Yes, but taking an initiative to NOT check if a story actually contains the ‘offensive material’ described, instead just going off the descriptions, seems rather underhanded. Why can’t the description just be re-worded if it is an inaccurate representation of the content in the story? What it sounds like is if the trigger warnings and descriptions weren’t there for her story, or were worded differently, this issue going on wouldn’t have happened.
So, I guess my question is, what’s the point of trigger-warnings if they’re just gonna end up getting someone’s post deleted?
Just a reminder to everyone, that it’s a good idea to take a few breaths and reread a post, to make sure you are seeing what they are actually saying, before responding to it.
Just to say, I’m not “answering for Jason” in what follows, nor do I think other people were. We’re offering our own responses to questions raised on the thread. I also don’t think the fact that we answered some posts while Jason was focusing on replying to others is “sketch”. Nor should anyone expect CoG staff to drop everything and answer big questions like “how are you going to reduce the likelihood that people will spread rumors on bits of the Internet you don’t control?” within an hour or two of the question being asked.
As someone with no authority but who’s been here a while, I’d say a lot of that is on us forum members (and in this particular case the CYSers… though as omnidirectional vitriol-spewing is a foundational part of their forum culture I don’t think we can expect too much help on this one).
When people who have less than half the story start speculating destructively about what they don’t know, why is that on CoG and not on them? Jason’s written extensively about how negative conjecture breaks forums and asked us to refrain from it.
“What steps will be taken to nip rumors in the bud?” is a great question, but it’s also one where we need to keep our expectations of CoG reasonable and take responsibility ourselves. We’re the front line of defense against rumors. We need to be the ones to say, “Slow your roll and don’t get riled up without knowing the facts.”
This is perhaps especially true of forum members who chat on Discord as well as here. I’m not on the CoG Discord, and I’m sure most of what goes on there is great…but it does also seem to have fed most of the uglier panics and pile-ons that have recently spilled over onto this forum (and occasionally onto CYS).
CoG has as far as I’m aware not taken any responsibility for policing any Discord servers, all of which were set up by fans (i.e. there’s no “official” CoG channel). That’s the only choice they can make; they’re a small company with very little resource to put into community management, even when it comes to this their own forum, let alone other fansites. Even more than here, the Discord channels rely on self-moderation.
As a non-Discordian, all I can do is appeal to those of you who are highly active on the CoG Discord to keep it from becoming a toxic community. Don’t pile on your least favorite authors, and don’t stay quiet while others do. Don’t speculate about negative things without knowing the facts, and don’t stay quiet while others do.
As for transparency: in all the CoG-author disputes that I’ve seen on the forums, the justification for non-publication, reclassification as Adult, etc. was stated publicly but briefly by CoG, and seemed clear enough to me. I’ve seen other rumors and slanted perspectives festering…but I don’t believe additional “transparency” by CoG would have done much to nip them in the bud. The rationale had already been stated transparently.
In every case I’ve seen, there’s also whataboutism-- “what about this game that did the same thing?” – and to that, too, we have repeatedly had CoG’s answer: they look at games in response to specific complaints or questions raised by us. They don’t systematically police WiPs, or review HGs for grossly offensive content until the verge of publication. If anyone wants to flag up a particular section of any WiP (not a vague memory requiring a mod to dig around the whole thing, please) that merits staff action, I’m sure action will be taken. If not, please don’t expect it to be.
On the broader point of:
volunteer mods have often been the ones making the calls, falling back on CoG staff where things are unclear. Gower’s done a commendable job of writing up the moderation norms. If you think there’s an issue that needs further clarification, why don’t we take it over to that thread?
Finally,
Let’s remember what we’re talking about here. It was an announcement for a game that’s been published off-site–not a HG.
If someone were to post in the Other Interactive Fiction section about “Extra Super Rape Game” just published on Steam, whether or not they phrased any of it in terms of a “trigger warning,” CoG would be under no obligation to read through the game before deleting the post, and there would be nothing “underhanded” about its upholding forum standards.
I didn’t see Avery’s actual post, so can’t speak to Jason’s account of its contents. But the content of the post, not of the game, is what’s at issue when we’re talking about anything published outside of CoG.
I can’t say much on the intricate details behind everything that’s happened between Avery, CYS, and COG, but I will say that I hope all of this can be resolved peacefully.
I think multiple people made mistakes in all this chaos, but I think it’d be really nice if the two communities could be united in a love for Interactive Fiction rather than being divided by hatred inspired by rumors and misinformation.
I just think it’s a shame that people on both sides have been attacking and badmouthing each other.
@Havenstone, very well put, from my limited perspective. I know Jason is done for the night and will probably have time to respond more thoroughly tomorrow. (I can’t sleep and it’s not too late where I am, so wheeeeee!)
For me, who’s pretty much completely unaware of what goes on on Discord let alone about people harassing HG/WIP writers, there’s an element in the question which kind of feels like… “So, when did you stop beating your wife?” I don’t know about this stuff going on, and have very little ability to do anything about it. When I see a demand for that we do something and also be transparent about it has a kind of underlying implication that we’re 1) purposely doing nothing and 2) also acting covertly or withholding information.
I’ll observe that we’re getting more and more frequent requests to police people’s behavior online and specifically not on our forums, and these requests have taken a lot of different forms, not just complaints about Discord or CYS. And, I’m personally not in favor of policing off-forum. I know it’s hard to believe but everything we do to publish COG titles is a 40+ hour a week job for five people. I think it’s fantastic that we have this community and I wish people bought more games. If they did, we could hire a community manager. There’s extremely limited bandwidth here.
But, I’m sure Jason will have more to say tomorrow.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you’ve said, @Havenstone–you put it more articulately and reasonably than most! The only thing I would add on to is this:
While it’s true that there’s no “official” COG Discord that the staff polices, though many are a part of, there is a fan-made unofficial server that I would argue is the “main” COG one. From personal experience, I would say that the moderation there is very similar in culture and efficiency to the forums: toxic or hurtful speech is not allowed to fester, multiple mods are online to, well, moderate, and piling on is redirected or deleted, as is negativity and unwarranted speculation. Even today there were attempts to talk about this very thread, which were gently but firmly shut down.
As someone who keeps an eye on both arenas, I would argue that toxicity isn’t spilling over from Discord to the forums, but people do go there first to complain because it’s seen as more private or less moderated. When they’re proven wrong (i.e. asked to stop or leave the server by mods), then it’s taken here, dragging drama between both platforms and giving the appearance of having started exclusively in the server.
Everything you said in general is correct, and that we shouldn’t tolerate that kind of negativity or toxicity. I’ve just seen complaints that the COG Fan Discord is too committed to eliminating that kind of talk and nipping it in the bud, so I just wanted to give my two cents on that. I think moderation there is just as dedicated and vigilant as it is here on Discourse.
But yes, we as a community need to be the ones who combat rumor-mongering and assumptions: we are the frontline while COG is busy creating the content that brought us all together in the first place.
My apologies for taking so long to get back to this. Yesterday was a shit day for a variety of reasons.
Before I turn to @ashestoashes018’s questions, I want to point out that there isn’t an “unofficial official” COG Discord. When they opened that server, I asked them to change the name to ChoiceScript Games, to get our name off of there. (In the same way that I asked @dashingdon to change his server.) I very much appreciate the enthusiasm of our community to make that and other Discords–and Dashingdon for his server!–but we cannot take responsibility for what transpires on those platforms. Just as we cannot take responsibility for what happens on CYS or Tumblr.
Which turns me to Ashes’ questions. Ashes, I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to answer your questions–it’s unclear to if there’s anything I could do to change your mind–but I’m going to try.
What are you going to do to prevent harassment of authors?
1a. On-forum: if an author is harassed on forum, users should flag the harassing posts. We’ll do our level best to sort through the issue. More specifically, the only thing I can do to stop “hating en masse” is to suspend folks, and unfortunately that requires them to do something that results in suspension. Which, I hope you can see, creates a problem: I can’t proactively stop harassment. I can only retroactively suspend or ban individuals.
1b. Off-forum: basically, nothing. As I said above, I can’t take responsibility for what happens off-forum. There are some small things that I can do–where a forum member might be doing something that is encouraging off-forum harassment–but I don’t have magical powers over users or other platforms. There are some exceptions here–and I certainly do reserve the right to respond on the forum to non-forum activity–but largely nothing.
Will there be “protections put in place against things just being deleted”? The problem with this question is that there is context and nuances here that you’re not allowing space for. (Which is, unfortunately, mostly a matter of trust. From the tenor of your posts, I think you just don’t trust me, which is why I don’t think I’m going to be able to change your mind. But that’s not answering your question.)
2a. Broadly, no. Which is to say, I don’t see the current norms changing. The current norms are not to “just delete” things from regular, established users that are in good standing. If you’re a new user and you post your WIP and it or its description is grossly offensive, I don’t see much of a reason to give you a warning. To go back to the coffeeshop metaphor, that’s like walking in an taking a dump on the floor and being expected to be given a warning that that’s inappropriate. Now, it may very well be a part of that user’s culture to take a dump on the floor of coffeeshops–or they could just be trolling–but this isn’t a place where that’s acceptable; it’s on the user to observe and learn the norms of this forum.
2b. Similarly, someone who has received warnings or is otherwise on “thin ice” will probably not be given the opportunity to revise posts. If someone is a regular user, and they’re posting things that they should reasonably know are inappropriate, then no.
As for Broken Lenses, no one has complained about it to us. In fact, in response to this thread, the author reached out and made a case for what they’re doing with the project. That said, I haven’t played it. I’m likely to never play it. I’m certainly not going to take the time to go play it right now. As has been said elsewhere, we don’t have the resources to play every WIP that’s posted on the forums. If you find Broken Lenses to be offensive, then send us an email with specifics.
What steps will be taken to ensure that rumors are nipped in the bud? As Havenstone pointed out, I wrote a series of posts about negative conjecture, and a lot of people freaked the fuck out. But negative conjecture is exactly the sort of thing that leads to rumors. That said, I don’t have any ideas about how to “nip rumors in the bud” other than, frankly, to close down the forums. So, if you have ideas about how to stop them, I’m open to hearing them.
What steps will be taken so information is freely available? What information? You need to be much more specific here.
You also reference “email chains,” and unfortunately, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Honestly, if you want rumors to fizzle out, the best thing to do is be open to them. All these instances of people being banned or their threads being deleted/closed are the exact things that lead to more rumors. The problem with deleting a WIP because it’s description is “grossly offensive” is that it’s purely based on subjectivity. Not having some set of standards, and instead taking it case by case could lead people to believe there is a bias. Especially when the WIP doesn’t really break any of the rules in “adult-fiction”, and even contains what there are tags for.
I’d think of it less as a “taking a shit in a coffee shop”, but more like being kicked out of a coffee shop just because the manager doesn’t like you.
In any case, @Avery_Moore’s story should now be cleared for publication, right? She had the go-ahead from Alex, so I don’t really see anything that would restrict her from getting her story out there to a larger audience via HG.
