…

Really?

I'm not entirely sure whether to take your comment seriously or not, especially considering that what you quoted isn't what I said. So for now I think I'll just leave it…

Yes, I was joking. :lol:

Despite all the progress we've made in this thread over the last few days, I still think it might be wise to be a bit careful about joking in a way that kinda helped get all this started… I think there is still a high degree of sensitivity about all of this floating around, and I appreciate your attempt to interject some humor in the midst of all of this, but I think for now it might be a tad inappropriate given the subject matter :p

I'm inclined to agree with both HK and David. We need to stop and see what sort of status changes come about from our immense discussion. There's no point arguing about what's alright and what's not until we know for sure who we should be discussing all of this with.

This isn't the place for another Cratylus vs. Samson argument to break out. If there is absolutely a need for another of those, it should be taken privately, because while I can't speak for the whole community, I can say that I for one am tired of reading the constant bickering.


I also find myself in agreement with HK once again (as I click preview and find 4 new posts while I sorted my thoughts on this one) that it's probably a bit inappropriate for humor to be interjected in such a way as to be reminiscent of how this all got started in the first place. We're trying to resolve the issue, not refresh it.

For what it's worth, I don't think we've gotten to that point, and so far things have been civil (especially considering the touchy subject matter). I think that's a testament to progress made.

And agreed re: the humor.

It might not have escalated to that as of yet, but it did seem well on its way to escalating to that point.

Yes, but if there's anything to be learned, it's that we should be careful about making negative assumptions. This thread could have been locked from the getgo, but wasn't, and frankly I think many positive things have come of it.

Kayle wrote:


Heh, "get a room"? Maybe you're onto something
there. Maybe it is love!

Things do seem to be starting to get repetitive.
I don't especially like getting locked into
one of these talking-past-each-other feedback
loops with Samson, so unless there's something
new to respond to, I'm happy to stand back and
hear from the admins what they think of
all this.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

Perhaps not legal judges but they are nonetheless a form of judge. They examine a situation and make a determination about how to resolve it. Sometimes it's just a simple "hey, be nice" and other times it's locking a thread, deleting a post, toading someone, ticketing them for $500… oh wait.



Analogous to a corporate manager or legal judge, no. But we haven't exactly got much else to compare it to. I wasn't trying to make a literal comparison, rather more of a method to explain what I was getting at. Apparently I failed at that once again. Honestly I'm not sure how else to explain it, so maybe someone who did understand what I was getting at would like to take a crack at it.



Yes, well, I think you may understand yet why I had some difficulties with previous management where I worked. The difference is, I didn't stand up in the middle of the help desk and cry out that being told to work on a project I didn't want was fascist and immoral. Nor did I stand up and declare than my free speech rights were being trampled by an oppressive supervisor. No, instead I invoked my rights as defined in the "open door policy" portion of the handbook. When that failed, I took my case to HR, aka, proper channels. As it turns out, that didn't help me. It only made things worse. I genuinely feel sorry for those co-workers left to deal with it since the feeling of "oppression" was fairly widespread. I guess you could say that seeing me "banned" and then seeing the contents of my desk emptied out right in front of them will send the message they want sent. Anyone who has read my blog post can see the whole story if they want. It was far more than just objecting to a single assignment, but looking back I'm betting it was the trigger point that led to the rest.

The kicker? Corporate America regards managers like the ones I had as fully competent because they "handle confrontation appropriately" by removing the source. They even give them awards. Many of us nicknamed the training they took to get there as "going to asshole school".

I suppose Cratylus and HK feel that coming to us here ended up much the same way. That's largely my fault since I was the one primarily dealing with them on it. Probably not a useful analogy, but Davion and Kiasyn are more like the HR department. They sit back and watch and only get involved when there's an escalation complaint. Yet, as I learned with the job, they still tend to agree with the result I handed out even if they'll openly admit they didn't like how I pursued getting there. Much like HR flat out told me they didn't appreciate how my supervisors arrived at the decision to punish me, but agreed that the punishment itself was valid.



I didn't say nothing has come out of it, but what else are we all discussing right now? You've asked it yourself. What is going to come of all this? Cratylus more bluntly asked if this was nothing more than the Kumbaya moment and tomorrow we'd all be back to business as usual. A couple of people offered up some ideas, but were promptly hit with "be more specific" when nobody seems to know yet exactly what's supposed to happen. Right now all we have are generalities mixed in with getting some stuff off our chests and making attempts to mend fences. I know I'm probably not coming across well again. But damn if I can even think of how to explain in the detail that's wanted.



All due respect, but I'm not the only one here who thinks cracking down was a viable approach or that your velvet glove idea wasn't working. And at the risk of once more pissing some people off, I see here more or less the same people arguing that moderation at the levels needed is a bad thing vs a slightly larger number of people who think stricter moderation is long overdue. The vast majority, as always, is silent. And I hate to even mention it again, but since TMC is the only self-moderated forum I've ever found, and it doesn't work, I remain unconvinced that such an approach ever can. I have seen clear evidence that stricter moderation does work - and even within our own community there are two forums where uber-strict moderation is the rule and is enforced. The odd scizm is that on TMS, several participants thought it draconian and unfair. Yet, these very same participants go to Mudlab and haven't ever complained about it one bit. From where I stand the only reason I can see for that is because Lasher is a bastard and KaVir is not. Even though the last I checked, neither Lasher nor KaVir are actually active in moderating their sites. They have others who do the grunt work.



And frankly I think that's a tired old argument with no validity or evidence to back it, but ok.



The same thing was said about the mods on TMS when the hammer came down. The same things were said about the Bethesda mods when they brought the hammer down. The same thing was said about Kyndig when he brought the hammer down ( and I really REALLY don't want to get back into that one again ). The same thing was said about mods on 5 tech forums I visit and 7 political forums. All when the hammer came down. I'd venture to guess it's actually said quite a lot, that moderating someone is the same as showing them disrespect.

But you know what? After awhile things mellowed. Threshold stopped dishing out needless personal attacks to make his points. Matt quit acting like a spoiled brat every other post. The amount of hateful things being said dwindled to nearly nothing there. Ozma ( for the most part ) stopped being a prick on MM. Modders at the Bethesda site finally started getting useful feedback instead of "you suck, go die" posts. People on the tech forums stopped dickwaving about who's hardware was better and instead got into more interesting arguments about why each piece of hardware was better or worse, and providing useful evidence to back it up. And the big kicker was on the politics forums. Liberals and Conservatives were able to have actual debates without the words asswipe and dickbrain being used every other sentence. Sure, they still get into it there from time to time. Politics is extremely touchy stuff, but the moderators don't wait for the 12 page taser style threads to blow up before something is done. None of which was possible if status-quo had been maintained and the mods were afraid to crack down because the initial wave of dissent was so loud.

So I think somewhere in all this we can find a way to clamp down on the problems but it's going to require patience, tongue biting, and restraint. I'd love to be proven wrong about self-moderation. So if everyone thinks that's viable, I'm sure it would make the admins quite happy. Honestly, I don't have that kind of faith in any forum environment. So the only viable solution I see is one where enforcement is actually done and where threads repeatedly calling the action into question are simply removed. I know that's not a popular position to take, but I can think of at least one man in this country who has taken a number of unpopular positions but has stood by them - and eventually been proven right in most of them.

Most probably I'm not that person here, but whoever it is should realize that moderation is necessary, not evil, and should stick to their guns regardless of how loud the dissenters are about it. Because statistically speaking right now they're a very small ( but vocal ) minority.

(edited for busted bbcode tags)

I'm going to be intentionally brief in light of what was just said, so here are a few points:


I find your attitude towards your ex-manager somewhat ironic given your stance on how moderation should be handled on forums. I happen to agree with your cynicism regarding the manager, which should speak at least a little to what I think about how the analogous approach works on forums. :wink:


I'm not exactly sure how people could think it wasn't working, when it wasn't even tried. :wink:


Well, I definitely agree about the first part, and I think everybody else does. I'm not sure where the second part is coming in because nobody has suggested that moderation be completely out of the hands of the site staff.


EDIT:

At least one person other than me has expressed that they respect you considerably without agreeing with absolutely everything you do. I'm not sure what kind of evidence you're looking for?

Since this is at the core of the entire argument for you, I'll just simply state one last time that what you view as appropriate isn't always going to match what the operators of a site view as appropriate. And challenging your boss is exactly what you've continued to advocate. I'm sorry, but we're never going to agree on this, so really, there's no further point in keeping at it.

The entire rest of your response to me was just a wash-rinse-repeat cycle that I know for a fact nobody wants to go through again, so…. yeah, don't really feel like repeating myself again since you obviously feel that no matter how I handle things, it's because I disagreed with you, not because you actually did something wrong. Repeating it over and over in public hasn't made it any more true in 8 months time.

And alas, I see that …. sheesh… several posts landed between my last one, yours, and this one, and yeah, Crat, can we please just let it go already? Agree to disagree and be done with it?

EDIT:


Because that's not what you said. You said nothing about people who respect me yet still disagree. You simply stated that I mistake a lack of agreement for a lack of recpect and that's what I was more or less eye-rolling over.

and one of these days I'm gonna get these bbcode tags right!

I think there may have been some misunderstanding regarding the moderator issue.

I don't recall (if I'm wrong, please correct me) anyone suggesting they would like to see Mudbytes self-moderated.

I know Cratylus went so far as to bold/highlight that he is strongly in favor of moderation, while I know I have stated numerous times I favor moderation. I believe that there is a general consensus among everyone on the site that moderation is a good thing, I think a good number of us would just like to see the moderation be a bit more… moderate.

Overall the impression I've gotten is that those of us who would like to see change would like to see it in the following areas:

-A bit more clarification on the rules, policy, etc. I know I'd like to see outlined a bit better what is considered appropriate conversation, and if certain things are off limits, I'd like to see that clearly written down somewhere.

-A bit more even enforcement of the rules and policies. Some of the confusion about the Russia/Georgia thread came as a result of one Admin posting in the thread without so much of a word about the sensitive nature of it, and another locking it. It seems a bit inconsistent.

-An approach to moderation where generally across the board of Admins/Mods, warnings are issued prior to thread locking or whatever means of moderation are taken. Within those warnings, a degree of impartiality about the issue/posters in question would hopefully be exercised, along with specifics about what policy or guideline outlined on the site was breached to issue the warning. Basically the same approach when a thread is being locked.

As far as I can remember, I think those are what some of us are after. What I mean, personally, by "letting the leash loose" or however I worded it, is taking more of a "warn first" type of attitude before locking a thread and giving it at least some chance for resolution, apologies, clarifications, what-have-you, before actually locking it. I didn't intend to suggest let us moderate ourselves, but to give us a little bit of room to get topics back on track before the threads are moderated or locked.

In regards to the respect issue, I don't think anyone is suggesting that they felt disrespected by the actual act of having a thread locked. For me personally, when you locked my 'Thread Locking' thread, I don't believe I felt disrespected by that. I didn't feel disrespected when the thread was locked after my warning. When I specifically felt disrespected was when I felt like you had insulted me and "took sides" in the Georgia/Russia thread in the post where you announced it was locked. The approach I think many of us would have rather seen taken in that regard would have been something more along the lines of "This thread is inappropriate discussion for what we want here. The topics and some opinions expressed are far too volatile and have the potential to be offensive for many of the posters, so I'm locking the thread to prevent it from getting out of hand like the taser thread." Had an approach similar to that been taken, I can 100% honestly say I would have had no problem with it being locked. It was the approach taken when it was locked that I had issue with, and I might be being a bit bold in speaking for others, but I think specifically this is the type of thing that others have been concerned with. I think that's where this "disagreement vs. respect" issue is being misunderstood, so I hope that maybe this helped clear that up a bit.

Edited to add:
I'm headed to bed now though, so this will be my last reply on everything for the night. Hopefully I won't come in tomorrow and have 3 pages of stuff to reply to and write another epic post :p

In the particular post you replied to, you are correct, but I had said it several times before. Here is an example, from post 99. I've made bold the relevant part.


I've said similar things in the past. HK made similar remarks in a few posts. I don't really feel like digging everything up in this 130+ post thread, and previous threads, but I hope that you will believe me now.

Well, it seems to me to be more of a credibility issue in this case. Coming from him, claiming to favor moderation rings hollow when he's clearly demonstrated in the past that he doesn't like it. And I get the same kind of feeling from David. That he says he's in favor of it, but his responses to it have nearly always been hostile. So I really don't know where to go with what he say vs how he reacts to it. Coming from you, I have no reason to doubt your sincerity.



Well, I forget who now, but someone said that listing specific types of topics didn't feel right but that more clear definitions were needed. I linked to what I consider a good set of rules, but maybe nobody saw the link, so I'll quote them here now for clarity:



I think those would more or less clear up any ambiguity left. We can't really know what topics will be problems under policy like this but I'm convinced that even when someone says it wasn't intentional that they still knew it wouldn't go over well anyway. People do often have trouble admitting they went over the line even when they know for sure they have.



In fairness, I think Kiasyn just didn't realize how sensitive the issue was. Perhaps he wasn't aware of the whole Georgia issue or what it meant. Maybe, like me, he didn't see what Zenn said about oil - though also in fairness Zenn was looking for an answer, and it's one possibility several nations had put forth as a reason for it. Nobody knew at the time. I don't think we still do yet. You posted after Kiasyn, and I don't know if he saw your response or not. Moderators don't really have the luxury of wondering if someone else saw it. The nature of the beast says to put a stop to a potential problem. In your case, you posted your statement as though it were indisputable, and I had no way of knowing if you were being deliberately antagonistic, ignorant of the subject, or if you truly beleive that of our government. Frankly I wasn't going to wait to find out on that one. I see your point about how you think it was insulting, that was not my intent. Fingers before brains as it were. I more or less typed my gut reaction and then locked it to prevent the inevitable mess that was sure to follow. So I apologize for that as well, it pushed the boundaries a bit. But I won't apologize for having locked the thread. It was a ticking time bomb by that point. Even if Kiasyn had seen it, I don't know if he would fully realize the inflammatory nature of the comment regardless of the intent behind it. I really have no idea how up he is on controversial US political issues. I think Davion already as much said that he doesn't care about US politics. I don't know if he saw it either, or knows exactly what kind of a firestorm that was if he did.



The clarification helps. Left to simple statements like letting the leesh loose, people have to infer meaning. I inferred it to mean self-moderation. I think I've been pretty clear on how I don't think that can ever work.



As noted above, that wasn't my intention. I don't think anyone here needs to guess that I do have a side to take on the Georgia/Russia thing and that it may not go along with what's been accepted as the "truth" behind it either. I'm equally sure people know by now where I stand on Iraq and Afghanistan. But that's a subject for blogs and political forums. Not for a MUD forum. I think most people here realize the potential problems with posting politics. Honestly I don't see why it should need to be specifically forbidden since common sense dictates it be left elsewhere just because it's so volatile, and because not everyone would necessarily understand why the rest of us would have gotten so worked up about it.



As you pointed out, I was responding to that particular reply. Not to post 99. HK never said I mistake disagreement for disrespect.

And if I may be so bold, this sort of thing is why you tend to agitate me so much when something like this happens. You say something, I respond, then you reply back claiming that isn't what you said or meant. Can you at least see why it's confusing and frustrating to deal with?

The first half of this seems to be saying something pretty different about your attitude toward me from the second. I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean.


I just tossed you not just an olive branch but a whole tree. The polite thing to do would have been to accept it, one way or the other. :smile:


Well, I have thought in the past that your attitude causes you to think I'm out to get you, and thereby completely misunderstand my intentions, that is true. I'm saddened that clarifying my intention is so terribly frustrating to you. I understand it might be confusing but in that case I suggest you try to believe me when I say for the n^th time that I'm not out to bash you, instead of casting so much of what I say in that light. But, err, in this case, what are you referring to?

Samson wrote:


My significant other was vegetarian, and would sometimes
try to cook meat for me, without actually eating it, nor
having a "feel" for it.

I did not like it, usually.

But I like meat.

Let's try not to provoke each other, ok?
Really. "Credibility". Cmon, man.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

I have to say one thing…



What the fuck?! XD I fail to see the relevance to the thread but jesus that made me laugh out loud.

I think I'm referring to exactly this. It seems that for some reason you don't realize what your words said. My attempt to clarify it only resulted in further misunderstanding. As has been pointed out many times, text lacks emotion and body language to go with it. I can't go by anything more than what I see here. It literally reads to me like you make a statement, I disagree with it, you turn around and say that's not what you said/meant and provide an example that doesn't match. I can't really be more plain about it that that.

Why can't you just make life easier for everybody and tell me what statement I made that I reversed?