Steel-Drivin'

SpindleyQ's picture

Community-Driven Moderation

Hey everybody! This is a thread where I'm hoping to nail down and make explicit my perspective on how Glorious Trainwrecks functions as a community, my role in that as the founder and absentee landlord of the site, and how the community can hopefully be empowered to protect itself if necessary.

Over the past... lots of years, it's become clear that I'm no longer very involved in the community; I don't regularly read the posts, I don't play the games, I don't post games here. As such, I don't quite think of Glorious Trainwrecks as "my" site anymore - it's your site! I just keep the lights on, and as always I promise to do so for as long as I am capable of it. So every so often, when a problem comes up, I have made noise to the effect that I think the community needs to have the tools to moderate itself.

However, it's also becoming clear to me that people really like the way that I have run this place -- that my early work shaping the community continues to shape it, and that the community, over the past 13 years, has built up a lot of trust in me to do right by them. I don't want to betray that trust and I want the community to feel confident that no one else will betray that trust either. As such it seems that my role is probably always going to be a little bit bigger than just the janitor who keeps the lights on.

So here is what I am thinking:

  1. If anyone sees something on Glorious Trainwrecks that is not okay, and they would like me to take action, I will continue to be responsive to PMs, as I have always been. (I'm also reachable quickly on Discord I will continue to intervene, when necessary. I will continue to publicly reaffirm my vision of GT as a place where people are kind to each other, and where bigotry of all sorts is not tolerated.
  2. There are a few community members who have moderator-level abilities, currently they are sergiocornaga, Danni, and let-off-studios. They are longstanding members of the community who have consistently shown good judgement; I trust them to take the well-being of the members of Glorious Trainwrecks seriously, and to ask for help when they need it.
  3. Moderation is to be used as a response to harm. I will continue to post detailed justification about significant acts of moderation that I do; it is always important to make it clear and obvious to all that harm will be taken seriously, and that our response will be appropriate. And if our response was not appropriate, it is important to have a clear place for that conversation to happen, and to learn from mistakes.

Moderation guidelines:
  1. If in doubt, talk to the larger community, other moderators, and/or me.
  2. Prefer reversible actions (unpublishing pages, blocking users) to non-reversible actions (deleting, editing).
  3. Take the necessary action to reduce harm to the greater community quickly, but _always_ follow up with the appropriate level of transparency. If the offending user is active, they should always be informed of what action was taken and why; they are going to notice, and it is important that they know what happened, even if they have been acting in bad faith. (This doesn't necessarily mean you are starting a dialogue, or that the moderation action is up for debate.) If serious deletion-level moderation was required, a community post should also be made with similar information; again, this makes it very clear to everyone what we stand for and what we will and will not tolerate.
  4. Do not feel like you must take any action alone. We are all here to help.

Does this sound good to everybody? Is anything missing?

SpindleyQ's picture

This is the place where you complain about the site.

So, hey, after the Klik of the Month Klub #9 event page got sidetracked with "hey the site is broken" postings, I figured it might be a good idea to have a place where you can talk about the site itself. This is that place!

If you look at the forum description, it also mentions things like suggesting community projects and starting up collaborations. You can do those things here, too! The Steel-Drivin' forum is all about figuring out how to make our little nook of the internet a more rhinoceros place to be.

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SpindleyQ's picture

Deleted account and user ban

Hello Glorious Trainwrecks community,
You may have noticed a lot of posts from RustyMoon/Uuuuuuuuuuuu in the past day. This user was privately asked twice to remove misogynist slurs from their game description; their response to this was ultimately to replace the titles of their games and descriptions with asterisks, complain about progressives ruining Glorious Trainwrecks, and make events called "Poo Jam" and "Pee Jam" before being blocked. This user has asked that their account be deleted, and I have done so. Unfortunately this means many users' comments on pages RustyMoon created have been lost.

Also yesterday, the user danyburton made a long post titled "Why I Hate Alt-Games" which was a fairly direct attack on the work of a substantial portion of our community. He also participated in the aggressive posting this morning, much of which is now deleted as it was in response to content that RustyMoon created. The post has been deleted and danyburton's account has been blocked.

My comments from the last time I deleted an account stand. If you are here only to satisfy yourself and don't care who is hurt by your work or your actions, then this is not the community for you.

Many thanks to the Glorious Trainwrecks moderation team for taking the lead on dealing with this situation.

tipsheda's picture

Independent Magazine Ad for Glorious Trainwrecks

Greetings humans, I posted this in the altgamez Discord as well, but I've heard not everyone on here is in that server, so I'm forwarding it onto here.

I've purchased a half-page ad in this new kickstarted indie TTRPG magazine called Project NERVES (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nerves/nerves) and I'd like to dedicate it to the Glorious Trainwrecks website. I volunteer my time to create it myself. My idea is to create a collage of screenshots from various games on the site and put some text over it directing people to the site. I'd try and match the general vibes/aesthetic of the site as best I can and I could share progress on the ad as I make it for feedback. Otherwise, if anyone closer tied to the site would like to make the ad, let me know. It's 104x90mm (WxH).

I'd like to do the site as much justice as possible. I don't wish to misrepresent, so feedback will be important. If people feel like the garnered attention from it wouldn't fit the small site, I'd totally understand.

Seeking input and a dialogue with the community. I won't go forward with it unless people here give me the OK.

SpindleyQ's picture

Server Move

EDIT: It's done! Welcome, Glorious Trainwrecks, to your fourth home. Please please please tell me if _anything_ weird happens so I can look into it ASAP!

Hey all,
Just a quick note to let everyone know that I'll be moving Glorious Trainwrecks to a shiny new server in the next few days. If all goes well, the only things you might notice are:
* https may stop working or point at a bad certificate for hopefully no longer than a few minutes (I'll be generating a new certificate rather than migrating the old one)
* the server will enter "maintenance mode" once or twice and you won't be able to make new posts or potentially read existing ones - again, this should hopefully only happen for a few minutes

If anything weird happens to you during or after this process, don't hesitate to let me know - you can [url=https://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/privatemsg/msgto/1]PM me on this site, send me an email drectly at if you can't log in, or for a quicker response you can hit me up on discord: SpindleyQ#2039 or uhhh on Mastodon @SpindleyQ@mastodon.social? I'll update this post with a comment once it's complete.

Thank you for continuing to be an incredible community that I'm proud to host <3

Best GTs of 2018-2019?

Please forgive me, mods, if this isn't the right place. Several boards seemed applicable -- this one the most.

Hey guys! Idk if you remember me (Marek and Sergio might), but I showed up a few years ago to play a bunch of your games for a Youtube video or two, which turned out fairly well despite my inexperience. I've been out of action for a while now thanks to life, but recently I started seeing some traction (I'm not too far off hitting my first 10k video) so I can't see any reason to stall any further aha

This place always struck me as THE place for experimental/weird/art games. Sure, I could crawl through Gamejolt and Itchio, and I probably will, but one of my favourite videos is the Glorious Trainwrecks-focused one, so I'd love to do a follow up.

I was wondering what you would consider your favourite games posted here in the past year or two? I'm going to check out a few at random myself, but it ruins the surprise if I play too much (and screenshots aren't always the best thing to judge by). I'm looking for the particularly atmospheric, deranged and/or bite-sized but effective.

Naturally you can expect positive criticism and an open mind. I prefer to showcase weird games to raise awareness of creativity rather than to mock. Might have a giggle at some glitches, tho.

SpindleyQ's picture

I deleted an account today.

I have banned Selfish Dream and deleted their games.

I'll give you all the same reasons I gave them:
- A harassment campaign was started against one of our members which resulted in death threats being sent for days after negative comments Selfish Dream made about their apparent belief that racism & sexism is bad.

- It came to my attention that Selfish Dream posted a game that appears to be about being a violent rapist, with explicitly graphic, threatening language in the description. Games about sexual violence that are at best indifferent about who they might hurt do not have a place on Glorious Trainwrecks.

Their response made it clear to me that they do not have any desire to engage with criticism of their work, and they don't appear to believe they have a responsibility to ensure people in this community are not hurt by their words or their work. Quite frankly, they didn't appear concerned that anyone here was hurt at all, just that they were not seen as responsible. For this reason I do not feel comfortable hosting their work.

Everything I said the last time I deleted a game remains true. I would like to address one particular thing Selfish Dream brought up in their response to me:
"I thought Glorious Trainwrecks supported freedom of speech and artistic expression."

Glorious Trainwrecks has always been about being a comfortable place where people are kind to each other. I've been part of many toxic forums & communities on the internet in the past, and since I started the site 11 years ago, it has always been my primary goal to ensure that Glorious Trainwrecks does not become one. Quite frankly, it has been the only constant goal - people coming here with the goal of contributing positively to this community should feel welcomed.

I want to be clear: it is OK to make games about difficult subjects, and it's OK to fuck up! But if someone tells you that your game is irresponsible, that your words are hurtful, that you inadvertently caused them harm, it is not OK to brush off their criticism. Glorious Trainwrecks works only if we are able to trust each other, if we listen to, respect, and support each other. Good-faith communication is harder than "free speech", but that is what is expected here.

One more thing: I definitely think it is not tenable for me to be the only moderator on this site. I used to read every post and play every game; I haven't had that level of involvement for years. I only see this stuff because people flag it to me. I would rather the community to have the tools to be empowered to handle situations like this on their own. What exactly this looks like, I'm not certain. But please comment or PM me with ideas, people you would trust to be moderators, or to volunteer.

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