Frowny face of a lack of popularity

[yvannairie]

Fun fact I recently extended an invitation to someone who's like lowkey fandom famous and whose work I deeply enjoy to come hang out in my Robot Server(tm), someone I have no personal relationship with, and having been emboldened by that, I kinda wanna reach out to other people in the fandom I'm aware of! Who I think are cool!

But it's become so normal for antis in the TF fandom to have gone underground and purged all mention of having participated in violent harassment campaigns in the past three years that I don't feel comfortable inviting someone off just the vibe I have of them, and I can't seem to get the server to take off word-of-mouth since almost nobody in the fandom is up for forming new social bonds either.

IDK. I feel more bold about wanting to reach people who have kind of lost the joy of the thing and come hang out with us! Because yeah, been there! That's why I started it! And I really resent being afraid of my fellow fan and not wanting to put the people who have been harassed into danger in case my own social radar turns out to be complete shit.

EDIT: I suddenly started wondering if the lack of spread by word of mouth also has to do with not just me being like this with strangers, but also people who are on this server being like this with their strangers? Like are we all just in an ouroboros of not trusting one another b/c it's so much safer to NOT have a stance on this, and those who have hard stances have often been harassed enough to be suspicious of a stranger being like "hey you're cool and I heard you'd gotten shit for stuff, would you like to come on our Anti Giving Shit To People For Stuff That Doesn't Matter" server?

Comments

[sexytronians]

Yeah. I get it on one hand because I’ve got one stalker who periodically harasses me and I’m so cautious about what spaces I join. Not because he’s there but because his allies might be.

On the other hand, I don’t think an atmosphere of distrust really helps to combat antis either. The worst culprits do tend to be known at least but as you’ve said they have wiped evidence. But fear means folks can’t band together to call bullshit when they target someone—I’d rather be trusting sometimes and know I’ve got folks at my back to defend me.

Idk personally unless it’s someone I directly know is an anti I’ll be cool with em.

(It’s late at night so idk how coherent I am rn sorry.)

[yvannairie]

Yeah, I know a lot of people like that, and it's a big reason I don't reach out to strangers that often, because they could easily be one step removed from someone who's sent death threats to someone already on the server.

This is why I chose to rely on the word-of-mouth approach at first, but at this point I definitely feel like we need to go public sooner or later.

[sexytronians]

Yeah. I don’t think it helps that it’s hard to know if someone endorses that behaviour or simply isn’t aware it’s occurred. Especially when its someone who can be charming at face value.

Sorry for all the edit notifications I may have put in your comment box lol. I just realised the context of something you were saying.

Anyway knowing it’s about a server like. That sounds a tough choice tbh. Wanting folks who aren’t just immediate friends to have a space without antis is really good but I get why strangers could be a risk for sure.

[yvannairie]

I mean it is definitely mostly for my own benefit, too, and I wouldn't just expect people who have been harassed to jump on board without knowing something about whether I'm the kind of person who is superficially charming and plans to just get them into deeper shit. That's also an advantage of being introduced into something like this through someone you already trust.

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

I think in addition to distrust might also be apathy--apathy with vetting people for their stances and apathy with anti-anti spaces that just end up devolving into moralistic wank spaces all over again. It's so tiring to keep getting your hopes up about making cool connections.

[yvannairie]

Yeah :( And it's not like my brand is strong enough to immediately mark me out as someone safe, and you can't really tell without seeing the server that we're taking this shit extremely seriously.

I honestly feel like. I should advertise more. I don't want to run a server people are on b/c all their friends are there, I want to run a server that people will enjoy being on because it's moderated and secure.

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

Yeah, that's one of the sort of sad things about fandom moving into servers instead of forums; with a forum, at least you could SEE things before deciding to join. But with a server, if you join and then decide its not for you, there can be social repercussions to leaving. The arbitrary rules that irresponsible mods choose to enforce are super unpredictable and even though there may be plenty of cool servers out there, the unknowns create an effort barrier.

Advertising might prove to be very good! Especially if you're consistently straightforward about your moderation policies and community expectations. I am definitely more liable to take the risk if the person promoting the group seems to be reliable and morally consistent.

[yvannairie]

I've been thinking I might just, like. Post the code of conduct we've implemented as an advertisement somewhere, but I'm just intensely put off from putting it on Tumblr, where we would get called a pro-ship server and subsequently get a target painted on us.

[redthedragon]

for what it's worth, on my end i almost don't want to invite people because i like the server too much? it has a good vibe going and i don't want to throw someone into the mix who will mess that energy up
but also honestly i don't trust that anyone will either not be a whole anti or will not be weird about me having a "secret" discord server where i talk about robots that i only mentioned now lmao. like either i dont know them well enough or i know them tooooooo well and i should've told them already

[yvannairie]

Hmm. How to phrase this so that it doesn't sound like I'm trying to chide you for bad behaviour...

Basically, I don't think the users of Off-Orbit should worry too much about that sort of thing. Of course, if there's someone who uses Discord like a social media (basically, someone you would never recommend Dreamwidth on b/c they would have a miserable time) then Off-Orbit isn't the right fit for them just because we aim to be more of an old-school IRC or a forum-adjacent chat room, and as baffling as I find it, some people just don't like that sort of impersonal engagement.

And also obviously -- there are people who aren't antis, but would not enjoy Off-Orbit because it's a space we moderate. That's, frankly, not something everyone can handle in fandom. Some people just need more personal control than that. So there's a lot of legitimate reasons to not suggest Off-Orbit to someone.

But I emphatically do not want Off-Orbit to become just another hangout server for friends, which is why I'm so stressed about how to safely expand our reach. I want to actually build a fandom space, which is why the moderation is currently so extensive despite we having had very little need for. Ideally, I would like it to be a place where people can make new friends, but I will settle for a space where strangers can amicably interact. That's gonna require some degree of mixing friend groups. I have such high aspirations for that place, which are, honestly, only tempered by the fact that getting too greedy with publicity will only bring bad publicity.

The only people I, like, outright don't want the link to Off-Orbit coming anywhere near is people you know for a fact have actively participated in harassment. On a personal level, I'd rather not it even show up in the hands of people who have passively participated in harassment, not unless there was clear sense that they'd made amends isntead of just slunk off and stopped, because I'm just deeply distrustful of behaviour like that, but I still can't stop someone from making the judgement call to invite someone like that to 00, and also tracking new users down to check their credentials or whatever is against our rules, the rules which moderators are also bound by.

So, like, I feel you, and I do, on some level, appreciate that you like the vibe on the server enough to not want it to change, but also what the server becomes and how it changes... shouldn't really be your problem to worry about. Not unless I offer you a modship at some point, and that's not exclusively in my hands :P