Thread housekeeping (housecleaning was a brainfart) part 2:

Some folks are asking again if they can turn this into a blog post; by all means link to the thread as it evolves but hold off for now 'cause I'm by no means finished, also be considerate of others replying who don't want that. Check earlier housekeeping posts for my stance on screenshotting etc

Popping this onto the end of the community moderation / admining thread because it's tangentially related and there's notes of responsibility to audience etc.

I'm writing an MotD about COVID-19, trying to encourage those of my players who haven't yet gotten the vaccine to get the vaccine.

This isn't the sort of thing you'd expect a game website to do, and I'm... kind of wondering why that is, and trying to deconstruct my hesitation and figure out why this makes me uncomfortable.

Whether I like it or not, whether I'd normally do it or not, these aren't normal times and if I've got an audience, some of whom could be persuaded to get a vaccine, some of whom wouldn't get a vaccine otherwise, then I've got an obligation to make the best attempt I can.

Next consideration, how many minds am I likely to change... probably not that many, but if it's even potentially non-zero then I've kinda gotta make the effort.

I wibbled around a lot, typed out some very long MotD's and deleted them, and ultimately went with something shorter:

"A rare serious update here, especially for those of us in the USA: the Delta variant of Covid-19 is here, and it's not fucking around.

"If you live in a country where vaccines are available, and you've been putting off getting one, I implore you to ask your doctor about it.

Plenty of folks figured they had a low risk of getting or spreading the disease and were putting off getting the vaccine so as to let the elderly and immunocompromised get first dibs.

"If this describes you, I applaud your patience, but those of us at most risk have all had the jab now and Delta is killing and hospitalizing people who previously didn't have as much to worry about.

Again, ask your doctor, they (usually) know what they're talking about - don't trust me, I'm just a stranger on the internet, and the internet is full of bullshit."

Adding onto the community moderation thread:

I just saw a guy in another thread do the whole Let The Lies Spread argument: instead of banning misinformation and propaganda from your site, allow it to stay up because your users will argue it and show it to be nonsense, and anyone watching will see it debunked and form a sensible conclusion.

If that's a thing you believe is true, still, in 2021, when people are eating sheep deworming paste, then you should NEVER run a social website.

If you let the sheep worm paste posts stay up and put the responsibility of debunking it onto your users, then random bystanders (who would have never thought of eating sheep worm paste) will see two people arguing about sheep worm paste.

They won't think LOOK AT THIS DINGDONG EATING SHEEP WORM PASTE, they will think THERE IS AN ARGUMENT ABOUT SHEEP WORM PASTE.

And they'll be right. Because you hosted that argument. You facilitated it. You paid for it to happen on your property.

Your regular users don't want to argue with weirdos about sheep worm paste, but they will, because they like your website and don't want it to become a rabbithole into the upside-down.

They'll resent you for putting this labour on them. Many will leave and the ratio of normal to sheepwormpastebrain will go in the wrong direction.

"The best solution to bad speech is more speech," bullshit. That's been tried by facebook and reddit and twitter for a decade and it's ruined whole countries.

Community moderation thread continued: I recently saw a messy moderation incident play out in a very public and very cursed way, and in trying to untangle the thread of bad decisions that got to this point, I figured I'd talk a bit about power, because it looks like this is where the whole mess started.

Much much earlier in the thread I said that some people will resent you or treat you differently for the "power" that they think you hold over them.

Now most people don't actually want power, and are (rightly) suspicious of those who do. You made a website to have a laugh with some mates, not to have power.

Well, I've got some bad news for ya, buddy.

Whether you personally think you have power or not is as irrelevant as the distinction between having power, and having a bunch of people THINK you have power.

So while you may think you're talking to someone under your power as a friend, to them it doesn't feel that way. To them it feels more like talking to a boss or a teacher or a doctor or a judge, someone with power over them.

It's very very easy to hurt people from this position.

(this is why I cringe reading guides on how to set up social networks for your real-life friends. This dynamic ends friendships.)

Take this "I have power" dynamic and put it anywhere you need to make a delicate decision. Even though you just run a website, people (especially those in a fragile mental state) think you have power over them, so you have power over them. Offhanded remarks will be taken deeply to heart. Casual banter is ill advised.

Once you're an admin, to some people you're no longer a person, you're a cop. No matter how you act, no matter who you are, Power = Cop to some people.

It's on my mind, both because of the Bad Decision Train I saw unfold on another instance and because of my own experiences lately - mental health and bans.

I recently had a chat with a player who asked me to erase all of their characters. They were having a very bad time mental-health-wise, the Island was making it worse, and they wanted their characters erased because they couldn't stop themselves from logging on.

Anyway about a week later this player turns up again with a new account. At this point, with the conversation about how they hurt themselves with the site fresh in my mind, I issue a permanent ban - both because I don't want them to hurt themselves, and because I absolutely will not consent to them using *my* website to hurt themselves. I may not be able to stop them from hurting themselves elsewhere, but I don't consent to being made a part of that.

And this is one ban that I don't disclose.

The decision about whether, when and how to talk about bans really has to be taken on a case-by-case basis.

If a player is banned because they pose a risk to other players, then we tell EEEEVERYONE, because Discord is, regrettably, a thing.

If a player is banned for cheating or being a general dick, well, that's a maybe - I might mention it in chat but it doesn't warrant a Message Of The Day.

If a player is banned to protect themselves more than other players, then no, that's not a thing we'll talk about. Because of our position of power (whether it's real, imagined, or whether there's really any difference between the two) it would be at best inappropriate for us to do a public announcement about an issue that involves a user's mental health.

Sometimes this starts a rumour mill churning. Which sucks, but the churn's gonna churn. Refer to earlier "ban for lying about mods" bit.

Refer also to earlier "Be thick-skinned" and "People think you're a cop" bits.

Being an admin means that sometimes people will hate you and tell lies about you, and there's nothing you can do about it that won't make it worse.

There's a lot of good times involved in being an admin too, but you have to be prepared for being hated and lied about. This is important. If you honestly don't want that, if you think that would outweigh the good you're able to see and do, then this isn't a job for you.

More for the community moderation thread? Aye sure more for the community moderation thread.

Improbable Island made a grand last month. For a hobby that'd be AMAZING. For a full-time job, that sucks. Especially for a moderator, sysadmin, artist,
writer and developer all in one.

But this is the way it goes, running a website for money. Some months you're rich, some months you're poor.

Some folks don't do well with uncertainty but if you grew up scrabbling then you'll have an easier time!

One of the things that leads to this feast-or-famine kind of situation is the way people support websites.

The overwhelming majority of people will never give a website any money, no matter how politely the site may ask. A very small handful of people are very rich and will think of donating a grand the way you or I might stick 20p in the Barnardo's box. These people are called "Whales" and I've spent a decade trying to work around them, to limited success.

The thing about whales - quite aside from the dodgy ethics of having one or two people be basically financially responsible for the whole site - is that if you rely on whales, your income's gonna be incredibly inconsistent and you're gonna have a nightmare of a time trying to budget both your business and your life.

Improbable Island's donation setup tries hard to discourage whales and encourage instead small, manageable, regular donations from lots of people.

No matter how hard you try to set things up so that each month is more or less the same money as last month, you're probably gonna be in Feast-Or-Famine mode. If you're used to self-employment then you're used to this, but it can still be scary, especially if you have a financial emergency like a suddenly-sick pet or car problems combined with a bad month. It can make you think "Aw man, am I ever gonna have a good month again?"

And yeah, you will, but in the moment it's hard to remember that.

Another one for the community moderation thread: DEATH.

We just lost an Islander to COVID-19. I had to knock out an MotD in a hurry to get money and messages of condolence to his widow:
https://www.improbableisland.com/motd.php?id=509

It's very late and I'm getting up very early and I'm emotionally exhausted from writing this, so there'll be more on this subject tomorrow.

For now, think on it, because this will happen to you.

Alright real quick thought on this because it just popped in there and grief does weird things to us:

Remember that bit towards the start of RoboCop where the chief comes in and takes the dude's name off the locker, says when the funeral is and donations to the family can be given to Cecil as usual? For a start, you're the chief, and you're Cecil too, so that's two jobs right out the damn gate

Alright, I'm awake, too damn early, and online death.

On any community website, people will die. When you, the admin, learn of one, it's because they were so heavily into the site that their spouse or whoever reached out to you or someone on the site to say hey this thing meant a lot to this person. That's vanishingly rare and for every one of those people there are scores who appear to just stop logging on, and are indistinguishable from people who just stop logging on but who are alive.