This is all kind of surprising to me; I just found out today what happened. Oh well, I guess. There was a lot of preexisting tension between Retro and Toady that I'm not sure either of them handled very constructively (although I think each tried, in their own ways, at different points), and I suppose between Toady and people from IRC in general, particularly those of us critical of how the forums are run.
In particular, I find it rather baffling that someone like Janet is allowed to act incredibly petty, taking out minor unrelated grievances on threads she started even when they're not in any way related, as if she brought it upon herself to moderate. That just isn't cool, especially given what Toady has said before about how we
shouldn't attempt to self-police in that manner. It just seems really childish and I have no idea why it's encouraged by anyone.
People asked about "dogpiling" earlier; there's a trend for some of us on IRC to agree on certain things or be bugged by similar things, plus the forums get mentioned on IRC regularly enough, so there's a history of us posting on threads at a similar time. This has irked Toady in the past because he's seemed to get the impression that there's some kind of mass-trolling or collusion going on, when in reality it's not really any different from any one of a number of other small (and large) cliques or groups with similar interests elsewhere on the forums (such as those in this thread). Hence some people from IRC probably being a little paranoid over being accused of "dogpiling" this thread, since it's happened before, even to the point where at least one of us has been accused of trolling for someone else, which was never the case.
I just can't help but feel like there's a double-standard going on, where immature behavior from some parties goes disregarded whereas similar (and in some cases
more justified) behavior from another party results in warnings or a ban, and where some cliquey groups of like-minded, probably-biased posters act as such with no problem, whereas others are lambasted for it.
I'm not going to defend the actions of anyone in particular, here, since I don't think many people really
expected anything constructive to happen. I think that's part of the problem; some people got so fed up with the futility of constructive argument regarding the forums that they decided to forgo any pretense of being constructive at all. I can't say I blame them, but I also can't say it should be tolerated. I just wish a better solution to the entire mess could be found, rather than this bicker-and-ban cycle. It's sad, because the people involved (at least the ones I know) are generally pretty intelligent and have worthwhile things to say.
While I don't agree with the the group of banned people's methods, I do agree with their argument that Shitposts aren't all that bad. I consider it to be benign as long as it isn't meant to insult anybody. Hell, in some cases I could even consider it useful for the entertaining people, although it seems that others have much different feelings on the matter. I like being able to talk to people in a silly way that makes people smile and I consider it a shame that others here view it with such distaste. Oh well, the Forum Guidelines tell me that I have absolutely no case regarding this argument, so I will drop it for now.
Speaking only for myself here, I'd say it's less "silly random posting is bad" and more "silly random posting is not within the spirit of this forum". I mean, obviously you can't expect the same kind of atmosphere everywhere, so the real argument isn't what is "good" or "bad" in some mystifyingly objective sense, but rather what is appropriate within a certain context.
Truly, I think the problem stems from toady's workload. Dude's got one of the most complicated games I've ever seen to manage, plus all of the forums. And hen real life comes in to the equation.
That's why people like myself and Retro (and others) have expressed the idea that more active moderators would be a good idea, but that idea has come and gone and pretty much that entire argument has been beaten to death and nothing will come of it.
I'm all for eradicating spam, but it'll require drastic measures.
spam : Forum Games and Roleplaying :: porn : Various Nonsense
Yeah, I'm serious. The trash is spilling out of the containment zone, just like before.
Yeah, I've been saying this on-and-off for a while now. Not as criticism against anyone in particular, but rather against the way the system is currently set up and the sort of behavior and atmosphere it has obviously encouraged.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9704838 times)