Bring back spookz.

leave that to me eh coffee??

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

so it's okay for Xev to insult you, but if spookz does it it's not cool eh?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I think coffee has BDSM fantasies about him and xev where she's the domanatrix and he's the gimp.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Xev never insults me, and when she does it's out of pure fun (She always tells me, "hey, I'm just joking"). Spookz however, if it was for fun, then I still took offense to it because he never anounced it as "having fun". I took his insults for real, especially the ones in this thread.

I got locked in the box for a week one time.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

coffee you miserable dipshit, go play on the freeway or something.


now was that fun or serious??

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Spookz however, if it was for fun, then I still took offense to it because he never anounced it as "having fun". I took his insults for real, especially the ones in this thread.

....sounds like someones having a crisis of conscience............

 

Xev RARELY announces she is joking and has frequently insulted what seems like everyone on this board. I have seen her directly insult you a number of times with no announcement that she is kidding. I noted that you graciously assumed she was kidding, yet you spare spookz the same grace eh? spookz has a valid case for sexual discrimination from the mods! oh no! hehe.

coffee, i like you, but please recognize you're playing favorites, that is fine as a dude, and I suppose fine as a mod, as there is no requirement for "fair" as far as I remember, but don't pretend you're being fair when you're not. optimally, i would think a mod wouldn't play favorites.

 

Wes, just because she doesn't announce it on this forum, doesn't mean that she doesn't announce it via some other medium. And I ain't playin favorites. I took Xev's side because the evidence was against spookz, the same spookz who started to insult me. I believe the words "Inbred" and "retard", come to mind.

Wraith, the smiley would imply that it was fun. Spookz never uses smilies, at least not in this thread.

 

No, other mods have respect and integrity for members and do not incite members into outbursts of less than mature content.

 

Then, please enlighten the members of this forum, and tell us exactly why you, not the moderators, you in particular, are, as you state "doing this". Why spend your time, effort, and money on a venture that obviously costs more to maintain than you take in via subscriptions and donations?

The job of a moderator is to deal with the spam, crackpots, and other miscellaneous garbage that invariably inhabits every forum on the net. Simply put, moderators are the custodial workers of Sciforums, a necessary element that keeps this forum enjoyable for the many at the expense of the few. However, attempting to rationalize Xev's behavior by saying that "[she was] tired of putting up with people's crap" is nothing more than a flimsy justification for unacceptable behavior.

If a moderator is tired of "putting up with people's crap" then they should resign their post, and let someone who is more qualified take their position. Trying to justify this type of behavior is something I thought that you, of all people, would not attempt. Apparently I misjudged you.

I'd be willing to bet that it was. Almost no one goes into such a venture without thinking about what can go wrong.

As I have stated before (in another thread), if one seeks contributions, then they should look elsewhere. http://arxiv.org is a good place to start. Sciforums is not.

Frankly, even when a question is answered in the Physics and Math forum, it is not a contribution to future knowledge, simply one person helping another by sharing information, that, to put it in the vernacular, is "old hat".

No one says people do not, but this forum is simply not the place for it. Frankly, there are only a few people here (Less than 20, by my estimate.) who are willing to share their Collegiate and Post-Collegiate level knowledge at all. This is not to insinuate that others do not posses such knowledge, simply that they have no interest in sharing it.

Furthermore, one can not reasonably expect contributions to "future knowledge" when most here are still learning current knowledge. The only reasonable expectation from the members of this, or any other "general" forum is reciprocity. To expect otherwise is simply wishful thinking.

Or engage in such outbursts themselves.

 

Insanity, stupidity, or both. I probably cared about something once, but I forgot to write it down.

 

dapthar:

that's mister wraith to you sir!!!

 

I was not referring to you, Mr. Wraith. (I know it was a joke. I have a sense of humor. Really.)

 

I'm just curious if it occurred to you what would happen to Sciforums if the moderators actually enforced the rules users agreed to when signing up for a user ID?

Just think about the list of who would not be here anymore.

That's why there's the revised Site Rules. And even these generously-crafted concessions to the general insistence by our most prolific posters to disregard the actual Terms of Agreement they agreed to are ineffective insofar as people still complain when moderators moderate.

Given what people get away with as posters--myself included prominently at the front of that line--I was seriously disappointed at last year's spat of temper tantrums about Goofyfish. Furthermore, the recent complaints about Xev's behavior are old hash. She has long-established the right to carry on as a poster with the same liberties anyone else enjoys around here, and while she has in the past set the standards for low posting, there are a few here rushing to vie for the crown. Rex Nemorensis it ain't, but it seems some people actually enjoy the effort of setting low standards.

This is not a democracy; that much is clear. But nobody can sit there with a straight face and try to say that I haven't behaved over the years as if it was at least a democracy. Rules? Hell, they demonstrably take a back seat when my feathers are ruffled. How have I pulled this off? A few points to consider:

• Take a look at posters like 15ofthe19 and Stokes Pennwalt; both of these guys have offended me severely in the past, and to judge by the latter, I've done something to offend him. But in between our terrible arguments we get along reasonably enough. Compare this to Spookz, whose posts I enjoyed more than most around here if I had to guess. In the end, he was too consistently ... in contravention of Porfiry's interests. Or Nico; I've said elsewhere that his actual error was to not reset his scorn meter often enough.

• When I have an issue with the administration or moderation, I stopped to think about how to address it. I didn't call a moderator foul names or accuse her of unfairness when she censored words out of my posts. I asked two questions: "Why now?" (because someone had complained directly, and since it was in violation of the TOA, the moderator was obliged to act) and "Why is 'fuck' profane?" (never got what I consider a real answer, but a few obvious suggestions.)

• I don't actually live for the combat. Sometimes it's nice to have an abstract emotional rush, but if the members around here want to put forth some respectable effort, I'd be delighted. I mean, look at what happened when someone criticized Dennis Miller? Suddenly one of the most acerbic comedians in the business has a bunch of thin-skinned folks flock to his defense. It was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen: no, don't question of the nation's foremost comedic spitewad; it's just not nice. Cracks and shards, Dapthar, if people had just stopped and thought for two seconds before shooting off, a really ugly episode could have been avoided. But no, people prefer the combat, it seems. I don't live for the combat. I'm actually amazed at some of the things I've upset people with before. So I just don't worry about their feelings a whole lot once we get to the nasty part.

And to me one does not have to be a genius to figure out these three simple points:

(1) Reset the scorn meter regularly--don't carry the grudges any deeper than absolutely necessary.
(2) Don't bash the moderators. Can the faux-dignity. Just ask. And state reasonably what the issue is. Complaining about fascism or such, as many people do, is useless--I don't think the TOA leaves any room for doubt, but since it does, we might look to the aforementioned revised Site Rules. Don't complain about fascism; it's agreed to by the user and well-established in the standing rules. Complaining about fascism is like listening to someone leaping up and down in a puddle complaining about getting wet.
(3) Don't make the shite aspect of Sciforums relations be the whole of what you do. One of the things that seems to have hurt Spookz in the end was a perceived lack of separation between the intellectual, the passionate, and the caustic. One could never see the intellect without getting splattered by the acid. One could never look directly at the passions without having their eyes burned out. I'm not in a good position to defend Spookz, at this point, though, because one of the things I love about the guy is the method of his flaunting the site rules. In the end, he may have just gotten too ambitious.

But think about the fact that lots of people think I'm either crazy or stupid.

Well enough. Because I can figure out how to generally avoid the bad side of this site's administration and moderators.

So if I'm crazy or stupid ... what does that say about others?

That's tantamount to accommodating terrorism.

There arises a question of what crap a moderator should have to take. I have an easy forum to deal with, and people generally work and play nicely when I specifically ask them to. I get along very well if I don't have to insert myself into people's affairs.

But reading people's complaints over time--especially the growing murmur over the last year--frankly, our moderators shouldn't have to put up with that kind of crap. Large numbers of people get banned from other boards for lesser offenses against site rules than we let go by every day.

Think about the "who cares" factor that can get annoying after a while as you read through people's posts. Who cares? Heard it all before. Cheap rhetoric. Ad nauseam. When that factor leaps out of a tantrum against some moderation that is sanctioned by the site rules, it really will work against a poster.

Create a declaration of your expectations. Organize the concept into a functional idea. Present it in the S/FOG forum. All of this guerilla complaining that is the advent of the S/FOG endeavor is useless. But I'm very curious what people expect of this website, its administration, and the designated moderation. I haven't given Dave a cent over the years; I expect nothing that isn't promised, advertised, or declared to be, and get considerably more in return. So yes, I am actually curious what other members--paid or not--expect of this site.

What? I'm an agent of an essential martial law. I agreed to do this. If Porfiry was acting in contravention of what he advertised or promised, I would find a way to question it, or else not have thrown my name into the ring to be a moderator in the first place. The abstract issues of this discussion do not exist in a vacuum; reality intrudes.

Two pieces of advice:

- Don't judge me. I don't say this out of any sense of indignant rage; rather, I recognize your right in the Universe to draw whatever conclusions you will. But, from one human being to another--it's not that "you don't know me," Dapthar, but that at some point your criteria for judgment hit a wall, and obviously the dimensions of that sphere of vision are inadequate. Remember that there is no objective center to morality or propriety; reality is merely a human convention--having named the condition, we have no greater influence over it than we did before.

- In consideration of the point above, set broader criteria for examination with less of a stake at the end of the line.

Always hope for the worst ... so, is that something you believe about people in general, or does it just suit the argument to imagine Porfiry like that?

Every time I get in a car, Dapthar, there is a chance that something could happen that kills me. Every time I get in the godforsaken shower, there's a chance that something could happen that kills me.

Now ... should I hope for death every time I take a shower or get in a car?

Just because Porfiry was most likely aware that the web is littered with refuse and rabble from the outset--he did have to deal with both the norm and extreme of the ufology crowd before this (I remember Aufora)--doesn't mean that's what he was aiming for.

I can't imagine him hoping to die every time he takes a shower.

Only because the people who make it so choose that it should be so. That includes you, me, and everybody else who posts here. I could duck liars, cheats, swindlers, Christians, and Republicans entirely, but I'm not about to leave the field to the haters and egomaniacal mental masturbators.

In fact, some people I could left the field in order to accommodate:

• Tony1 - Catholic-hating firebrand evangelical with no actual point of his own
• KalvinB - Who could not answer a question honestly to save his life, and who, by the time the ugliness was over, had a one-word vocabulary
• Lawdog - Who advocated that The Church (e.g. Catholic) should exterminate all opposition
• Adam - An architect of a Sciforums combat technique that only costs you your personal integrity to execute
• Xev - To whom compassion is cruelty
• Gendanken - What need I say here?
• Wesmorris - I generally like the guy, but when we don't get along, the whole site seems to shake and rumble a bit

This is a short list of people I've buried at various points in Sciforums history under what I considered a well-deserved avalanche of khaavrenite fury.

My fights with them have attracted all sorts of bad attention over time.

I could have quit the field, left Sciforums to never return.

And once again the field would be given--at least for my part--to dishonesty.

It's astounding; some people found T1 to be witty, even when he was in full retreat. Some people considered KB a useful voice for Christianity. Adam won support and established an argumentative method at Sciforums that has been a favored method since; the method is tantamount to reckless provocateurism. Xev, quite obviously, has support in this community; Gendanken quite obviously has support in this community; Wesmorris is a generally-respected poster. We cannot by any means leave out my years of walloping people.

People choose the atmosphere you describe.

If Goofyfish, for instance, were to crack down and enforce the site rules and TOA as much to the letter as possible, WE&P would grind to a halt. The simple fact that one person is almost entirely incapable of stemming the flow of vitriol and useless crap in that forum is a strong indicator of what people choose. While I have a generally easy forum to moderate, a strict application means I would have to take action against a poster's insistent use of the word "gay". And when it comes down to that, I prefer to let him have his bigoted expression and let that idiocy stand to represent him.

Frankly, when it comes to moderators putting up with crap, how nitpickety would you like us to be? You think you misjudged me? Wait until I go forth with orders for strict enforcement of the rules. Compared to the situation you lament today, the alternative is outright tyranny.

I find the current brouhaha about moderation to be overblown. If we actually stuck to the rules entirely, very few people who post here would bother.

In the meantime, if people think the TOA and Site Rules need re-examination, they ought to start a topic.

But as it is, if the moderators decide to delete every post that doesn't begin and end with praises to Porfiry's sex appeal and intellect, we have the authority to do so.

I'm unsure what to say about future knowledge, though; you're even more pessimistic than I am.

 

tiassa, I love you and all, but godamn!!!
It's 2 in the morn, I'm on my 3rd glass of JD, and that post still seems as long as it was after the 1st!!.

Do you have titanium fingers or what??

OK...another glass before I wade in again......

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

No, not titanium. Although I do clip the dead calluses off my fingertips daily.

 

Man, I get two answers on opposite ends of the spectrum for my question (do mods get criticised in the same way as Xev), anyone care to add their opinion?

tiassa, that all seems at a tangent though. The issue doesn't seem to be 'could it be worse', rather that spookz shouldn't be banned for doing what Xev does too.

 

As I've said before, I like Spookz. However, in light of Porfiry's position--

--I'm hard-pressed to argue directly.

Mercy for Spookz? Sure. Except, as Counsler Coffee points out in this topic:

Again, I like Spookz. I thought he was useful in his own way, but I'm also aware that this is an obscure appreciation on my part. Mercy? Yeah, but I'm running into the wall Counsler presents.

If Spookz wishes to discuss it with Porfiry and somehow compel our leader to invite his return, well ... I suppose that's out of your hands or mine.

 

LOL @ Tiassa.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

I think he wins by philibuster. If he shortens his version of argument by 75% I would consider reading it.

 

wouldn't a temporary banning be sufficient to get the message across? i think so. i vote to lift the ban after a time.