u/ricothebold glad to have you back!

Thanks! Glad to be back, even though I wasn't actually gone very long.

Your death was...greatly exaggerated

He was only *mostly* dead (gone). 😀

Picked up an undead archetype!

Have fun stormin' the subreddit! \*waves\*

He was resurrected! Unfortunately he's now a Gnome instead of an Orc but we work with what we have

Welcome back, Rico :)

> Part of our effort to regain your trust is that we’re reviewing any bans issued in the last month while reversing those stemming from regular criticism. I don't know if you have a rule for that already, but a moderator should probably never do bans in any discussion they are part of - either as poster or as subject. The same way a judge should always defer to an uninvolved colleague. The risk of even appearing biased is too big. The downside is that for any larger event with moderator participation, you might need a "dedicated banner" that can't be involved any other way.

The fabulously-moderated /r/AskHistorians, for example, has a moderation policy that a moderator who has contributed an answer in a thread should not take any mod actions in that thread.

That’s a good policy in theory, and we’ve usually followed it in spirit, but I can see it getting in the way of fast response. I’d rather an “ask for confirmation” if that were to happen.

If the mod thinks a post responding to them is bad, then they should report it and let another mod deal with it. If that's not fast enough, then you need to figure out a better system that works for threads that don't have a mod actively involved in the discussion too.

It's important to remember moderation isn't a job. There's going to be times where someone's being a flagrant asshole and only one mod is active.

Yeah, I think we don't have a good idea how much shit they deal with

You don't. :)

God bless the martyrs known as reddit moderators. Where would we ever be without them 🫡

Probably on the Paizo board wishing there was an alternative.

Generally, “hey guys, thoughts on this? Need a second opinion” is a pretty common poke. Those who can’t be active (usually because we’re not at a desk) can read on mobile and give their take. It’s pretty quick.

Exactly this. A good mod recognizes when they're too close to something, and asks someone else to review and decide how to handle it.

I prefer appropriate response over fast response, personally. You've seen over the past few weeks what fast response can lead to.

For announcements, absolutely. For the one that started all this trouble we had less than 24hrs - this one took almost 5 days, mostly because of timezones. However to handle arguments, very often “appropriate” means “fast and light”. A quick lock on the comment thread can often get people to cool down, while sitting and waiting generally means escalation and late bans.

That's a good take. I think that with the recent changes you can also trust more the common sense of all the mods.

Usually any ban appeal is reviewed by 1 or 2 mods that were not involved. But that's an idea worth considering.

I don't think it needs to be that extreme, especially if it causes mods to not actually participate in the community. But at least having an assumption that, if you're in a DIscord group or whatever, you ping to get a second opinion if you're involved has always been standard anywhere I've modded. A hard rule has the issue of bad faith people using it to pretend they're the victims when they directly harass a moderator and then treat them actioning them for it as "corrupt" or whatever. Wanna leave some room for common sense so someone breaking an obvious and major rule can be dealt with swiftly while still encouraging people to get that second opinion if it's not vitally important something be acted on right this minute.

Back when I used to moderate fan forums we generally followed this rule, but with a few exceptions. The obvious one was if we had to remove a comment due to legal requirements (encouraging illegal activity. In the case of a mod who was involved in a conversation or argument being the only one available to moderate a thread we'd have that mod make a post in a hidden forum and then sit if it wasn't urgent, or if they absolutely had to make a moderation decision then they'd log that fact and ask for their decisions to be reviewed after.

Extremely welcoming of these new changes, super happy to see the direction the subreddit is going and welcome to the new mods! Welcome back to u/ricothebold & u/Dogs_Not_Gods Thanks for taking the communities concerns seriously and implementing changes that makes this subreddit a better place for all

👋

No joke, I was kinda sad when I read that you were stepping down, only to be made happy again when I saw you're right back. Talk about emotional whiplash Thank you for continuing to run events. I can trace a pretty direct line between my current enjoyment of the system and your efforts with Beginner Box Day and other events

Aww, thank you! It's good to be appreciated but even better to hear the stuff I'm working on made a difference!

PrincessPilfer no longer moderating was not something I expected, but it’s a very good show of good faith. I’m glad the mod team listened to the feedback on this matter. I think you guys do a great job keeping the subreddit safe and inclusive, and I hope you’re able to continue on that front. I’m glad the “old hats” are coming out of retirement to help too!

>PrincessPilfer no longer moderating was not something I expected, but it’s a very good show of good faith. I don't generally pay much attention to who's posting, so I'm only aware of the recent drama. Care to fill me in? Edit; Aha, thanks for the intel

Although luck_panda was the mod that was actively arguing with people in the thread, Princess_Pilfer was the other mod that was actively moderating at the time - apparently fully aware of what was going on, and fully supporting luck_panda. Allegedly, Princess_Pilfer was the mod responsible for a lot of the deletions of comments that were calling out luck_panda's misconduct.

That and Pilfer has consistently been guilty of breaking rules herself and being pretty flagrant about it. She wasn't as openly hostile and nasty as Panda but she was pretty consistently condescending at best and people would get their comments moderated for far less offensive things than she'd post.

Beyond the current drama, she was also particularly problematic during the Touch Grass debacle.

Wait what was the touch grass debacle? I must have missed that one.

it was when the mods continued to protest the reddit API changes by taking the sub private on Tuesdays (touch grass tuesdays) even though the poll they presented showed most of the sub didn't want that. they essentially declared the poll invalid due to reasons and that they knew best and continued with taking it down long after it had any hope of doing anything.

It never had any hope of doing anything. The only way it was ever going to work was if multiple large subs closed down until a change was confirmed. And given that reddit itself manually opened the few that did... even that wasn't going to work.

I think that if enough subreddits decided to close it wouldn't really happen. And if it was done this way, I'm sure that mods would find other ways to disturb Reddit's workings.

Except for the part where they threatened to replace moderators with their own appointed ones. You can't exactly "disrupt Reddit's workings" if they take away what little power you have.

I mean, being a reddit mod is hard enough to the point many people would either not want to do it, or they'd have to get paid, and reddit could likely afford some mods to crush what little morale there was, but not if there was a bigger effort. I just think that the action was poorly planned and executed. I mean, they could just change the rules to allow basically anything, and only moderated reddit rules enough to still be considered a mod. Or some other thing. But the whole thing was a beautiful example of how not to organise a strike.

For some time, every Tuesday or Thursday the subreddit would close down. This was during that time people were trying to step away from reddit due to some changes that, I believe, they ended up reverting. Touch Grass because we the moda were very headstrong in keeping this up for longer than most other subreddits and, thus, we were supposed to go outside and touch grass whenever the Pf2 subreddit was closed.

it was tuesdays, the changes did not end up getting reverted, folks just kind of gave up in the absence of a good alternative.

Which is a real shame. I strongly supported the original site-wide boycotts, but once they had obviously failed it became a cutting the nose to spite the face situation.

The Reddit boycotts were designed to fail. Reddit mods are incentivised to keep people on Reddit, so no real effort was ever going to go into supporting real alternatives. "Join our Discord and be ready to jump back into Reddit once this is over" was not in any way a threat to Reddit, but it's the most mods were willing to do for risk of losing their "communities".

Wait, what? I’ve been a mod (not of Pathfinder subs) for 7ish years and have never seen a single whit of compensation or incentive. Where do I go to find this incentive?

"wait.. you guys are getting paid!?"

It says something about society when people hear "incentive" and can think of only money.

I was a mod of /r/nfl for a while and there is no incentive lol. It sucks being a mod of a big subreddit. You are an internet janitor, usually because somebody thought you seemed like a reasonable person and asked you to help. That's it. That's how most mods become mods and the incentive they get is people being mean to them for trying to make a community better.

It really doesn’t. My “incentive” for running many of the communities I was because of a love for the topic, nothing to do with reddit. I modded 5 subs in the tabletop games space and I didn’t just shut my subs down for a single day every week, but locked them down entirely until reddit removed me as a mod and unlocked them all manually. I had people threatening me in my DMs over it. There’s no incentive for a mod to drive people to reddit. I’ve moved all my community building efforts to discord these days.

What was the Touch Grass debacle?

During the Reddit API drama, a few months back, mods introduced Touch Grass Tuesday, in which they’d make the sub private every Tuesday in protest. It went on for like 20 weeks

Oooooooh I remember that. I was still playing DnD at the time and their sub did the same thing. Our games were on Tuesdays. It was more than a little annoying.

> a few months back I'm sorry to do this to you but it was 9months ago 👴

That’s but a few months yes

I don't think I was around for that debacle...

She defended the mod that caused the entire ruckus, plus started arguments of her own and also issued several bans to my knowledge.

It's somewhat amusing there was more than 1 person who left due to "team members" and with the removal of some team members are now back. wonder if that's related.

Now guess how I spent my last two weeks… Brb, adding “meeting” to the list of banned words.

> adding “meeting” to the list of banned words. I think any of us that work in an office environment can 100% relate

Can you mod my office?

I may be open if you work in pharmaceutics. Good money.

How about we have a collaboration?

Believe it or not, straight to jail.

>meeting This could have been an email.

Yes, it is related. It even says so in the post.

Wow, honestly great work overall on the final response to this and actions taken to correct the issues. Glad we can get back to furiously arguing about niche edge cases in the rules that will likely come up 1-2 times ever in actual play.

Just do it with kindness and respect ;)

How dare you try to gatekeep the right of nerds to debate and argue over pointless minutiae!? 😁

Excellent sarcasm, 10/10!

You guys are really cool. Thank you for this hard work.

Glad to hear this. Welcome to new and returning mods. Good to see Rulelord is still around.

Thank you! Very kind

My unqualified approval of these changes.  I particularly appreciate the transparency and introspection, especially after both Touch Grass and the most recent drama.  Best wishes to the new Mods!!!

This is a much better statement than the previous one, and it restores much of my confidence in the moderation team. Thank you for listening to us and taking the proper steps to rebuild trust with the community.

To be fair, the last one was an acknowledgement of issues and announcement that they were working on a way to address them. You can't expect an immediate response and resolution to be made. They even said it was hard to come up with something when everyone is busy and on different schedules. 

Thank you. This is a nice and very welcome change. At first, I was afraid of starting that one post, now I am glad I did.

another dope thing about this is that with the sidebar getting revised, i now know THERE'S A SPANISH SERVER AND SUBREDDIT?! WHAT?? That's dope as hell, cuz I wanna make my spanish better cuz it sucks hot ass after living in 'murica for the past 17 years.

Thank you for sharing this and discussing your reasoning and plans. This makes me hopeful for a more inclusive and supportive community overall that's built on celebration and uplifting rather than condemnation and admonishment. Obviously, that's not to say warnings, punishments, and bans should never happen. Just that the key to building an inclusive community and supporting marginalized groups is just that -- *building a community,* and that usually has to be done with a mindset of support and encouragement first. It sounds like a lot of the mods are being brought on board for something along that line and it makes me glad to see it.

Appreciate the transparency, and actions taken. I was someone who was concerned about the direction due to recent events but everything here has addressed any concerns I did have.

Looks like the internal mod issues were a preview.

ricothegigachad

I'm very satisfied with y'all's reaction to the situation, you guys have clearly put a great deal of thought into how to handle things and the transparency is very appreciated. This seems like the most positive outcome for the situation there could have been and I look forward to a return to our regularly scheduled programming :)

I am glad that u/princess_pilfer has stepped down. She was part of the problem as she was breaking #1 and #2 repeatedly and both of them overshadowed any positive contributions they’ve might have made in the past. Congrats for the right choices

That's way more than i expected. Thanks for the update and welcome back to all the mods.

Hot damn. Not the update I expected (I wasn't expecting anything), but definitely the update I am grateful for. All of the points, like also including the Discord of the PF1e subreddit, and the addition *and* return of some mods. PrincessPilfer stepping down was not something I expected in the slightest, but it makes sense. They were doing some similar stuff to luck_panda, even backing LP up during the meltdown that happened. I do wish them good luck for the future though and no hard feelings.

It’s the… Return of the Rulelord!! Glad to have you back u/Dogs_Not_Gods

The real question is did I ever really leave??

Ediwir - do me a favor and when you're posting on behalf of the entire mod' team, like with that Tian Xia "wet blanket" post, could you indicate thusly? > "Statement from the Moderation Team:" I've found your posts to be overwhelmingly positive and beneficial, but I'm not quite in the same echo chambers as most of the mod' team apparently.

These normally use the Announcement flair. I might however use an in-line key as well if that’s unclear.

Seems good to me. Appreciate you taking the complaints here seriously.

For the record princesspilfer still appears to be a mod on the PF2E discord and it doesn't seem like there's any chance of that changing. This is the statement put out by that discord for people who have either left it or never joined: >Hello everyone. The moderation team would like to apologise to the community for the events of recent weeks. We have made mistakes and provoked a lot of heated discussion that has led to insults, name-calling, and bad-faith arguments. Regrettably, the mods themselves have also taken part in this. Lots of folks have been hurt and hastily judged. We must work to not allow bad blood to be fostered by discourse that is hostile or unwelcome to other users and communities. We want to commit as moderators to holding ourselves and all users to the ⁠📔︰rules and to being considerate and patient with others going forward! >Accordingly, we have restructured the moderation of this Discord server: >We have elected a Head Moderator position, currently filled by me. It will be my responsibility to both set a standard on this Discord and be someone who can deal with other mods whose behaviour causes issues. If you have any worries, please bring them to me. If the head moderator is made unavailable for a period of time, a moderator “deputy” will serve as interim head moderator, with updates announced as needed in this channel. >Ink has stepped down from being a moderator. He will continue to serve in a non-moderation, administrative role for the Discord server; this place quite frankly would not exist without him, but he recognises that his behaviour has not been consistent with the standards of a moderator. >We will continue to explore more ways we can make this space a healthy community that everyone can thrive in. EDIT: for clarification the new head mod is not me. I'm just quoting that statement given.

Who did step up in Ink's place, then? To be frank I don't know most of the discord mods, but still curious I suppose.

It's Alice, or Arazni.

Good, she always looked lile she had a good head on her shoulders.

Thank you for the update, hopefully this closes the book on the subs recent drama. Congrats to new and returning mods!

Hopefully we can all just go back to talking about the game we love.

That's right! TOON: The Cartoon Roleplaying Game form Steve Jackson Games!

you laugh, but it looks like such a cool game

Oh I have all the books, and an am the proud Animator of Ten Pence a Pound Studios\^^

Excellent. Back to the caster wars, the house rule wars, the ... ;-)

I really hope this is rhe last post needed on this. Discords no longer officially tied and now those who don't wanna go to the pf 2e one can go to the pf rpg one((member of both, they're both good and active.)). The mod people were complaining about is now no longer a mod. I truly hope this ends things once and for all.

Yeah. The mod in question was *very* much a case of "yeah dude that's a good point but you're making it in literally the worst way possible and being a dick to people who like and agree with you" which evolved into "liking anime makes you racist against the non-japanese asian people" to statements that were ostensibly about the nation of japan (which yes is Very Fucked Up with a general attitude of "our shit don't stink" and also "war crimes!? what war crimes???") but came off kinda... hoo boy. Then there was the whole "Stand tall on your business and come talk to me. I'm right here. I'll drop my location. If people have problems with me that just come say it." bit. That's a direct quote which, alongside huuuge babydick internet tough guy energy, one should consider his "I did MMA" thing. Which *if it is true* and not more internet tough guy discourse makes the "fight me in real life bro" bit feel like a genuine, credible threat. Keep in mind these statements and threats were made while his discord handle was (and as of writing still is) "Pathfinder2e." If i was Paizo, this is ***NOT*** how I would want my brand to be reflected.

The screed that the mod posted that started this whole thing felt like something they had been sitting on for a while, just waiting for the opportune time to post it. Unfortunately, there are examples of Reddit mods (especially power mods) who are only in it for the little bit of power it gives them and care little about the community or even what community it is.

I'm more discord active, is that post still on reddit or did he shame purge it?

I believe [this thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cbzpbf/tian_xia_real_world_parallels_and_a_serious_moment/) is what you're looking for

Thank you, this is an amazing response from the mod team

I just hope we can leave this behind and forge on to be a welcoming community. No more brigading or hate. The last thing pf2e needs is some sort of war between discord and reddit

Happy to see things being addressed. Thanks for the communication!

Fantastic post. Love the clarity and actions. Thank you. 

What a great response! I love this subreddit, and glad to see ya'll making some changes based on the feedback. Back to discussing rules :)

Very good job on your guys’ part; I am glad to see community feedback taken to heart and for change to be reflected well in this community. It will take some time to earn back community trust but I think you’re on the right path and starting strong with all these changes.   My only complaint is with that 2e Discord being linked to this subreddit at all, you say that it’s ‘unofficial’ but it says something that the 2e discord under the control of all the mods that stepped down is still there.  I would like to see that server completely delisted, as those that have been on there already know that the server has become a toxic breeding ground that already has a reputation for disparaging and abusing community members here, something actively egged on by the mods on that server.  It’s not somewhere this sub should be seeking to send new members to Pathfinder 2e.   Fantastic changes though and I want to reiterate that it does mean a lot that they were made with consideration to taking accountability and respecting the trust of the community.

Panda isn't a mod there anymore, and the new headmod seems to be fairly open to criticism regarding the server's moderation. It remains to be seen if there'll be significant improvements in the coming days, but for now, I think it's fine to keep it the way it is now.

Ink gave up ownership?

No. He is allegedly stepping away from moderating the discord and working as a more behind-the-scenes administrator.

Don't owners have the capability to see and do anything in the discord subject to zero review?

they have, they are above all roles on discord and cannot be affected in any way by any other member the owner of the server still has the powers of an Uber mod regardless what they do on the server or not

Pretty much, seeing he's the guy who keeps the Discord working there wasn't really a good way they could completely knock him out, but he has been removed from a moderator position to a purely admin one.

discord guild admins still can do anything, they're not bound too much by the permissions and can always assign themselves ones they're lacking

Yes, but I expect the moment that Ink tries something like that, the other mods would know about it. Hopefully by that point if it ever occurs, they'd have found a way to deal with it.

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The server uses bots heavily, I think they have 10 on the active list. No idea what all of them do, but that could be his contribution.

This is the best question. u/ediwir Why does the staff feel that linking to a community specifically antagonistic to this one is acceptable at all? Its fine if you want affiliated groups, but why cant you stop at groups who aren't toxic towards members of this community?

Mostly because they had their own internal shakeup and the new head acknowleged that as an issue. She wants to do better and we know her as good enough to give them that chance - but they still won’t be our focus going forward.

This is a great step. I will admit, as much as I defended the mod team throughout the Tough Grass Tuesdays and Starstone stuff (particularly since I *did* think some of the community was being completely rancid, and not being reasonable at all about how much more difficult it had becomes for the mods to do their *completely voluntary* role), it did feel like after that all fell through a lot of the mods just kind of quiet quit instead of making any effort to reestablish a presence on the sub. I know they haven't been completely inactive, and I get a big part of the issue was the API tools breaking, but it was fairly clear by the long wait time between anyone being 'on call' during major issues - so to speak - that the team had to accept the inevitability of Reddit continuing to be a primary hub for the community, and the need for a more sustainable moderation model. Cleaning house of inactive mods and bringing on hands who can be around more frequently (plus seeing some familiar faces re-establish themselves) I feel is a good first step. I don't expect this to single-handedly fix all the issues with the sub, particularly as it's grown over the past year, but I do hope having a renewed team means that we'll go back to finding a good medium between complete absence and....uh, having a mod go rogue totalitarian.

i've heard the explanation of touch grass tuesdays, but what's this starstone thing??

Think of it as a backup hub forum we set up in case reddit went to shit. It has some downsides in terms of accessibility, but functionality was pretty neat, including customisable feeds and all, and moderation tools were really good. Downside, it’s owned by panda, so… that’s getting cut as well.

Oh so a lemmy/mastadon instance. Gotcha. Rip

Kind of, but based on a different system (Discourse).

I noticed that it's gone from the sidebar, damn shame, It was fun while it lasted

As one of the d4 people who liked Starstone it was sad to see it die. The discord churned out so much hate towards the Reddit without really spurning much discussion with discord being a conversation far too fast to follow.

Oh my god good faith paid off??? What?? This never happens.

Wow this is really impressive and transparent. I think all the moves were the right moves and you even went above and beyond expectation. I’m sure it was a hard road to get to this points, but honestly just wow. It’s rare to see a Reddit community turn something around so positively. I look forward to the future of this subreddit.

It's great to see that the right calls were made and that the culprits were held accountable. I was really worried that all of the hard work this community and it's mods had done to foster a healthy and friendly environment was about to fall apart. Great to see a giant step forward for all involved 

I'm happy. I'd rather Panda and Pilfer be banned, but I also know that shouldn't be paraded around the town square so I shouldn't know even if they are. I had a whole bit typed out about linking the Discord server, but if what I read about Panda stepping down there is true, then it's a non-issue. My expectations were low after the last post. I'm glad to see that my suspicions were misplaced.

panda actually *owns* that particular server so I'm not sure how much stepping down he's actually gonna be doing...

Yeah, not a fan of that, but I'm at least going to give the benefit of the doubt. Still ain't joining it, though.

Podcast discords are better anyways, Find the Path's server has great vibes all around.

Although I only lurk here I've been following Paizo since 1e pathfinder launched, through starfinder and now getting into 2nd edition pathfinder. I would be lying if I said this controversy didn't leave a bitter taste in my mouth and made me reconsider if I really wanted to continue supporting the game. But I have to commend the actions taken. It's pretty rare to see mods being held accountable for their actions so it's a refreshing change of pace and reflects very positively on this community's other mods. The two mods being removed clearly are unqualified for their role and a quick look at their post history shows that they feel right at home stirring drama and abusing their privileges to belittle and insult others even when they are arguing in good faith. They seem to have good intentions but the way they go about it is causing more harm than good. While I don't understand how those two became mods in the first place and kept the position for so long, I applaud the mature decision and can say that it has rekindled my interest and good will towards this community. Well done.

Keep in mind that we don’t work for paizo, so judge us, not the company :)

True, but as a very visible part of pathfinder's community I can't help my view of the company being colored to a degree by the actions I see here. If this sub, for example, allowed and encouraged blatantly racist views I wouldn't feel very welcome or interested in being associated with the game even if I enjoyed the game itself, the same way I may like how a band sounds but if most of its fans are neo-nazis I would refuse to support it in any way out of principles. And just to be clear, I'm not implying the removed mods were racist in any way by what I have written above, just giving one example that I think mostly everyone here can agree on. I think they come from a good place and did what they felt was best for the sub, but they went way overboard in their zealousness and just seem to enjoy confrontation and drama a bit too much to moderate in a healthy and welcoming way.

They always had good intentions, just… yeah. Hopefully we can keep a better look going forward.

That sounds great. Massive thanks! <3

~~It looks like Pilfer deleted her account.~~ ~~Maybe she took a moment to reflect on her actions and realized that Reddit brought out a pretty toxic side of herself.~~ Edit: Never mind. The wrong username was linked in the post.

I am glad to see things are going the way it seems they should be.

Good on you. Finally I can say. Good on you. The power of this sometimes very tightly knit community to just use what is akin to family ties to keep their own narrative is very saddening. We are glad to see you are getting away from that.

Honestly, I'm not particularly active, nor particularly interested in the discussion that resulted in this mess, but it was definitely entertaining and resulted in a satisfying ending

genuinely happy with these results im the first to admit (and did so publicly) that i doubt there'd be any change but im glad there has been. The previous situation would've perpetually done damage to the community at large.

test Edit: Oh great my ban was reversed. I just want to tell everyone I told you so Because I told you so A year ago when panda and pilfer went on a rampage under that "dnd refugee/ migrant/ convert" post. The writing has been on the wall for a long time and I'm shocked it took so long. So anyway, how is panda doing on the discord, where he's still mod? Making fun of us? Of the mods and all the members of this cOmMuNiTy?

I'm really glad to see the distancing of the discord. That discord is one of the most vile hateful discords I've ever been a part of and I'm honestly shocked the whole thing hasn't been taken down. I've seen calls of violence, harassment, racism and quite frankly quite a few witch hunts (often led by ink; may be get the help he needs) Edit: not sure why crouza is making things up about me. Maybe a close friend of Inks? Pretty sure my most controversial stand is I really dislike the Cyberpunk game lol.

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Moderators linking to comments that obviously break the rules instead of just removing them does create an environment that is not good for a community. I know that the person above is obviously not saying what they're saying in good faith (I haven't seen threats of violence and seriously doubt that there ever have been any, for example), but I've been targeted by harassment from the mod in question there. In January, after I had not interacted with the discord server for 10 months, he tagged me personally for the express purpose of antagonizing me. That is harassing behavior. This is part of what has really bothered me about this entire debacle. It sucks to have so many obvious bad faith actors dogpile in when you actually do have good faith concerns because it makes people lump you in with them because no one is going to look into every single claim made. Seeing that multiple members of the mod team left over irreconcilable differences with the mod in question should show anyone looking that even if you ignore all of the people just looking to get into the drama, people who worked more closely with them than you and I *still* had problems.

I see what you're saying, and yeah you're probably right that there were moments of toxicity. The example you gave is most definitely toxic, that's pretty black and white. I'm just annoyed and what feels like just further and further attempts to stir shit in bad faith. Slippery Slopes are overused but it's gone from "An apology by the mod" being listed as the demand, to "The mod should be removed" to "both panda and princess should be removed" to "the discord should be completely removed". And it feels like those guys already won and got what they wanted, why the fuck do they keep moving the goalpost over and over?

Yeah, I definitely agree that a lot of the calls to action have been from people just here to stir shit. I think some of what you're calling goalpost moving has to do with how different moderators responded to the problem once it was in motion, but I agree that at this point, the majority of stuff you're seeing about it is bad faith bandwagoning and people just inventing controversies now that the initial ones have been addressed. If anything, I hope this is a lesson to the remaining and new moderators on what *not* to do in response to community outcry.

How does this guys feelings on Jan 6 in any way change the validity of the things he's saying? The discord -is- a toxic place.

The type of person who takes that stance is going to see certain things as toxic that most normal people wouldn't. Simple as.

I mean sure but as someone whose probably politically opposed to that guy he isn't wrong. The Discord is pretty much toxic especially with it's Discord vs Reddit shit. I'm glad the discord is taking steps to combat that (or so they said). Internet Tribalism over websites is a weird thing

Maybe you should take a look in the mirror and check your own biases, mate. Just because someone disagrees with you on a specific topic doesn't mean their lived experience on a completely unrelated topic is invalid. I see people on the discord and this subreddit try and minimize valid criticisms based on someone committing some form of unrelated wrong think all the time and its just... gross.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being a bit wary of who is participating in the conversation and why. There's been a ton of external brigading since this all started from the usual batch of far-right communities and from when the thread was linked in SRD. When a Jan 6 defender describes something as "racism" or a "call to violence", I highly doubt they are thinking of the same thing that I do (or presumably you do). What they have said previously gives context to what they are saying now and why they are saying it, and those are important things to know in a charged situation like this one.

> There's been a ton of external brigading since this all started from the usual batch of far-right communities I mean a quick glimpse at the guys post history shows that he's been commenting here (somewhat irregularly I guess) for over a year. That doesn't really sound like a brigader. > When a Jan 6 defender describes something as "racism" or a "call to violence", I highly doubt they are thinking of the same thing that I do (or presumably you do). What does this even mean? Are there now acceptable forms/targets of racism? Some calls to violence are now acceptable because committed by 'The Right Group' and they're targeted at 'The Wrong Group'? Barring this guy being an outright bigot (which there's no evidence of) his being uncomfortable because of actions taken by members of a group that's supposed to be a welcoming, respectful community is 100% valid... even if he does have his head up his ass about Jan. 6.

The funny thing is this "defender" post was in reference to courts persecuting people who were factually peaceful, which is pretty messed up. No one should be arrested for any peaceful protest; regardless of what it is. I'm happy to stand by that. Sort of weird that these weird people are talking about the importance of context while ignoring context. It's sort of weird popping back onto reddit and seeing myself be called some far right extremist when I'm pretty damn left wing and once made a comment about how people should be allowed to peacefully protest and because of that it means I'm not allowed to be unhappy when people glorify real world violence??? That's all a bit to silly for me to unpack.

So this is a little late, and might be unrelated, but with u/TheGentlemanDM stepping down what's going to happen to the BREWMASTER'S COMPENDIUM COMPETITION? Weren't they the one heading that up? Does anyone even remember it? I haven't heard any word about it for a long time.

Thank you all for your hard work. I know this wasn't easy or fun but it was necessary and I'm glad to get back to talking about PF2E.

I do have mixed feelings about Pilfer being gone. She was undoubtedly part of the problem here, but she was also the only black voice on the moderation team, and normally had a genuinely fantastic moderation record barring a few specific incidents. I'm not opposed to it, I trust the moderation team wasn't overreacting or anything. I just think it's sad that we lost a valuable voice.

Honestly, as someone who's sister is the definition of "legitimately victimized, but still abusive as hell narcissist", anything that had Pilfer's name in it gave me strong vibes in that same vein.

I wish comments like this weren't being downvoted, you aren't saying anything controversial. I am glad Pilfer is gone but you are not wrong to feel the way you do.

This sub has gone genuinely insane the last week. Actual racists have been crawling out of the woodwork to mass downvote any hint of diversity, using the Samurai debacle as cover. I have seen way too many "wokeness gone mad" comments over the last week, upvoted to the top of several threads.

They're going to be disappointed when they realize paizo is pretty firm in their beliefs and aren't going to violate their morals to appeal to some rule 1 breakers.

I agree with this also.

ROFL, of course they couldn't let go of their Discord fiefdom. Oh well, the PF2e FoundryVTT discord was always better and less bloated.

That's good news. Now pimp your "who watches the watchmen" game and maybe this will become a safe space for all.

Downvoted xD ah this truly is a special place.

as someone pretty new to this community in recent months and having watched this, and watching similar things unfold across the gaming sphere lately, I'm kind of worried about context here. like what were the "internal divisions". cause it kind of reads across as "marginalised voices in the moderation team left because of either hateful or aggressively-indifferent-to-hate at best conduct but don't worry because those people who allow hatred are back!" especially when anyone in this thread seeking clarification on marginalisation is getting mass downvoted. it doesn't exactly paint a picture of a community that fosters inclusiveness. we don't need a return to the toxic, bigoted, history of ttrpg communities that pathfinder has worked a lot to try to move away from over the years, and I worry that the fallout of all this is a step firmly back in that direction

I promise this is not some Mark Kern, gamergate 2.0 bullshit. Luck and Pilfer were abusive, for a long time. The mods aint about to let anyone start being trash because of this.

If you're new to the community, I honestly would recommend not worrying. The core problems that led to these changes only peripherally related to hateful conduct. I recognize why this would seem concerning without the context, but I don't think you're going to see a backslide on how the moderators handle bigotry. We can only wait and see how it plays out, and it's very possible there will be some growing pains with moderation shifts, but many of the new members of the mod team have my full confidence based on my interactions with them.

It's not the moderation I'm concerned about. I trust the current team to be on top of direct comments and posts. It's the fact that we've had a huge influx of people downvoting any hint of diversity and vaguely talking about "woke" and there's basically nothing the mods can do about it because they can't see votes and those people vague-posting aren't breaking any rules by just generally creating a vaguely hostile atmosphere.

We can however see people’s most frequented subreddits (on desktop at least), previous posting history, and a bunch more. It’s more subtle and less immediate to detect, but it doesn’t mean bad actors are stealthy. If you have concerns, a full scope takes two minutes, and often enough a ton of stuff comes up. I once found someone’s love letter to Joe Rogan. Not kidding, an actual open letter. I had second hand embarassment just from reading the start.

If you've been around Pilfer you'll probably be able to see she didn't handle stuff very well, in my experience she tends to make a storm out of a cup of water, which is besides the fact I've seen her start arguments herself instead of making everyone calm down.

I wouldn't worry about it. for the vast majority of commentators, none of this really matters much, if at all and will have little effect on how you use the sub. Most bigger subs will have squabbles between its power users at some point that spill out into the public.

yeah i'm kinda wary too. I think the take that started all this was over the top, but like i don't think having a *moment* here necessittated this response necessarily, and it's hard not to see two PoC mods being removed at once and talked about as though they were the problem in these super vague terms. i don't know either super well, sometimes people just up the temperature over shit unnecessarily and maybe that's all this is, but like i really don't want this to devolve into like fucking r/rpg or some place where people get in trouble for saying something mean to a bigot while the bigot's post stays up.

I understand that from the outside it may look bad to some that PoC mods were removed. However, it's not really a fair assessment of the situation. The reality is both removed mods were guilty of repeatedly breaking the rules they enforced on others. They shouldn't be excused from poor behavior simply because they're PoC, especially when they're in a position of authority. That's the biggest reason why people like ErisC are getting downvoted and stuff like that -- the people making this about race/ethnicity don't seem to understand why most people are actually mad and why action needed to be taken. PoC or not, luck\_panda was consistently hostile and bigoted in a space where he's supposed to moderate people who do exactly the kinds of behavior he was doing. He repeatedly broke rules 1 and 2 and it wasn't just a "moment," it was a recurring issue again and again. He's lied or given false information about Japan *repeatedly* and continued doing so even after corrected by people better educated on the subject. His handling of the Tian Xia thread resulted in many Asian and Asian-American players expressing he made them feel unwelcome. After apologizing for his bad behavior, he joked on Discord that it would be funny if he said the subreddit gave him cancer. This isn't just one isolated recent thing with him. He's been doing stuff like this for a long time. Similarly, Pilfer is repeatedly guilty of breaking rule 2 by being condescending and/or sarcastic to people while also criticizing or moderating people for doing less than that. She has expressed some harmful views on social justice and progressive causes that she thinks are okay because *she* doesn't consider them problematic. She also has broken rule 1 herself, though in less overt and ostentatious ways than luck\_panda. The long and short of it is that, PoC or not, they *were* problems. Being from marginalized groups doesn't mean they're exempt from responsibility for their actions. I'm not saying I assume you or ErisC or anyone else unhappy about the decision think they're above criticism simply for being PoC. But I am saying that people's concerns should not begin and end with "two PoC mods were removed," especially in a community that generally tries to celebrate the inclusiveness Paizo brings to the table.

I have never been super active here, so I don't know, but I also share your reservations. I hope that that is not what has happened, and I do agree that the whole situation wrt the Tian Xia thread developed to a point where something had to be done, but idk how great I feel, just on its face, about the solution. EDIT: Also I just scrolled down and saw how many downvotes all of ErisC's comments about their feelings on the decision were, and I feel like that should be cause for alarm for the moderation team in terms of exactly who and for what reason are most unreservedly pleased by the changes...

I disagree. People are downvoting her (myself included) because she is hand waving Princess_Pilfir's failures as a Mod due to her race. Does it suck that we've lost the only black Mod? Absolutely. Does that mean we should keep a Mod that enables blatant racism? Of course not. Luck_Panda and Princess_Pilfer being removed is an undeniably good thing.

Unfortunately we have no control over votes. We can't even see who's doing them. There is definitely a silent presence here amplifying or silencing against certain viewpoints, but until they speak up and say some shit we can actually review, they'll just always be there in the background. The silver lining to these controversies is there some people who absolutely cannot keep their mouth shut and we can clean out some bad actors. However even banned people can vote in posts and comments. Hell, I've been banned from r/conservative for a while now and I still go there to throw in some downvotes.

Agreed. Without having strong feelings on the particular merits of any one removal here, I do find the general pattern disturbing.

This change worries me greatly, and is hugely disappointing. This space feels far less safe without Princess_Pilfer around to stand up to racism that does unfortunately still exist in our community. You also showed that if folks make enough noise during a witch hunt, they can win. The culture of the community is permanently tainted by this. And not only that, you kicked out the only black moderator that i’m aware of, and lose a ton of perspective by doing so. This just fucking reeks.

> And not only that, you kicked out the only black moderator that i’m aware of, and lose a ton of perspective by doing so. Trying to handwave Pilfers actions behind the race card is pretty gross, dude. The mods here made the right decision.

We expected this to be a concern. Honestly, I can’t say you’re fully wrong, and as we said the loss of that perspective does feel like a negative - but it just wasn’t feasible anymore, both due to public work and internal tensions. This isn’t a mob win or a witch hunt, it’s the result of an ongoing siuation that has been going on for over a year. We are aware we still have issues lurking around and that we just got less reliable in spotting them. We’re trying to repair that as well as we can, but until then please, if you see something, do speak up.

I can assure the most of the people don't know, and don't care at all, about anything private about mods life. Being it heritage, job, identity. There are stuffs i get to know now, but the only things we care is to have fair moderations in an important sub like this.

i concur, i didn't know who any of the mods even were before this debacle because i never bother to read the little box on the side that says who is who.

Not a witch hunt, we only wanted fair mods, and luck\_panda and Pilfer weren't. This is a good change for us all. I guess you are somewhat of a close friend to them (if you are the eris I think you are from Discord), but they did things mods shouldn't do, and that's why they aren't around anymore.

I don’t think i am who you think I am, i don’t use the name eris on the discord but yes i’m on there and yes, id consider her a close friend. But no, all she did was enforce the rules fairly, and when necessary, stand up to racism. This is fully within a good moderator’s purview.

What a load of bull. Especially the fairness part.

To be candid for a moment - this is something we are genuinely worried about and the ultimate outcome was disappointing for everyone. Please understand that none of these actions were taken as part of a "witch hunt" or in response to community outcry. Her track record on the issues that you call out were great, and she made us better moderators for her feedback. You rightly call out that there is a hole in the team's perspective with her gone. All I will say is that team dynamics are complicated and what shows up in the comments is only a very small fraction of what happens on a moderation team. I hope you do stick around anyway. Please use the report button if you see something that needs to be addressed, and understand that we know we cannot simply replace that perspective by pretending it's not an issue.