NTSE Issues

[Wes]

I have personally given my approval of the Asteria page, to include the latest version where there's a couple hundred Iroma mentioned on it, and also the parts about there being some leftover Lorath in Asteria. The page is what's canon. Since all of these species have already been on Asura III or in its immediate area, historically, I don't think Asteria is making any overzealous claims or stealing anything, as Raz suggested. In fact, it's excellent that now people who want to play Lorath or Iroma have an additional option for factions.

- - -

Regarding the topic at hand, issues in the Setting Submissions forum (a.k.a. NTSE), I was recently reading a thread on RPG-D in which the vast majority of respondents to a topic about public reviews of characters and submissions agreed that allowing non-staffers to comment on threads was a recipe for extreme drama. This appears to be at least somewhat true in our case, although it's notable only a handful of the same people repeatedly show up in my reports panel. I've been thinking that maybe the player right about being able to comment on new stuff being proposed to the setting may not be helping us as intended, and that maybe new setting submissions should be reviewed by staff alone or even privately. I'd like to know your thoughts on this.

 

[ArsenicJohn]

That sounds like a good proposal to me. Worst case is it doesn't work and we go back to this system. Best case is it works and we have less drama.

 

[META_mahn]

@Gallant Well, I'll see how it goes. Personally, the only reason why I feel okay with going wild with D&D canon is the fact once I create the setting, it is no longer part of an overarching canon. I think the rules might be a little different here, but if Wes is okay with it I'm fine with it. He's the one who writes the setting and give the intellectual rights to, not me.

@Wes Please don't make them private, that would cause people to heap subs on the one that'll pass subs the easiest. Subs any staff can pick up will allow people to not be able to cheese the system with a "Mister Easy Approval," filling the setting with things that don't have good continuity. FMs, when it concerns their faction, should be able to comment, and all staff should be able to comment at the very least. You might even have to make a special role for the NTSE approvers, simply because otherwise we might find ourselves locked out.

 

[Ira]

@Wes

To what you said about reviews. Yes. Reviews could hypothetically take place between the mod, the faction manager/write of the content. This would keep things clinical and allow people to pass judgement, and explain things be able to do so with out feeling pressure.

So. If I wanted to make a new Abwheran Tiger tank. The review would be between my self, and NTSE mod, with Syroan being available as a rescource to answer any questions.

 

[Legix]

Regarding the topic at hand, issues in the Setting Submissions forum (a.k.a. NTSE), I was recently reading a thread on RPG-D in which the vast majority of respondents to a topic about public reviews of characters and submissions agreed that allowing non-staffers to comment on threads was a recipe for extreme drama. This appears to be at least somewhat true in our case, although it's notable only a handful of the same people repeatedly show up in my reports panel. I've been thinking that maybe the player right about being able to comment on new stuff being proposed to the setting may not be helping us as intended, and that maybe new setting submissions should be reviewed by staff alone or even privately. I'd like to know your thoughts on this.

I've stated it before when the push was attempted: this will not be a good step in the right direction.

But it seems more and more that the push to empower them to staff-capabilities and stripping player rights is the norm. We've seen people forcibly removed of their player rights (while not enforcing equal standards) and the idea that losing the ability to have input from the community means I have to depend on a very small pool of people to give me the feedback I need. What happens if I make something that treads on a GM, but they can't voice it because my submission was private or only staff reviewed? We could solve NTSE issues by the two major points highlighted from this "Festivus" thing people harp on (sorry, I didn't watch the show).

• Grow some thicker skin and stop taking everything as a personal attack.
• Let the staff handle actual disruptive behavior.

Why do we have people as staff between you (Wes) and the NTSE mods if we're going to remove the venues for them to moderate? A lot of their work and purpose comes from keeping discussion civil, but we're talking about shooting discussion in the foot. Personally, I think breaking that discussion down entirely is asking for far more issues as it means that anyone could be stepped on by something passed without the NTSE mod knowing. I sure as hell know Cadet doesn't read my plots, so how can I expect him to know if some submission would cause canon issues in my plot? How could Asterian players be sure Ame would know? This is the immediate issue with this idea and why I've opposed it before.

 

[CadetNewb]

I have personally given my approval of the Asteria page, to include the latest version where there's a couple hundred Iroma mentioned on it, and also the parts about there being some leftover Lorath in Asteria. The page is what's canon. Since all of these species have already been on Asura III or in its immediate area, historically, I don't think Asteria is making any overzealous claims or stealing anything, as Raz suggested. In fact, it's excellent that now people who want to play Lorath or Iroma have an additional option for factions.

- - -

Regarding the topic at hand, issues in the Setting Submissions forum (a.k.a. NTSE), I was recently reading a thread on RPG-D in which the vast majority of respondents to a topic about public reviews of characters and submissions agreed that allowing non-staffers to comment on threads was a recipe for extreme drama. This appears to be at least somewhat true in our case, although it's notable only a handful of the same people repeatedly show up in my reports panel. I've been thinking that maybe the player right about being able to comment on new stuff being proposed to the setting may not be helping us as intended, and that maybe new setting submissions should be reviewed by staff alone or even privately. I'd like to know your thoughts on this.

This would work, I think, but I'd even settle on the ability of an NTSE Mod to moderate the submission and remove anyone disruptive from the thread. If we move in this direction, I'd be willing to come off break and get to work.

 

[Syaoran]

@Wes I don't think removing the ability for normal players to comment is the solution. Because doing that opens up another possibility of things being snuck under the rug. Maybe no one right now would do it, but why open ourselves to that possibility?

I think the reason people go so far in the NTSE is because subconsciously, they know nothing is going to happen to them. If punishments for inappropriate behavior were enacted properly, people wouldn't take things so far, since htey know that it'll end bad for them. I'm not NTSE so I can't speak for the NTSE on why punishments don't happen, but from my perspective, I personally don't know what the punishments are for misbehaving are. In fact I just looked them up and the only listed punishment on the NTSE rules page is a temporary or permanent revoking of NTSE permission. And on the general site rules page there are no example punishments listed, jsut a vague description of things that can be used for enforcement.

If I was a Mod or NTSE, I would not know how to punish someone who is misbehaving according to site rules. I mean I have my own ideas about what to do, but I don't know what the site's policy is, and I'd be worried about overstepping my bounds and getting in trouble, so I'd just tell the people to stop, but wouldn't do anything.

 

[META_mahn]

If I was a Mod or NTSE, I would not know how to punish someone who is misbehaving according to site rules. I mean I have my own ideas about what to do, but I don't know what the site's policy is, and I'd be worried about overstepping my bounds and getting in trouble, so I'd just tell the people to stop, but wouldn't do anything.

That's a good idea, having simply more solid rules. Why strip rights when we can make what their rights are more clear? The debate's about people abusing loopholes in the system. So why not remove the loopholes?

 

[Edto Xar'Sivaree]

@Wes I am at work so no long post from me. I agree that public ntse reviewing it's a recipe for drama. People go in and they cause problems. People take out grudges there. If it is to be a public venue, a chore should happen, but that would just be a popularity contest. That's my thought

 

[CadetNewb]

It's been utterly frustrating as a tech mod to have a thread devolve into drama, or have the submitter be heckled, and be unable to do anything about it. The ability to moderate the threads ourselves, simply giving disruptive people the boot from said threads - not the whole NTSE - would be a major step forward. It's neither too weak, or heavy handed. Though both Syaoran and Meta suggest a closer look at rules, I am wary of that since they might have loopholes of their own, and not be flexible enough for use.

 

[ArsenicJohn]

Meta, this debate is not about loopholes at all. It was about people feeling uncomfortable using the NTSE because they feel that people are abusing the right to comment on submissions to block things from people they don't like.

 

[Ethereal]

I agree wholly that mods should be the only ones to review - otherwise agendas and opinions get involved and you get.. situations.

 

[Syaoran]

Meta, this debate is not about loopholes at all. It was about people feeling uncomfortable using the NTSE because they feel that people are abusing the right to comment on submissions to block things from people they don't like.

Arsenic...that is a loophole in the rules <.< like that literally is what a loophole is.

 

[Arieg]

Due to the nature of the NTSE and whats involved..... it needs to be staff and submitter only..... the alternate method of the community weighing in has led to nothing but drama... long submission time waits and other associated tom foolery that has kinda gotten old. Take it from a guy building the basement and foundation of a brand new faction and its associated satellites. (And probably the most prolific tech creator on the site)

 

[Wes]

The way I was thinking would be submissions get dropped in a "box" which is either public or private and then a random submissions staffer is assigned to "coach" the submitter the rest of the way to a passing submission, and the submission coach would contact FMs to ensure the items were OK to add to the faction. After the submission is "done" it would get approved (perhaps by another moderator or by staff?).

As a side note, I feel that we need to seriously look at how people become faction managers and come up with a process that puts the best people in charge of factions instead of having them run by whoever manages to pump out an article or 3 for a new faction (this is not directed at any current FMs). Solely writing wiki articles shouldn't be a way to gain OOC "power" on the site. I would rather reward people with the opportunity to FM for things like being someone who works with other players well, and someone who builds other players up instead of tearing them down.

 

[Ira]

Well. We could try it. Implement it for a month or two. Then we could take a poll from the mods, submitters and ask them what they think.

Right now the only thing we can do is speculate. So we could put it in as a trial, then have a community discussion/poll to see what everybody thinks. All that is required to do this is an open mind. So rather than knee jerk, maybe we should acquire evidence and facts before we commit.

We already know how the old way works. If it was satisfactory we would not be having this discussion.

@Wes

Yes. I also agree with the FM thing. I made something have something of a problem in that reguard. I judge poorly on who to have as second COFM. I think having had at the very least a guide, I’d have chosen another. Which I’ll be getting to you soon about amending that.

 

[Gallant]

@Gallant Well, I'll see how it goes. Personally, the only reason why I feel okay with going wild with D&D canon is the fact once I create the setting, it is no longer part of an overarching canon. I think the rules might be a little different here, but if Wes is okay with it I'm fine with it. He's the one who writes the setting and give the intellectual rights to, not me.

That's actually a lot of reason that I'm comfortable writing Asteria: Aside from Wes, this is my piece of the setting. It's part of an overarching canon, yes, but it doesn't really affect them.

If you write your own Faerun stuff you get to ignore Spellplague. But, there's a joint Gart/Asteria plot that's fighting the Kuvexians. And, although it sounds ridiculous as I mentioned before, one of the benefits of using so much stuff that's already written is that it's pretty much on par with the rest of the setting. We don't use stuff we don't have permission to use. Honestly sometimes I have to turn down stuff because it wouldn't make sense, and we've got permission for... well, pretty much all this.

That's the strange part. All of those little bits and pieces? Most of it, either we control personally, or it's something that's been given to us to use by other people with that authority. We're actually pretty solidly in line with the rest of the website's canon. You could argue, for instance, that in the case of the Iroma - we have FM permission, and we also have the permission of the GM(s) who did the TFL plot.

We're... just... playing with our own toys. Some of those toys, like elves, well, I mean, this stuff was part of the setting we just sort of ignored it. Hanako is a former elf!

Also, @Wes - I agree with those other websites.

Hire more NTSE mods. Keep the process between the FMs (in the case of faction submissions), the Submitter, and the NTSE mod.

Why do I say FMs? Because we have to give our rubber stamp of approval anyway, and should also be available for pinging.

 

[Acewing13]

So long as the review is done by multiple NTSE moderators/staff and with the approval of the faction manager, I don't really see a problem in restricting reviewing access to them. It'd be hard to 'sneak something past' something the staff had to approve before it could become 'canonical'. Personally, the best experiences I've had in the forum have been the feedback from the moderators themselves, namely @Doshii Jun when he was still involved in the process and before the current negative culture set in. As far as I remember, there have been some non-staffers that were useful in bringing up possible problems with my submissions, but the drama that can explode from certain submissions is too big of a negative to keep it. Maybe there's some compromise we can come to that will keep it public while cutting down on the drama, but that would probably involve more work on the staff side of things. Whatever happens, I'm ready for change to happen.

 

[raz]

If you remove the ability of players to comment, we no longer have the community peer review system that was once (and still is) considered a selling point for SARP. Without the community commentary allowance, it seems like an acknowledgment that we don't really have a shared canon anymore and that everything is just a D&D campaign with SARP sourcebooks.

I guess I'm fine with that (I'm not), but I like it better when Hoshitomo Rin and Hanako are one degree of Kevin Bacon away from each other due to my character. Cool, shared stuff like that is why we are here, correct?

As Legix has said many times, just ignore people if you don't value their opinion. I don't even have to use there ignore function to ignore someone! All it takes is not responding to something you feel shouldn't have been asked at all. As in if you don't think something is a valid criticism, don't even give it the time of day. If the NTSE reviewer thinks that person's criticisms are important then you'll have to listen at that point.

Like legitimately. Criticism is posted to convince the reviewer, not the submitter. How do so many people miss that?

 

[Syaoran]

@Wes there is a great boon to having players able to comment on post, and that is that no one person really knows all of SARP, not the NTSE not the submitter and not the players. But if you have players able to comment they can give helpful input that otherwise might've been missed.

Everyone is saying that people commenting causes drama. But that's not the case, what causes the drama is the lack of moderation of people commenting. If there was reasonable moderation of behaviors in the NTSE, there would be no drama and we could keep the helpful input of players.

Maybe to help facilitate the 'speed' of the submission review, instead of having the same points repeated over and over. The Reviewer can make a "Problems list" that list all the problems with the article in a simplified bulleted form, and they can post it every so often so that people can see it and not complain about something that's already been complained about, just it hasn't gotten around to being fixed yet cause there's other stuff being fixed.