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[MaxTheFox]

[EuchreJack]

In times such as these, there is only one correct response:

mods asleep post pony gifs

[Egan_BW]

That's a jpg, apparently.

[brewer bob]

That's a jpg, apparently.

Here, take a gif:

[hector13]

Guys he parses arguments like no other, I think we have been defeated.

Anyway, random dragon is being silly. Toady’s method of moderation is to do it privately and slowly, so even if he is unhappy with RD’s nonsense, RD will get PM’d and probably a handful of warnings before the banhammer falls. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to use the forum.

[Random_Dragon]

Yeah I don't think it's exactly ideal that one troll gets to have leniency and the only recourse the entire rest of the thread has is "don't use the forum" to be honest, especially if that entails giving genocide denialists a platform to spew their shit. :V

We've already had incidents elsewhere here where DDA's devs having an open Putinist troll on their dev team has become a "dude no, stop" topic, so evidently refusing to let pro-Russian trolls just be quietly forgotten about is starting to become a problem here. If this ends up getting to the point where badgering Toady to not tolerate that sort of behavior on his forum gets me in trouble, welp. I've picked dumber hills to die on in the past, I think "hassle mods to maybe consider not tolerating someone acting like it's normal to ship people to camps" is one of my better choices of hill.

[hector13]

The entire rest of the thread hasn’t decided to call Toady out on being a deficient mod, just you. RD is free to post his nonsense, just as we’re free to tell him he’s posting nonsense.

I mean, aside from the previous troll dropping in to agree with RD, all the responses have been that what he’s saying is utterly ridiculous, so him having a platform for his ridiculous views is also providing plenty of opposing viewpoints to be highlighted too.

Equally so, RD hasn’t broken any rules. As I said, Toady doesn’t jump to the banhammer, so RD’ll get a talking to, and if he doesn’t buck his ideas up, he’ll get banned eventually. This isn’t leniency because it’s how it’s always worked, so far as I’m aware.

If he keeps posting things you have issue with, keep reporting him. If that isn’t good enough… well, don’t use the forum :p

[nenjin]

The other alternative is he just locks the thread.

[Random_Dragon]

To be fair I suppose, he hasn't even logged in in five days so it's not like he's actively ignoring the problem, he just hasn't seen it yet.

Now maybe it does mean that appointing an actual dedicated moderator at some point along the way might've been a smart idea at some point, since at bare minimum even if we weren't having this sort of "waiting for Toady to log on to see what he'll do" thing happen it's probably more healthy for the lead dev to not have to be the only one who has to worry about it, but I'm saving the real razzing for if it turns out that sort of thing gets a real lenient response, especially after other-RD's already gotten his posts in multiple threads deleted in the recent past.

[hector13]

Truth.

I’m personally surprised politics threads are still allowed on the forum given how they have gone in the past, particularly given the ban on rage threads and Pony threads.

Edit: the other RD I assume you’re referring to was the drive-by troll that posted contentions, contrarian points in multiple threads, rather than just sticking to one thread to pour their idiocy into.

I think we’re doing a reasonable job ourselves of arguing the points, and nobody is getting excessive in doing so, beyond wondering what RD is still doing here.

My assumption is sly attempts at moving the argument away from legitimate criticism of Russian policy and actions, but they’re not very good at it. Possibly this is a training exercise for Russian troll farms?

[Random_Dragon]

Edit: the other RD I assume you’re referring to was the drive-by troll that posted contentions, contrarian points in multiple threads, rather than just sticking to one thread to pour their idiocy into.

Other-RD being Red Diamond, as opposed to Random_Dragon (i.e. me) since both usernames could be abbreviated to RD.

[hector13]

Then you can’t be complaining that Toady isn’t doing anything if Toady is indeed doing something :p

[Strongpoint]

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/video/2023/02/17/video-investigation-how-a-french-company-is-supporting-russia-s-war-effort-in-ukraine_6016182_4.html

Report about some French "humanitarian aid" to Russian soldiers

[Ganondworf]

There is a debate about whether or not to allow Russian athletes to participate in the 2024 olympics, and a threat of boycott from Ukraine.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/feb/09/ukraine-athletes-ioc-of-kowtowing-to-russia-paris-olympics-2024

Personally I think that Russian athletes shouldn't be allowed to any international sports events, because I believe that a change of Russian leadership can only be done from within Russia, by the Russian people, and so so every effort should be made to show the Russian people that this war is not acceptable in any way and that they are ultimately responsible.

But what concerns me most about this debate is the feeling that the war is starting to be old news to the world. Like "hey, the war started over a year ago, shouldn't it be time to normalize relations to Russia again?". I fear that if international opinion ever comes to that point then Russia will have won.

[anewaname]

@Devastator

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Aiding the USSR breakup failed because the western governments allowed their citizens to commit actions in the USSR that would have been illegal in their own countries.

It wasn't one westerner who conspired to steal monies, it was many. They used networks of businesses and lawyers with the goal of personal profit, not with the goal of creating healthy democracies.

If this war ends, the exploitation of their natural resources and the international sale of those resources has to be transparent enough to prevent another rise-to-power of an elite that suppresses their own population on behalf of non-Ukrainian business partners.

Yeah, no.  The USSR breakup was largely internal, and most of the crimes were done by Russians against Russians.  There were many non-Russians who wanted pieces of the pie, but their entire economy needed to be rebuilt.  Many other countries ended up as healthy democracies.. but Russia didn't.  Current leader is an ex secret policeman who came to power by both producing fake scares to crack down against and by employing large numbers of economicists to redistribute wealth to his chosen all-Russian elite... while cracking down on other Russians who didn't agree with him taking over.

I phrased the first part of the post poorly. The aid was made after the USSR broke up, not before. There were government-sponsored diplomatic/administrative people who were attempting to support the transition of the Russian government and to safeguard against nuclear-related sales, etc.

Besides the government-sponsored westerners, there were business-sponsored westerners who were interested in exploiting the resources of Russia. These guys partnered with Russians, selling them expertise and high-tech equipment, then the Russians ran the business while the westerners took a cut of the profit. This 1992 NY Times article shows how a half-dozen non-Russian oil companies were competing in Russia 10 months after the USSR broke up. Putin is still using the equipment those westerners installed and that he took using Russian-on-Russian crime.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As for Ukraine, they're more than capable of running their own country, and have been fixing their own problems for years.  The worst politicians in terms of stealing have, of course, been the ones backed and supported by Russia.  Yanukovich was greatly unpopular for many reasons, not the least of which was his massive fortune created by both payoffs from Russia and stealing from Ukraine.  The population knows what's up and had no difficulty turning against someone who made his money by trampling down the rights of Ukrainians.

Yeah, Ukraine has politicians, land owners, and business owners who were connected to the ex-USSR political structure. Yanukovich was just one of them. These people kept Ukraine's economy repressed, and blocked Ukraine from developing oil/gas resources that would compete with the Russian output to Europe.
From this 2011 Kyiv post article:

An increasing number of analysts, oppositionists, former top officials and critics say that evidence points to one group that is pushing Yanukovych to keep Tymoshenko in jail – the so-called natural gas lobby, which has for years been a partner of Russia’s Gazprom in the region’s multi-billion dollar gas trade.

Leading the group, according to experts and Tymoshenko herself, is billionaire businessman Dmytro Firtash, a close associate of influential officials in Yanukovych’s administration, including chief of staff Serhiy Lyovochkin.

In 2011 and with Yanukovych gone, western oil companies signed contracts to start extracting gas, then the invasion of Crimea put a stop to that. Ukraine was being prepared to supply the EU with piped natural gas and Putin responded.