Why I left all three HeroQuest groups on Facebook

[Kurgan]

Is there a Ye Olde Wiki?

[iKarith]

Kurgan is old fashioned and a curmudgeon.

[Anderas]

I agreed to mod the Facebook group because I think that in the long run it will channel some folks back to here.

I don't like days when spambots post strange things. I don't like days when someone decides to fill the group with gifs. I don't like days when some people think it necessary to spit a mouthful of sewage over me in the Facebook messenger because "I am the one up there" or any other strange reason related to the group size. I hated the Hasbro Kickstarter because due to the stupid Facebook format, there was suddenly no place left for other topics on the site and I had to clean out hate postings nearly every day.

I love days when someone reappears, like Herman the German recently. I like when someone posts a quest or images of nicely painted minis.

Overall it's lots of work.

Currently I have less stress on the work so it is ok.

I fear the day when my work comes back full-force or the day when Hasbro starts delivering. I think as soon as I stop mopping each day, it'll take just two or three weeks to degrade so far that the people will leave the group.

Why are people so nice here and so strange there?

[iKarith]

I agreed to mod the Facebook group because I think that in the long run it will channel some folks back to here.

[…]

I fear the day when my work comes back full-force or the day when Hasbro starts delivering. I think as soon as I stop mopping each day, it'll take just two or three weeks to degrade so far that the people will leave the group.

Why are people so nice here and so strange there?

I think ultimately it's the nature of Facebook that it is so. I don't mean that to be dismissive or overly critical of Facebook necessarily. First, it requires some effort to be here. Facebook is no effort because everybody's already there. It requires dealing with old forum software that was as good as it got back then, but is kind of crusty and limited today.

Fewer people are willing to do that, so we have a small and dedicated group of fans.

What have you got on Facebook? A large group of people mostly there for other things who also happen to have a bit of interest in HeroQuest too, in among all the other things they are doing.

There's a Linux guy who had some comments about this recently: Social media intends to be a public park or town square … except if fails at this on almost every level. People can meet at a park, do things of common interest, have two-way conversations, etc. It is impossible to carry on a two-way conversation with hundreds, thousands, or millions of people. You can't do it. And yet the whole point of social media is that people try anyway. You can try to speak to a crowd as you would in a town square, but on social media the people can speak back. And do. And they bombard you with responses.

Public speaking is effectively a lowest-common-denominator sort of thing. Except because people can actually respond, easily carry on side conversations, and join the conversation later as if it was happening right now, you have this situation where bad actors can easily create a very hostile environment and set everyone on edge about issues big and small.

What's that have to do with HeroQuest groups? Nothing—except that the HeroQuest groups are right there intermixed with those other things, in the same context. We humans don't shift context that quickly. If we were on edge before, maybe a bit frustrated or angry, it's going to carry over into something else we might actually have fun with otherwise.

Another thing, I suspect the HQ group on Facebook is pretty large. That makes it effectively anonymous. Anonymous people don't necessarily feel like they need to behave the same way other people do. Which is funny because most of us are here under a pseudonym and we can decide who if anyone knows the name we're called by the outside world. Even so, within the group we have a reputation that we, as people who went to the effort to be here, actually care about.

I'm sure this forum has had its share of "drama". I see users who've made thousands of posts and were active contributors to the forum who seem to have been banned. Dunno what happened there, but I know it happens.

Me, I don't take mod positions anymore. I mean, I figure that which moderates best moderates least, so I'll let people get away with a lot without so much as a warning. Until someone tries to see just how much they can get away with. My #1 rule is the unwritten one: Don't go out of your way to piss off the moderator. Break it and I "abuse power" pretty quick, and it causes problems because I let so-and-so do such-and-such but immediately came down hard on the person who broke my rule for doing so. Yup, I did. No apologies for doing it, either. (See, that tends to cause problems, which is why … no thanks.)

So I don't envy you the job.

[Anderas]

I decide if it is a thing I have to react to.

Yes, ban.
No, do nothing.

Sometimes if I ban I scream very loud about it by making a playcard for the guy leaving.

So nobody can tell they didn't know.

[Kurgan]

About a hundred years ago I was a moderator of a couple of forums. I got the job there mainly because I was "always around." Over time I've seen forums (thankfully didn't happen to me) where the users take it over and kick the people out who started it. So there could be such a thing as "too much freedom" in a forum (when it outlives the reason it came into existence). But overall I like the community atmosphere, where you can be as active or inactive as you want and reap the benefits.

I certainly don't envy moderating a social media group.

Who knows, maybe the FB group will serve as a spam trap to keep the less community minded out of our hair here? No break for you though...

And when they're ready to join us, I say more the merrier!

I just assume that if we post something here, people on the FB group have no idea about it. Hence when it comes time to do the unboxing I bet you will have thousands of posts on the FB group about it, but we'll be more organized over here. Tons of people are going to rip open their box and say "done!" without answering any questions, or they'll open it and go "this wasn't what I was expecting... wait, I don't get a refund? Hasbro suxxx!!!!!" which we are trying to avoid here with our little project. Any fandom has those who are collectors/scalpers (they won't take the box out of the shrink wrap, but may put it on their ebay listing), the fanboys (stuff is great no matter what, no demands other than "keep giving me more!," stops their ears to any critique) and the toxic/anti fanboys (everything sucks, everything is terrible but instead of leaving I will stick around to make sure everyone hates it as much as I do).

I've seen a few arguments over here every blue moon and I was even involved in a mild one for a bit, but nothing on the level of what I'm used to seeing on social media (thank goodness!).

[Davane]

I've seen a few arguments over here every blue moon and I was even involved in a mild one for a bit, but nothing on the level of what I'm used to seeing on social media (thank goodness!).

Oh, who was that with? I haven't had any real arguments over here, to be fair. I think it's a lot to do with the subjectivity and tolerance of the community. Somethings get people riled up, but mostly, it's fairly chill here.

I think the hardest part is that as a largely written medium, you are missing out on the 70% of communication that comes from body language and context, so it's much easier to assume the worst or misread the context.

On social media, like Facebook, you not only have the same issues in an environment where everyone mostly types like they speak, but having so many users in a true real time environment puts real pressure on people - so when misunderstandings happen, things go downhill REAL fast.

[StratosVX]

I've seen a few arguments over here every blue moon and I was even involved in a mild one for a bit, but nothing on the level of what I'm used to seeing on social media (thank goodness!).

Oh, who was that with? I haven't had any real arguments over here, to be fair. I think it's a lot to do with the subjectivity and tolerance of the community. Somethings get people riled up, but mostly, it's fairly chill here.

I don't think we've had any in a few years. There was one fairly big one over drug use a while back (which is why recreational drug use is now a banned topic), but I don't recall anybody getting banned over it although one regular member stopped logging in right after. I believe there was a different one where El-Flesh was banned, but as I said those were a while back. Overall the people here are a lot better than the ones on Facebook. I think its because the people here truly love the game, whereas on Facebook you get more people that like to troll or more people who had the group suggested to them by Facebook and they vaguely remembered the game so they joined.

[Kurgan]

Yeah, no big drama in my time here, which I love. I'm sure there are people on social media doing great things, but I'm hoping they find us and see a more excellent way.

[iKarith]

I do often find myself wishing the forum software were more modern… Properly supporting unicode characters, maybe with a consistent bbcode, maybe taking advantage of some of the last 20 years of web development (which could make the site heavier or a bit lighter—I have preference for lighter personally) and some other features that'd make things like hosting games right here at the Inn easier, maybe make searches easier, that kind of thing. Not necessary, but it'd be nice. Of course after so long, it'd also be a pretty major time commitment, and it's not MY time that'd be committed to doing it. Everything is "easy" when it's not your time being taken to do it and/or figure it out.