[bunniey]

A lot of people still have zero understanding as to what any issues are currently. People have thrown around misogyny and discomfort, privacy, and a few other words a lot, but it mostly stops there. So we're gonna learn you some lessons kids. On both sides, as I feel like some understanding in how people talk to each other needs to be shared as well. 

Starting with the hoy incident. They said something that was considered infantilizing by some. Something along the lines of "be more careful." This was met with immediate backlash, which is mostly understandable. There is a huge problem with men treating women like children in various instances...I just don't think this is one of them, and this blew up inappropriately. The immediate argument is going to be "don't tell people, as a man, how women feel" which is true, it's not my place. But I am in a unique position to tell you that, very often, men talk to each other in pretty much the same way. Things along the lines of "that was stupid, don't do it again, be more careful" all that jazz is just a natural reaction to most when something happens. Many people /should/ show more care in how they approach situations, especially online, and some people do forget that. This conversation should have ended at "be careful with how you word things as it can come off as patronizing, but also try to think of how people communicate with other people before judging too harshly on how they're communicating with you." That's all that really need said. Everyone was a bit shitty there. I don't even think anyone brought that point up to someone else, just in private, but that was my immediate thought. That's exactly how I talk to some of my best friends when they do something that is dumb. It just depends on the relationship. Nuance exists in everything. (That should be my next point smh) But the biggest thing here is, men, please, understand that women go through more than you in every social aspect of life. When someone who has this experience is upset that someone is patronizing them, or patronizing someone else, they're not mad at that singular instance, and couldn't be if they tried. They're mad at an entire life of this same shit happening constantly. I know, this hasn't always been something we have to actively care about so it can feel like people are trying to come into your space and change things, but if multiple people did something that you found immensely uncomfortable consistently, you'd generalize just as much. That being said, being brash and standoffish will never be a way to fix this. It's why those tumblr era feminism posts went so viral, and why for awhile everyone hated third wave feminism. Something something honey not vinegar. There's also this strange idea that someone who is championing making things a safe space for these more marginalized groups is infallible, and can do no wrong/should never own up to their stuff. That's just a dangerous thought. Someone can be doing something positive in a negative way, or do something positive and something negative separate from that. In fact, most people doing extremely positive things do it to either hide or make amends for extremely negative things. I don't know where to put this, but constantly having my dms shared around with people makes me very uncomfortable, but that's not bannable despite all this, y'know?

Gamer Culture is stupid. Stop doing it. I get it, talking about dicks is fun, talking about cum is fun (guilty), whatever, but good lord. Comfort is, in fact, an important thing to most people. Online is where we escape from the monotony of life. Everyone saying "get a job get a life stop caring about a Garry's mod server" while also caring seemingly too much about a Garry's mod server are being silly. This is the escape from life. Being in a community I love and talking with people I've spent years getting to know is what I do to escape the stresses of that fulltime job. Turning off my brain when I'm able is nice. Plus these are some good friends that oftentimes transcend just the internet/this community, so it's more than just what you're trying to minimize it into. 

Privacy. Let people have it. If someone is being a predator or stalking or harassing or something in a discord, that's one thing. If we're going to start getting mad at slurs in fringe discords, I have bad news. I have screenies of multiple admins/former admins slurring at people in mine. Even ones you wouldn't expect. I have people saying heinous shit in dms. Trying to patrol outside discord just gives way to lumping behavior into groups which is just unfair to everyone involved. Then you get things like people being wrongfully accused of the whole guidelines thing (the screenshot that exists, multiple people in that call didn't know it happened until the following day, it was just an assumption that was made), or whatever else. Or just being decidedly guilty for being complicit when often times they don't pay attention to anything actually going on. Without actually asking questions directly to people, you're just working off assumption if you try to police things that way. 

Cliques are dumb. Bringing up cliques is dumb. Most people aren't so one-track minded that they're just thinking and feeling everything their friend group does. At times it does feel like there's pressure to act one way or another to avoid drama, but that's a symptom of this whole drama frenzy this community feeds off of (my b) more than anything. I do think they can be prevalent in staffing and how things are treated (see certain people getting the last words in before threads close and whatnot when they're part of arguments), but that has always been a thing. So has staff trying to imply snitching will help you get a staffing role. (dong, bryan, and battons @ me trying to snitch on people leaking things to me when I was trying to get staff again ages ago,,,)

The last one is obvious. I talk about it a lot. If you can't sit down with someone and talk naturally (VCs are good for this, they need to be utilized more for arguments, dehumanizing one's self and the other person by talking in text just serves to make communication more difficult as you're seeing the person as words not as a person) with someone without being immediately angry, the conversation needs to wait. Truly nothing will ever get done if you can't do this. This is why when I want to have honest communication, I always ask to vc (and always get shot down smh). I know it sounds daunting, especially since most of the people here are socially awkward and never have to have actual conversations vocally that are about anything serious when it's a disagreement...but it's just needed. 

tldr (it goes at the end fuck you jammin) everyone's at fault and the only way to salvation is actually trying to understand the POV of others and communicate issues as they come up, not treat them as a powder keg about to explode until you can blow up everything, if everything was just dealt with as it happened, none of this would ever be an issue.

---

Rand is going back into hibernation pt. 348943

[bunniey]

This is something I've never understood about how people staff. Unless it's a time thing/things slipping between the cracks (I understand that to an extent but still...) I'll never get how someone approaches you about something and you don't immediately do something about it as staff. I was handling harassment for people as a trusted in my first time because of this, so I get that it happens some, but good lord I don't understand why. I wish there were more posts about specific instances of this to call attention to it but of course it mostly has personal details that don't need made public. Because yeah...people should answer for this sort of thing not being acted on.

[TDawg4]

When someone who has this experience is upset that someone is patronizing them, or patronizing someone else, they're not mad at that singular instance, and couldn't be if they tried. They're mad at an entire life of this same shit happening constantly.

i feel like you are one of the only people to actually understand this. thank you

I would also like to say that I have tried addressing my own personal issues that have become public in the past few weeks as they happened and they went unresolved (or, to be blunt, ignored). I'm sure many others have had a similar experience here. You have the right sentiment, yes, but please try to remember this.

I agree that this is exactly what people who are given advice or guidance feel after a situation where they are not at fault. I know personally that I like to fix things and have been guilty of trying to convince someone who just went through something of all the changes they need to make for it to not happen again. 

The other side of this is if this is true in whatever instance "They're mad at an entire life of this same shit happening constantly."  Then I think it might be that person who needs that type of advice the most. Even something simple can push someone to start asserting stronger boundaries or to put themselves into situations where they feel more comfortable standing up for themselves. 

 I could give extreme examples here to try to illustrate my point, but I am going to try to do something a bit more realistic. My older sister is a prosecutor for a major office in the United States, she constantly dealt with defense attorneys walking over her and being overly aggressive in conversations because she is a young woman. Not her fault at all, but she made the change to move where she had these meetings to her office where she had more control. This was an inconvenience for her, but had much better outcomes. 

Whenever she originally complained to me about the issues she was having I made a somewhat off hand comment and kinda dumb comment that she shouldn't let them walk over her because they were in her house. This in a way was kinda victim blamey as I said that she "shouldnt" let them walk over her, but what I was trying to convey and what she took from it was that she had the ability to make changes that put her more in control.

Just trying to provide a bit more perspective to the patronizing thing. I agree that it does happen and people trying to help what are essentially victims should be careful with how the present ideas for them to take more control.  

For staff members reading this it never hurts to send a message to someone getting shit on even if you think they are friends with someone. You never know how what you see as a mean comment could touch on something much more serious for someone.

[bunniey]

I agree that this is exactly what people who are given advice or guidance feel after a situation where they are not at fault. I know personally that I like to fix things and have been guilty of trying to convince someone who just went through something of all the changes they need to make for it to not happen again. 

This is a perspective I heavily align with. I was basically raised by peers in school to be The Problem Solver™ in most things, so I got used to fixing everything people came to me with, and then started trying to offer unsolicited advice on things because of that. It's truly a bad habit, and something people who do this should probably consider is sometimes someone will benefit most by just you listening and letting them know their plights are seen. Sometimes someone just needs to vent. Sometimes they do need that blunt force trauma advice too, but it's a tightrope. 

This is a large part of why sometimes people may feel like I'm not addressing an issue properly at first, because I'm still processing and/or gathering information on it to actually address it how I want to. (I'm also just someone who tends to always speak their mind which plays into this as well.) Which is something other people should consider, people process information at different rates, and might not have the responses you want on things when you want them if they still need more information. It's not that they don't care that this terrible thing may have happened, they just have always waited until they have as many facts as possible before they actually say anything about it.

[Ryan]

Dude. Rand for admin. This could not be put any better. You've captured everything almost to perfection.

I dont have anything else to add here. You've put it perfectly

[chapman]

Privacy is a major thing. This whole "I'm afraid of leaks" situation that has been occurring due to various situations for multiple people in multiple servers has been ridiculous. You nailed it; so many of us have said severely heinous things in calls or in DMs.

I don't ever condone the usage of a "she got it because she's a woman" argument because that's disgusting behavior. As a public-school teacher, I see constant reminders of why women act the way they do when people begin to patronize them. There are several instances where I deal with students making comments about females driving and other things (just to provide some examples). Seeing comments like what Skullfire were making on a thread were absolutely pathetic.

And if things were handled properly when it occurred, you're right. None of the following drama that's been occurring recently would be going on (at least not as rampant or toxic in my opinion) and there might be a chance to salvage friendships. Personally, there are several I don't want to try to mend because there is a mutual dislike between both parties, and I don't feel like wasting my or their time with that. If there was one I wanted to fix, I would do it over a VC call because I'm similar to you that I believe humanizing the interaction is so important. The issue is we want to text and text can be misconstrued quite easily.

I think that because of the "clique" narrative, we forget that people can think for themselves. Nobody in any friend group is truly a "hivemind" (I used to make jokes about PH staff being one a while back but was never truly serious about it) and nobody ever agrees with what someone does 100% of the time. I personally wish a lot of the people I'm friends with would stop trying to add fuel to the fire, and I wish the other parties would stop entertaining it so easily.

The overall negativity is just not great. It's part of the reason I stopped playing GMOD, left the discord, and ultimately don't want to be involved any further. Some people might believe that I contributed to that negativity, which in some cases I did, but I don't think constantly going after people is it. If someone blocks you or doesn't reply to you, just leave it at that and hope maybe someday you could have that conversation.

Also, all the people who claim they "don't care" are bullshitting and not fooling anyone.

[RussEfarmer]

Holup im getting some fax


Excellent post Rand
admin material fr

[bunniey]

Y'all are gassing me up too much, I don't have any place on the admin team. I hardly use the discord and don't play any server consistently, and don't know the backend of anything, particularly the forums which are in good hands and would be the only place that makes sense as it is. I think we could probably benefit from someone specifically around to deal with certain interpersonal issues that come up, where that's their primary role so the people focusing on specific server issues don't have to split time so much, less things fall between cracks, plus it would be community-wide and whatnot. But that's so outside the current mold, I don't see anything like that happening. The main argument would be that should be all staff (or at least mod+ staff) as a whole.

But I wouldn't currently be a good fit for any of that, I'm just an old man that likes to talk. And still have that staff chat leaking history that still has a long way before it's fully recompensed. I do appreciate the sentiment, though.

[August]

Honestly, incredibly well said Rand. You nailed every single point to perfection and I implore every single person who find this thread to read every single word of it. This is one of those post that a TLDR really takes so much away from what’s actually being said. Seriously, read it.

[Dildo Shwaggins]

Rand, you are the best at putting what is necessary to be said in a great, civil manner. If this community wants to bridge divides, then this post really needs to be read and taken into action by everyone from the admin team to the general members.