Bananas and Nuts

Kalle · 2010-11-01T22:18:41.000Z

Tortilla:

Since you seem to be basing your evaluation of the argument based purely on the postcount of the person advancing it, would it change your views to know that I completely agree with Martin?

Postcount? No. I base my evaluation of Martin on the fact that he’s been around for a month as far as I can tell. Until he proves otherwise I can only assume he has no idea of the history of this forum or how trolls have been treated over the years. If he can show he’s not completely ignorant of what I’m talking about then I won’t dismiss his opinion out of hand.

You, I can have an argument with because when I say that I think the verbal eviscerations of years past made this place special you actually know what I mean. You’re free to disagree with me and tell me this place used to be horrible and it’s all light and progress ever since but we atleast share enough common ground to have a debate over it.

Pogo · 2010-11-01T22:18:54.000Z

I’m just curious how much unnecessarily and repeatedly snarky posting adds to someone’s body of work.

mrmolecule88 · 2010-11-01T22:20:52.000Z

With great posting comes great requoteability.

PapaSmurf · 2010-11-01T22:25:25.000Z

Kalle:

Postcount? No. I base my evaluation of Martin on the fact that he’s been around for a month as far as I can tell. Until he proves otherwise I can only assume he has no idea of the history of this forum or how trolls have been treated over the years. If he can show he’s not completely ignorant of what I’m talking about then I won’t dismiss his opinion out of hand.

You, I can have an argument with because when I say that I think the verbal eviscerations of years past made this place special you actually know what I mean. You’re free to disagree with me and tell me this place used to be horrible and it’s all light and progress ever since but we atleast share enough common ground to have a debate over it.

I’ve lurked here off and on for a long time.

I remember Derek Smart being trolled constantly, and he got away with reacting for ages, but IIRC, several people got bans for egging him on.

Cleve is another notable example of someone who got away with murder according to the moralist brigade here, and wasn’t banned for a year? Two? Kept coming back too. I don’t think anyone got banned for egging him on, but it’s not as if poor contributors have been a rarity in this forum’s history.

Hell, Bill D butted heads several times with Caltrops posters, and bans have come down on him and the invaders.

To me, as a long time observer, it’s the same old QT3, just magnified. Like Captain Planet.

[edit]
To me, Tom’s policy seems to be laissez-faire. You can post what you want. Racist? Go for it. Homophobic? Fine, you want to look intolerant, by all means, bury yourself.

Where Tom seems to get pissed off is with people constantly calling these guys out, egging them on in multiple threads; and there are posters here who just won’t stop going after someone. Dissenting and controversial opinions are met with intolerance by these folk and they can’t let it go. Whether they’re being trolled or they just can’t agree to disagree, I don’t know, but in terms of signal to noise, they’re the offenders. A half dozen people dogpiling on someone for a controversial political or personal opinion is really not conducive to good discussion.

I make no excuses for Octonoo though.
[/edit]

MattKeil · 2010-11-01T22:36:00.000Z

Andrew:

Ever since I’ve started reading here, there have always been a few posters here and there who pretty much do nothing except troll. Granted, they were generally subtler…

And also – and this is important – generally entertaining. Octonoo is not Cleve or Koontz or Derek Smart. He is as run of the mill shitposter as they come.

jeffd · 2010-11-01T23:03:08.000Z

Damn. When you see four new pages in this thread, you know shit just got real.*

OK, I’m about to read these four pages. Here we go!

possibly real stupid.**

edit:
**definitely

kerzain · 2010-11-01T23:16:03.000Z

jeffd:

Damn. When you see four new pages in this thread, you know shit just got real.*

OK, I’m about to read these four pages. Here we go!

possibly real stupid.**

jeffd · 2010-11-01T23:29:03.000Z

I feel like I just won a contest!

kerzain · 2010-11-01T23:34:39.000Z

I wasn’t implying I was ignoring you, I was suggesting that the ignore feature might help you traverse the last four pages of dreck.

TimElhajj · 2010-11-01T23:41:42.000Z

Demon G Sides:

The only obvious solution is to cull them, but unfortunately visionaries like Bill_D are left unlistened to, while fuckwits like NewTimElhajj are allowed to call racists and child beaters pillars of our community.

I never said any nonsense like this, but I am saying I believe the moderation on QT3 is ONE OF THE BEST THINGS about it. You can disagree, but I’m not going to let you paint me with your nonsense brush.

TimElhajj · 2010-11-01T23:54:44.000Z

MattKeil:

Then you’re out of your fucking mind. The Qt3 of years past would not tolerate worthless bullshit posters like Octonoo and spatzi for more than a couple of posts. Now they’ve got some kind of diplomatic immunity or some shit. People are not upset because they’ve grown dissatisfied with Qt3 over the years, they’re upset because Qt3 has become something other than the community they’ve enjoyed and would like to preserve what they can of it. Perhaps that is a lost cause, perhaps not. Regardless, the fact that you seem oblivious to this process says volumes.

And a dozen motherfuckers egging one dude on is stupid, asinine behavior. That’s just bullying. You can justify it by finding some disgusting label to hang on a dude, so people feel better about ganging up on his ass, but I think that’s just bullshit. Ganging up on a dude on an Internet forum doesn’t help the abused children or move forward any sort of social agenda. It’s just an excuse for a group of people to let it all hang out and behave poorly.

I am pleased Tom put a stop to it by banning motherfuckers and telling people to cool out. That’s why I say that the moderation on these boards is excellent. And I mean it.

Kalle · 2010-11-01T23:58:11.000Z

TimElhajj:

That’s just bullying.

Yes, lets all live in happy tolerance with everyone. We’re all equally worthy of love and consideration.

Fuck that. If you act like an idiot then getting called on it isn’t some kind of offense to mankind. Ganging up on a dude who admits to having a restraining order against him for beating children is what happens when people take offense at him seeking advice on how he should get back to them. We don’t pick on him because he’s got glasses, or because he walks funny, or because he comes from some crazy foreign country. We pick on him because we’re genuinely outraged at the idea.

TimElhajj · 2010-11-02T00:02:25.000Z

Kalle:

Fuck that. If you act like an idiot then getting called on it isn’t some kind of offense to mankind.

Clearly. This is why I’m calling you out on your poor behavior. This is why motherfuckers get banned. I’m glad you seem to grasp this basic fact.

jeffd · 2010-11-02T00:07:38.000Z

kerzain:

I wasn’t implying I was ignoring you, I was suggesting that the ignore feature might help you traverse the last four pages of dreck.

Oh, man!

Kalle · 2010-11-02T00:09:42.000Z

TimElhajj:

Clearly. This is why I’m calling you out on your poor behavior. This is why motherfuckers get banned. I’m glad you seem to grasp this basic fact.

Poor? But I haven’t even called you names yet. Atleast give me a chance to do better before you REPORT me.

Jarmo · 2010-11-02T00:57:29.000Z

mmalloy:

He [Tom] doesn’t want to be complained to, which was the point of his not reading this thread.

"Tom @ the forum rules:

However, based on the futility of trying to participate in these discussions in the past, I won’t be reading or posting in the thread.
…
If you need more information or have suggestions about how the forum should be run that you need me to see, email or PM me.

He actually invites direct complaints and does not refuse them. It is not hard to see some of the reason for his frustration with discussing the forum moderation publicly when even very direct statements from him soon get represented very differently in the discussion.

mmalloy:

And probably why people haven’t been banned for mentioning people have been banned.

Isn’t the reason for that hugely simpler than that? Like, this being the thread we are expressly told to use for that purpose? People have already been referring to it as the demilitarised zone for a while now and this is still unclear? More grounds for frustration.

Tom @ the forum rules:

If you want to discuss bans, here is the thread to do it.

Boring disclaimer: I apologise if what I say above comes off as dickish or petty or any other bad things. I only wish to directly engage the quoted misunderstandings. My comments are not meant as a personal attack of any kind. If they still appear to be such it is entirely due to my lack of skill at communicating in a foreign language. I like and respect you, Mmalloy, as a poster and a valued member of the community. The same goes for all of you guys genuinely engaging the issues and trying to make the forum a better place.

Pjerrot · 2010-11-02T01:47:21.000Z

Firstly I’ve got to confess to the horrible fact, that I agree with Tim.
Tom knows there are a flock of wolves ready to attack anyone straying away from the flock. He handled the Murky situation brilliantly.

Secondly I’m sad that this thread has been dedicated to being a wolfpen. Not only because it doesn’t keep the wolfs from other threads (well, maybe some of the time) - but because it used to be Albert Woo’s place.

Lynch · 2010-11-02T02:30:47.000Z

Also manners, people. Fucking manners.

Dan_Lawrence · 2010-11-02T03:00:47.000Z

I think the general change that’s made the most difference recently isn’t Tom’s personal moderating style put the removal of the cooling off period on new accounts. There has definitely been a rise in single issue posters (recalling the Civ 5 thread invasion to harass Jon Shafer) and a rise in bored people who just want to annoy other people rather than joining in a discussion in good faith. I think in the past most of these types wouldn’t have bothered to stick around through the waiting period or it’s very existence would have put them off from trying in the first place.

I still like 90% of the existing posters here though so I’m now thinking I should get my hands on some of the scripts to salvage the browsing experience. I’ve heard some people mention in the past that they can greatly improve the vBulletin experience and maybe if more people use them there will be less people quoting the idiots. I dug up this one:

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/26567

That completely removes posts from posters on your ignore list and seems to work as is on Chrome, I’m no script exert though mind. I know Scrax has one that purges threads completely that might be useful as well.

Raife · 2010-11-02T03:36:35.000Z

TimElhajj:

Do you have a good sense for the numbers? I thought it was a few when I waded into this conversation, but now I am feeling besieged by the masses!

Fucking even Raife is (apparently) on your side.

I’m not on anybody’s side,Tim, you’re just wrong.