All this so someone could tippy toe around the line of acceptability and push boundaries. The guy basically admitted to purposely trying to get a rise out of people. Well done. ffs
Nobody gives two shits about NBZ.
Think of the recent NBZ “fiasco” as highlighting the importance of having an agreed upon list of forum rules/moderation protocols.
If you don’t think this forum needs an agreed upon list of forum rules/moderation protocols, I don’t know what to say other than you should probably not post much in this thread.
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I was more meaning posters quitting and threatening to quit and all the drama. I would of put it in the other thread but its locked.
Of course if i wanted no rules i think i should be allowed to hold that view and express it itt anyhow…buy yeah.
You know what, it’s definitely abusive speech and I apologize, @jmakin. It was not one of my finer moments. I was out of line, and I’m sorry. I should not have responded in kind when you called me “fucking unhinged” and a “thin skinned, dictatorial mod” or to any of the other abusive speech you directed at me throughout that thread.
That doesn’t make it okay for a mod to use abusive language, I should be held to a higher standard and I failed to live up to it. I’m sorry. I should not have taken the bait, and I do think people should be allowed to be harsher to and more critical of mods than other posters.
I don’t think I deserve a ban for it, though, but if another mod disagrees I won’t fight any punishment doled out.
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On the topic of violent rhetoric, we could try to define it as something that a reasonable person could think has a chance of inspiring/causing/encouraging/etc violence in real life. It’s still subjective, but it gets to the crux of the issue for me. It’s not about offending us/other readers, it’s about the moral risk of letting it go unchecked because of what it can mean in real life.
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There is a massive difference between saying “fucking unhinged” as a descriptor and “fuck you” as a directed attack. I am also not a mod. This is also in response to repeated attacks like this towards me.
Also, fuck you. You are clearly too emotional and reactive for this.
I’d rather someone say “fuck you” than call me “fucking unhinged,” but it’s not a big deal. My “repeat attacks” were in response to your repeat attacks, but there’s no need to litigate who attacked who first because I’ve already stated that it was bad behavior as a mod and I was in the wrong. You have every right to be very critical of my modding if that’s how you feel, and I should handle it better. I thought your attacks on my character were out of line, and I wish you didn’t escalate it so rapidly and attack me so harshly, but it was my job at that point not to escalate it farther and I failed at that. I’ll admit that criticism and attacks on my responses in that regard are fair. Nobody is perfect, but I have to be better.
I also apologized, so there’s not much more I can do here. I’m sorry jmakin. I should have handled your response to this better. I stand by my moderating decisions, but my behavior in the arguments about them was bad and embarrassing. You’re right, I was too emotional and reactive to the attacks on me and I have to do a better job of that as a mod. I’m sorry.
I am a passionate and emotional person about things that are important to me. I think it makes me an asset to this community, but reasonable minds can disagree. It gives me various strengths and weaknesses as a person, and I embrace that.
If you want to continue to attack me and use abusive language at this point after two apologies, I’m just not going to engage anymore. I’m doing my best here to admit where I was wrong and out of line, so you either accept that apology or you don’t.
Either way, hopefully you’ll engage in the process of discussing rules/policies and where the boundaries should be with the group that’s getting to work on that.
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:p
While I’m at it, I’d like to apologize to anyone else who I may have used abusive language toward or been an ass to while we argued about this. I’m not going to go through the entire thing, but obviously @anon10387340 comes to mind as someone who feels driven to leave the forum over this. I’d tag Will, too, but he’s already gone.
I stand by my modding decisions but I’m sorry I didn’t handle the heat over it better, that’s incumbent upon me to be able to handle as a mod. If I said anything out of line or abusive to you or others, I apologize to you as well.
I think I told you or jmakin, I forget who, that they should leave as far as I’m concerned or something like that. That was unnecessary, I hope you’ll both stay and continue to be part of the community and especially to crafting rules/policies.
I promise to do my best to check my emotions a bit when I’m on the receiving end of criticism, no matter how heated. I may not be perfect at that, but I’ll do my best to stand up for my principles and defend my decisions without lashing out at my critics.
It was particularly hurtful that people were accusing me of trying to be a dictator or suggesting I was on a power trip (I’m paraphrasing and not attributing it to anyone in particular), given that I have put a lot of time into this community and done my best NOT to grab for power and NOT to impose my will, especially in the move from 22 to Exiled to here. But I shouldn’t assume people noticed or paid attention, and modding decisions may often be analyzed in a vacuum anyway.
But as a result, I took that particular line of criticism personally, which I can’t do as a mod. Sorry, everyone. From here on out I’ll be doing my best to keep my arguments limited to the subject at hand and not attack others.
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And even beyond that, if the vote on NBZ was reversed and a healthy majority found the posts objectionable, nobody would have even given 1 shit about what was done with him. Now there is apparently some sort of clause that mods can do what they want and claim “I just can’t let this go unpunished” which I think plenty of people don’t want and is causing many members to decide to spend less time here.
dude
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Thank you for posting that. I hope that anybody who contemplated leaving the site or reducing their participation reconsiders. Someone above (I think it was JT) said a key reason to have agreed-upon rules/protocols is that then arguments will be focused on the rules/protocols rather than on the individual people involved. The recent “fiasco” clearly demonstrates (on “both sides”) the pitfalls of making the arguments “too personal”.
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I too appreciated the cuserounder post. I value reflection, humility, and accountability. It’s good to see this in a mod. We can’t really ask this of regular posters if our mods are not willing to lead by example. I’d also say that we can’t ask this of new posters, either, if our regular posters are not willing to lead by example, but leadership has to start somewhere, and a lot of us are only here for the memes.
On the topic of leadership and keeping all levels of the community transparent, connected, and supportive, I agree that mods should be a revolving role.
Ideally, all regulars would serve as mods at some point, and all mods would serve as regular posters.
Regs need to see things from a mod’s perspective, eg I think it likely I would have felt and made similar decisions as cuse had I experienced the same public and private progression of events with [redacted].
Regs need to experience what it’s like to have people disagree with you and sometimes hate you by the nature of you being in a position of power and authority.
We can get so caught up in thinking “THIS WOULD BE SO EASY TO SOLVE IF YOU’D JUST DO WHAT I WANT” that we forget every decision can only manifest some outcomes by cutting off others. You’ll always have someone yelling at you for being a tyrant no matter how lax, or someone yelling at you for being too disengaged no matter how often you flex.
I also think it’s easy for a mod to forget what it’s like to experience the forum as a non-mod, but I don’t have nearly as much to say about that.
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Posters get one ban challenge flag. If they throw it, there is a community vote on the ban. If the ban ruling is confirmed or stands, that poster cannot use another ban challenge for 6 months. If the ban is overturned, they are allowed an additional ban challenge.
Of course we can’t let just anyone throw a ban flag. I can think of at least one person not named FriskyLush who would create as many accounts as it took to ban all of the mods.
I would say someone needs to have at least six months good standing with the community. Whatever that means. If someone wants to go to the trouble of maintaining a uniquely identified gimmick for six months just to get me banned, I’ll gladly eat it.
PS. Not a challenge, please don’t do this.
I was not entirely sure that ggoreo’s idea of a challenge ban flag was entirely serious. In any event, we should incorporate some opportunity/mechanism/process to review perma-bans (either pre- or post-ban) into our eventual moderation protocols.
That’s not really what happened though. There was a perfectly reasonable discussion on NBZs posts with people on both sides making valid points and nobody saying “Fuck You” or threatening to quit. It was only after the mod basically said “I don’t care what the community wants, I’m not going to allow this and the only way to get me to stop is de-modding me.” After that people felt “cut off” from decision making and no longer saw this as simply a good faith disagreement in the community.
I’m not claiming all of my comments apply to a particular situation. I appreciate you sharing your experience and perception of that particular situation, though.
Oh sorry, didn’t get that you were speaking in general.
Not your fault. I was commenting on that situation as well as moderating in general. Easy not to know which is which given I made no effort to distinguish them.