To lift the ban, or not to lift the ban?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 2:28 am

Then why did you bring up any of those subjects if you won't discuss them?

-Crissa

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 2:39 am

Crissa wrote:Then why did you bring up any of those subjects if you won't discuss them?

-Crissa

Crissa, again, I have lain down several requirements before I discuss anything with you in this thread. These requirements are necessary for a proper and productive discussion, as opposed to another messy discussion where you change topics constantly (like you're doing now).

You have refused to honor any of those requirements.

Until said requirements are met, you are wasting your breath and being a troll.

Specify, or stop whining. Because I will continue to ignore you until the requirements are met.

Again, this "requirements" deal only applies to you. Because of your sleazy debating tactics.

Post by **Zherog** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 2:48 am

fbmf wrote:(Zherog is invaluable to us, and he does moderate if needed, but for the most part he does IT type stuff, so I really can't say if the ban made his job easier or not. I suspect he wouldn't care either way, but I refuse to speak for him.)

It hasn't had any effect on my workload here at all, so from that perspective I'm fairly indifferent to whether or not the rule exists.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Aug 30, 2010 2:51 am

I feel partially responsible for this ban despite my lack of authority because I suggested a rule like this a while back.

I can't speak from the moderating perspective, but the people that are the biggest problems on this board don't seem to be any less annoying with the ban than they were beforehand. However, it has kept a lot of other people who only occasionally get on my nerves more polite than before.

It seems that the ban is keeping the good posters good and not affecting the most disruptive (at least, from my perspective).

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:15 am

I'm totally in favor of lifting the ban on politics. But when a thread gets really hot, I'm also totally in favor of a 24 hour poster ban for cool-down purposes.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 4:12 am

I like the ban, except for the way it increased the bullshit in gaming threads. Maybe just restrict it to the non-gaming section and let that be the /b/ of the Gaming Den.

Alternatively this could be solved simply by banning everyone I don't happen to like, but I know that's not happening.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 4:15 am

Couldn't we just ban Zine? It'd make our signal to noise ratio jump by about 3 times.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 5:44 am

God, yes, I'd love that. Though, really, to completely fix the problem fbmf would have to ban more than just one person.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 12:02 pm

Personally, I'd like to see it lifted. If I think a thread is devolving way too fast, I tend to just leave, anyway.

For Valor · Post by **For Valor** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 9:07 pm

I'm in favor of lifting the ban. I liked the screamfests on MPSIMS.

I'm also in favor of preventing Crissa from posting on IMHO. And Zine from posting more than once every 24 hours.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 10:04 pm

Just ban everyone. No more arguments.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 10:28 pm

exactly

Post by **fbmf** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 1:06 am

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Crissa, either quit talking to him or answer his questions, but quit trolling.
[/TGFBS]

Post by **fbmf** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 1:15 am

Okay, so how about we try limiting political commentary only to MPSIMS with a label? Say [Politics], for example.

How do we feel about that?

Game On,
fbmf

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 1:17 am

sounds good. People need to go back and add the tag when discussions turn political, though, I think.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 1:41 am

Just out of curiosity, aren't political threads already pretty obvious?

And for the sake of tagging, do things like religion count as political?

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 1:43 am

Maj wrote:Just out of curiosity, aren't political threads already pretty obvious?

In the sense that 'any sufficiently long thread in The Gaming Den becomes about politics'.

Post by **fbmf** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 2:15 am

Maj wrote:Just out of curiosity, aren't political threads already pretty obvious?

And for the sake of tagging, do things like religion count as political?

I considered that.

I also considered that, as has been pointed out, given enough time, the far left and far right's sinister agents on this board will find some (probably)off topic throw-away quote to comment on.

To which the opposing side will inevitably react. Witness the "What books are you reading?" thread.

The problem, as I see it, is that the far right and the far left are never going to agree and/or admit that they are wrong. Political discussions are not going to resolve ANYTHING.

What's the point?

[Peanut Gallery]
To "educate" the masses by shouting my political agenda and claiming it as fact.
[/PG]

It hasn't worked. It isn't going to work. I have to ask again: What is the point?

Game On,
fbmf

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 2:17 am

ubernoob wrote:Couldn't we just ban Zine? It'd make our signal to noise ratio jump by about 3 times.

That's a funny thing to say, because I'm pretty sure I'm on your Ignore list. Thus, how can I be generating "noise" for you when you can't even read my posts? Isn't that what the Ignore function is for?

The fact is, I say stuff you don't like. Like you're an ass for calling newbies trolls without justification.

And that's really the issue. It has nothing to do with "noise".

Post by **fbmf** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 2:19 am

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Drop it and get back to topic. Now.
[/TGFBS]

Post by **fbmf** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 2:30 am

Depending on your point of view, a wrench has either been thrown in the works or the works have been overhauled and doused in WD-40. The ban will stay in place through Labor Day weekend while we evaluate the results of this turn of events. After that, some sort of decision will be made.

Please continue to post (on topic) comments regarding how you think things are going. We are interested in your input.

Game On,
fbmf

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 2:31 am

Understood. Will do.

fbmf wrote:The problem, as I see it, is that the far right and the far left are never going to agree and/or admit that they are wrong. Political discussions are not going to resolve ANYTHING.

This.

I think the real issue is that some people here don't really have anywhere else to go to discuss their political issues. That's why they'd really, really like to see the Den open up political discussions again.

And, personally, I don't see *why* the Den should take up this additional burden. I get that some people here have gotten close over the years and consider each other friends and they'd love to share their opinions with each other, but can't they just do it over IRC or somewhere?

The Den honestly isn't a healthy environment for political discussion, because with hot-button topics more heavy-handed moderation is required to make sure that the extremists don't simply try to shout each other hoarse. I may praise SD.net all the time for its good politics board, but saying any kind of racial or anti-gay slur gets you banned there permanently without trial.

Just a thought.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 2:47 am

fbmf wrote: It hasn't worked. It isn't going to work. I have to ask again: What is the point?

Game On,
fbmf

The thing is, the "far right" and the "far left" aren't necessarily even the ones spamming shit into oblivion. I'm pretty sure I'm farther to the left than pretty much anyone else here. I think Hicks is probably farther to the right than anyone in the current arguments. People can and do have these views and make arguments in favor of them, sometimes with historical anecdotes and citations and even convince other people. This totally happens on this forum.

The ranting and spamming happen totally irrespective of whether the nominal discussion of the thread is "political" or not. There are plenty of things to talk about revolving around culture, economics, the role of the individual and government, social mores, religion, gender, class, the nature of money, wealth, and budgets that don't involve ranting. And honestly, people rant and spam irregardless of whether any of those things are actually the topic of discussion.

Let's be real here, Crissa's/Ubernoob's/Zinegata's latest blowup involved some people saying some kind of shitty and off topic things about women and then her going off about White Privilege. But while that was a shitty thing to happen, it was also off topic. It was off topic when it started, and it stayed off topic. People were flaming each other, not because there was any political content at stake, but simply because people like to flame each other.

You'd do better to have some sort of limit on the number of posts you can make in a flame war in a 24 hour period. Personally, I like a good flame war. The thing that makes these latest rounds of flame wars shitty is not that Zinegata and Crissa are flaming each other, but that they are creating a large number of content-free posts doing it. Posts with cryptic one liners like "Says the person who is a lying bitch" or "That's what she said" are not interesting to read, by and large. Even then, if we had Letterman delivering them it might be OK, but lately it's been degenerating to people just posting "yes it is" and "no it isn't" without crafting an argument, citing sources, or being witty. That shit has got to fucking stop.

But not talking about politics? Fuck that. It's not even that it's repressive and stifles a bunch of interesting discussions. It's that it doesn't even address the root problem.

-Username17

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 3:19 am

So, Frank, you're advocating lifting the ban when David Letterman joins the forum? Sadly, I don't see that as a realistic solution, but we could try...

More seriously, I am in favor of lifting the ban, and reluctantly in favor of tightening the moderation screws a bit as that's what appears to be wanting (even without the ban)

I think a few people need to be told (repeatedly) to take it down a notch or two and provide backing for their arguments instead of just raw hostility.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 3:22 am

Frank, let's get a few thing straight first. Because I'm getting real tired of you involving me in shit I wasn't involved in.

I wasn't involved in Crissa's latest flare up on feminism. Except for one comment to another poster who asked "How did we get from Paizo to feminism", to which I answered "It's the natural order of the Den".

The real sequence of events is as follows:

* Kaelik and I had a heated argument on my statement that "The Tomes are not that popular in the Den". This was in response to a statement made by several people that "Paizo is taking away people that could be playing Tome!" Therefore, we were on-topic.

* Ubernoob, possibly wanting to diffuse the tension, pointed out that he wasn't playing Tome anymore, but was trying to get this hot chick to play and sleep with him.

* The above statement caused a flood of comments about nerd girls, both good and bad. I will admit I also posted a comment - but it was a joke where I asked ubernoob for his hot chick's picture. Now, this was off-topic.

* Crissa started wailing about feminism and shit (I didn't bother to read carefully anymore)

* Lots of guys responded (not me, save for the exceptions noted).

* FBMF stepped in and said "get back on topic".

So, seriously, this whole thing blew up not because "people wanna flame each other", but because Crissa took a bunch of guys joking around as an affront to women in general and decided to attack them for it.

Granted, everyone should have just ignored her (I did). Granted, people shouldn't have been talking about girls in a thread whose entire useless purpose was to bash Paizo.

But the fact is there really weren't any fireworks until somebody mentioned a political issue - feminism. Before that, it was a bunch of guys joking around.

To lift the ban, or not to lift the ban?

Re: To lift the ban, or not to lift the ban?