Why?

[']['ear]

First, I don't find my warned post particularly bad, except I went a little too far. I'm fairly sure that any other forum member posting the same thing would hnot have been reported, nor warned if they were reported. Second, that's just my opinion as to what was wrong with it, since you have utterly failed to indicate the offensive lines. Your resistance to doing so is baffling. If I were you, I'd now insinuate nasty crap about your motives (which, by the way, is throwing gasoline on a fire, which is why I asked you whether you could warn yourself.)

Let's be candid: I want your rules clearly defined, because otherwise you're going to **** me up the ass with your vague "hostility" and "too personal." I want the rules written down, and I want the terms defined. Defined well. Then I want each infraction to be annotated. It costs you a few seconds of extra work, but it's worth it for the transparency.

Sorry if that's too hostile, but insinuating that you are ethically suspect is no worse than you did to me, is it? Because that's another point: if the conduct mod violates his own rules, then the whole system is buggered.

Which is all another way of saying that nobody elected you dictator or martinet. Nobody advocated the approach you are taking. We wanted enforcement of specific rules to improve the atmosphere. And since I know that you loathe me (you've shared that fact), I have no confidence in your impartiality. Events so far have borne me out, and *I* think it is likely that you'll be making rules up as you go along specifically to control me the way you want me controlled. So if you want me to play ball, you run this democratically. Otherwise, your banning me sooner is just getting rid of all the foreplay for what will happen later.

Prove me wrong, or prove me right.

[Wraith]

First, I don't find my warned post particularly bad, except I went a little too far.

So, would you say, worthy of a request to calm down, but maybe not an infraction? Glad we're on the same page. I trust this discussion is over now. Again.

I'm fairly sure that any other forum member posting the same thing would hnot have been reported, nor warned if they were reported.

And I'm fairly sure I've spoken to people for less. No, no examples - it's not up to me whether or not those things get dredged up again. All of those ended quietly and needed no follow up.

[littlelolligagged]

Actually, you'll find multiple references in this thread to being responsible for one's own post, regardless of what somebody else says to one. I'm certainly interested in whether you plan on warning people for ostensibly responding to somebody else, or whether flames or trolls are excusable as long as somebody else "set the tone."

He gave me just as much of a warning as he did you. I just didn't find it worth getting excited over. I deserved a little smack.

[Ziggy Stardust]

The difference is, you enjoyed that.

[']['ear]

And yet again he has dodged the issue of transparency and defining the rules.

Is this official notice that the rules are whatever the hell you want them to be, Wraith? I know you get it, you just don't want to admit anything.

[Aimless]

And yet again he has dodged the issue of transparency and defining the rules.

I thought one of the rules was basically "don't make overtly hostile posts that have more to do with a poster's character or personal life than it has to do with the thread topic"! I'm kinda puzzled by this, are you saying there should be a master document outlining what constitutes hostility in the English language??

[littlelolligagged]

And yet again he has dodged the issue of transparency and defining the rules.

Is this official notice that the rules are whatever the hell you want them to be, Wraith? I know you get it, you just don't want to admit anything.

Rules.

Coupled with a general request for basic civility in this thread.

[Aimless]

Maybe it'd help if you saw this place as a university rather than as a bar? So you could ask yourself, "Would I say this thing to a regular colleague at my uni?" and if the answer is no then you could refrain from saying it to your fellow poster.

[']['ear]

I thought one of the rules was basically "don't make overtly hostile posts that have more to do with a poster's character or personal life than it has to do with the thread topic"! I'm kinda puzzled by this, are you saying there should be a master document outlining what constitutes hostility in the English language??

Why, I don't believe that Wraith has laid out the rules.

But now that you mention it, the post for which he admonished me spent far more time addressing the topic at hand than it did the personal character of somebody. So, that definition can't be right, can it?

I want specific rules, and I want warnings or WLPs to be accompanied by a quote with offending passages bolded. nobody here advocated having a dictator enforcing nebulous rules capriciously. This is how we avoid that scenario.

[littlelolligagged]

Rules.

Coupled with a general request for basic civility in this thread.

Why, I don't believe that Wraith has laid out the rules.

But now that you mention it, the post for which he admonished me spent far more time addressing the topic at hand than it did the personal character of somebody. So, that definition can't be right, can it?

I want specific rules, and I want warnings or WLPs to be accompanied by a quote with offending passages bolded. nobody here advocated having a dictator enforcing nebulous rules capriciously. This is how we avoid that scenario.

We have specific rules. Highlighting and quoting just exacerbates the situation. You were asked to stop. If you had a question about how your post violated the rules you could have sent Wraith a PM and asked. Wouldn't that have been more productive than going on the defensive and accusing Wraith of behaving unjustly?

[Wraith]

Wraith told me my posting to Loki was inappropriately personal (true, by the way).

except I went a little too far.

Clearly, you understand exactly what was the problem with the post, but you're not letting that get in the way of this game of yours.

It's already even been explained multiple times anyways:

Look, we know that you're training to become a hack at one of these think tanks

The pronoun there means the comment's, uh, personal

You sometimes misrepresent your own posts, but here is what you said:

Jesus, and you call yourself a social scientist? I don't know whether this is a commentary on your abilities, your laziness, or your willingness to lose the truth to score your precious "points."

The excerpt I posted from your post was, I think, one of the hostile and insulting bits.

Overtly hostile posts like the one you made are not continuing here, Tear.

Weaving in personal insults, and an overall hostile tone is not conducive to continued civil discussion,

Even when one thing isn't too bad when taking on it's own, a whole run of things that are close can sum to something worth taking action on.

In fact, we can even go to the original post:

Escalating to this level of hostility is unnecessary. You could have made all the same points without the personal attacks, and in fact your post loses nothing if those are removed. Please calm down.

Apologies to Nessus and Minx.

And no, not everything in that post was offensive. Which is why I said as such. Dialing back the hostility in it all would have made it fine, and you could have gotten the exact same points across. I'm really not moved to give you a guide for how to be as offensive as possible without breaking the rules. Err on the side of inoffensiveness.

Nothing's going to satisfy you, so there's no point in trying any further. I'm serious about not letting you get away with things just because you scream bias at me, by the way. I've given you more free shots than I'd have allowed anybody else, but it's over now. There is nothing productive that can happen with this discussion, so it's done. Mod hat.

To help you avoid the temptation of collecting on any trolling or flaming points, I'm going to try something that Fuzzy once suggested. I'm going to temporarily lock this thread for the next four hours. I'd consider making it more permanent if there wasn't another discussion with the possibility of fruitfulness struggling to stay afloat, assuming we didn't completely lose it a page back. This tract is still closed when the thread reopens.

For everybody else: Once it does reopen, I'd also like some feedback on whether or not temp-closing threads is a good idea.

[Wraith]

Tear: A reminder. Flaming and trolling over PMs is equally unacceptable.

[Hazir]

Tear was banned for Trolling/flaming through PM's?

TBH I think the post that started all of this rant off wasn't nice, and probably warranted a summons to tone it down a bit. But it wasn't really just an ad hominem attack. I also suspect Loki of some extremely lazy discussing. A minimum of own thinking combined with a maximum of links to questionable sources seems to be standard fare these days. And as a matter of fact those contributions are near as disrupting as Tear's whining about being treated unfairly and his demanding more rules.

Just for the record, I don't think mature behaviour can be brought about by imposing ever more formal rules of engagement. We all know when we've gone to far, and pulling back from that point is not defeat but just common sense.

[littlelolligagged]

Tear was banned for Trolling/flaming through PM's?

I think Tear was banned for choosing to bring the PM's public after not getting contrition from Wraith privately, but I could be mistaken.

[Hazir]

I think Tear was banned for choosing to bring the PM's public after not getting contrition from Wraith privately, but I could be mistaken.

Just to make something clear; I am not questioning the ban itself. Just curious about what was the immediate reason to do it.

Edit : Ah, that was in the other thread again.

[Ominous Gamer]

as someone who has barely been paying attention to anything around here, I thought it was because tear was dragging the issues from a closed thread into other threads.

[littlelolligagged]

Just to make something clear; I am not questioning the ban itself. Just curious about what was the immediate reason to do it.

http://www.theworldforgotten.com/sho...ll=1#post40922

It's there.

But really, can we move past Tear and hope that tomorrow when he comes back he'll have calmed down?


As far as temp-closing threads, I don't really know that it does any good at all, Wraithy. This probably wasn't the best thread to try it out in at this point, though.

[Hazir]

as someone who has barely been paying attention to anything around here, I thought it was because tear was dragging the issues from a closed thread into other threads.

Yeah, i also missed the time-out close. I can't really tell if I think it's a good idea or not. And even though it was open before I noticed it had been closed I do agree with Lolli that this 'feed-back' thread wasn't really the most opportune place to start trying it out.

[Wraith]

as someone who has barely been paying attention to anything around here, I thought it was because tear was dragging the issues from a closed thread into other threads.

This is about right. It was for the trolling and attempts to provoke a fight with me, and then flaming over PM and trying to drag issues from a closed thread to another thread. It should be noted that this isn't a permaban. He'll be back tomorrow.

I'd rather not drag out discussion of this particular thing too long, for fear of it all turning into bait and leading to another go when he gets back.

Yeah, i also missed the time-out close. I can't really tell if I think it's a good idea or not. And even though it was open before I noticed it had been closed I do agree with Lolli that this 'feed-back' thread wasn't really the most opportune place to start trying it out.

I thought this was more of a meta-discussion thread. I was really hoping that by closing it temporarily to let tempers cool, I wasn't going to need to do anything else.

Since the feedback doesn't seem too favorable so far, I'll avoid doing it in the future though.

[Hazir]

I should explain that I see the entire site discussion forum as a feed-back place. After all we're still working in a semi-formal way so that just talking about the mods would be utterly lazy and dishonest. It's 'we' that make this forum, and not just 'you people' by applying rules.

That also means that I think that users should not be affraid to call out eachother's unacceptable behaviour every now and then.

[EyeKhan]

I think the temp closure is fine; or at least there isn't enough data to make a ruling on its effectiveness. The intent was to interupt the momentum of an ugly set of posts. Unfortunately and perhaps predictably the momentum was transferred to another thread upon which a more specific and more effective means of interrupting momentum was employed. However well that worked won't be apparent until tomorrow.

Regarding your modship and attempting to enforce a little more civility around here, I say kudos. Earlier on I had made a suggestion that the heightened politeness only be enforced in DD and not in the sloppy forum. Is there any thought to implement something like that?

[Wraith]

I don't think there'd be any containing it there. It'd probably lead to more infractions needing to be handed out than if the rules are applied universally.

edit: Other point: some people are here mostly for D&D, others more for GC. It'd kinda suck if one group were going to tell the other that their place is now a dumping ground for all the trash from the other.

[Aimless]

Btw, I thought this was an important point:

I'm really not moved to give you a guide for how to be as offensive as possible without breaking the rules. Err on the side of inoffensiveness.

As long as it's not taken to extremes, I think this is one area in which "vagueness" may be a good thing.

[Being]

How on Earth do productive people validate such trivial issues? Getting paid to post here seems like welfare for people who don't need it.

[littlelolligagged]

How on Earth do productive people validate such trivial issues? Getting paid to post here seems like welfare for people who don't need it.

Who is getting paid?

The thought brings a whole new level to post-whoring.

[Nessus]

We'll post it for you, wholesale!

Temp closures are probably more on the nose with high-temper threads with several participants posting rapid-fire anger-laden posts at one another, but it certainly wasn't a bad choice with this thread either; the fact that the poster's anger spilled over to another thread is more indication of their frame of mind and simply not getting it despite repeated warnings.

[Hazir]

It's scary how often I agree with you these days.

[EyeKhan]

So, Tear's not been back yet. While I genuinely would not want to see him go permanently, I think he might benefit from a haiatus.

So what happened to Cain anyway? I know he was taking some heat for trolling Tear, then I was gone for a week, and when I got back he'd stopped posting. Was there an official "screw you guys, I'm goin' home?" Or did he just stop?

[Dreadnaught]

I think he just stopped posting.

[Being]

Would it be better if we labeled one pissing matches, and the other fallacy central?

You know, you guys are all gonna just dismiss me again because I usually agree with OG (except when he left 'his' kid at the bus stop). But think about it; we tried to create a community by dividing it.