Stifled Voices, Disillusioned Posters and the Death of a Community

[rocketeer]

Ok, Denny refuses to acknowledge that I did not attack him on AIM, so you guys can be the judge, here you go:

what was the point in saving that conversation?

[Denny Crane]

I found it funny that you were pasting my chat into a chat with him. No, I found it to be exactly what I expected.

[tim]

I found it funny that you were pasting my chat into a chat with him. No, I found it to be exactly what I expected.

No, you said I was picking a fight with you, now you're saying I pasted the whole chat to him. I pasted that part of it to him because I found it funny. Chill, it's not that big of a deal.

My main point was I did not in any way pick a fight with you, like you accused me of recently.

[BasX]

This thread has the best title, ever. credit to ly

[ly_yng]

To answer your other questions about the rules:

Show respect to the posters you may not in fact respect. It's pretty clear. This covers things like stalking another poster, personal insults and that sort of thing. The rules are intended to be clear that WE (S2, staff) desire to respect every poster who is honorable.

"Honorable" means to participate as a good "actor" among all the people who make up S2, intent being to be a member of the community vs. posting spam (shoes/meds/site URLs) or otherwise purposefully stirring up shit.

Alright, I'll give you that the argument about "respect" is really one of semantics, and MikeDC makes good points about why vague and incrementally enforced policies (held together by a strong core principle like respecting good-intentioned posters) are more effective than a more discrete set. I wouldn't call it "clear" per-say, but I don't think I'd argue anymore that the banned posters didn't know what they were getting into. It seems pretty clear to me that very few people around here gets banned without knowing why they got banned. On the other hand, Tim's comments about War Poet undermine that a bit.

Regardless (and irregardless) I do take some exception with the idea that "not stirring up shit" is a rule-mandated behavior. I mean, the inspiration for this thread was a frustration borne out of ignorance, and you'd be hard-pressed to say I'm not "stirring up shit" in asking for some answers. You may read some malice into Tim's posts that you don't see in mine, but content-wise I have a hard time seeing a difference. As far as I can tell the act of "stirring up shit" is only a problem if you're ashamed of your shit.

[ly_yng]

To answer your basic question... It seems to stem from S2 having mods from several other forums, each with their own rules. Some of those sites were like S2 is now - a few big forums. Others were highly administered by the staff - they'd move a post about LeBron out of the Nets forum into the Cavs' forum, merge consecutive short posts together, and even edit or delete one line posts.

Both schools of thought have their merit, but we've chosen to let the posters decide what and where they want to post.

There was a time when the nets' mods tried to appease those who want the posting spread out and tried to coax the nets posters to post all over the site. My inclination was to back the nets mods who should be closest to the community, though I was dubious about it being a good thing and made that known. It was a miserable failure of an experiment and now that we're not going to make that mistake again (that was over a year ago, and lasted about a week... FWIW), we get accused of not treating other forums like we did the Nets. Doing that to the Nets forum was the mistake and we'll freely admit it and we're quite sorry about it.

I have to admit, I'm a bit confused. You're telling me that the original seeds of controversy were sewn from the Nets mods enticing the board to go post on other parts of the site? Why was it such a spectacular failure? Why was there so much pushback to the idea that it was a failure? Why did this suddenly make the Nets board a "privileged forum"? I don't understand what the other boards were complaining about.

[ghoti]

I have to admit, I'm a bit confused. You're telling me that the original seeds of controversy were sewn from the Nets mods enticing the board to go post on other parts of the site? Why was it such a spectacular failure? Why was there so much pushback to the idea that it was a failure? Why did this suddenly make the Nets board a "privileged forum"? I don't understand what the other boards were complaining about.

For the record, I disagreed with GMJ and Pegs, and thought it would do both the site and the Nets forum good to post "OT" topics in the designated forum on S2.

Why should there be topics about the Knicks in the Nets forum when it is very easy to see all new posts and discuss the Knicks in the Knicks forum?

Same with the TV forum, the Politics forum, etc.

I think the same thing would do the Blazers forum a world of good. I met a lot of great new people this way.

I viewed S2 as a community where everyone could post together, not in the fractured little cliques that destroyed BBF.

I think I was right, and if had been discussed in a more productive way maybe the Nets mods and posters would have agreed.

As a matter of fact, if those guys had posted in the Nets forum and nowhere else, hardly anyone would even care that they were gone.

[DaRizzle]

I think the same thing would do the Blazers forum a world of good. I met a lot of great new people this way.

I viewed S2 as a community where everyone could post together, not in the fractured little cliques that destroyed BBF.

Thats a big part of the reason the POR posters moved here...because they WANTED to be in their little cliques. They started getting shit for using their OT forum to discuss all types of topics, 90% political. Then they started getting shit for it when they started getting in heated discussions with one another. Mods said no more political threads there, only in the PE forum. They didnt like that, which I understand because they know each other as well as you can without meeting (which a lot actually have). They for the most part dont care about some randoms opinion no matter how good/interesting it is, which is fine by me.

[lukewarmplay]

Where in your rules does it say that if a poster makes a deal that "if another poster gets banned, then he gets banned as well" is valid or enforceable?

No one's answered this question. Is it inordinately stupid?

[ly_yng]

No one's answered this question. Is it inordinately stupid?

I would also like an answer to this question.

[Denny Crane]

I have to admit, I'm a bit confused. You're telling me that the original seeds of controversy were sewn from the Nets mods enticing the board to go post on other parts of the site? Why was it such a spectacular failure? Why was there so much pushback to the idea that it was a failure? Why did this suddenly make the Nets board a "privileged forum"? I don't understand what the other boards were complaining about.

You can see from Ghoti's post that there is the school of thought that the staff should "encourage" the posters of a tight community to mix with everyone else. The idea is good, in theory, for all the reasons he gives.

On the other hand, our objective is to minimize (if we can't eliminate) the adversarial nature of staff/poster relations that is too common on message boards everywhere - see DaRizzle's post.

I wouldn't call the Nets board "suddenly a privileged forum" but rather that the posters there are happy doing the things they do in that forum, people are generally smart enough to find our other forums if they care to, and that it should be our role as staff to encourage the people to have fun and to make the other forums as inviting as they can be.

The upside to Ghoti's view is considerable, and I said it has merit. The downside is that it puts the staff in an adversarial position with the posters. The posters openly complained about their threads being closed and/or moved. If this kind of policy makes it not fun for the posters, then it's the miserable failure I see it as, and suggested it is (and suggested it would be at the time).

The downside of letting people post what they want, where they want, and the biggest complaint about the Nets forum was that when you view "New Posts," it was dominated by threads in the Nets forum. Not shocking since there have been so many threads and posts and posters there all along.

My view is that if we want people to mix more, then we need to come up with fun activities like the GM draft, to encourage people to congregate elsewhere. If the Nets threads are dominating the New Posts page, then the mods of the other forums need to post threads in the other forums to even it out. Or having a 2nd and 3rd big forum like Nets and Blazers and the New Posts become more of a mix. And all without trying to force posters to post somewhere else. Seems like the win.

As for the rules... They're deliberately vague. No matter how we'd write them, people intent on stirring up shit will say "but the rule against X doesn't preclude Y so I'm technically not breaking the rules!" If we add Y to the rules, then these people figure out a Z and play the same game. It's not the rules per se that matter, but the spirit of them that do. And you'd be amazed at how people figure out Z - using the tags on threads, or posting on peoples' member pages, or using rep (but it only says no tagging or member pages, nothing about rep so I'm not breaking the rules!).

You talk about "stirring up shit" being vague, too. Well, it speaks to intent. You are here as an honorable poster asking fair questions, and you're getting straight answers. You haven't come close to proving otherwise.

[Denny Crane]

No one's answered this question. Is it inordinately stupid?

Staff is held to a different/higher standard, as they should be. They should be the solution to problems and helpful to the non-staff posters, not contributing to destructive activities.

[MikeDC]

I would also like an answer to this question.

In addition to what Denny said, I'll just add that it wasn't a simple matter of "the deal". WarPoet's actions were bad on their own.

[M Two One]

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[Денг Гордон]

I don't understand saying that Tim isn't posting with an honorable intent just because he is a moderator at another board. If it serves my memory correctly, the makers of this site were concurrently serving as administrators or community moderators at other sites.

[BasX]

M Two One isn't an admin... when did this happen. I'm jw. Not to cause a stir.

[Hudge]

Can I just say this is the best thread I've been in like ever.
Ly-yng, I think a heated argument turns into a flame war when the points from either side turn into insults, rather than structured arguments.

[Ed O]

I don't understand saying that Tim isn't posting with an honorable intent just because he is a moderator at another board. If it serves my memory correctly, the makers of this site were concurrently serving as administrators or community moderators at other sites.

He is PMing with the people that were banned, and he starts a thread asking "what happened"?

He knows what happened. He's not in ignorance. That he was chatting with WP at the same time he chatted with Denny demonstrates that.

So... why would he start a thread asking a question he already knew the answer to?

Ed O.

[Ed O]

Where in your rules does it say that if a poster makes a deal that "if another poster gets banned, then he gets banned as well" is valid or enforceable?

Why would it not be enforceable? How can there be a rule for each and every possible agreement that Admins make with staff?

Another way of looking at it: both sides that made the agreement presumably thought it was enforceable, right? If so, then how can anyone else complain when it is enforced? And if one side did not think it was enforceable (presumably the side with his ass on the line) then they were not acting in good faith, violating a basic tenet of the site and deserving being banned.

Ed O.

[¹²³]

It's interesting since I was looking at the top posters from this site and noticed this:

Shapecity (36,095) - Active member
Black Mamba (18,736) - Active Member
BrewCityBuck (17,498) - Last activity in 11-15-2007
CB4allstar (13,580) - Last activity in 10-17-2007
GMJ (12,140) - Banned
huevonkiller (12,125) - Active Member
pegs (12,124) - Las activity in 10-01-2008
AdropOFvenom (11,591) - Last activity in 08-03-2007

Posters really come and go, sometimes without any "real" reason.

[JE]

BCB and CB4 are BBW members.

[ly_yng]

He knows what happened. He's not in ignorance.

So... why would he start a thread asking a question he already knew the answer to?

Honestly, I think he started that thread for the same reason I started this one - there appeared to be no public accounting about some actions that had upset and frustrated a majority of the core Nets community here (despite the insistance of the site higher-ups that "the subject has been publicly discussed").

In fact, I started this thread in REACTION to Tim's thread being closed. Even if you believe his actions were in bad faith, they inspired me to do basically the same thing, and I think the result has been good for the site.

[ly_yng]

Why would it not be enforceable? How can there be a rule for each and every possible agreement that Admins make with staff?

Another way of looking at it: both sides that made the agreement presumably thought it was enforceable, right? If so, then how can anyone else complain when it is enforced? And if one side did not think it was enforceable (presumably the side with his ass on the line) then they were not acting in good faith, violating a basic tenet of the site and deserving being banned.

I think you're kind of giving the game away here, Ed. The issue isn't so much that a suicide-pact agreement isn't enforceable - it's that a lot of us feel that it shouldn't have happened in the first place. I'll explain my thinking:

As I understand it, War Poet lobbied for KC to be reinstated - he vouched for him. This (through who's suggestion, I don't know) led to a sort of suicide-pact between the two: if KC needed to be banned again, then War Poet would be banned as well.

This, to me, being perfectly frank, seems like a terrible idea, and one reeking of a lack of accountability or leadership from the top. We are all human beings, with free will, and an ability to make our own decisions. The idea that one of us could be held responsible for another's actions is a a really scary, irresponsible thought. If KC deserved to be banned, that's one thing. If he deserved to be unbanned, that's another. In the end, for something this controversial, it should have been Denny's (or whoever else gets to make decisions like that) decision, and his responsibility.

An idea like the War Poet suicide pact is just a total pawning off of that responsibility. It's like the admins said "Well, if KC goes off reservation, it wasn't OUR decision to let him back in." That's bullshit. Of COURSE it was your decision, and leaving someone like War Poet on the hook for that is TOTALLY unfair.

Either a controversial poster is adding to the board, or subtracting from it - and whether a mod is advocating for one side of the argument or the other should have no bearing on that mod's ability to contribute to the board.

To cut you off at the pass, I understand that War Poet did some other stuff that the modding staff considered bannable. Point taken. But this isn't really about the enforcement of the suicide-pact, it's that it existed in the first place.

[¹²³]

BCB and CB4 are BBW members.

What is BBW?

[DaRizzle]

What is BBW?

Oh I think you exactly what that is "King of Pictures"123