The Joys of Overzealous Moderators

[momfreeek]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

"you are free to leave at any time" you forgot to add, but "leave your stuff behind".

Yeah true, I guess it would be repression to be ejected from your own home. In the case of being ejected for not following the forum rules (Calahan claims no innocence) "repression" is hyperboly.

In my experience its very easy for insolence to lead to bullying. One knowledgable individual may insult others for a cause but when others follow his lead and start hurling insults for their own causes (often less righteous) the result is chaos and those who suffer are those trying to be civil. At dom3mods I suspect the sense of unity against a common cause (this one) creates much feeling of brotherhood right now. Doesn't mean it isn't bull**** (disclaimer: poorly informed opinion ).

[Soyweiser]

Peter you are the one rule lawyering. (Rule lawyers also tend to write a lot of rules. Which trolls then abuse to make their points. Which leads to the dom3mods rule of ... (and only spambots get banned)).

I think the rest just understands that the rules are just bull, and the mods will do as they please and think up reasons and justifications afterwards.

This whole rule system is worthless. But you know this. You now perfectly well what I'm talking about. As we discussed this to death with you the last time somebody was banned.

We already discussed this the last time. You think written rules are important. I think it is more about unwritten social rules. I imply you do not understand unwritten rules. You imply I do not understand written rules. Etc.

And again, like I said the last time, the problem with shrapnel is that they do not apply any of the other they say they should do. Like having two user accounts for example. A new player here has gotten a new account while he still had an old one. That is allowed. But suddenly calahan gets banned. It is the ambiguity that is the problem.

Look at my posts for example. I have clearly been out of line every once in a while. Did I ever get warned for that? Or infractions? Nope. Not once. The only way for me to see if I crossed the line is to look if I'm banned or not(*). (Not that I want to).

Ps: The infraction system has not been used for years. Just ask the mods. They will either come clean and say "indeed has not been used for years". Or they will make up some story that they cannot give examples because that would void the privacy of the people infracted. Or some other lie that we cannot confirm or deny.

@momfreek. Yeah, I know, gotta pipe down with the mob mentality. But I have not really felt that much community brotherhood of us vs shrapnel myself. And have not seen that much reaction. Not that much people seem to care. (Apart from calahan, executor, and a few of the other posters here).

And I have repeatedly told people when they crossed lines. The constant harassing of batman (we get it, we know who he used to be) and ghoul was really annoying. (And I have crossed some myself of course). Of course, I also cross lines... but yeah.

Once again, Calahan probably deserved it. But why today/this week? Why not when he posted the bad stuff he posted.

Ps: looking at the rules again. I see this:

"Strong profanity should generally be restricted. "Damn," "Hell," and "Microsoft" are all okay."

And this:

"Do not post any material which is knowingly false, and or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, hateful, harassing, racist, obscene, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, or that otherwise violates any local, state, national or international law or regulation."

Good job not defaming Microsoft shrapnel.

*: there is also an informal method. Lets call it the Strider way. If he shows up, people get banned. Just like last times "who the **** are you" episode.

[Soyweiser]

Explain me this one thing. Why are the rules so important people? I don't get it.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Explain me this one thing. Why are the rules so important people? I don't get it.

Okay. Let's start with the basics.

I don't have a right to post in this forum. You don't have a right to post in this forum. None of us do, save the Shrapnel staff. It is, effectively, a private club. And in a private club, you follow the rules regardless of whether you like them or not. Now, why is that, you ask?

Because I have entered a voluntary agreement, whereby in return for agreeing to follow the forum rules on this particular private forum (the price), I am extended the privilege of posting here (the benefit).

If I violate the forum rules consciously, then I violate my given word.

Which is something I will not do.

If I no longer wish to adhere to my side of the agreement or if I cannot in good conscience do so because I disagree with the rules, then I will no longer post in the forum.

This argument is good enough for me.

The question to you is then, given that you, too, have voluntarily entered this agreement, knowing full well what you agreed to as it was presented to you to read before joining and having all the time in the world to reread the agreement later on, why is obeying the forum rules not important to you?

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Peter Ebbesen

Okay. Let's start with the basics.

I don't have a right to post in this forum. You don't have a right to post in this forum. None of us do, save the Shrapnel staff. It is, effectively, a private club. And in a private club, you follow the rules regardless of whether you like them or not. Now, why is that, you ask?

Because I have entered a voluntary agreement, whereby in return for agreeing to follow the forum rules on this particular private forum (the price), I am extended the privilege of posting here (the benefit).

If I violate the forum rules consciously, then I violate my given word.

Which is something I will not do.

If I no longer wish to adhere to my side of the agreement or if I cannot in good conscience do so because I disagree with the rules, then I will no longer post in the forum.

This argument is good enough for me.

The question to you is then, given that you, too, have voluntarily entered this agreement, knowing full well what you agreed to as it was presented to you to read before joining and having all the time in the world to reread the agreement later on, why is obeying the forum rules not important to you?

If shrapnel sets rules that it intends for us to follow, and it tells us what action it will take if we don't follow their rules, and they ignore that and just do whatever the hell they feel like, there is no sense of order whatsoever. Especially this whole business of not bothering to inform a person why they've been banned is nonsense.

As stated earlier there is no good reason to be banning calahan right now as opposed to times when he actually did something. In fact banning him at this point is sheer stupidity, regardless of whatever reasons shrapnel things they had to ban him. But what else is new.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Peter Ebbesen

Okay. Let's start with the basics.

I don't have a right to post in this forum. You don't have a right to post in this forum. None of us do, save the Shrapnel staff. It is, effectively, a private club. And in a private club, you follow the rules regardless of whether you like them or not. Now, why is that, you ask?

Because I have entered a voluntary agreement, whereby in return for agreeing to follow the forum rules on this particular private forum (the price), I am extended the privilege of posting here (the benefit).

If I violate the forum rules consciously, then I violate my given word.

Which is something I will not do.

If I no longer wish to adhere to my side of the agreement or if I cannot in good conscience do so because I disagree with the rules, then I will no longer post in the forum.

This argument is good enough for me.

The question to you is then, given that you, too, have voluntarily entered this agreement, knowing full well what you agreed to as it was presented to you to read before joining and having all the time in the world to reread the agreement later on, why is obeying the forum rules not important to you?

So we agree, the rules are important as a social contact kept up by both sides. The contract should be know beforehand and followed by both sides. Like said before, shrapnel doesn't do this.

Shrapnel is not keeping up their side.

In the rules they say the don't like banning people. Well, apparently they do. They dislike giving out infractions more.

(Look, I have little problem with banning people when desired/deserved, just don't get all high and mighty about a large set of rules and don't follow them yourself. All this acting like you are the moral high ground).

Personally I prefer the organic ruleset. With exceptions, personal communication etc. Not this static high and might stuff.

But communication with people is hard. And doing the right thing for the dom3 community is not high on their priority list. Obviously.

[Gandalf Parker]

"Laws don't stop anyone from doing anything. Tthey aren't really expected to. But they will stop most of the people most of the time, and the rest we will handle as they come." -AAGP

Rules arent laws but the sentiment seems to fit. Maybe if you call them guidelines instead of rules you would be more comfortable. Then the way that some feel they are getting used would be easier to accept. It would be "These are a list of guidelines on what we want our forum to be. And we reserve the right to ban for that purpose at anytime".

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

"Laws don't stop anyone from doing anything. Tthey aren't really expected to. But they will stop most of the people most of the time, and the rest we will handle as they come." -AAGP

Rules arent laws but the sentiment seems to fit. Maybe if you call them guidelines instead of rules you would be more comfortable. Then the way that some feel they are getting used would be easier to accept. It would be "These are a list of guidelines on what we want our forum to be. And we reserve the right to ban for that purpose at anytime".

Yeah, like I said. This is what srapnel says they do:

"We have these rules and regulations, these are the penalties etc. This is what you can expect here."

This is what shrpanel does:

"Look, here behind this shed." *BANG*

Problem solved.

[elmokki]

The rule system is hillariously retarded. There is a detailed list of rules and then basically "We may ban anyone permanently should we feel like it".

I do understand if someone does something that obviously crosses the line, but at least for my sense of general internet forum behavior the line here is placed so that I have absolutely no idea what crosses the line. Not that I believe I have a high chance to get banned from anything I post apart from maybe my posts in this thread since it isn't A HARMONOUS CONTENT THREAD. Seriously, if someone crosses whatever random line Shrapnel's forum moderation has pulled out from their place of harmony, ban them for a week and tell them the reason unless it's something that's absolutely obviously intentional and very offensive. Then if they don't stop it for at least a decent time go ahead and ban them forever.

[Bat/man]

...unless it's something that's absolutely obviously intentional and very offensive.

Except that it obviously was intentional and very offensive. Cal made posts in a variety of threads expressly for the purpose of harassing people, including game threads. And not just once - often. It was frequent and flagrant abuse.

Calling someone a "douchebag" for being wrong about game mechanics is inappropriate. Defeat the idea, prove it wrong. Enjoy the presentation of ideas and their merits. Discuss the game. Doing it often is grounds for being banned.

For the record, AFAIK I had nothing to do with his being banned. I didn't report it, I didn't request it, I'm relatively late finding out about it.

But baiting people, harassing them, and maligning them is against the forum rules; claiming that this is anything other than a textbook example of why shrapnel has that statement in their TOS is just willful ignorance.

As for "why now" - I suspect because the administrators here have other things to do. Selling games. Raising families. Whatever. And that they check in to moderate threads infrequently.

I suspect the same reason contributes to why Cal didn't get warned. Presumably no one monitored the threads for a long period of time; by the time someone did a large body of posts were established to show that this was repeat and flagrant behaviour; not the kind of behavior they wanted, and unlikely to be fixed by infractions.