What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't

[kalakh]

So I said a few weeks back that this is a topic worth discussing, so let’s discuss it. One rule: no mention of MSB as is beyond relevant topics that may have come up there first, everything else goes in the banning thread.

Note that henceforth when I say “community”, I mean MUSHing/MUCKing/etc, our community at large, rather than BMD, though obviously including BMD, a small corner of said community.

So, I think rents in a hobby community - any hobby community, but certainly this one - are inevitable and often natural, and for the most part tend to shake themselves out eventually. Every community has growing pains, and as every community is (at least if it’s not on its deathbed) ever growing and changing regardless of population, those growing pains do not go away. There is no solving problems that exist everywhere humans gather, there’s just adjusting and accommodating (or not accommodating) as they come about.

So, in that regard, every single community of any size is going to have people that dislike each other, even loathe each other. It’s going to have people with loud opinions, it’s going to have people nervous about speaking up, it’s going to have friendship groups, which are not the same as cliques, but it will also have cliques. It’s going to have people that lose their shit when they shouldn’t, and people that don’t lose their shit when they probably should. It will have bad actors, it will have downright predators, and every now and then it’s probably going to explode.

So the question, in my mind, isn’t how to “repair” a community, but how to handle a community, how to deal with all of those many factors, where pressure should and should not be applied (and how much) by the members of said community, and how best to nurture the good things while adequately addressing the bad things.

I’m going to have a hot take and say that while I am not going to argue whether or not the Hog Pit was or wasn’t a net good (I have no idea and I don’t think anyone else does either), the existence of it for so long is not proof of a community being broken, but proof of a community strong enough to thrive alongside or in spite of such a space existing. I will argue that a place where the worst of the hobby have their deeds dragged into the light so they can be known is a net good, though it does need to be handled with care.

I’m going to harken back to my bias, but also an example: some of my first brushes with an online community came when I started playing Everquest 1. At the time there were no official server forums, so server forums existed out in the wild frontier, run by players and moderated only as said players saw fit. The forum for my server had two relevant boards: Rants and Raves, which is what it sounded like, where posters would, outside of very specific exceptions, like doxxing, just post whatever they wanted, get into fights with whoever they wanted, make entire threads dragging a single person just because they disliked them (rightly or wrongly), and so on.

This forum also had a separate board called The Shit List. Everquest 1, at least in its early to mid heyday, was a game where you could do all sorts of ugly shit to other players, there weren’t a lot of rails to keep it from happening, and the GMs/guides were often either overwhelmed, or entirely handcuffed by their ability to do anything at all. Thus, the Shit List existed for the server’s community to do its best to police itself. Players obviously couldn’t ban other players from the game themselves, so community policing and punishment came down to warning and ostracization. This person cheated me in a trade, you can’t trust them to trade with you. This person trained me repeatedly on purpose, beware if you see them in the area. This person was standing in E. Commons screaming racial slurs and for some reason guides weren’t available. It was ugly (It was called the Shit List, lol), but it served a very specific, and I would indeed argue essential purpose for that particular community.

Were people wrongly accused? Yes, but you know, it really did kind of shake out. Screenshots weren’t easy to doctor, for one. Everquest more or less required constant social interaction in order to do anything, for two. Even the absolute assholes of the forums were usually willing to weigh in honestly. And if someone was lying, their lies were there for everyone to see and then they were on the Shit List. And the existence of that forum saved a whole lot of people a whole lot of grief, lost time, frustration, and worse.

I think it helps for a community like this one to have something where the worst of the worst are put out there for everyone to see and everyone to know. The problem, of course, is how to do that in a way that protects legitimate victims and punishes legitimate abusers.

I also think it does a community no favors to confuse Rants and Raves with The Shit List, so maybe that was the Hog Pit’s true sin all along; it made it too easy to say one was the other, even though those lines were generally pretty clear.

[sao]

I think one thing that is important in terms of defining the health of the community is figuring out that there is a difference between when people have differences in opinion - where reasonable minds may differ- and when people have differences in values to the point where their basic philosophies cannot coincide. I think that there are some extreme divergences of opinion in this community, and there have definitely been times that we get into knockdown, dragout fights, often about things that don’t on the surface seem worth it.

But the areas where our values diverge are the areas where things actually matter. The length of a pose, or how social dice compare to combat dice, or … I don’t know, I’m blanking on what other old chestnuts we have floating around, but these don’t matter in the same way as things that get us down to our bones (which usually comes up when we are discussing how to deal with abusers and bad actors and people who skirt the edges of what we as a community have defined as acceptable behavior).

But I also think we as a community have grown and changed over the years and while sometimes fights have gotten ugly, I actually haven’t seen much ugliness here on BMD yet. I keep waiting for us to fight. But girl we been in the trenches together now, it’s just not happening.

I dunno. I DUNNO. I was going somewhere.

[Mourne]

@kalakh Lack of consolidation.

A healthy community is one that has a wide variety of people and opinions with a few common ones that bring them together so that this thing in the community can be enjoyed.

It is impossible for everyone to agree on everything all the time. Human nature and opinions being what they are there are going to be differences. What makes them healthy differences though is when people can speak about those differences in a non-toxic way that doesn’t deride someone for not sharing an opinion.

It is ok to have different opinions on things within the community, to respect that my opinion might be different from someone else’s, but that’s a hard thing to do these days. Everything is divisive.

Everything.

Of course when someone’s opinion is factually untrue, or is painfully detrimental to others, and promotes hostility and violence towards others… then a line needs to be drawn and something done.

I would not claim to know how to do that, but as has happened, obviously people reacted to those lines differently, and find those lines in other places.

So what do we do? Try and speak with like-minded individuals I guess, so that everyone’s pretendy fun times isn’t messed up.

[junipersky]

I hate capitalism, but also, I feel like our little corner of the world is best when there is a nice equal balance between supply and demand. A supply of games/forums/places-to-be that can cater to the different viewpoints, and then a demand to keep those places going.

I am always sad when a game closes, even if I wasn’t a fan of it, because it means there is that much less supply. That will push the people that I may not particular be fond of, and am apt to start fires over, into my spheres. It’s not always healthy for us to be together!

For example: I’m glad there are a few WoD games out there. That whole crazy system, however much fun it might be for people, makes zero sense to me. At the same time Arx or Harper’s Tale with its zero dice make no sense to people.

There’s a thinner line when values come into play, because I think it’s pretty clear we don’t all agree on what values are important enough to fight for, and when we can let other people think/do what they will. This mirrors real life SO MUCH.

As for how to deal with it? I feel like the only way TO deal with a conflict in values is to walk to a place that does have your particular values, or at least is close enough you’re not in constant friction. Unless there’s actual predation going on, don’t go burning down the house. Let people have their fun over there, even if you don’t get to have your fun over there also.

[RightMeow]

Personal take - not a I’m right take -

I view my interactions with everyone as a relationship. I don’t mean a RL one or a romantic one. I try to accept we are both imperfect people. When there is a breakdown, I try the same thing as I do in life. First - walk away for 24 hours before engaging. Second - admit there was a problem. Third - let each side state a concise problem that they see. Four - validate the other’s emotion/thoughts/concerns. Five - offer a solution. Six - Listen to their solution. Seven - Find compromise. Eight - Accept the turn out and let it go from there. Don’t kitchen sink it (bring it up after it’s been resolved).

I find, personally, most breakdowns happen in the heat of the moment. Or when one party doesn’t feel heard and validated. Also, validating someone else’s opinion does not mean agreement.

The biggest ‘fix’ I see is the admitting of the problem. The understanding that both sides of it had a wrongdoing and a right-doing. They were trying from what they viewed. So communication and willingness to remove oneself from the immediate emotion. Then compromise. If both find a mutual ground it doesn’t feel like a win/lose. It feels like a both heard and changed accordingly.

[Roadspike]

@kalakh said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

So the question, in my mind, isn’t how to “repair” a community, but how to handle a community, how to deal with all of those many factors, where pressure should and should not be applied (and how much) by the members of said community, and how best to nurture the good things while adequately addressing the bad things.

I think that this is a great take on the actual question here. I don’t think the community needs repair so much as it needs constant maintenance.

I agree with many of the ideas here, but I personally think that the best thing that we can do to maintain the community is to be vigilant in removing the missing stairs. Players, if there’s someone that you would warn your friends about, tell staff/forum admins about them too. Staff/forum admins, if you’re warned about someone and they do seem like a threat to the safety of your players, remove them from your game and let people know. Players, if staff/forum admins won’t do it, remove yourself from the game and let people know. Get rid of toxic people. I believe that’s the best way to maintain the community.

[Kestrel]

Joy.

A healthy community needs joy. It’s one of the most vital ingredients, and one that’s too often overlooked.

Some gamerunners and administrators often fixate so greatly on all the many ways that misery can be caused, and must be prevented, that they neglect to allow enough room for people to breathe. A good community isn’t just one where people aren’t actively being harmed; it’s one where people are actively enjoying themselves.

In every community/project I’ve ever run, I’ve started from a point of wanting to offer people as much freedom as possible, and from there opted to limit only what really needed to be. I assume people won’t abuse a system or any trust offered; if I’m proven wrong, then I either handle the individual doing so, or reinforce the boundaries that need to be. I find that people generally want to live up to expectations, or inversely, down to them. If you treat them like children, they will act like children; I think that bad administrators often have those notions of cause and effect the wrong way around. There are always exceptions, but people want to be liked; don’t corner them, don’t make them feel unwelcome, don’t cultivate a hostile atmosphere, and the likelihood they’ll be on their best behaviour is in fact very high. I’ve seen notoriously toxic communities transform entirely when ported into an environment where they understand that both expectations of them, and the treatment they’re likely to receive in turn, are different. They have no reason to be hostile when they don’t feel like they’re constantly being threatened.

Try not to punish people if you can help it. Prevention is better than retribution. Sometimes you need the latter, but the former’s always better. On a game, this means designing systems that encourage positive behaviour rather than simply shaming people for bad behaviour. I’m going to deliberately use a fictional example that to the best of my knowledge doesn’t exist anywhere, because I don’t want to subtweet: a system that allows people to silently vote on your description, and rewards you with some kind of XP bonus upon crossing an approval threshold with other players, would be better than one that allows other players to report typos in it and affect you with some kind of malus for having them. But as mentioned, this is a deliberately fictional example and you can transpose it onto something more vital than a character desc; ideally, unless you’ve reason to be concerned about the quality of character descs on your game, I think it’s generally worth risking the occasional typo or Mary-Sueishness or minor quibbles over taste, and letting players have the creative freedom to do what makes them happy and fuck up from time to time. If it’s not utterly game-breaking or community ruining, then whatever.

One size doesn’t fit all. Sometimes you need to test the waters and figure out as you go what kind of community you’re dealing with, and what management style’s best suited for it.

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I agree with @Roadspike’s commentary about missing stairs. This helps preserve joy. Let’s say you have a community where adult language is allowed, and you don’t have rules against sex jokes. Occasionally someone cracks a sex joke, and it’s funny, and people laugh; joy is up. One weirdo shows up and starts making the kinds of inappropriate sex jokes that make everyone uncomfortable instead. The difference is subtle, but felt. You may choose to let the occasional incidence of bad actors ruin what’s until now been a fun and relaxed atmosphere for everyone, and say that sex jokes are now against the rules, all comments must be PG. Or you address the missing stairs, the one person who’s calling every woman they talk to a bitch/cunt, and go back to the relaxed approach where people can otherwise laugh, joke around, and lovingly call their friends rude names without it causing issues.

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Briefly, I want to address the topic of “receipts”, because it has been a hot topic of late, and I think it is worth touching on in good faith. I’ve deliberately not brought it up before, because I don’t want my words to be misused by people who mean ill.

Receipts are good. Keep receipts. Share receipts. Ask for receipts. That’s fine. If I hear about a bad actor, I want to know the specifics of what they’ve done that’s bad, not because I disbelieve you, but because that information can help me further protect myself and others. For example, there’s a thread about Breccan. Prior to reading it and some of the receipts @kalakh posted, the stories I’d heard about this person made me wonder if it’s someone I’ve dealt with before. When I read the screenshots, I could see that their writing style wasn’t a good fit, and am now less worried about the person I know (even if they still make me uncomfortable enough that I wondered).

Of course, there is a difference between wanting receipts and needing receipts. I don’t need them to believe someone’s been made uncomfortable, especially not if I hear from multiple people that’s the case. I’m not owed receipts when there are a myriad of reasons why they may not be available, or not available to me. And if I’m not a member of staff, and it’s not my job to handle and review the complaint, then I definitely don’t need them to just be a good community member and offer empathy. If I hear that Alex is pursuing Charlie and making them uncomfortable, then it doesn’t really matter how well I know either party, or what I know about the situation; I’m going to tell Alex to fuck off if I see them asking after Charlie. (With varying degrees of respect, depending on the discernible extent.)

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Nice is different than good. Wherever possible, we should try to be nice. We should avoid personal attacks. We should address each other respectfully. But I’m personally not interested in respectability politics, or in tolerating intolerance. We’re not obligated to be polite to those looking to abuse civil standards.

Tell people to fuck off, loudly, clearly and firmly, if they choose to actively engage in fuckery. Don’t let others run circles around your moral standards. I was recently on a game where a very obvious troll showed up and started breaking systems in ways that a newbie simply wouldn’t know how to, while endlessly asking questions on the newbie channel. A friend of mine chose to engage them in good faith, was unfailingly polite, and answered all their questions as best as possible. I told them not to; the “newbie” was clearly, and wilfully wasting their time. My friend said, ‘You’re probably right, but how I respond reflects on me more than it does on them.’ I disagreed; I ignored the newbie, and did not give them the attention and amusement they were there for. Bad faith doesn’t deserve good faith in return; don’t reward bad behaviour.

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These are my opinions, for all that they happen to be worth.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

Most has already been said so I’m just going to toss in: Respect.

Assume that people aren’t bad actors just because they disagree with you. Discourage ad hominem attacks and agree to disagree.

But also have the respect for the place to not allow a certain kind of actor to continue to disrespect the place by continuing to stir shit once everyone else is trying to disengage.

[kalakh]

@Kestrel said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

Nice is different than good. Wherever possible, we should try to be nice. We should avoid personal attacks. We should address each other respectfully. But I’m personally not interested in respectability politics, or in tolerating intolerance. We’re not obligated to be polite to those looking to abuse civil standards.

This is a great post all around, but this bit here has me thinking about something I was told…eesh, over a decade ago now, and that’s that there’s a difference between being nice, and being kind. There’s nothing wrong with being nice, but nice is superficial. It’s nice when someone holds the door for you. It’s nice when you smile at strangers in passing. It’s nice to watch your language. Nice is, as this conversation went, easily done, but also easily faked, and easily used as cover for insisting that peace and calm are more important than addressing deeper issues. It is never, for instance, nice to shout. It’s not nice to get angry. Nice people don’t inconvenience others, or ever make them uncomfortable. It’s not nice to say mean things about people, even if it’s really rather necessary to warn others about them. Nice can be wielded as an expectation with judgment: why can’t you just be nicer?

I try to be nice when it’s appropriate, but I’m always a bit wary about nice.

Kindness, on the other hand, is harder and requires more effort, but is more meaningful. Kindness comes from the heart, not from manners. It’s kind to volunteer your time at a homeless shelter. It’s kind to help a stranger jumpstart their car or fix a tire. It’s kind to bring food to a grieving neighbor, or to be a shoulder to a friend when they really need one. I don’t think kindness is rare, though our society is really dedicated to making us believe so. But it can be so easily overlooked, and sometimes, what is kind is not nice.

I dunno, that’s what’s in my brain, because respectability politics is a great way to put it.

edit: Actually, I want to expand with an example.

Years ago, there was a death in my family that was sudden and awful in every way. We had support from neighbors and church folks, many condolences were given, and space was had when needed. I don’t want to disparage any of that, I am and always will be deeply, deeply grateful for all of it.

But lemme tell you about this one guy. He used to be the head of our church, but at the time was no longer in any position, and had no responsibility whatsoever toward my family. The night this happened, my folks called three people: 911, the actual church leader, and him.

This dude arrived before the ambulance or the cops, before the church leader, he came sprinting up our lawn at full speed in the middle of the night, he hugged my parents and just managed to hug me, and then he stuck around trying to provide support well after everyone else had left. No idea if he got any sleep at all. He wasn’t the only one, but he went with my folks to pick up the body. He helped arrange the funeral. At every step, he was there to help.

It’s been nine years and this guy moved halfway across the country maybe six months after this happened, but every single anniversary, without fail, he sends my mom flowers. That may be the kindest person I will ever meet.

[GF]

Trust.

[Polk]

@kalakh Your last paragraph there is incredibly insightful. It took a lot of background info to get to that point, but that’s brilliant analysis of what people projected onto the Hog Pit - which came to dominate MSB as a whole because of the whole heckler’s veto thing - versus what it was run as.

People wanted a forum that kept a List. They got a form of ranting and raving.

If you want to be a clearing house of information about bad actors in a smallish Internet community, you need to value honesty and integrity.

But there’s another issue. Put on your mask before helping others.

A forum like this has to protect its own integrity and health, if it’s going to be of use to others. It’s a mistake to err on the side of anything goes, even when the reasoning is THE INFORMATION MUST GET OUT THERE so PEOPLE ARE PROTECTED.

If a forum like this wants to be an institutional pillar of the hobby, it has to be safe and healthy itself, if it’s going to assist game communities in keeping themselves safe and healthy.

So how do you keep a forum healthy? I think the way you do that is you cultivate a culture where we assume everyone is engaging in good faith. Observe good practices of civil politeness. Be gentle.

Politeness and a presumption of good faith are the lubrication that allow meaningful social interactions to happen, and it is in those social interactions that the truth are outed.

If someone engages in bad faith, take moderator action.

I’m not the first person to say this in the thread. L. B. Heuschkel is dead on.

Kestrel is right, too. On Twitter, there are ways to be pleasant, and ways to be unpleasant. I try not to engage with people there who are Always On. They never talk about their pets, or their hobbies, or food, or anything in their lives. They’re Always On, and it’s just soul crushing.

Have some joy. Step off of the soapbox (heh) now and then. “Touch grass,” as the kids say.

It is through things like this, that Trust can be earned, as GF calls for. When you have a community of people who keep perspective, and maintain good faith, then you can have trust that matters will be resolved sensibly.

[Tat]

All of this resonates with me, but especially:

@Polk said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

People wanted a forum that kept a List. They got a form of ranting and raving.

[Pavel]

@Polk said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

People wanted a forum that kept a List. They got a form of ranting and raving.

I would counter this thusly: People said they wanted a forum that kept a List. They engaged with a forum of ranting and raving.

ETA: Therefore, be clear with what you actually want. Express it. But be aware that what you want isn’t what every place in the community is going to offer.

[tsar]

Knowing when to walk away.

I’m writing this knowing that I haven’t done so well with it myself these last few months.

But not every fight has to be argued until we’re blue in the face. Sometimes it’s fine to just leave it when you can’t make forward progress in a conversation.

[GF]

I hate the word “civil.” “Civil” always feels like a trap to me, because I can never tell who means it the way I mean it and who means it in a way that wants to receive more than they’re compelled to give; who, to use an extreme but topical example, can claim that ruling half of the country shall now be codified as second-class citizens is civil, but yelling at you outside a restaurant for making that ruling is not.

Conceptually, I believe civility is a good thing, with a few caveats. It must not be mistaken for superficial qualities such as tone or demeanor, and it must be acceptable to return the civility or lack thereof which one receives. Speaking personally, I am exhausted to my fucking bone of being expected to swallow the hurt done to me so I can coo at the person who did the hurting and tell them what a good boy they are before I am allowed to address that they hurt me.

[Tat]

@Pavel said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

@Polk said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

People wanted a forum that kept a List. They got a form of ranting and raving.

I would counter this thusly: People said they wanted a forum that kept a List. They engaged with a forum of ranting and raving.

I think this is correct, but also it’s important to remember that ‘people’ is not a monolith. There has been a lot of talk about the people ‘scared into silence’ by the Hogpit.

I wasn’t one of those, really - I read the Hogpit with occasional attention, and posted even more occsaionally - but I WAS a person who did not engage with any regularity because of the amount and tone of public ranting and raving. It wasn’t the List stuff that kept me largely quiet, it was the other stuff.

And I’m okay with that - if, eventually, most the content on this board heads that direction again, I’ll just slip out in a ‘not for me’ fashion and read occasionally so I know what’s going on in the hobby. But I’d also be a little sad, because I’ve already had some really interesting conversations over here, and I’d love to have it as a TRUE resource of different viewpoints and experiences, rather than one where said differences frequently end in a shouting match .

[Pavel]

@Tat said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

but also it’s important to remember that ‘people’ is not a monolith.

True, this is one of those things that regularly annoys me about certain political slogans or mandates. “The people decided, the people did this, the people did that” which people? When? Why wasn’t I invited?

[Polk]

@Pavel Fair point.

People believed in the Ideal of the place where people could expose wrongs.

So they ventured into the Hog Pit. And, being people, they got caught up in it. Which contributed to it, and magnified what it was.

Humans are social. They emulate what they are surrounded by. It’s easy to have happen, and that’s why discussions like this are useful.

It’s important to know what you want, and proactively plan how to get it, because habits contrary to those goals can establish themselves in a hurry.

I think it’s possible for a forum to maintain a livable, healthy atmosphere, and still have a place where you say stuff like “I was on Game X and Person Y harassed me. ST Z explained it away when I reported it. I later found out Y and Z are friends. I’m staying away from Game X.”

You don’t have to treat it like a court of law. You don’t have to make a capital case of every allegation. Let people speak. Judge the words yourself. Ask questions. Discuss.

But maintain the social lubrication that makes discussion possible.

[KarmaBum]

@sao said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

I think one thing that is important in terms of defining the health of the community is figuring out that there is a difference between when people have differences in opinion - where reasonable minds may differ- and when people have differences in values to the point where their basic philosophies cannot coincide.

This is an incredibly good point. In a community like this, we’re going to have divergent opinions, but we are usually operating under the same basic values.

Example: I personally think the game most of the active posters here play (Arx) is a hot mess that confuses the shit outta me, and I don’t play there. Rather than let this be a divisive issue, we’ve learned to love each other in our way: you guys keep it to the Arx threads, and I stay outta there, and life is good. I don’t chase you around the forum, telling you how wrong you all are about this game you love, and nobody runs around pestering me to change my opinion of the place. If I really annoy people, they can block me, and vice versa; I can mute threads and ignore posters.

This is a difference in opinion vs a difference in values, and one the forum is already programmed to handle. If you don’t like my opinions, you can ignore me to no detriment of your continued engagement with or enjoyment of the forum.

If I were made an admin here and suddenly decided that all Arx threads must be SILENCED, then we’d have a difference of values, and my values would be fundamentally different than those of the majority of the posters here. I’d have the ability to enforce my values, and posters would have no recourse to ignore or go around my mandate.

So what makes a community healthy? When its members’ core values are aligned with each other, and when its leaders share those values and help keep the community inline with them.

How do we deal when it isn’t? Get banned and start a new forum.

[Pavel]

@KarmaBum said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

If I were made an admin here and suddenly decided that all Arx threads must be SILENCED

We’re saving that for when @Tez is sick, and I have to make all the decisions.