Help me Ron Edwards, You're My Only Hope
Grimcleaver:
Okay so I've dabbled twice with contributing here. Really I'm a pretty likable, knowledgable and experienced gamer with tons of theory and help I can provide, and I'm eager to do so. But twice I've gotten the door slammed on me. So here's the thing. From what I've gleaned from the top note on the forums the moderator's ruling is law, so I can't talk about why my posts have gotten kicked--even though I was fairly passionate about both and they seemed both needed and well recieved. There seems to be an ettiquete to posting where and about what and I wasn't given the manual. This is frustrating the heck out of me and my entire game group who have been reading over my shoulder as it were--and can't understand it either.
Now I can just go and bother you guys no more, but I'd much rather understand your rubrick for torpedoing all my posts.
Ron Edwards, please explain to me what goes where.
First I tried to arrange a playtest thread to take for a spin game concepts in development--as part of the Game Development page. I wanted it to feel a bit like a gamestore, that people who wanted a chance to get playtested (like one in ten posts on the page are "Please Playtest Me" or "My Playtest Group Makes Me Want To Die" anyway) would give me a blurb on their game with a link, and we'd peruse them periodically, pick one and offer our playtest experiences on Actual Play. Sure I could go post by post through the whole Game Development page looking for games that were what I was looking for, but that's a huge "push" endeavor rather than setting up a method to "pull" interested parties to my thread. In fact I had tried it for the next few days. Now I really didn't intend to insult anyone who had "worked their butts off" on a pitch. In fact if they had cut and pasted the same pitch it would have been fine. But apparently these forums aren't for that. But apparently also you genuinely wish me well, and that you're interested in seeing what my group comes up with. So how do I proceed? Oh by the way I did try to check the Ronnies. I read a couple of them, but honestly the problem is that people seem to be making these entries as submissions for a contest and just don't have the same commitment or level of work put into them as they do on projects they are actually trying to develop for public use.
Grimcleaver:
Sorry, the message box hit the bottom and started stuttering and giving me a headache...
So post two. I'm not even sure what's wrong here. There seem to be plenty of entries on rules tinkering and game philosophy zipping around on Actual Play. So I figured I'd make a second attempt with something nice and safe which I'm pretty passionate about and would like to share (basically keeping the different editions of D&D alive as separate and distinct settings) in order to give people a taste of who I am and where I'm coming from in a game design angle. But I apparently did something wrong here too.
Anyway I guess the thing is this. I don't know what I can and can't talk about on here or where to do it, enough so that my posts keep getting booted. Be glad to conform and keep my head down, I just don't know what I'm doing wrong and it's getting really aggrivating.
Grimcleaver.
Ron Edwards:
Hey,
I posted to that thread to clarify a couple of things. I'll repeat them here.
1. Being moderated does not mean "shut up." None of your threads had the door slammed on them, as you have perceived them to be. I am very clear about that; when I say, "It's closed," then it is, and if I don't, then it's not.
2. I ask that you consider that the Forge is not like other places, where you build up social cred and approval, or have to keep your head down until you're allowed to talk. It merely includes very easy requirements for threads in each forum, and being moderated, 90% of the time, is only being reminded of those requirements. I provide such reminders to help the thread, not to stop it.
3. You're absolutely right that rules tinkering and game philosophy are premium topics here. The more the better. The more of yours the better. All you need to do is say, "Hey, this one time, I rolled X and then it went like this," when such a moment of play would illustrate a point you're making.
You've also done exactly the right thing by posting here in this forum. My moderation is not fixed, full stop, no appeal, no discussion. You can appeal or discuss privately by private message or publicly right here.
So far, I'm only seeing the ordinary and understandable adjustment period for arriving at a very distinct and very demanding environment. I sympathize with your aggravation, but a lot of it seems to be due to feeling slapped - and you're not being slapped at all.
Best, Ron
Eero Tuovinen:
For what it's worth, I'd like to say that I appreciate Grim's patience with us. The average pilgrim isn't nearly this willing to work with an unusual discussion environment. I also rather like that D&D topic, it's an interesting one and I'd like to see it get somewhere; I'd write a bit about it myself if I'd ever actually played D&D in its own setting.
Grimcleaver:
Okay fair enough. So then let's talk.
What's the problem with my first post? It seems like having playtesters come on and advertise their desire for products to test only helps the design process--and that thread actually did get shut down. It seemed like your position was something akin to "these developers worked their butts off to promote their products on their own posts and this thread won't be about them trying to pitch their ideas to you here." That felt not only like a bit of a slap, yeah, but also a doorslam on the whole discussion. Then when other folks began answering my call for people wanting playtests you told them that you were indeed closing down the thread and not to post there.
So can I have a thread offering to help people by offering the services of my playing group to playtest them? Is it okay that they ask for help on my thread? I guess what line got crossed and where is it? Is it that they can't give me a brief writeup on their product? I guess I don't know where I conflicted with any rules explicit or implicit. It just seemed like a good faith offer that so far about six different folks either on the thread or by PM have responded to with enthusiasm. Was it just that there was a misunderstanding of what my thread was about or did it really do something wrong?
I guess let's start there.
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