2018-01-07 20:18:47

This is just to make all members aware that the user known as Musical professor has been perminantly banned from the forum.

Some people might have  seen the offensive comment he posted about myself in the topic regarding the adult online browser game, Nabbers empire. I requested other moderators to look into the situation, and Nightshade deleted his initial post and sent him a warning email, notifying him that his insulting behaviour (which boardered on the misogynistic), would not be tolerated on the forum.

he then responded by emailing her a mouthful of abuse, claiming he was only joking. Said abuse also  contained several  totally! Misogynistic and insulting remarks (I do have a copy of this email which Nightshade shared with the other moderation staff, should anyone wish to see it, though I suspect Nightshade might wish to keep it restricted to moderator access only).

As is well known, personal attacks will not be tolerated on this forum, and that goes for moderators as well, indeed part of the reason there are! multiple moderators is to try and offer independent perspectives when these sorts of situations arise..

Just like active racism or other forms of insulting discrimination, misogyny will not be tolerated on the forum, and that definitely includes crude gender based insults directed at female members of staff (much less family members of moderators), and no, claiming that "it was only a joke" isn't a mitigating circumstance either.

Since musical professor has already recieved a ban for insulting behaviour, this time, given the gravity of the situation his ban is permanent.

I really hope we can avoid this sort of unpleasantness in future, generally this forum has been free from discriminatory insults, and myself, and all the other moderators would very much like to keep it that way.

Thanks for reading and sorry for spoiling people's day with such nastiness, but since we prefer to keep forum workings transparent I thought our members should be made aware of the situation.

As is usual, this topic will be unstuck and moved to site and forum feedback in a week.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-01-08 00:18:34

Well Dark, because I was away from the forum alot these days because I need to help someone to take care of a baby I did not see the post, but that is bad and sad because people insult other people without a reason and we are losing members because some people are acting like kildren.

I am myself and noone is ever gonna change me, I am the trolling master!

2018-01-08 00:32:18

While I am fully aware Nightshade can speak for herself and probably will should it come to that, I fully believe I'm right in saying she would have no issue with the offensive email being displayed, given she, much like myself is an open book with nothing to hide, and also, that the email she wrote was a civil warning from a moderator to a forumite, the resulting offensive email being something she herself didn't write.  I think the truth is that for the most part we're all sad that it went down this way given it honestly didn't have to.  had he bothered to reply nicely and simply state that it was a joke in calm and respectful tones with perhaps some hint of an apology none of this ever would have happened.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2018-01-08 01:34:04

I haven't had any interaction with this user. I would like to see the email though, just for reference, if the mods can reach an agreement on it.

I have seen a few of their posts, but they must have been unremarkable, because I don't remember anything about them other than the name ringing a bell.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2018-01-08 03:44:33

Well, the original message that started all of this nonsense was a message directed at Dark on one of the topics he created concerning an adult sexual oriented game.  Musical professor decided it would be funny to start making suggestive talk about how Dark was not getting enough loving of the physical kind, as it were, from his wife, which was turning him into the Bill Clinton of ag net.  At this point, because Dark wasn't exactly flattered by the verbal nonsense he took it to the moderation panel and asked one of us to look into the matter to see where we might stand on it.  Because both Nightshade and I are married, we thought we'd look into it personally given the similarity of things and such.  I was royally pissed off, to put it as lightly as I can; Nightshade was calm and collective about it and sent him a message that simply stated he was being warned for his rudeness and that we were seriously just trying to keep things as civil as possible.  His response, is below:

hey Nightshade, did u also pay attention to the message and its completion?  or
did u just assume from the message i was being disrespectful.  i'm guessing
the second choice because if u had paid anything at all, u would have heard
me also say joking of corse.  i was smiling the whole time. u all act as if
i made a threat out there or something.  i don't believe it.  i've heard
people putting others down quite often out there and u don't say shit.  but
when i make a joke u acuse me and give me a warning?  what the fuck is
this, provation periods?  i've heard things that i generally would have
been band for but yall say nothing but when someone says something to a mod
or what not, yall fall over yallselves like they are some true person who
got shot down in yalls fam or something.  even i suspect even he would have
possiblely said something like "lol musical professor."   do u not know the
difference from seriousness or joke?    now there was a time when all do
respect dark had said something that afended me but guess who was look at
for defending himself?  me.  now however, i can't even joke with out yall
looking at it wrong.  seriously, get the fuck off my dick for crying out
loud and go fuck someone else who is actually causing some bullshit on the
sight instead of making somehting out of nothing.  i know how the rules
are?  and i said nothing as some dis at him but i am pist at u all but
accusing me.  if u are gona aim at me, aim at me right.  real fuckin talk
cause i ain't down with that shit.  i know what i said, i know the joke
behind it and i even proved it so.  don't control me just because yall wana
do favortisum or because u all don't have nothing goin on in yalls lives. 
sorry for the bluntness of that but i show more respect then most i've
known out there at times so get it right.  thanks for the warning but let
me go in to a room and cll him or some other out there name etc then u can
say, i'm doing something wrong.    piece.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2018-01-08 06:30:50

Yeesh...

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2018-01-08 10:41:30

And Needless to say, his message to myself and the other moderators concerning his ban is  anything but pretty.

I will be disregarding any email from him in the future and seeing if windows 10 mail has a blocked senders list, and I would suggest  others especially the moderators do the same.

His message to me was as follows:


musical professor wrote:

well if i'm band hen everyone should because like i said before,it ain't cool that i have to be warned and when i've been there i've heard pointless things goin on with people and nothing is dun about it.  and dark i do find it rather interesting.  the verry person who said something to me and afended me and didn't lack of better wording, not give a damn, grows afensive of a joke.   while it was a joke and i didn't think it would afend u, atleast i can say that with is alot more then u gave me once.  because u are an admin, everyone kisses up to u.  sorry i'm not that person.  you're not always right yourself but i guess its different.  and yes i responded back in hateful anger because i'm tired of favortisum.  u can do pointless rambles and make remarks that can be quite afensive at times.  trust me i'm a victim of it and thats all fine but if something is said back to u, then u and everyone thinks yall are god.  and whats worse, you're banning people from ware if it wasn't for us that are disabled, there wouldn't be a sight to begain with.  i am sure you ain't paying for it are u?   but i'm baned.  but i shouldn't think someone like yourself would get afended.  so thats how it is?u always had some issue with me anyway but its cool cause the feelen ain't that much different hear.    i deal with those to the best of my abilities even if i down right hate them.  but i'm baned. well i guess u gotta control something when u have nothing.  piece.  but i'm tired of having to close my feelens of being afended or listening to people go at it and u nore anyone else, says one word but u belly ache at a joke. or u say something at me to think its ok but then if one is defending themselves then they are wrong for it.  when everyone is paying for this sight or if this sight is on some server you're paying for then should u have rights to tell one ware they can and can't be. but its cool?  i got u.  but as the term goes, payback's, a bitch.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-01-08 13:13:29

LOOOOOOOL. just look at the guy's grammar. writing is power, as I always say.

2018-01-08 14:18:24

The only place I ever ran across him was in the topic about A Dark Room updates. He kept going on about how games without sounds aren't games worth playing and so on. I got the impression that the way he was ranting that he would eventually go down this road. Never the less, it's sad to see it when it actually happens.

2018-01-08 14:43:50

I actually didn't understand a quarter  of what he was saying.

Paul

2018-01-08 15:14:45

I'm with you and a couple things I have to say.

1. I think what he wrote was remarkably offensive and terrible and we shouldn't have to put up with this crap, any of us so I understand why he was banned.
2. I'm more a fan of doing these sorts of things privately, so even though he is no longer here, not sure how I feel about the reasons and text musical-professor wrote being shown publicly. It has the plus of transparency but also is somewhat a breech of privacy, which I'm sure should be respected even for those behaving badly who are no longer part of the community.
3. It never fails to sadden me that people can behave this way  online. After seeing it so much I guess I Shouldn't be surprised, but it still hits me hard that there are people who act so reprehensibly.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

2018-01-08 16:02:51

@bookrage

Regarding your thoughts about conducting stuff like this in private versus publicly, besides being more transparent, it's also possible that if people know they might get publicly shamed for such bad behavior, maybe it will act as a deterrent and keep the problem from being worse than it is.

2018-01-08 18:09:41

While i do see Bookrage's point about privacy there are several reasons why we give warnings etc in public.

the most major one is that of accountability.
You only have to look at some of the really serious flame  we've seen around here concerning online games and such, where people are posting random skype or chat conversation logs that may or may not have been altered, claiming they received a private message or email that said such and such but not having the actual text, forcing developers or admins to  in game logs and then rampantly disagreeing etc.

if everything is on the forum post by post there is never any doubt about who said what and people can see all sides of the issue and decide for themselves.

To take this recent case Musical professor "claimed" he was joking and did not believe his remarks were offensive, and there could have been the potential for this situation to devolve into a "Oh yes they were", "Oh no they weren't" type of affair, that is one reason why I am  glad Nightshade did not mind Nocturnus posting the contents of the offensive email, because even though the initial post was deleted in this case, there is enough of a record of Musical Professor's behaviour to hopefully justify why we went to such extreme lengths here.

Accountability is also a two edged sword, since  as members can see the potential behaviour and why it got a warning when the warnings are public, also members can see the action moderators take and the reasons why they are taken, and heck question them if they wish (it's what we have a site and forum feedback area for), after all how often have we heard cases of "the moderator of so and so has banned me and I don't know why and nobody can contact them!"

Hopefully this makes us more trustworthy, since after all at the end of the day we are people just like anyone else on the forum who just happen to have taken on the job of trying to keep this  the safe and welcoming place it is, not absolute monarchs passing down decrees to the stupid peasants from atop their castles; we have enough of those in the world already).
Indeed it is precisely for said reasons of accountability that I am writing  explanation right now.

The second more practical reason is that by posting public warnings we can be absolutely %100 sure that the warnings have been seen and understood by the offender, which is not the case were we to use pms or even email.

Lastly, while I wouldn't say we try to "shame" people into behaving themselves, I have noticed, particularly in cases where a thread has gone a bit tonto, that official public warnings, or even just comments with the Moderation tag are helpful in putting on the breaks and getting people to stop and think about what they're doing, which often avoids more serious unpleasantness further down the line.

As Nocturnus  said in post 3, usually in a situation like this one, most reasonable people would've just taken the initial warning, responded with a mild apology and then moved on.

Hope that all makes sense.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-01-08 18:41:16

@Dark Usually moderation warnings get me to flinch. Not sure why that is but whatever. If I see someone say moderation towards me it causes me to flip out for a second or flinch or something of that nature. I think I have gotten warnings a couple times for saying stupid things, hopefully I haven't said something stupid to many times. I don't know why people can't just listen to the mods when they give orders and leave it at that, instead of going, "oh your rules are stupid, I hate you, etc etc etc." I would like to see more of those people apologizing for their actions, but I don't think that's gonna happen any time. Although, if someone can't spell banned right I don't think much about their insults anyways. Sorry if my post is all over the place, I just woke up and I'm a bit tired.

Discord: dangero#0750
Steam: dangero2000
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YOUTUBE and YOUTUBE DISCORD SERVER

2018-01-08 20:04:57

I'd like to add that posting this kind of thing publicly also ensures that people know why someone was banned. If mods do all the banning and stuff privately, and someone sees one of their posts and notices that they were banned, they'll want to know why. Posting reasons why they were banned in a public post or topic discloses exactly why and alleviates such questions.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2018-01-08 23:22:33

I prefer the transparency to the idea that I'm just being a demanding do as I say corn door darting douch; like Dark said, there's enough dictatorial people in this world to go around.  In fact, to give you all just a little more insight as to how things go down between us without disclosing far too much, almost every single occasion where we have banned someone and on many occasions where we are simply getting ready to dish out a warning, the matter is discussed in detail, always with the same concept even if it is phrased differently from time to time, the idea being that we don't want to do anything as a knee jerk reaction because we ourselves feel too strongly about something.  the fact that Dark sent us a message and told us as a team to look into the matter is not a first and will not be the last time a mod or administrator contacts the team as a whole and says, "Please, shed some light on this so that it's not just my opinion and I'm not seen as flying off the handle at something that is actually not as bad as I think it is."
A good example I don't mind sharing with you all because it actually happened to me personally was one in which I unintentionally failed to make myself clear on a topic that concerned some rather interesting and profound content, philosophical, spiritual and religious in nature.  A few of my posts within this particular topic were apparently misinterpreted and or possibly just seen as down right offensive because I suppose I worded them too strongly or with far too much emphasis; I honestly don't know.  Needless to say that the posts were reported to the moderation panel and the matter was brought to my attention, at which point I felt the need to reiterate as I have always tried to out here and just about everywhere else, that I have nothing against anyone as a person, that I hold nothing against anyone else's beliefs, ideas, perspectives or even one's worldview, no matter how radical it may seem to me or how much I myself may disagree with it.  No person is beneath me or less than myself simply because I cannot accept or agree with their way of thinking or their lifestyle.  At the end of the day I dont' care if you're the greatest saint known to humankind or if you feel like the most worthless person that has ever walked this side of the planet neptune because you've had to make decisions in your life you either know or personally feel are unethical and immoral, I'll stand beside you and, given the chance, put my arm around you just the same, to comfort you, to motivate you, to encourage you, to give you whatever strength and or hope I can so that you might carry on just one more day.
Getting back to the topic at hand though, yes, the truth is that Dark has the final and overall say in just about every moderation decision that is ever made, but he does not make those decisions lightly, nor does he ever make them without consulting the panel first.  this is why even when I can't agree with the decisions he makes which have been few and far between, I can fully and willingly support him and stand behind every single one of them.  We get to see first hand the process as the choice is made; there is never a time where he just slams down the gavel, as it were, tyranically and says, "Screw the rest of you!  What I say goes!"  If we're ever left in doubt, he'll always justify his decision reasonably and admit to when he's seriously messed up.  when we ourselves are responsible for taking care of a decision on the forum, be it a warning or a ban, he gives us free reign to do so and doesn't really stand in the way of anything, trusting in us as a group of individuals he has carefully picked out over the years to handle the task to the best of our abilities, flawed humans that we are.
To conclude, we do our best to lead by example; any rules that have been established here are rules we ourselves intend to follow as best we can, else we wouldn't expect you to do it as well.  There is no good leader who cannot be a good follower first.  for my part, I can honestly say that you, the community inspire any decision I might make because I do my best to make it on your behalf and not my own.  if you have a problem, question or suggestion I can clearly see is collectively receiving a fair amount of attention I will take it upon myself to approach Dark and the rest of the moderation panel concerning the matter.  I believe the others for the most part do this as well to some degree or another.  this is your community, your forum.  We exist to keep it as clean and civil as possible.  We're not here to hinder you; we're here to help.  We want to be seen as your friends, and sometimes your friends do have to give you a kick in the pants.  Believe me, we don't like doing it.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2018-01-09 02:40:08

well, I have seen that guy post, you know, noticed the name, but I cant renember anything afencive about him. Maybe he could have you know, used sware words or something but I dout that and I don't renember. I was indeed surprised that he got banned because by his posts that I renember he wasn't a kind of person that would rant.
also btw, I agree with post 11 about fieling sad for stupid persons on the net. for what ever reason, on both online game on on forums/message bords,  I always try to leave all stupid topics as soon as possible. most likely because I cant stand the way others react to that, but not sure. anyway, I am almost happy that I didn't see the afending post, and I hope that we will have less of these kinds of annoyances in the future.
btw why did the mod team post this in the first place? I mean, if he got perminantly banned, I have no idea why would you still ask for community suggestions.

If life gives you communism, become a communist dictator.

2018-01-09 04:52:06

I've seen Musical Professor sling out a lot of casual swearing but from what I remember they didn't do a lot I found objectionable, though again, a bit on the language but if you're on the internet you get used to it and they struck me as rather impulsive.

That said, even if they had had no behavior problems before, with those nasty posts you guys shared with us, I think a permanent ban would be more than deserved. There is no excuse for being trollish on the forums. Just because you're behind a screen doesn't mean you can act like a jerk and not be a jerk so as I said in point 1 in post 11. I am fully behind you in the ban.

2018-01-09 10:53:11

I'm going to be brutally honest here. I agree with the ban, but I also think he had a point.

I've seen all kinds of flaming, swearing, insults and the like that probably merited more action than they got, so it feels just a wee bit as if this guy was made an example of.
I do not for a second suggest that his behaviour should've been let to stand. Whether or not he was originally joking, he was rude and abrasive and hostile. That's not okay. But I've seen equal and worse on the forums from members who were given warnings or very, very temporary bans, to the best of my knowledge. I'd have to go digging through years of back posts to find what I'm talking about, and I don't really want to do that.
So I'm not at all left with the idea that you treated this dude unfairly, but I'm not certain that standards are being evenly applied, either. I would, in point of fact, probably be a touch more harsh overall than you guys seem to be, particularly in more serious cases of flaming and trolling and insults and stuff that periodically break out on the board.
So I suppose what I'm saying is that it surprised me a little to see this guy get a permanent ban. Not a six-month ban, or a one-year ban, but a permanent ban. Never coming back. I would've thought that sort of reaction would be for, say, distributing hacks, linking to illegal material, stalking in the true sense of the term, stuff like that.

But that's just my two cents' worth. I'm not asking or expecting you to further justify yourself. I understand what was done and why, and I think the bits I've seen are pretty freaking silly and definitely merited some firm form of punishment. I'm just not a hundred percent sure about the severity of the infraction vs. the severity of the punishment, given the severity of other infractions which have been allowed to slide. I mean, do we not have at least one forum member here who has a known history, however reformed he may be now, of hacking/illegally modifying code? To me, that's a much greater threat to the community at large than one loose cannon with a bunch of distasteful things to say.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2018-01-09 13:15:36

@Big gun, the reason this was posted is because Nightshade deleted the offending post, and then her warning and Musical professor's response were by email.

As I said in post 13 we try to keep things above board and open, and you can imagine yourself the kind of flame storm we might have had if musical professor spoke to another member off the forum, then that person came here and posted something along the lines of my good friend musical professor was banned permanently, but he was only joking and this is very unfair and the moderators are eeeeevil!"

~@Jade the severity of the ban in this case was mostly due to Musical professor's response to Nightshade's warning. Hadhe he apologised, acknowledged the warning or even said nothing, things wouldn't have gone beyond the warning state.

Firstly, it was the fact that his response to nightshade  was so down right nasty, and secondly that said response definitely! dipped into areas of misogyny, ie, hateful remarks made to Nightshade due to her being female (there is a reference to his genitalia in the above post). that sort of thing we will not tolerate, anymore than we'd tolerate insults made specifically against men, those who are homosexual or transgender, people of different races or cultures, disabilities etc.

Even the initial joke was edging into misogynistic territory what with the reference to a "wife's job" being to satisfy her husband's sexual needs, though had that joke  been Musical professor's only offending remark we would've left matters at a warning as I said.

As regards other personal attacks etc on the forum, well as I've said before we are not omnipresent. This particular insult came to our attention obviously since it was made about me, but if you think we've missed something, feel free to report. This is one reason we've been taking on more staff recently, since I'm very pleased to say the board is huge.

i can't speak for leniency, that is likely a difference of approach, generally we try to way each situation individually rather than apply rigid guidelines, one reason why becoming a moderator on here is not a simple click and apply process, since we need to be sure mods can judge and act adaptively.will say in the matter of hacking and probable code theft, it's often really! hard to actually judge the rights and wrongs of the situation, frequently because the offenses have not been documented in a public manner and generally your left with lots of different factions all telling slightly different histories, this is why we try not to be overly harsh or jump into situations where we might have incomplete information too rashly.

Hope this answers at least some of the questions. Remember, that we are all definitely human beings,  keeping this place running as best we can, and trying to avoid the forum becoming either a trollers parodise (facebook anyone?), or a rigid Orwellian police state is not always an easy line to walk.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-01-09 15:53:00

The one thing I can say to those who may be wondering about the fairness of this, you don't know the job until you've done it. Now, I've never been a moderator of a forum, that's true enough, but I have been involved with administration of other projects. What it takes to do the job well is to be objective, taking your own emotion out of the equation. But, you also have people pulling at you in all directions like, anyone remember Stretch Armstrong? You also have to bee OK with everything you do being questioned at some point, because even if you're the worst sort of dictator, who just swings the ban hammer with a vengeance, even if people don't say anything out loud, they're still questioning you in their own minds. So, be OK with judgements cast on you, an be OK with people questioning your decisions, or it will get to you. Another qualification would be how well you handle stress, because if you're too emotional, and easily upset or offended, you really do not want to become involved in staffing much of anything. You also need to be able to work with your team, and know when to back away and let one of them deal with a situation you don't feel you should handle. What I mean by this, is everyone has people they don't particularly like. Maybe, in such a case, they might be more harsh on such a person if that person committed an infraction. In this case, its best for you to be able to reflect on the situation, and realize that you're not best suited to deal with it and ask for someone else to step in. To maintain the professionalism across the board, a level of unity among all the team is needed. That means working together, discussing issues, etc. I would also say a balanced personality is probably another good thing to have. In other words, if you're a sun shine all the time type of person, its probably not a good idea for you to staff things, because you'll never feel that need to discipline anyone, even if its well-warranted. On the other hand, if you're a a few shades too dark, you'll miss a lot of good in people, you'll see mostly negativity everywhere.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2018-01-09 21:20:33

@Nocturnus post 16: This, right here, yes. Wow. Just wow. That last point about friends hit home for me in a good way, i.e: to the point I was nearly in tears. I've grown up with this place, and now I'm on the mod paenl but that's not necessarily the point. The point is, I consider a lot of people here as friends, even f I'm not in contact with some either in person or a one-to-one or voicechat basis, I always look forward to reading posts from people and having a good laugh.
@Ironcross32 post 21: Your very first sentence is exactly what I'd say as well: you do not know the job until you do it, or whatever the sentence was. Case in point, me as a mod. I am the kind of person who feels much more comfortable with warnings than bans, and if I'm involved with something that might need more attention, I go to the team if things do not calm down in a reasonable amount of time, lest I accidentally be too harsh and would rather discuss more severe punishments with the mods, or someone like Dark might see it anyway. I don't consider myself week as such, I just get worried about getting too severe at something that might not necessarily need me to be as severe. I am also a mainstream gamer and go on mainstream forums, and to then come back here and sometimes, and I do thankfully say sometimes! end up seeing lots of flame wars going on, surprises me a bit, especially when sometimes coming back from the mainstream scene where some of those posts can occasionally make my teeth grind because people don't seem to use logic. Those posts aren't even against me, it's just in general when you end up seeing silly arguments breaking out and in my mind I'm thinking to these mainstream people, good gosh, grow up already. Now, in the audiogaming scene, I think it's a little bit different but still can be annoying, as the community is a lot smaller so I almost think some sort of inevitable something, whatever that something is, will happen.

2018-01-09 22:33:09

I have been a moderator elsewhere, and have been known for being something of a devil's advocate throughout my life. I'm okay with stress most of the time, am not super-emotional and believe myself fairly objective. I've never been a mod here, but I've considered it from time to time. As such...no, I don't know this job specifically, but I have a decent idea of it.
I am not saying the mods here did a bad job. They didn't. I'm simply a little concerned.

One very specific issue I have is that thing about misogyny. I did not see MusicalProfessor's first comment, but the responses posted in this thread are not misogynistic. Inappropriate, yes, but not misogynistic. Misogyny is essentially defined as a hatred, fear or mistrust toward women. By invoking one's genitalia in a post in an insulting manner, you aren't automatically guilty of misogyny. This does not, as I said though, mean that you're acting properly either. You won't catch me saying that he didn't do wrong. I'm a bit of a hair-splitter I suppose.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2018-01-09 23:26:02

Call it what you will, but those posts were over the top, and even if the definition doesn't fit the bill, the intent was to be insulting, and degrading, so in this case, I don't see a permanent ban being a bad thing. You often don't see them here, and the mods bring back people all the time after a while who probably shouldn't have come back, and some of those people carry on, or at least tone it down but still carry on the same way where instead of being over the line, they're skirting it.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2018-01-09 23:44:55

And that's precisely my point from the first post I made in this topic. People who have been banned for hacking, for distributing keys to software, for encouraging piracy in general, for linking to other illegal material, have been allowed to come back eventually. Some have reformed, the odd one has not, and I have no doubt that the ones who have not reformed have gotten the hammer again. Rightly so, too, I might add.

The reason I'm splitting hairs on misogyny is because, while I do agree that something like that should result in a permanent ban - we really, really don't need any more of it in the world, much less this community - I'm not convinced that the posts I've seen were misogynistic. Inappropriate, certainly, and worthy of punishment, but not misogynistic. If the punishment for generally offensive/hostile conduct was, say, a year's ban, while the punishment for misogyny was a permanent one, perhaps the permanent-ban punishment in this case was misapplied due to a difference in label.
It is my opinion that people throw the word "misogyny" around way, way too much.

What we have here is someone who did not take his warning well at all. He deserved to be punished for the way he reacted. As has been stated - and I agree with this sentiment - if he'd responded to his warning with humility and an apology, then okay...you keep an eye out, but you let it go, conditionally anyway. What we also have here, I think, is someone whose ability to communicate in writing is actually putting him at a disadvantage. Most of the mods are well-spoken and easily able to articulate themselves. This guy, I think, isn't in that same position. So he reacted to being warned by going over the top and getting hostile, very likely because he's feeling threatened/outgunned and helpless. This is a reaction I've seen time and time again.
And lest you think I'm a bleeding heart who wants to give everyone a chance, please remember what I said before. He doesn't deserve a free pass. He did wrong and needs dealing with. For me personally, for whatever this might be worth, I'd have given him a six-month or year ban, then let him back with the understanding that his next offense was the end of the line. Period. No discussion, no appeal, game over.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1