TheRtRevKaiser

joined 2 years ago
MODERATOR OF
gaming
technology
politics
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Fallout 76 Ghoul Experience Detailed by Bethesda in c/gaming@beehaw.org
[–] TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org 7 points 4 days ago

Go touch grass.

There's no need for this, seriously. I get that it's a gaming community but we're trying to be better than the usual toxic mess, right?

[Epic] The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria in c/freegames@feddit.uk
[–] TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org 4 points 1 week ago

It's fine. Decent lore and environments, but the gameplay was pretty mid. It was decent fun to play for a couple of weeks with some friends who like LotR. Certainly no reason not to check it out if it's free

are you spiritual? religious? tell me about your practice :3 in c/chat@beehaw.org
[–] TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org 5 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks for the thought - we did a little of this over the last few years but it wasn't working for us. One of the more important parts of religious practice for both of us is the communal aspect, and as we live in a mid-size city in the Southern U.S. there aren't very many opportunities outside of a church setting for strong, long-term community building. Not saying there aren't any, but it's difficult to build a strong network when third places have essentially disappeared. The Episcopal Church is working for us, at least right now, as a place to build those networks and practice our faith without having to compromise on moral stances that are critical to us.

are you spiritual? religious? tell me about your practice :3 in c/chat@beehaw.org
[–] TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

I'm always a little reluctant to post about religious topics on Beehaw because there's a pretty strong anti-christian sentiment on Lemmy in general which is, to be fair, entirely understandable.

I grew up in the "Church of Christ" and my wife and I stayed part of our CoC congregation for a long time mostly because of the support network and personal connections we had built up there, even though we had a lot of problems with evangelical theology and the increasing conservatism. A few years ago we wound up in the crosshairs of a group of deeply unpleasant people because of some comments we made in support of LGBTQ folks, and ended up spiritually homeless for a while. We eventually ended up at a local Episcopal church and while it's been a big adjustment for us in some ways - we definitely weren't used to high church liturgy - we've really come to love it there. It's not without problems, but we feel like we're able to wrestle with our beliefs and still have the support of the community, and we've made some close connections there as well.

Theologically I'm all over the place, so don't ask me for a firm stance on anything - I'm just making this shit up as I go 😅

Why Gen Z Men Voted for Trump in c/politics@beehaw.org
[–] TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org 16 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not intending to make this assertion, but as a warning: transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny are not nice, and are not tolerated on Beehaw.

Asleep at the Wheel in the Headlight Brightness Wars in c/technology@beehaw.org
[–] TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org 31 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I've wondered before if my perception of headlights being so much brighter was them really getting brighter, cars getting taller, my eyes getting older, or a combination of all those (and other) factors. It seems like there might be a few things going on, but it does definitely look like lights are getting a lot brighter, and I'm obviously not the only one to be frustrated by it...

Why did Beehaw defederate from Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works for poor moderation and not lemm.ee and discuss.online? in c/chat@beehaw.org
[–] TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org 10 points 1 month ago

If I recall correctly, the main reason we defederated from those instances at the time was the sheer volume of spam we were getting from users of those instances. While we do sometimes have a need to moderate users from larger instances like Lemm.ee, it's not currently at a volume that we can't handle, from what I've seen.

As always, as a moderator of several Beehaw communities, I would encourage you to report any comment or post you see that isn't up to the standards of Beehaw.org. Don't assume someone else is going to do it, and don't assume that moderators are always watching every interactions closely - we're all doing this in our free time and have other responsibilities. We may not take action on every report - sometimes things are borderline or the community has already pushed back and we feel like things are in hand - but I guarantee someone is looking at and considering every one.

Fallout London is a better game than Fallout 4 in c/gaming@beehaw.org
[–] TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

It was very early on, the first week or so after it released. I'm sure they've fixed a lot of the bugs but honestly I just haven't really been motivated to try it out again.

Fallout London is a better game than Fallout 4 in c/gaming@beehaw.org
[–] TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org 18 points 1 month ago (8 children)

I tried to play London and it crashed constantly. Now, that's not all that different an experience from playing any Bethesda game, but it did kind of kill any interest I had in the mod.

effective immediately: there will be a one-month moratorium on US presidential election posts in c/politics@beehaw.org
[–] TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org 11 points 1 month ago

For what it's worth, I appreciate this. I'm not in the right headspace for the usual circular firing squad right now.

2024 Presidential General Election Results | DDHQ in c/politics@beehaw.org
[–] TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org 24 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Hey @UngodlyAudrey@beehaw.org, I know we don't really know each other and I'm just a random dude on the internet but I'm shattered for you and other folks like you that are rightly scared by this outcome. I'm raising kids in this nightmare and I'm terrified of what they're going to face growing up. I don't know what to do either. I know this is all empty words but it's what I've got right now.

Google is Killing uBlock Origin. No Chromium Browser is Safe. in c/technology@beehaw.org
[–] TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org 5 points 2 months ago

Yeah Firefox on Android is extremely so for me at times. I've never noticed it specifically being on the first page load after a while, but I haven't been paying that much attention. I use firefox on mobile so that I can install ublock, because when I've tried to use a DNS-based solution in the pass I ran into all kinds of issues with battery drain, but the experience does leave a little to be desired at times.

74
Technology@Beehaw.org , Community Culture, and Moderation (beehaw.org)
 

Hey Beeple and visitors to Beehaw: I think we need to have a discussion about !technology@beehaw.org, community culture, and moderation. First, some of the reasons that I think we need to have this conversation.

  1. Technology got big fast and has stayed Beehaw's most active community.
  2. Technology gets more reports (about double in the last month by a rough hand count) than the next highest community that I moderate (Politics, and this is during election season in a month that involved a disastrous debate, an assassination attempt on a candidate, and a major party's presumptive nominee dropping out of the race)
  3. For a long time, I and other mods have felt that Technology at times isn’t living up to the Beehaw ethos. More often than I like I see comments in this community where users are being abusive or insulting toward one another, often without any provocation other than the perception that the other user’s opinion is wrong.

Because of these reasons, we have decided that we may need to be a little more hands-on with our moderation of Technology. Here’s what that might mean:

  1. Mods will be more actively removing comments that are unkind or abusive, that involve personal attacks, or that just have really bad vibes.
    a. We will always try to be fair, but you may not always agree with our moderation decisions. Please try to respect those decisions anyway. We will generally try to moderate in a way that is a) proportional, and b) gradual.
    b. We are more likely to respond to particularly bad behavior from off-instance users with pre-emptive bans. This is not because off-instance users are worse, or less valuable, but simply that we aren't able to vet users from other instances and don't interact with them with the same frequency, and other instances may have less strict sign-up policies than Beehaw, making it more difficult to play whack-a-mole.
  2. We will need you to report early and often. The drawbacks of getting reports for something that doesn't require our intervention are outweighed by the benefits of us being able to get to a situation before it spirals out of control. By all means, if you’re not sure if something has risen to the level of violating our rule, say so in the report reason, but I'd personally rather get reports early than late, when a thread has spiraled into an all out flamewar.
    a. That said, please don't report people for being wrong, unless they are doing so in a way that is actually dangerous to others. It would be better for you to kindly disagree with them in a nice comment.
    b. Please, feel free to try and de-escalate arguments and remind one another of the humanity of the people behind the usernames. Remember to Be(e) Nice even when disagreeing with one another. Yes, even Windows users.
  3. We will try to be more proactive in stepping in when arguments are happening and trying to remind folks to Be(e) Nice.
    a. This isn't always possible. Mods are all volunteers with jobs and lives, and things often get out of hand before we are aware of the problem due to the size of the community and mod team.
    b. This isn't always helpful, but we try to make these kinds of gentle reminders our first resort when we get to things early enough. It’s also usually useful in gauging whether someone is a good fit for Beehaw. If someone responds with abuse to a gentle nudge about their behavior, it’s generally a good indication that they either aren’t aware of or don’t care about the type of community we are trying to maintain.

I know our philosophy posts can be long and sometimes a little meandering (personally that's why I love them) but do take the time to read them if you haven't. If you can't/won't or just need a reminder, though, I'll try to distill the parts that I think are most salient to this particular post:

  1. Be(e) nice. By nice, we don't mean merely being polite, or in the surface-level "oh bless your heart" kind of way; we mean be kind.
  2. Remember the human. The users that you interact with on Beehaw (and most likely other parts of the internet) are people, and people should be treated kindly and in good-faith whenever possible.
  3. Assume good faith. Whenever possible, and until demonstrated otherwise, assume that users don't have a secret, evil agenda. If you think they might be saying or implying something you think is bad, ask them to clarify (kindly) and give them a chance to explain. Most likely, they've communicated themselves poorly, or you've misunderstood. After all of that, it's possible that you may disagree with them still, but we can disagree about Technology and still give one another the respect due to other humans.
98
Harris picks Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, AP sources say (apnews.com)
143
‘Weird’ And The Breaking of The Fascist Fever (bad-faith-times.ghost.io)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org to c/politics@beehaw.org
21 comments fedilink
 

I've seen a lot of ink spilled recently over the Harris campaign's recent adoption of the tactic of calling Trump and his cronies "weird". There's a lot of hand-wringing over the Democrats ceding the high ground or being unserious about serious matters, but this article, and especially the source material it links to by Sdrja Popovic (a non-violent Serbian revolutionary during the Milošević regime) about the power of humor in non-violent movements, really changed my thinking on this.

15
The New Propaganda War (www.theatlantic.com)
 

Autocrats in China, Russia, and elsewhere are now making common cause with MAGA Republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom around the world.

99
Doxxing and callouts on Beehaw politics (beehaw.org)
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org to c/politics@beehaw.org
11 comments fedilink
 

Hey folks. I just want to check in with the community about a post that was recently removed. My intention is absolutely not to create drama or stir anything up, but I'd like to make sure you all understand my reasoning for removing the post. Also, I'm aware that I'm not as good at articulating these kinds of things as some of our folks, so don't expect a classic Beehaw philosophy post here.

The post in questions was a link to a twitter thread providing evidence of the IRL identity of "comic" "artist" stonetoss, who is unquestionably a huge piece of shit and a neo-nazi, or at least something so indistinguishable from one that the difference is meaningless.

The post provoked some discussion in the Mod chat and several of us, myself included, were on the fence about it. I understand that there are arguments both for and against naming and calling out people like stonetoss. I find arguments in both directions somewhat convincing, but ultimately the thing that a number of us expressed was that the act of calling someone like this out and potentially exposing them to harassment or real-world consequences for their views might be morally defensible, it didn't feel like Beehaw was the right place for it. We really want Beehaw to be a place that is constructive and kind, and that this type of doxxing/callout didn't seem to fit our vision what what we want Beehaw to be. At the same time, we're all very conscious that it would be easy for this kind of thinking to lead to tone policing and respectability politics, and that is also something we want to be careful to avoid. All this to say that I made what I think was the best decision in the moment for the overall health of !politics as a community, as I saw it.

On a personal note, I find that our Politics community is one of the communities that is most prone to falling into some of the traps that Beehaw was created to avoid. That's very understandable - politics are something that cause real and immediate harm and stress in a lot of folks' lives; they're complicated, contentious, and often make us feel powerless. I'd like to remind folks as we move into the general election season in the US, though, to remember the founding principles of Beehaw when discussing these topics, no matter how stressful they may be: remember the human, assume good faith in others, and above all, be(e) nice.

Thanks,

TheRtRevKaiser

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The Personal, Political Art of Board-Game Design | The New Yorker (www.newyorker.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org to c/tabletop@beehaw.org
4 comments fedilink
 

Mirror, in case you hit a paywall: https://archive.is/iCYt4

1
Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events (www.propublica.org)
454
General Megathread for Elon Musk Nonsense and Twitter News (beehaw.org)
 

Hey folks -

The seemingly never-ending flood of Musk/Twitter news and commentary is getting to some of our users (and some of the mods, too), so we've decided to create a general Megathread for all things related to Elon Musk and X/Twitter.

This thread will be a general Musk catch-all, so we're including news about Musk acting the fool as related to any of his companies (SpaceX, Tesla, Boring). News about those companies that don't involve Elon can be posted outside this thread.

2
Why It's Rude to Suck at Warcraft (www.youtube.com)
 

I'm honestly not sure how to summarize this video. It's a very interesting look at the way that the impulse to "optimize" gameplay affects the culture surrounding games, especially MMOs and other multiplayer games. It particularly looks at World of Warcraft and the social norms that have developed around and within the game. It's a long watch but I found it really interesting, and I have zero connection to WoW and have never played it.

2
Hyundai subsidiary has used child labor at Alabama factory (www.reuters.com)
1
NFTs Are 'A Scam', Says Indie Marketplace Itch.io (kotaku.com)
 

It was interesting seeing this headline over the weekend. RPG platform DrivethruRPG has also come out with a similar statement.

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