Boz (he/him)

Yeah, I think a lot of people who would be interested in moderating have taken a good look at how Reddit is treating existing mods, and gone, “nahhh.”

Thanks, I’m glad at least someone isn’t judging me.

I meant identifying details about my education and career, not details about my perspective. I wouldn’t have commented if I had nothing to say. :3

And when all you have is a Phillips head screw, you might overlook who’s holding the handle of the exact size screwdriver you need.

I don’t know, I think Musk might actually have an inferiority complex. He’s obsessed with himself, but he puts an awful lot of effort into trying to prove that he’s cool. But yeah, they’re both terrible, it doesn’t really matter who’s worse.

Non-tech person, though I would prefer not to go into detail on a public forum. I do get along well with tech people, and I run into some fairly technical issues while trying to do other things, but I’m rarely interested in technology for its own sake. I will listen to someone talk about what they do, or read an article, and I will always try to read the manual, but I am also the kind of person who’s like, “if I can’t solve this problem on my own in 15 minutes, I am going to call tech support.” (In my defense, if I can’t solve the problem in 15 minutes with the manual, I am not going to manage it on my own without human intervention, and I don’t want to bother my friends and family if I can get someone whose actual job is to ask if the machine is plugged in, and who won’t tease me about it for the next three weeks if it was, in fact, not plugged in. I am always polite with tech support, but I can tell they sometimes think I should have been able to figure it out on my own).

I’m fine with not really understanding how Lemmy works, since it does work, and it’s easy to find help if I get stuck. I am picking stuff up here and there as I go, which is usually what happens with stuff I use often, but at a certain point it’s just a black box to me.

ETA: when I say “not going into detail,” I mean about my background. That didn’t come across the first time, lol, sorry about that.

I mean, shouldn’t is more applicable for “male prostitute.” Really depends on the gig, and how closely the client examines your assets.

Does this mean we can say “welcome to the fediverse, we have cake”?

Yeah, but unironically, mailing a check is great if you don’t want to install an app or sign a digital “monetize me, Daddy” agreement just to make a one-time payment to a company that already knows your mailing address. I usually pay rent and utilities that way, because I can just drop it through the office mail slot, and I don’t have to pay a processing fee to use their sketchy online payment system. Cheaper for me, probably a good laugh for the staff, and not difficult.

Probably the shirtless pic was a carefully calculated move to short-circuit theories about his lack of humanity, by showing that he has a navel. [/s]

…for real, though, at least the man utilizes his paid PR staff.

Yes, the quality can be garbage, but I think a lot of the automatic scrollers require both quantity and low repost rate so they don’t run into stale content while they’re having their daily scroll. I think quality will go first, then the repost level will rise (and I know, it’s already high, lol, but it’ll get worse), and eventually either the quantity overall will go, or all the content will be created by bots, which will eventually drive off even the casual users. And when enough users go, the advertisers will go, and that is what will actually put Reddit on the rocks. It might take several years to happen, based on the changes they have already made, but they have the power to accelerate it if they fail hard enough.

What really creates train wreck appeal for me is how hard they are deliberately failing. I agree with the general sentiment that it’s profit-motivated, and they have to do something to get profits, but they are missing a lot of sane, likely-to-work options in favor of pipe dreams and emotional abuse.

If they want to pretend they’re not doing it, sure, I’ll pretend I don’t see it. If I think they’re fudging the dice too much, and it bothers me, I might bring it up with them privately, or I might suggest a group discussion, or I might just leave.

In general, I try to evaluate a GM as the whole package, rather than just the individual choices they make. If I like their campaigns, there’s no point in picking on individual decisions (beyond obligatory mild grumbling, of course, lol). Sometimes, they’re going to get results using techniques I wouldn’t choose, which is fine. If I don’t like their campaigns, there’s still no point in picking on individual decisions. I would rather drop out as soon as I realize something isn’t working out than stick around, lose my temper, and say something I will regret.

The “posts that look like ads” thing almost caused me to quit the site years ago.

The cost of participating is that you have to give Reddit your identity, complete with bank account and tax information.

…you laugh, but there are people whose entire career is based on creating that scenario.

I think “there’s no viable business model “ is where they are, yeah. I think if they had taken a different path… I don’t know, several years ago… they might have found one, but they just keep throwing away their assets.

Very thorough! I like your framework of needing to provide an incentive to join the pirates rather than the navy. That’s exactly the kind of organizing principle I find useful with world building.

Fresh vegetables have vitamin C, too, so you could give them credit for that. If the actual party gets scurvy, and you want to make it a plot point, I recommend you make their most recent battle wounds reopen. That’s a real potential symptom of scurvy, and is likely to confuse them. Technically, it wouldn’t be the first symptom, iirc, but it’s easy to communicate in the context of a campaign, and scarier than bleeding gums, though I think the root cause is the same. (Something about connective tissue breaking down).

I mean, depending how vicious you want to be, lol, I am the kind of person who weaponizes realism in fiction or games. I think a little unexpected horror helps people focus on the story.

How do pirate captains manage the health of their crew, particularly in the areas of nutrition and disease?

On a more granular level:

1. What are the staple, easily-stored foods, and how are they supplemented with fresh foods?

[Are we talking ship’s biscuit and salt beef with regular landfalls to get fruit and vegetables? Is there magical cold storage so they can have frozen whatever? Do they take vitamin supplements? Do none of these things happen, so long voyages always result in nutritional deficiencies, including scurvy?]

2. What level of medical knowledge and expertise are available in your world in general, and on ships in particular?

[Are they even at the level where they know and acknowledge that scurvy is caused by poor diet? Is healing all magic and four-humors pseudo-medicine? Is it difficult to get a competent physician to join a pirate crew, leading to bullet wounds being treated by barbers or dentists?]

3. How do pirate captains deal with contagious diseases, and what are the most common shipboard epidemics?

[Is quarantine a thing? …in a confined space? Do they have the germ theory of disease at all, or is the focus on “bad air” and ventilation, or demons, or divine disfavor…? Are they looking at flu, plague, body lice, intestinal parasites, syphilis, all of the above…? Do crew members generally comply with the orders of the captain and/or surgeon, or are you likely to have half the crew sick, and the other half mutinying?]

4. How are battle wounds dealt with?

[Related to 2, but you’ll want specific protocols for different kinds of injuries, removal of bullets, shrapnel, or arrows as relevant, suturing techniques or lack thereof, bandage material, disinfectant or lack thereof, pain management—other than liquor—if any, ways of dealing with infection, if you want to go there, and, of course, prosthetics, because, IMO, you can’t have a pirate setting without the option of peg legs and hook hands, and anything else bad you think might happen to characters in battle].

5. How much value do captains place on keeping a crew alive, vs just replacing crew members when they die from injuries or disease?

[Fun fact: the British navy—and other Western navies—used to deliberately overcrowd ships at the start of the voyage because they knew a large portion of the crew would die, and they wanted to retain enough sailors to make it home. Quite possibly the death rate would have been lower without the initial overcrowding, and it definitely would have been lower if they had invested in medical care rather than extra recruits. I suspect pirates were, historically, as bad or worse in this respect. The extent to which captains in your world see crew members as replaceable vs repairable will be demonstrated by your answers to the preceding questions, or, if you’d rather go the other way, might help you decide on the answers].

…all of which probably makes it sound like I hate maritime dramas, which is totally false, lol, I love them, I just have a really morbid imagination.

I would be extremely surprised if it goes well, if they do. Huffman said something in an interview suggesting that they are no longer in any hurry, and investors are likely to recognize this particular dumpster fire for what it is. The financial community has its delusions, but they’re usually not the ones techbros like Huffman have.

Regarding the new rule against abuse content, I suspect they’re either trying to boost their wholesome image to advertisers, or it’s in response to complaints about specific things on the site. I don’t think they’d prohibit content unless someone is posting it, horrible as that sounds.

To put it in your terms: they’re trying to drive away some creeps that might scare advertisers.

Regarding allowing AI porn… since advertisers don’t like porn, these new policies should cancel each other out, lol. I suspect neither of these changes is directly related to any of the recent drama.