still use the rest of your time for other questions if you want.
6) We will not be accepting anonymous questions.  If you really, really don't want your name attached to your question for whatever reason, you are entirely free to ask someone else to ask it on your behalf.
7) You might get answers you do not like, or do not consider answers.  Sorry.  That doesn't mean it wasn't answered.  We will do our very best to answer all questions completely honestly to the best of our ability to do so. Please understand we're humans.
8) Absolutely no shitposting. If you're shitposting, you lose the talking stick and have to get back in line with a new question in question-channel. If you do it again, you'll be skipped for the rest of the meeting.  Don't test me on this either.

With that out of the way, I wanted to post some links to resources that you might find useful if you're in a crisis. We absolutely understand that we all love this community, and something we love being in a little tumult can be really, really upsetting.  Here is a list of some crisis resources that should cover almost all countries:

Self-harm crisis lines:

• US/Canada: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 800/273-8255 https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
  
• UK: Samaritans Hotline 116 123 https://www.samaritans.org/ (Also 212/673-3000, they WILL help people not from the UK.  Note that I have no data one way or the other about whether they handle LGBTQIA+ issues gracefully - they claim to, and I haven't heard otherwise, but.)
  
• Rest of Europe: varies, look at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/Europe/
  
• Everywhere else: http://www.suicide.org/international-sui...lines.html
  
• Text / SMS based crisis counseling - if you're in the US, text HELP to 741741. If you're in Canada, text HELP to 686868, and if you're in the UK, text HELP to 85258.  Operated by Crisis Text Line at https://www.crisistextline.org/ , and that URL will also provide text codes for some other countries as well.  Contacts are anonymized (the person you text with cannot see your phone number), and at least in the US with a Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, or AT&T phone, it won't even appear on the billing history (so if your billing details are seen by someone else, they won't even know you reached out.) Other providers, or those providers in other countries, might or might not work that way - it's the intent, but requires special handling which might or might not be possible in other countries.
  

If you have need of a resource not listed here, ask me, or ask someone else to ask me if you're nervous, and I will drop everything else and do my best to find help.  There are more resources to be found in the stickied thread here. https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=13670