2019-03-29 17:58:48 (edited by jack 2019-03-30 19:06:45)

Alright, for MasterOfDeath's sake and possibly others, let's break this down shall we?
Alright, admittedly the topic name on its own "Why are people still using Skype 7?" doesn't seem all that bad...if it was a different person, and if the discussion, if one could call it that, hadn't happened before. And now for the post. Right off the bat...

Simter wrote:

Hi. This is my last try to get adleast one part of the community back to right.

There's the hint that he's trying to push the community to use what he thinks is best or be damned. Credibility gone. Alright, moving on...

simter wrote:

Why are so many people of you still using skype 7 and giving out copies of it? I fucking hate it. The only thing we get out of it are forks and connectivity problems,

only because of people's own lack of common sense, adding contacts they don't know. By the way, this is another opportunity to rehash this lesson, forks may be destructive, but they sure as hell aren't the worst thing that can happen - there are worse things, such as Facebook hacks, that could literally steal your identity. Trust me on this one as it's happened to me and others (yes I still begrudgingly use the thing) my account started sending messages that said, do me a favor please, and apparently upon replying the hacker had sent a link to a supposed charity page, but it probably collected a lot more personal data than that and that could have some serious repercussions. So just be careful who you add and never click on links without examining the source and where the trail leads, and we'll be all good. Alright, what else is skype 7 supposedly guilty of?

simter wrote:

anoying notifications for any single little event what seriusly no one needs,

which you can turn off, by the way.

simter wrote:

a crappy peace of shit called skype api.

Are you, serious with me right now? If you're talking about SkypeKit, that's long gone. GW Connect and Skype Talking have unfortunately jumped the shark 3 years ago. Alright, we're done with the baseless accusations section, what else do we have?

simter wrote:

While there is a great version with no adds, much easyer to use, and the best is no more /fork spam. Because it just no longer exists.

1. Not only is /fork gone, but /leave is gone too. So, I may not have added someone I don't trust, but someone else may still have my contact or have kept down my info, and add me in those big large more than 100 person group calls. I used to be able to /leave on those. With Skype 8, it appears that all the slash commands are gone. And no, I highly doubt it was because of the /fork idiocy.
2. As a mac user, Skype 8 hits me the hardest, so keep enjoying the freedom of NVDA addons and Narrator improvement, I'm stuck with the mac because I paid too much to let the thing go, and running windows stand-alone won't cut it as there are, somehow, some good things about the mac that I happen to hold on to (particularly in the production space.) So just because Skype 8 may be so much easier for you does not mean it's easier for everyone. Plus, again, it's none of your concern what the rest of us use, is the message many have been trying to get to him.
Now here is where the borderline accusation hits.

simter wrote:

So, people, please stop giving out copies of skype 7, because then you may be the next responsible for the next fork.

Excuse me, but giving out copies of Skype 7 does not make you automatically responsible for the next fork. Unless of course the same person who gives out a copy of Skype 7 is the person that starts the fork, but that's a different story and I doubt that's where you were going.
and as Jayde stated, this wasn't the first time Simter was trying to instigate a fight through this, and the last time he did this, he pissed off many users who were seriously affected by this (me included) as well as many people who frankly don't give two shits what some folks in the community want people using. It, just, isn't, necessary. So, the provocative nature of the topic, combined with the fact he is a repeat offender, is likely the reason jayde decided to close this topic. Are we good now?

2019-03-29 21:40:23

Imho there's another kind of bad faith, which we see around here from time to time. Asking a question that seems innocent enough at face value, when the question you really want answered is against forum rules, or against the wishes of the community, etc. Similar is asking a question and giving a reason to justify your question, when the real reason you want an answer, again, is contrary to that stated, and against forum rules, etc.

Examples: Several days ago, Mahdi-Abedi asked, in general terms, "What can I do to prevent people from stealing my game sounds?" Several people responded, figuring what he really wanted to ask but couldn't was, "What can developers do to keep me from stealing sounds?" Or more to the point, "How can I steal sounds?" A similar thing might happen if someone writes something like, "I was developing a game and had a hard drive crash and lost everything. I had saved a compiled version along with its data files somewhere else, but I have no source code or sound files. How do I get that back?" Again, this could be a legitimate call for help, but it could also be an attempted grab for decryption/decompilation information so they can rip off other games.

An example of asking the right question for the wrong reason might be if someone asked, "How and where is the authorization for A Hero's Call stored? I want to back it up to my external drive in case my main drive ever crashes." This is fair enough on the face of it, but perhaps what they really want to say but can't because of forum rules is, "I want to make a copy of my authorization and give it to a friend without having to pay for another license."

2019-03-30 11:44:19 (edited by sid512 2019-03-30 14:56:07)

hi,
I did not want this topic to turn the way it had turned out, but we're relatively missing the original points.

I would like to know from the moderators under which particular community rules, regulations or implied guidelines the user had been issued a warning and the thread permanently closed?
do each moderator represent himself/herself while declaring moderations?
do the actions of a single moderator indicate an absence of representation among the moderation team as evident from "I", "i'm", or "me", rather than "we", or "us", or "'ed"?
had an ordinary user posted a general thread regarding the subject, is it highly likely the thread would be locked out as well, on the pretext of the matter being discussed earlier?

now, what I was intending to find out is, if we look at the scenario from the community point of view, and in case a user was being confrontational about the issue in previous threads, why the urgency to conduct a preemptive strike on the entire topic instead of warning the user within a personal capacity. as he seems to have received a warning anyway, he is expected to abide by the community rules or face further consequences. in real life, does your police force, on spotting a known offender, come out and swoop down on the place and evacuate the entire building including the offender, instead of swooping down on the offender and ushering him out of the building itself?

actually, the question is not about the authenticity of the moderators intentions; it is about the approach adopted to exert the intentions. looking at the above example, suppose a new customer is about to set his foot on the bar which is being evacuated along with the offender, will the customer be further inclined to visit that place in future? Will the customer ever encourage or promote the place on being asked by his contacts? Had the police force surrounded the offender himself and given him blatent warning with a series of hostile glares demonstrating a "no fucking around" policy, wouldn't the citezens admire the police force and feel secure?

now, if we look closely, the users of this type (offenders as per the above example) might enter another topic, spread toxic substances, and the topic is likely to be locked in response. do that particular action act as a deterrent to users who don't learn from their misadventures? (unlikely)
also, do we really need to cling on to their boots with that amount of desperation?

as of recent, another such user was banned as far as I'm aware, but it is equally significant to look at the amount of time and effort exhausted in order to get him where he belongs. I'm not trying to come down on these people; they deserve to be a part of the community as well, but this forum can't afford the extreme amount of tollerence towards the offenders.

on one hand, the current moderators act out of their own judgements and preferences to deem a discussion not fit for the forum based on an anticipated behavior of a single user or a group of users, on the other hand, they lock the thread for everyone and further shield such confrontational users because there is nothing to stop them from going on another thread, spoil the thread, and get it closed for rest of the members. I understand that the moderators would prefer a maximum amount of patience before issuing official warnings and handing out temporary and permanent bans to users, but going soft on them had produced a forum which has far more closed threads on a single page compared to at least out of 10 similar pages 5 years ago; which suggests something is wrong. Also, as far as past moderators are concerned, they had opened their backpacks, pulled their moderation hats and wore them before going on with their moderation business, and removed the hat and put it back in the backpack as soon as the moderation business was carried out. this behavior seriously helped them to separate their personal preferences and desires from the moderation duties. if we look at the kind of words used in the message, I'm afraid that phrases like "death and beyond", "resulted in me essentially confronting people", "why the heck", "Rather than re-engage that discussion", "to me at least", "bordering on personal attack, not just toward myself but toward others as well", "You think you have the right to", "Speaking personally, this is getting very tiresome", "it's warning time", "And I'm locking this thread", "We do not need this discussion right now(with a special emphasis on need)", don't seem to be coming from an actual moderator who is appointed for the benefit of the forum and the community at large.


In essence, it is practically hard to find that level of personalized content in a single moderation post if one wanders as far out as to look at general moderator warnings and explainations issued by our past moderators including dark, aprone, lukas, arqmeister and aaron. Unfortunately, regardless of the amount of positive intentions behind the post, it sounds like coming from a member who is trying to get involved in a discussion and moderating the very discussion at the same time. in real life, people do not wear their uniforms all the time; nor they perform their duties without wearing one. as dark and others have previously commented on numorous occasions, on a platform as obscure as the internet, often the true intentions are buried and the way the written content is being presented is what causes the content to be understood the way it is understood.

It is beyond me to understand what kind of loss and misfortune would befall on this forum and community if a couple of these individuals are banned off the forum. there is  precedence as far as dealing with troublemakers is concerned, whether it is bladestorm who went on a drunken rampage, whether it is figment who got banned in a manner as swift and polite a user will ever get banned from this forum, whether it is fastfinge who was banned by moderators, whether it is ethin who got banned a couple of times in past because of his childish behavior and writing incoherent posts, whether it is a user who got banned after asking for tips to crack shades of doom by pm, and countless other bans. it is equally ridiculous to see the way it is getting extremely hard for the current moderation team to hand out punishment specially in case of guys like simter who not only cause trouble almost wherever they post but also attract a tremendous amount of unwanted attention. is that the forum and moderation all about? is harbouring a bunch of teenagers in the garb of curtailing discussions the next developing trend in the audiogaming community? can a legitimate forum member be assured the right to free speech in future where these threads are prone to be highjacked and locked? Would any other moderator have taken that road both in terms of content and actions?

and, last but not the least, is there any official explaination to the first question raised in the original post (along with the third question) about the particular forum rules being violated if one looks at the content of the quoted post?

as I mentioned in the first post itself, explainations are welcome; no hostility required.

Regards.

He picked up the wrench and broke the guy’s wrist with it, one, and then the other wrist, two, and turned back and did the same to the guy who had held the hammer, three, four. The two men were somebody’s weapons, consciously deployed, and no soldier left an enemy’s abandoned ordnance on the field in working order.

2019-03-30 12:05:38

Agreed, 28.

2019-03-30 15:19:06

Sid, I urge you to reread Nocturnis's original post, as well as some of the others that have been presented in order to explain things.

The change in language is simply a matter of you seeing patterns or trends where they do not exist. The use of "I" and "we" has occurred in the past without anyone raising an eyebrow. I did act without consulting the mod team first, and it says in the rules that this may occur. Consensus isn't required unless the action is larger-scale.

It also may do well to consider that locked threads have more to do with forum members than they do with the attitudes of the current staff team. The overall tone of the forum has been shifting during the last couple of years. We used to go months without any drama, and now we have to check up on things virtually every day, lest one end up with threads with sixty to seventy posts of people bickering at one another.

I am also wondering if the method in which you seem to be questioning what's going on is indeed happening in good faith. I recognize that you have some concerns, but a few of these feel a little cobbled together, at least for me. For instance, the language issue, and the profligacy of closed topics, and the way we're handling folks like Simter and others. In fact, it almost feels like you're simultaneously asking for faster, firmer crackdown and even greater explanation and justification of our actions. Please refer to the oft-raised point that sometimes, a specific rule is not broken in a really clear-cut way, but behaviour clearly represents bad faith and an attempt to stir things up. The fact is this: we will never have rules that account for absolutely everything.

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

2019-03-30 17:27:34

@28 agreed on all points.

I had started writing this earlier in this particular thread, but I decided not to. Since someone's already went there though, I think I will. This current climate of cautions, more warnings than you can shake a stick at, and so many bans before the thing becomes permanent, it's not doing anyone any favors. Just ask yourself the question, "Is what we're doing right now working", well, I don't think it is. If the mods don't want so much drama, crack down on the perpetrators. Start dropping the hammer on people, and stop being so tolerant to it. Deal with the people who need dealing with, like the ones who go around starting it. You can't blame the rest of us for getting our backs up at someone because they go around starting crap all the time, it gets old. Sure, there's a bit of tolerance, then trying to say in a polite way that it's not cool what they're doing, and they continue anyway. That's how I see the community failure clause working. Take these people who need it, turn them towards the door, give a little shove, and say don't let it hitcha where the good lord splitcha. The best communities I've seen online have the quickest acting, non-apologetic mods. They don't go around acting like the gestapo either. It's not like they're like, I don't like that your name is teal, ban hammer time. They wait for the person to break a rule and bam. On here I get that's not exactly practical. We should have a certain bit of understanding for the language barrier that a lot of our eastern european or middle east or whereever else you're from people are having. That's not, and should not be infinite though. If they were concerned, they would ask for a translation, they would try to google translate it and if that didn't make things clear enough, they'd ask someone who was multilingual to help out. Also, there is the aspect of well, do you think if I went on a Russian site and broke the rules, that they'd be like oh its cool bro no probls, I get you're not Russian, so here, I'll just let you off with a caution this time. Hell to the naw. I'm not saying that to justify banning people who truly don't understand - I think we  can be a bit better than that - but just to show I doubt very much the sentiment is strong in other places.

If this place is going to ever get back to a spot where the mods can check in every few weeks or so, then this will have to happen, because what is going on right now isn't working.

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

2019-03-30 17:59:54

So let me get this straight.

You flipped out because I came in wielding a big stick many moons ago. I adopted a softer touch because I recognized the harm I'd done, and now even that is being demonized as too soft. Seriously, guys. I get what you're saying, but there is a point where it feels like we can't win, no matter what we do. I am picturing an alternate timeline where much more firmness was being employed and the same crowd is yelling for blood because they're being oppressed.

Is my action against Simter too harsh or not, Ironcross? Because in one breath you're saying it's too strong, that his topic was doing no harm. And in the next, you're out here saying we need to crack down more firmly on people who are acting in bad faith. So which is it?

In fact, that's half a rhetorical question, a thought experiment, if you will. Because it very clearly demonstrates the point I'm driving at. We just can't win.

Past a certain point, there are elements of a community which will find fault no matter what happens. If we try to be understanding without totally compromising the rules, we're being too soft. If we crack down and close topics and issue warnings when people are acting in bad faith trying to stir up drama, we're suddenly robbing you of free speech, interfering with your ability to express negative opinions and generally just not following our own rules.

Or maybe the real issue is me. Maybe a few of you really can't get past the fact that I can hold my own in a discussion, can back myself up, and can be extremely decisive and fast-acting when the need calls for it. Perhaps this is intimidating or scary. Perhaps you are remembering early November, when I badly mishandled a crisis, and you can't get over it. Perhaps there is straight-up personal bias at play, where you feel it is permissible to hold me (and by extension, the rest of the mod team) to an impossibly high standard simply because we represent a source of authority.

I'll be honest. I'm struggling to find an explanation, a reasonable way to rationalize the fact that some of you seem to want two polar opposite styles of moderation from the panel in general and from me in this particular instance. But I need to say this:
Past a certain point, I also don't care. I know on a gut level that I cannot please everyone. I will try hard to do what is best for the community, and will also try hard to explain why I do the things I do, because I am not super friendly with authority either, believe it or not. I think everyone is owed the benefit of the doubt, at least at first, when it comes to understanding why. But I also know that there is no way to please everyone. And I'm not going to lose sleep over a vocal minority who can't get its priorities and its desires straight. And I urge the rest of the staff team, upon seeing this, to bear in mind the same point. We cannot possibly cater to everyone's wishes all at once, and we needn't try. The aim here is the betterment of the community as a whole. The aim is accountability wherever possible, but that does not necessarily mean wasting hours backtracking and defending when said vocal minority becomes loud, demanding, entitled or just plain resistant. If you have strong points to make regarding our style of administration, that's well and good, and we'll hear them. We're listening (or at least, I am, and I strongly suspect that goes for the rest of the team as well). But before you open your mouth, put pen to paper or decide to bring forth criticism, remember that every question you ask and every point you raise has an impact, however small, on the community, and if your aim truly is to help the community (that good faith action I spoke of in a previous post), then you owe the community the benefit of a little reflection and consideration before posting. After doing so, you may still feel like you have something to say, and at that point, go for it. But greater good matters to everyone, not just the staff team. If you are, in fact, trying to be a positive part of this community, then there is such a thing as deciding which battles to fight and which not to. And I think, in all the fervour lately, some of you have forgotten this.

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

2019-03-30 19:05:51 (edited by jack 2019-03-30 19:13:10)

*sigh* There's always one. OR two. Or three. Always a few that can't just let it go. There was nothing destructive about what the Jayde did to close that topic. The result was not so much the topic itself, so much as it was Simter trying to force the community over to an upgrade just because of some idiots who use the fork command because apparently they have nothing better to do. Which affects probably 1% of the entire Skype population. And then you had people like me, who had legitimate questions to ask (take the skype 8 on the mac deal) which is a much more serious issue than a few bored-to-death kids playing dirty. Imagine the irritation when someone has a legitimate question to ask about skype 7, but 99% of the skype 7 topics are all either the forking cult, or the victims who could've shown less idiocy and not added those people they didn't know. Imagine the irritation when legitimate skype 7 question topics are likely to get skipped past because quite frankly, we're all fed up with the forking topics, and the general stigma surrounding skype 7, that I assure you there are some users who probably skip any topic mentioning Skype 7 because it's another case of jese, here we go again.
See how the unproductive discussion can be futile, unnecessary, and simply unneeded? And when it's asinine juveniles who are repeat offenders involved in creating such topics, you see where a mod can feel the urge to say enough is enough?
Why are people even bickering over this anyway? No one was hurt through the closing of the topic, in fact just a grain of sanity was hoped to be restored, but wasn't. And why the hell do people need to have the last word? I don't even care about that, the rest of us are only concerned about restoring the sanity here. And for the record, not everything needs to suddenly turn into an argument, much less an argument worth winning.

2019-03-30 20:43:57

Bro, I had nothing to do with the pitch forks going on after I was banned. I went on one or two audio things and twitter raging at the machine because I was watching what you were doing and didn't like it. You calmed down though and I don't really have an issue with you. I see where you're coming from in opposing the closing of that topic and then turning around and saying how the mods should crack down more, and I was thinking how to bring those two in line earlier. The difference I see is that discussion hadn't really reached a point of needing to be closed yet. No one had done anything really. But that is minor in comparison to the leniency issue which I find more severe.

I'm not going to comment on the part about you making such good points that other people are scared end intimidated because I don't think I could do so whilst also remaining polite.

@33 Exactly, get rid of the offenders and the problem stops.

Also if that puts me in that category, then fine, I'm cool with it, and sort of expect it.

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

2019-03-30 21:17:30

Right, but fair protocol dictates he must go through the warning system first. Let's see.
the Skype Topic
#11
Jayde
Mar 27 2019 7:29 pm

Jayde wrote:

Moderation:
Simter, consider this an official warning. There was a whole topic about this a couple of weeks ago, and it was discussed to death and beyond. It resulted in me essentially confronting people and asking them why the heck it was any of their business what other people used if no one was being hurt.
Rather than re-engage that discussion, I'm going to drop a warning. This, to me at least, is bordering on personal attack, not just toward myself but toward others as well. You think you have the right to determine what programs we ought to use, and you don't. Speaking personally, this is getting very tiresome. This isn't the first time it's happened, nor the first time it's been protested. And now that there are multiple other users who are just as annoyed as me, it's warning time.
And I'm locking this thread. We do not need this discussion right now.

Going back further, we have
The SBYW Topic
#17
Jayde
Mar 16 2019 2:29 pm

Jayde wrote:

Moderation:
First of all, I am locking this thread.
Second of all, I am issuing warnings to both Simter and Mason.
Simter, you're getting yours because there has been quite enough drama and crud stirred up about this, thank you very much. You antagonizing/trying to drum up support against Mason is just childish and pointless, and you ought to know this by now.
Mason, you're getting yours because frankly we are not going to just sit still and let you say stuff like that to the community at large. If you want to abandon the community, then do it. Turn your back and walk away. Nobody's stopping you. But if you attack, antagonize or in any other way try and screw with the forum or create toxicity, you will be dealt with appropriate to the severity of the situation.
That is all.
No. You know what? It's not all.
I am getting really, really tired of stupid drama, guys. Like, insanely tired of it. Have you guys any idea how it feels to watch a forum cannibalize itself piece by piece?

And lastly,
the final version of sbp
#245
Jayde
Mar 3 2019 9:47 am

Jayde wrote:

Moderation:
Simter and Audiogame, consider this an official warning for both of you. Leave Omar alone. One of the rules clearly states that we are not to pick on other people regardless of their age or intellectual ability, among other things. You knew what Omar meant and what he was trying to get across, so making fun of him this way simply won't be tolerated. I have zero patience for this sort of thing and no interest in being gentle about it. If you can't be constructive, be quiet and don't mock others for their English or for the maturity of their posts. Thanks.

This would've been all, except for one thing.

rules wrote:

Warnings expire at a rate of 1 every thirty (30) days. Users who attempt to use ban expiration to their advantage may be punished under the community failure clause (rule 8) in accordance with their actions.

Notice how it's been officially changed to 30 days in the rules documents, as opposed to the original 7? This was all within a 30 day period. Notice how I'm not posting in favor of the community failure clause to be used, nor am I saying what the mods should precisely do next, but there's some evidence here that fits directly into the protocol.

2019-03-31 00:14:26

Exactly. The only reason I have not banned Simter at this point is because two of three warnings there occurred before that protocol change. That's about it.

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

2019-03-31 00:21:43

@35, are you suggesting what I think your suggesting (that these repeat offenders are taking advantage of the fact that warnings expire after a period of time)? It seems that way...

"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

2019-03-31 01:05:34

Whether or not people are deliberately trying to get around the warning system, I'm not entirely sure. That gets stretchy.
What I do know is that Simter has received three warnings in the last month, and I believe it is time to talk to the list to see how to proceed from here. I do not think he should be just banned out of hand, but at the same time, firmness is definitely a good thing, and it seems as if many people (if not all) agree that some of what's been going on has definitely been done in bad faith, so the community failure clause may apply.

Ironcross, my bit about people being unable to deal with my ability to stand up for myself or whatnot...it's merely conjecture. As I also said, I'm struggling to find a reason that someone can be in favour of more leniency and less leniency in precisely the same instance. It makes no sense to me, even after your explanation, which raises far more questions than it answers I'm afraid.

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

2019-03-31 01:12:09

Ethin, if we were to talk just based on the warnings policy alone, there's two sides to this coin. Firstly, not banning due to the fact some of those warnings happened before the policy change, that alone is very fair.
Technically, these warnings happened 10 and 13 days apart. It's not a clear-cut pattern, but it doesn't have to be every 8 days to be such. It's one thing to slip up a few months after, but these are *fairly* close together, and pretty much for the same cause. This is where, as Jayde said the topic of warning evasion gets stretchy, probably due to the fact it would have a lot to do with what exactly the person keeps on doing to exhibit these warnings, and how deliberate. Then again, that's precisely the community failure clause in a nutshell. Lol!

2019-03-31 01:31:34

I think the clear cut answer is that warnings in effect have a set expiration time the instant they are created, and nothing can change that. Thus, if a change is to be made to the expiration time of warnings, even a warning which is given one microsecond prior to the instant the new rule goes into effect should have the old expiration time, and should expire at the end of that old time, even though newer warnings given since that time will have the new expiration time.

In a community like this, you can't make an announcement like "At midnight on such and such a date, warnings will last for X amount of time." That's in effect also saying, "If you want to do stuff that's likely to get you a warning, you'd better do it and have us see it and issue you warnings before that time. Then again, we might just wait to issue all new warnings until the new rule takes effect."

2019-03-31 02:54:20 (edited by jack 2019-03-31 02:54:59)

This is all true, which is pretty much why Jayde didn't act on those three warnings retroactively on principal alone.

2019-03-31 14:51:32

Don't you think it's a bit childish that you think one single guy, just one, can enforce the whole community to use a particular version of skype or anything? Do you think a single guy, without protection or any support, an guide you by your nose? What could he do against you if you don't do what he wants? Will he kill you, seriously?
So literally he will get banned cause he is trying to change the community's opinion. Huh.

2019-03-31 16:01:57

Okay, getting mighty sick of this. Speaking as a user here, not as a mod, because I do not trust myself in this moment to use clear judgment as a moderator.

MasterOfDeath, it has been explained to you literally over half a dozen times now that Simter's differing opinion is not the issue. Seriously. Not the issue. Have I said that enough yet? Not. The. Issue.
The problem was
1. He's been warned a couple of times already this month for stirring the pot
2. He brought up a topic that already had some fire in it and
3. The way he phrased his post was rather confrontational. Jack has done a very good job of taking it apart for you. I urge you to reread, very carefully, just what simter said.

At this point, I feel that you're acting in bad faith, deliberately misrepresenting the point in order to make my actions (since it was me who acted against Simter here) look worse. This is not the first time you have made attempts to undermine me. Now here's the thing. I am neither power-hungry nor particularly afraid of the opinion of one person. I know that, barring some really bad choices early on, I've done a fairly good job here. I am not threatened by you. But at this point, I have definitely reached a point where I am feeling personally attacked. You are ignoring virtually every point made in defense of my actions to cling to the "simter is being warned because his opinion is different" narrative. I was tempted for awhile to give you some sort of benefit of the doubt - you are from Hungary, are you not? there may be a language barrier at play here - but the more time goes by, the less inclined I am to do this.

At this point, I am walking out of this topic, and unless called upon directly to do so, I am not coming back in. I feel I've taken just about enough misinformation and undeserved fire from you.

Please note that I am not dismissing everyone's issues in one fell swoop. Some good points have been raised herein, and I am not ignoring or dismissing those opinions and points of view. I've merely hit a point where I feel that this conversation has devolved into thinly veiled agenda on one side, and constant needless defense on the other.

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

2019-03-31 17:48:09 (edited by sid512 2019-03-31 18:28:07)

Hi,
@Jayde and others
The question of good faith/bad faith is subject to variation of judgement as you can't define an action as done in good faith or bad faith without fully realizing the intentions of the original poster; although the points raised in post 28 have been agreed by at least 2 other members, which suggests they had been logical to a great extent. If someone wants to avoid double standards, a viable way is to stop shielding a bunch of members for the sake of the entire community. to explain further, under current circumstances and depending on his own judgement, Jayde, demonstrating the best of his intentions closed the thread in order to avoid further heat and confrontation. since most of you guys are regular visitors on this forum, it may not count as something entirely odd and off the shelf. but think of the bigger picture for an instance. according to the front page of audiogames.net, one of the main purposes of this site is to promote audiogames both among the VI and the sighted individuals. Now, if it had been an independent forum with a separate host and its own rules, the moderators could have done as much to close all the 10,000 plus topics spread out neatly over about 14 plus years and no one would have been able to do a thing about it. as this forum belongs to audiogames.net, and caters to the audiogaming community and not just its members, I think the moderators should hold a bit of consideration towards the community as a whole. the current system of bans or the severity of warnings are internal matters which the moderators are supposed to work out among themselves, but seriously, looking at various forum rooms in a nutshell and finding dozens of recently closed topics is what makes the atmosphere comparatively toxic for someone who intends to visit the forum once in a while, or create an account to become a member (including a potential sighted gamer or developer). in other words, there are other ways to stop the fire from spreading out and I respectfully disagree about closing/locking a thread being a plausible means to do so. if the moderators are able to delete and edit posts, why not considering editing the original post to reflect their position, or delete certain phrases from a post, or the posts themselves, or entire topics when the matter gets out of hand? what I'm trying to put out here is closing a thread represents putting a lid on the topic, making it impossible for rest of the members to reply on that topic. such closed threads being visible once every 500 topics is a thing, but encountering them more than a couple of times per page suggests that something horrible is going on. coming back to the example from post 28, you don't start closing down businesses and establishments just because a group of criminals decided to show up and make the places insecure. when the same is criticized, the enforcement officials blame the citizens one way or the other and fail to realize the actual motive behind such criticism at first place. I'm not trying to disregard what the moderators have done but as a member of a community, it doesn't do well to see every 4 out of 50 topics closed across various rooms just because a group of people could not be handed out harsher punishments. looking at this particular topic, it probably needed to be dealt with, but show the topic to a sighted game developer who intends to be a part of this community as a potential developer, and you get how damaging the action and the moderation post might come across to someone who is not aware about those members in particular. you can't just keep on doing what is dictated by good/bad faith, and ignore the rest of the bystanders who did not yet contemplate entering your bar, eg a particular thread. this is not about a single topic; there have been far more closed threads in recent past. if one takes the defense of stating an increase in number of people who cause fire, I'm certain that the same kind of people used to post on the topics 10 years ago; and there was rarely a closed thread. back then, the moderators had mentioned the fact that games are indeed played by teenagers the most; they deserve to be a part of the forums. unfortunately, things have spiraled down to a point where there are more than 50 different topics concerning a user's behavior, although he ultimately got banned. As a bottom line, please don't curtail free speech. please don't restrict people's ability to post on the forum by closing dozens of topics. please don't make the forum a bigger mess eventually encouraging potential visitors and developers to view the forum in a bad light.

and, that is all.

edit: for the heck of it, I re-read post 1 through 10 of the topic and nothing suggests a possible flame war. there was certainly a bit of hostile tone but I don't see how the poster intends to force people to use Skype 8 where all he did is question those who do not use it in a bit of frustration.

He picked up the wrench and broke the guy’s wrist with it, one, and then the other wrist, two, and turned back and did the same to the guy who had held the hammer, three, four. The two men were somebody’s weapons, consciously deployed, and no soldier left an enemy’s abandoned ordnance on the field in working order.

2019-03-31 18:51:02

I am going to be honest here, speaking as half user and half admin, so no decision here is final, it's just food for thought for the moment.
I have not said very much in this topic simply because I do not feel there has been much to say on the matter.
I can see both sides of the coin. Why Jayde did this, was to prevent drama from happening. Then the other side is the fact that if he'd left the topic open, things could have, indeed possibly been sorted out by the same token.
I am wondering therefore if something like this happens again, is to allow a topic to last at least a page (on my end, that's 25 posts) before making a decision like this, unless a topic goes out of hand very quickly.

2019-03-31 19:11:19 (edited by jack 2019-03-31 19:31:55)

MasterOfDeath wrote:

Don't you think it's a bit childish that you think one single guy, just one, can enforce the whole community to use a particular version of skype or anything? Do you think a single guy, without protection or any support, an guide you by your nose? What could he do against you if you don't do what he wants?

Seriously? You have to be either not thinking straight, or, as Jayde said, intentionally twisting the argument into your favor because of personal bias. Look. The forum's disarray may have been caused by a lack of mod order, months ago. Now, the moderators are doing a fine job, but they're having to do their job more because of the epidemic of idiocy that is seemingly increasing. Do I have to refer you to post 26 again, you know what, I will, because while it is true that Simter can't force the community as you say, he certainly tried guilt-tripping the community, like so:

simter wrote:

So, people, please stop giving out copies of skype 7, because then you may be the next responsible for the next fork.

Ahh yes. Preserving the true jerks from blame. Blaming the users who pass around this oh so horrible piece of software called Skype 7. People who may genuinely need it. That is where we step into guilt territory. If you can't understand that, you're too far gone and I  can't help you. I've done all the explaining I could. I searched through his warnings (it wasn't that hard, really) when I didn't have to. We've tried to do all the explaining we can, but you seem to either want this place to be an anarchy, or some other thing that I'd guess 95% of the people (me included) don't want. Shove it, will you?
Alright, now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about Sid's point as there's validity to them, but they really won't help in the long run.

sid512 wrote:

such closed threads being visible once every 500 topics is a thing, but encountering them more than a couple of times per page suggests that something horrible is going on.

But that's exactly it, Sid. We both know that even 6 years ago, you would rarely see more than 3 closed threads per page. Drama was more spread out. Editing posts will raise a lot of questions (remember when the Oriol Gaming Zone topic was suddenly deleted and replaced by another one, and people were asking well what the hell just happened?) Moderators really only reserve the edit for extreme cases, where someone will have posted a link to a crack and (link removed by moderator) is likely to be put in its place. Editing and deleting doesn't help the situation, and it actually does not create a better image of the site for new folks. In fact, it does quite the opposite effect; an honest site will not create a false cover story by editing and watering down content and say, oh look, this site is great (Howard Sherman rightfully got shit for that for carefully editing customer's review of Malinche titles to remove the negative parts.) I highly doubt this site would want to stoop to that low. Also, the word is already out about how some of the community just can't act out of kindness, as Ian Hamilton a while back had advised new developers to steer clear of the forum because of the general attitude. The damage has already been done just because some people chose to dick over the users (yes, annoying unnecessary threads is also considered as such.)
Also, teenagers: we must define that more clearly now since age does not define maturity, as is shown by these younger individuals who seem to have been given technology at way too young an age without any form of supervision.

sid512 wrote:

the moderators had mentioned the fact that games are indeed played by teenagers the most; they deserve to be a part of the forums.

That argument is a half-mute point as there are, on one side of the coin, some adults who have shown less maturity than some teens, while on that same token you have people who are, by definition, teenagers, but they sure don't act the part.

2019-03-31 19:17:48 (edited by jack 2019-03-31 19:18:23)

Aaron, I think that would be a good idea. I think the reason Jayde probably closed it was because of the subtle threatening nature of the original post:

simter wrote:

So, people, please stop giving out copies of skype 7, because then you may be the next responsible for the next fork.

there could've been another topic that asked genuine skype questions, and maybe a few jerks here and there starting the fire, but overall the topic seems fairly civil. I'm sure then Jayde would've given warnings and left it at that. Thing was, the topic was started by the instigator. Let's get some stats. This doesn't count Jayde's post because that was for closing the topic.
Useless Flaming: 30%, including the original post
Rightful Complaining over useless flaming: 40%, posts 4 through 7
Actual legitimate questions and answers: 30% *finally* posts 8 through 10, may probably be skipped over because the topic started out useless
30% on flaming and questions, but because we had to *attempt* to extinguish the flames for 40% of that topic, it left little room for legitimate questions.

2019-03-31 19:54:30

I would like to address a couple points here.

sid512 wrote:

In essence, it is practically hard to find that level of personalized content in a single moderation post if one wanders as far out as to look at general moderator warnings and explainations issued by our past moderators including dark, aprone, lukas, arqmeister and aaron. Unfortunately, regardless of the amount of positive intentions behind the post, it sounds like coming from a member who is trying to get involved in a discussion and moderating the very discussion at the same time. in real life, people do not wear their uniforms all the time; nor they perform their duties without wearing one. as dark and others have previously commented on numorous occasions, on a platform as obscure as the internet, often the true intentions are buried and the way the written content is being presented is what causes the content to be understood the way it is understood.

I really do tend to disagree. Feel free to enter either "moderation:" or "moderation!" in the search box and go back through the resulting pages because there are hundreds of results. Both queries would be preferable. Different mods have decided to use either colons or explanation points, Dark preferred the exclamation for example. This is, not, a dig at Dark by any means. But from what I can recall he seemed to prefer speaking in the first person. Before becoming a moderator myself, over the span of a couple years in fact, this has lead me to speculate that a lot of these sorts of decisions were made acting on personal assessments of a situation in place of those formed collectively. Random searching yields old posts like:

Dark wrote:

Moderation!
You get one warning semmes 2.
Discussion of cracks is very much not permitted on this forum, sinse we're here to promote audio game developement.
One more comment like that and you'll be banned before you can say transgression.
Sinse Entombed's future developement is entirely dependent upon how well it sells, your remark in this instance is doubly in bad taste.
Please do not discuss SUCH things on this forum again

Dark wrote:

moderation:
Musical professer, please don't post long and hyper crytical wrants to other members, ---- especially on issues which have already been moderated, this will just cause more descention and anger.

Dark wrote:

Moderation!
sid, this is precisely the sort of behaviour I was warning against.
If a person is rude or insulting to you, report them, and let myself and the mods deal with it. If someone robs your house that doesn't give you the right to go and steal from them, indeed you'd be just as culpable.
I have specifically given a general warning here to avoid just the sort of angry responses that you created with your accusations above.
As I said in the gaming zone topic, anymore shenanigans from anyone! and people will start being punished no matter who! they are.
this is getting ridiculous.

The above I personally find to be rather opinionated and just a tad over the top. Especially the ban you quicker than you can say transgression threat. Were this to occur today I'm almost sure we'd see instant backlash, and rightfully so. Of course more could be extracted, but I hardly think an entire pile is really required. It would be just as uninviting for any potential developer to see, if not a hell of a lot more so.
My underlying point is this. I believe everything that's gone on as of late, from the BSG posts, Jayde situation and obvious influx of unnecessary stupidity we've been witnessing around here recently has caused a feeling of nostalgia, at least for a couple. when considering the past, many bitter difficulties are forgotten thereby painting a picture of near perfection. It's the reason I sometimes look back at my first days in the community musing about how matters seemed so much better and simpler. But were they really? right now we're just seeing more of it, and moderators are being forced to work harder than ever before. Let that speak for itself. Keep in mind I am in no way aiming to downplay  what has been said by Sid512. I just think it's important to remember these are by no means new occurrences, and furthermore not limited to Jayde as a single entity.

I don't believe allowing a thread to live on through the first page until which a decision, or through a certain number of posts, will help matters in the slightest. I'm of the mind that closing a topic should be done if and only if matters have blown up. We can't predict the future, nor can we do more than hypothesize using past occurrences.

Whether or not you think his actions were in the right is one thing, being outright confrontational is another. Master of death, most of your posts in this topic seem to take the form of patronizing and condescending more than anything, honestly this isn't the first time you seem to be exhibiting child like behavior in such a situation. Please, consider each and every word before you go firing shots along the same lines. Jayde has attempted to be civil and honestly I don't really know how since personally I might have started ignoring you altogether.

You seem to refuse to understand the point which Jayde has clearly outlined many a time. Let's rip these apart shall we?

"Don't you think it's a bit childish that you think one single guy, just one, can enforce the whole community to use a particular version of skype or anything?"

Jayde wasn't trying to, enforce the whole community to do anything. He acted out of his perception of the situation which I honestly have to agree with, even if it might have been a bit hasty. From post 18 directly

Jayde wrote:

The long and short is that nobody has a right to tell me what to use and what not to use, and that goes for everyone else in the community. What's more, if something I enjoy stops working and it wasn't actually doing any harm, taking joy in something I or others may feel stress about is just mean and spiteful and serves no purpose.

So I have no idea why you continue to beet this point to death when it's been addressed many times in many different ways.

"Do you think a single guy, without protection or any support, an guide you by your nose? What could he do against you if you don't do what he wants? Will he kill you, seriously?
So literally he will get banned cause he is trying to change the community's opinion. Huh."

The warning handed out was not done so because you must must use skype 7 and if you don't you're less of a human and/or failing to cater to the wishes of our oppressive dictator. it was done so with consideration of Simpter, his past, and the tone of his post which Jack did a wonderful job of pointing out. Thumbs up by the way.

Jaybird has a point in 40. I think warnings should be reformed to work this way.

2019-03-31 20:13:08 (edited by jack 2019-03-31 20:24:14)

Just to piggyback on one of Cartertemm's analysis a bit:

MasterOfDeath wrote:

"Don't you think it's a bit childish that you think one single guy, just one, can enforce the whole community to use a particular version of skype or anything?"

This reminds me of how his posts really lack substance or organization, and it was easy to confuse who he was addressing. He was actually forgetting about Simter's purpose for the thread and examining it at face value, forgetting Jaydes' reason to close it. He was basically implying Jayde should take it with a grain of salt, never mind the fact that trying to guilt the community into using a particular version of Skype is not possible, Jayde's reason for closing the topic was, as we all know, the way he expressed himself, and because! of his trying to guilt the community, rather than would it work or not. That's what he was trying to imply. Just another hardy serving of the anarchist mindset with a side baseless arguments blown way out of proportion to back it up.
That being said, my purpose wasn't even to specifically correct Cartertemm's analysis, but more or less to demonstrate further how MasterOfDeath's posts are so off base altogether.

2019-03-31 21:02:12

I think what is needed is for us, as a collective, to step back and let the moderators get on with it without questioning every single moderation decision. Each individual in this community is not going to agree with every moderation decision; however, we need to strike a balance as to when to speak up about it and when not to. I also think the mods should do a better job of communicating and saying, hey, would you look into this, I'm too close to the situation right now. I can't say that this is not happening, as I am not privy to that information, but I suspect it is happening less than it could be. That's why it's a moderation team and not a loose organization of moderators. Teamwork will prevail here.

@ironcross32, learn to keep your big fat mouth shut!

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