Ask not for whom the trolls troll - they troll for thee

[Birdjaguar]

You may feel that this is my fault, but all i see in any such precedent is further entitlement for the dominant faction among the staff and a certain class of users to enforce their views and biases.
I'm not being rhetorical; that is what i see.
Make of that what you will vis a vis that "community" you talked about.

I like rules. Rules protect me, while sentiment protects others.

There is no fault or blame to pass out. I'm pretty sure that there are those on staff who support your exact position. It was often debated while I was on staff. My experience here and elsewhere just tells me that such hard line positions failas situations get more complicated. Rules can only take you so far and then it calls for thoughtful judgment. The point at which thoughtful judgment is needed is sometimes fuzzy and can be debated. IMNSHO thought judgment is better for anything complicated and rules work best only for clearly black and white situations like "Did the poster swear?" But I'm a softy and think "chill guys" is a better intervention than infracting.

 

[metatron]

There is no fault or blame to pass out.

Well, evidently i feel less welcome to post what i want to post on this board than the "trolls" the backers of the initial supporters of the petition go on about.

That's someone's fault.
You better hope it's mine.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Well, evidently i feel less welcome to post what i want to post on this board than the "trolls" the backers of the initial supporters of the petition go on about.

That's someone's fault.
You better hope it's mine.

You lost me. I have no idea what that (bolded) means or who those people are. Perhaps if you sent me a pm with some specifics I would understand.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, evidently i feel less welcome to post what i want to post on this board than the "trolls" the backers of the initial supporters of the petition go on about.

That's someone's fault.
You better hope it's mine.

You lost me. I have no idea what that (bolded) means or who those people are. Perhaps if you sent me a pm with some specifics I would understand.

I'm choosing to take it to mean that Metatron can't post as freely as a drive by troll, which is a good thing. No one should be able to post as freely as the drive by troll, because the drive by troll doesn't plan on being around at all next week. Now, maybe the drive by troll will sometimes be posting stuff Metatron agrees with. That's okay too, sometimes they post things I agree with too. But Metatron and I are both members of the community, not drive by trolls who won't even know if we're banned next week because we're gone anyway. So we both use restraint in regards to the rules.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You are doing a bit of goal-post moving.

In post #2 in this thread, you made it clear that you were talking about (totally in the abstract, of course) what you called "a known troll" - i.e. a regular - "doing his thing".

Can you see how easy it is to claim that i was just that?
Never mind you yourself.

I expect to be scrutinised more and protected less than the persons i consider to be "members of the community".

Dude, quoted from post #2, repeated at least once, now at least twice, to keep the goalposts in place:

"*defined by, hey, he just got back from being banned for trolling, and has launched a series of posts that are basically carbon copies of the posts he got banned for, and his history reveals that this cyclic event is his only participation on the site"

How much clearer do I have to be?

We're both regulars. Sometimes we fight. We get in trouble when we do. That doesn't make either of us a troll. There are places on the internet where I am a troll. I don't visit Breitbarf looking for information, or to have a conversation. I go there to leave incendiary comments. When other commenters there say I'm a troll, clearly they are correct. There are people who do that here. Those people are trolls. Anyone who looks at their behavior, even someone who by and large agrees with their stated positions, can see that.

 

[bernie14]

....... There are places on the internet where I am a troll. I don't visit Breitbarf looking for information, or to have a conversation. I go there to leave incendiary comments. When other commenters there say I'm a troll, clearly they are correct. There are people who do that here. Those people are trolls. Anyone who looks at their behavior, even someone who by and large agrees with their stated positions, can see that.

Interesting post. As i mentioned before, what kind of site do the admins want this to be? Do they want it to be a community where mostly like minded people come to vent about their like minded opinions? I can certainly see why they consider you a troll on breitbart because that is exactly what that community is. You are an invader and your intention is not just obvious to them, but it is your actual intention. If cfcot wants to declare itself as a political site, at least posters will know where they stand....perspective is important. As for myself, i do like to come here for opinions and thoughts of those who are not like minded. I am certainly a minority view. I also pop in and out and am not a frequent poster. I often respond with a snarky comment about a post i find outlandish. Sure, i expect the next several members of the community to call me a dingbat nazi. But i very often see long time members just state an opinion that is immediately met by major flames and insults by regular members of this community. And it seems, that as postcount goes up, these people feel more and more entitled to do so. I understand the concept of feeling some sort paternalistic allegiance to a community but that authority belongs to the admins and moderators.

In addition, the "drive by" analogy is interesting. Is the solution to improve law enforcement? Take away all the guns? Give everybody a gun? It seems to me that the request being made is first, trying to take advantage of a recent incident (that is extremely rare) and is trying very hard to declare the current system incompetent.

I was not joking about you asking to moderate. You seem to be here all the time. Just seems to me that you want to have your cake and eat it to.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Interesting post. As i mentioned before, what kind of site do the admins want this to be? Do they want it to be a community where mostly like minded people come to vent about their like minded opinions? I can certainly see why they consider you a troll on breitbart because that is exactly what that community is. You are an invader and your intention is not just obvious to them, but it is your actual intention. If cfcot wants to declare itself as a political site, at least posters will know where they stand....perspective is important. As for myself, i do like to come here for opinions and thoughts of those who are not like minded. I am certainly a minority view. I also pop in and out and am not a frequent poster. I often respond with a snarky comment about a post i find outlandish. Sure, i expect the next several members of the community to call me a dingbat nazi. But i very often see long time members just state an opinion that is immediately met by major flames and insults by regular members of this community. And it seems, that as postcount goes up, these people feel more and more entitled to do so. I understand the concept of feeling some sort paternalistic allegiance to a community but that authority belongs to the admins and moderators.

In addition, the "drive by" analogy is interesting. Is the solution to improve law enforcement? Take away all the guns? Give everybody a gun? It seems to me that the request being made is first, trying to take advantage of a recent incident (that is extremely rare) and is trying very hard to declare the current system incompetent.

I was not joking about you asking to moderate. You seem to be here all the time. Just seems to me that you want to have your cake and eat it to.

It isn't rare. If allowed to cite specific examples I could name four off the top of my head, going back less than a year. Given the length of time it takes to get rid of them I'd say the forum is subject to their disruption almost as often as not.

I'm pretty sure that my infraction record makes me ineligible for a moderator position, but thanks for your support.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Interesting post. As i mentioned before, what kind of site do the admins want this to be? Do they want it to be a community where mostly like minded people come to vent about their like minded opinions?

In my experience, the staff has never expressed any interest in creating a "mostly like-minded" community. Their desire has been a civility biased community with the freedom to talk about almost any subject. The political bias of users is tied to their sophistication and education.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I'm disappointed that none of the moderators are contributing to this thread.

 

[Mouthwash]

In my experience, the staff has never expressed any interest in creating a "mostly like-minded" community. Their desire has been a civility biased community with the freedom to talk about almost any subject. The political bias of users is tied to their sophistication and education.

I suspect it's more that people from the other side of our culture war are too busy raising families and having healthy social relations to have much desire to moderate a virtual community based on a video game franchise. (And gee, that's not going to step on any toes... )

There's a reason being a geek is now seen as 'cool'. With the rise of the internet, the ones who invest more time into it can dominate the culture.

 

[Arakhor]

I am unlikely to ever be raising a family.

 

[Silurian]

I'm disappointed that none of the moderators are contributing to this thread.

Obviously false.

I am unlikely to ever be raising a family.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Obviously false.

Falsified?

 

[ryanmusante]

Obviously false.

Actually it's technically a true statement with the exception of 1 active moderator. But the active moderator posted after the original statement still keeping OP as true. The other posts were from an admin and a retired mod. It's important to pay attention to details especially with strategy games and if you're contributing code to active projects.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Actually it's technically a true statement with the exception of 1 active moderator. But the active moderator posted after the original statement still keeping OP as true. The other posts were from an admin and a retired mod. It's important to pay attention to details especially with strategy games and if you're contributing code to active projects.

I am the one word ninja!

But I acknowledge your post as more detailed and equally accurate.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I'm disappointed that none of the moderators are contributing to this thread.

Obviously false.

I'm disappointed that none of the moderators are contributing to the discussion about how thread meltdowns are handled and and what the staff positions on the matter are. These are opportunities ti build strong connections between staff and members so that there are fewer tense moments in the future.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm disappointed that none of the moderators are contributing to the discussion about how thread meltdowns are handled and and what the staff positions on the matter are. These are opportunities ti build strong connections between staff and members so that there are fewer tense moments in the future.

Rest assured that they are having an extensive discussion in their star chamber and will eventually pass down their ruling on a stone tablet for us to obey.

 

[Birdjaguar]

^^^^ Good to know.

 

[Gedemon]

I'm disappointed that none of the moderators are contributing to the discussion about how thread meltdowns are handled and and what the staff positions on the matter are. These are opportunities ti build strong connections between staff and members so that there are fewer tense moments in the future.

As a moderator that do not post (or even read) in OT, I don't think that you're interested in my personal opinion.

More seriously, I do think it's not a bad idea to have users feedback here and moderators opinions discussed separately, so that when an answer is given it's a collective staff answer, and you don't have individual moderator opinions in the middle of a thread that some users may quickly interpret wrongly as a collective staff decision (and then of course, you've not "build strong connections between staff and members", but created more chaos)

(plus, those stone tablets are heavy and it can take some time to move them around)

 

[Birdjaguar]

As a moderator that do not post (or even read) in OT, I don't think that you're interested in my personal opinion.

More seriously, I do think it's not a bad idea to have users feedback here and moderators opinions discussed separately, so that when an answer is given it's a collective staff answer, and you don't have individual moderator opinions in the middle of a thread that some users may quickly interpret wrongly as a collective staff decision (and then of course, you've not "build strong connections between staff and members", but created more chaos)

(plus, those stone tablets are heavy and it can take some time to move them around)

Of course your opinion is important unless you also avoid any participation in staff discussions. then you have just siloed yourself. I think that moderators are capable of expressing their own opinions about things in public even if they are not the same as official statements from Admins or Supermods. Such statement have certainly been made in the past. Presenting a fully unified front from the staff that pretends unanimity of opinions is silly. It is much better to recognize that the staff has a diverse set of opinions and that they have reached an agreement on how how an issue is to be codified into the guidelines. if there are discussions going on over time, it is likely that differing views are being expressed. why not acknowledge that, mention some of the discussion points and then pronounce an agreement.

"Hey guys, we're talking about this and and trying to balance what we think are the key issues; A, B, and C. we'll keep you updated as we make progress. blah blah blah..."