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[Shiori]

To be fair Havohej, I agree entirely with the premise of this board and that we neither need a space for poo-flinging nor for shittalking. However, seeing as this topic references what I got moderated for, I feel quite turned off by being referred to as 'Shitposter' and other assorted niceties simply for using these four letters along constructive suggestions. No worries, I'll use more and fancier words for the same information next time.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but pretty sure that the moderation team is capable of telling the difference between someone who occasionally lets slip out some less polite ways of expression, and someone who is deliberately flipping off the rules to piss people off. I don't think you've got filed away as an irredeemable shitposter yet. ^.^

[Desiderya]

I'm pretty confident. But then tell me, where was in this case the difference between that one misstep and people who do ye olde YDIW and HTFU-flaming routine all the time? Because I don't see that influx of 'shitposting' that has happened lately and had to be stomped on by mods that would warrant these words. 

[Silver Night]

Couple of things.

First:

The idea that all words that convey the same information are entirely equivalent doesn't fly here. Read the FAQ, in particular:

Q: Doesn't being polite to people I disagree with make me a hypocrite?
A: No. It makes you a grown-up.

Q: What about free and frank debate?
A: Strange as it may seem, given some of the forums on the internet, but it is possible to have an honest exchange of views without being rude, hostile, offensive, aggressive or bullying. That kind of behaviour destroys communities, virtual and otherwise, and Will Not Be Tolerated.

Q: So I can't disagree with anyone's RP?
A: Sure you can disagree. Just do it politely, I'll even venture to say nicely, and remember that they have as much right to their opinion as you have to yours. For example: Player A writes: "I see the Intaki as space hippies." Player B answers: "Of course they aren't space hippies, there are no hippies in Eve." That would be the WRONG way to answer. The RIGHT way would be something like "Really? I see the Intaki as more techno-buddhists. That's how I play my character, but hey, it's a big Cluster, right?"

There are some other relevant bits there. If you can't post what you want to say in a polite, guideline-friendly way, then you might need to reconsider posting. 'Telling it how it is' or 'but I'm totally right' or 'I'm just speaking bluntly' are not good excuses for breaching the rules and guidelines. You don't have to use more, or fancier words. We have modded people who used more, fancier words to break the guidelines too. You just have to use words that are polite, and don't look like trolling or flamebait.

Second:

The difference between a single misstep and people who do it all the time is that people who do it all the time enjoy consequences which you don't see, in the form of warnings and bans. A single misstep will generally be moderated. Being moderated doesn't mean - by itself - that the mods consider you a shitposter. It just means you have a post that broke the rules. Unless it is particularly egregious, or in a thread that has already been modded for the same reason, or something like that (like if an admin announces that you should stop using HTFU in many contexts, which was already a rule, and you decide to do it in a blatant way), you probably won't be warned or banned or otherwise penalized beyond being moderated. If you then continue to break the rules - particularly the same rule - you will get warnings, bans, and generally speaking you will creep onto our list of shitposters. We don't announce warnings, we don't announce bans, but they do happen. We also keep track of posters who seem to wander close to or over the line frequently, and it's fairly easy to spot the shitposters because they have pages of history in the section of the forum where we track these things.

[BloodBird]

Silver, you mention that people that do things like constantly tell people to HTFU gets "modded, warnings and bans" - That's fair. That is direct action for repeated offenses, and you do get a sliding scale where you get educated on the fact that this is not acceptable, and eventually a more severe round of punishment. However in Havo's case he specifically states that if anyone posts a HTFU post they get their first strike from him, and if they ever do so again, the second offense won't be another mod action and possibly a warning or even a temp-ban, it will be an instant banned-for-life removal.

This stands in stark contrast to the rest of the moderation team that moderates, warns and temp-bans before possibly bringing out the account-wiping sledgehammer. Havo basically offers nothing in this regard for his personal pet-peeve, he notes the first offense (and likely warns you) then if you EVER do so again, perhaps like I said, years down the line in a short moment of forgetting this fact (and being nicer about it by politely using other words than a direct HTFU) then that person is out of Backstage forever.

Again, to me this seems like we now need to start worrying about specific things being punished far more severely and permanently by specific mods, when all other mods follow a standard in all other cases. I know HTFU is covered by the rules (and should not be done as such) but if anyone does, they would likely have to HOPE that you or Morwen or another mod "just" mods it away and offers a formal warning as opposed to letting Havo remove the offender for good.

Basically what I want is a standard of fairness here, not some things being treated worse by some mods.

[Silver Night]

Ah, okay, I think there is a misconception here. The mod team generally doesn't act by themselves. When you receive a warning or a ban - and in most cases even when it is just moderation - it has been discussed by at least 3-4 members of the mod team. Warnings and bans usually involve virtually the entire mod team. Whoever actually presses the button, if you get banned then it means that a ban was the consensus among the mods.

If receiving a warning for something that is clearly and explicitly against the rules after doing it once (and actually, in addition to HTFU, this would include things like name calling, using slurs, etc as well.) is insufficient to keep you from doing it again, then escalating directly to a permaban or other serious action against your account seems entirely fair to me. In fact, some of those things (egregious use of slurs, for example) would be sufficient for a perma on the first offense. Noone except you is typing and hitting post.

Now, just because a permaban is on the table doesn't mean that is 100% going to be the response. Built into Backstage is room for the mods to exercise a certain amount of judgement about a given situation, since every situation is different. That is also why any kind of warning or ban generally does involve discussion among the mods. I would generally say, though, that if you are modded for it then you should make a small effort to remember not to post it again.

[Desiderya]

Your house, your rules Silver. I don't disagree with modding in these cases at all, and prefer a forum that doesn't degrade into permanent flamewars, too. I simply don't think my posting qualified as "whatever [..] stupid shit some asswipe wants to spew out of their Internet-Anonymity protected mouths." and that is what I took offense of. For all that's true you can outlaw the term "Pony" in this forum.

[Silver Night]

I didn't see anyone saying that about your posting. I saw that in reference to shitposting, in the context of not allowing it to continue happening through multiple warnings and instances of moderation (as opposed to the announced low tolerance we have for it) when it is egregious so as to maintain the atmosphere of the board. As far as I know, your posting doesn't qualify as egregious shitposting.

Edit: Also, I'm curious about why you edited out the part of that statement that made it clear exactly what kind of behavior it referred to?

Edit2: Also, a quick scan of the catacombs did not show where you were moderated for the referenced behaviors - can you please link it?

[Havohej]

Basically what I want is a standard of fairness here, not some things being treated worse by some mods.

Is this so that you can keep to your stated philosophy of "I know I'm going to get modded/tempbanned for this, but I don't care" when posting and hopefully not have to worry about the actual permaban?

Whether you post an HTFU or not, you have to realize that your leash in particular is very, very short right now.  Frankly, I find your entire participation in this thread up to this point disingenuous.

Your house, your rules Silver. I don't disagree with modding in these cases at all, and prefer a forum that doesn't degrade into permanent flamewars, too. I simply don't think my posting qualified as "whatever [..] stupid shit some asswipe wants to spew out of their Internet-Anonymity protected mouths." and that is what I took offense of. For all that's true you can outlaw the term "Pony" in this forum.

It didn't, and you were not being referred to by that comment.

EDIT: For that matter, no specific poster was.

[Silver Night]

Basically what I want is a standard of fairness here, not some things being treated worse by some mods.

Is this so that you can keep to your stated philosophy of "I know I'm going to get modded/tempbanned for this, but I don't care" when posting and hopefully not have to worry about the actual permaban?

Whether you post an HTFU or not, you have to realize that your leash in particular is very, very short right now.  Frankly, I find your entire participation in this thread up to this point disingenuous.

Your house, your rules Silver. I don't disagree with modding in these cases at all, and prefer a forum that doesn't degrade into permanent flamewars, too. I simply don't think my posting qualified as "whatever [..] stupid shit some asswipe wants to spew out of their Internet-Anonymity protected mouths." and that is what I took offense of. For all that's true you can outlaw the term "Pony" in this forum.

It didn't, and you were not being referred to by that comment.

EDIT: For that matter, no specific poster was.

I'm pretty sure that any specific poster who did qualify would already have a permaban, really.

[Morwen Lagann]

If that was how you interpreted my comment about taking explosive shits all over the forum, Desi, that was not quite how it was intended, and it certainly was not directed at you.

[Desiderya]

I didn't see anyone saying that about your posting. I saw that in reference to shitposting, in the context of not allowing it to continue happening through multiple warnings and instances of moderation (as opposed to the announced low tolerance we have for it) when it is egregious so as to maintain the atmosphere of the board. As far as I know, your posting doesn't qualify as egregious shitposting.

Edit: Also, I'm curious about why you edited out the part of that statement that made it clear exactly what kind of behavior it referred to?

Edit2: Also, a quick scan of the catacombs did not show where you were moderated for the referenced behaviors - can you please link it?

I've snipped the word 'other' out because it wasn't relevant to the point, which is the vibe I am getting about treating the issue that spawned this thread as if this was indeed internet trolling and shitposting on the lowest of all levels. I can agree that you don't want this to escalate until that's the case there, but that was never the issue with the thread that got canned (not cata'd, my bad). Anyways, I didn't like the choice of words by Havohej there, but since it seems to be a rather subjective problem I'll just HTFU myself and let's keep it at that.

[Ché Biko]

If permaban is the consequence of the second HTFU, I don't think the consequence of the first HTFU should be a mere warning, but something more memorable. Old habits can die hard, after all, and a consequence that leaves an impression can help in preventing repeats.

[BloodBird]

Basically what I want is a standard of fairness here, not some things being treated worse by some mods.

Is this so that you can keep to your stated philosophy of "I know I'm going to get modded/tempbanned for this, but I don't care" when posting and hopefully not have to worry about the actual permaban?

Whether you post an HTFU or not, you have to realize that your leash in particular is very, very short right now.  Frankly, I find your entire participation in this thread up to this point disingenuous.

Havo, your opinion in tihs matter has been noted. However there are two topics here, only the first one is relevant to this tread.

1. I have made my case clear above. I do not feel it to be fair that any one mod get to assign more severe punishment for anything because that leads members to not only having to avoid doing X Y Z covered by forum rules, but also it leads to having to avoid doing them, while also watch out for A B and C because mods 1 2 and 3 specifically hate those things and will perma-ban you on the second offense if you ever dare do them. All it would take then would be one first-time offence for a first strike then after that, several years of potentially pristine forum behavior can be snuffed out due to one slip of the memory of what happens to you if you do that.

2. My recent week-long ban has nothing to do with this. I observed a tread regarding the Stonites and what people though of them and had a choice - I could voice my opinion on them that I knew was universally negative and would get me mod action regardless of how I phrased it. "The [insert group] have proven they only seek one thing, that one thing is [insert goal]" is assigning motives to other no matter how you look at it or phrase it and on Backstage that is frowned on. My options were to voice my opinion and take a slap for it, or remain quiet, letting the forum rules practically censor my viewpoint on the matter. People likely would have opted for option B, I opted for option A because the idea that the forum would deny me the right to speak my mind when input was offered did not sit well with me. Likely a dumb move because several months prior I received a warning due to my sharing of my universally negative views on the Goons and other things. Regardless, that whole episode is water under the bridge as far as I'm concerned.

Havo when you made your above post, to me that smelled like nothing but willful abuse of moderator power. At the time I forgot that all mods (or at least most) look over any reported posts and warnings/bans/moderation action is agreed upon by consensus among the mods on these boards, so you literally CAN'T perma-ban anyone on a second HTFU offense even if you wanted to - other mods have to agree. Ergo, it's not your sole decision to make, and my concerns in this matter are unwarranted.

My leash in particular is very, very short right now? So what does that mean, should I fear any mod-action for speaking my mind in this tread regarding this topic? Can I expect that I will be able to get involved in topics as normal so long as I don't break forum rules again or should I watch my tongue because I was recently banned? Don't threaten me without cause.

You find my participation in this thread up to this point disingenuous? Well that's to bad Havo, there is nothing I can do about that other than not posting, and I don't know of any forum rules that states one is not allowed to post after a ban is lifted. This topic and the above has nothing to do with each other, and now that my reason for getting involved in this tread is resolved there is no need for further input, other than direct responses, I guess.

[Silver Night]

The reason you were banned, since you bring it up, is that you have a pattern of going 'I'm going to get modded for this but I'll say it anyway'. Which indicates you not only are breaking the rules, but doing so on purpose and with full awareness that you are posting in a way you shouldn't. And actually Havo literally could ban someone for whatever. He consults with other moderators, however, because we do in fact follow some basic rules. In this case, there is general agreement that someone who decides to post something like HTFU a second time after being warned is pretty much in line for a ban. This is because the sentiment is directly inimical to the spirit of the forum.

You aren't being threatened without cause. You are being warned that the fact that you seem to think you can break the rules at will - that is, you have established a pattern of breaking them in ways that clearly show it is in no way accidental - means that you are well on your way to more serious action against your account.

In a situation in which your options are:

1) Don't post something that breaks the forum rules

2) Post something that you know breaks the forum rules because you totally feel like you're right, and anyway, *censorship*

You seem to consistently choose 2. What you don't seem to understand is, when you sign up for a private forum, with rules, you are signing up for those rules. So really: If you don't want to follow them, don't post. It's extremely simple.

I don't see Havo suggesting you don't post, I see him suggesting that you are posting disingenuously. I tend to agree, given that you seem to be expressing outrage over being modded for breaking the rules, after posting something along the lines of 'I'm going to break the rules.' That might also be why you have a short leash - because you have not only been modded many times, but several times for the same thing. Going back, I count 4 different threads where you indicated you knew you were breaking the rules and decided to make that clear and then post anyway.

Finally, suggesting that Havo is threatening you for speaking in this thread is, once again, choosing to assign negative motives to other players. Ironically, since Havo has been gone for several years, he has the least reason to have an opinion one way or another about you, because unlike the rest of the mods, he hasn't had to mod you.

[BloodBird]

The reason you were banned, since you bring it up, is that you have a pattern of going 'I'm going to get modded for this but I'll say it anyway'. Which indicates you not only are breaking the rules, but doing so on purpose and with full awareness that you are posting in a way you shouldn't.

Wrong. I have a pattern of going "I might get modded for this." If memory serves the last time was the only time I genuinely knew I would get modded. Again IIRC, we have been over this before, it is an old issue (that I personally have) and thus why I feel this problem might repeat in not to long. Regardless, This forum and myself don't seem to be perfectly compatible partially due to my lacking communication skills. It's clear even from your reply here.

And actually Havo literally could ban someone for whatever.

No he can't, because

He consults with other moderators, however, because we do in fact follow some basic rules. In this case, there is general agreement that someone who decides to post something like HTFU a second time after being warned is pretty much in line for a ban. This is because the sentiment is directly inimical to the spirit of the forum.

Havo, on his own, does not ban anyone just like so. By your own claim he can't out-right find a reported post that violates the rules and then just /ban the offender just like so - it has to go through the rest of you, and at the end if the agreement is "Ban him/her" then it hardly matters who pushes the actual button. This is the point I was making - Havo made it seem (back when I did not remember that mods need consensus to take action) that he alone could just ban anyone on sight for an offense, supposedly without input from the rest of you. This was proven wrong however and I acknowledged that.

You aren't being threatened without cause. You are being warned that the fact that you seem to think you can break the rules at will - that is, you have established a pattern of breaking them in ways that clearly show it is in no way accidental - means that you are well on your way to more serious action against your account.

Fair enough. When Havo stated that "my leash was short" all I got from was effectively "you have been banned before be mindful of what you say." A take-away from that is that posting on these boards can be hazardous to me from now on. Ofc in a way he's right, because if I keep breaking the rules I will get removed at some point, but the impression I got was that I should mind my involvement IN THIS PARTICULAR TREAD. Most likely he was talking in a general forum-wide sense though.

In a situation in which your options are:

1) Don't post something that breaks the forum rules

2) Post something that you know breaks the forum rules because you totally feel like you're right, and anyway, *censorship*

You seem to consistently choose 2. What you don't seem to understand is, when you sign up for a private forum, with rules, you are signing up for those rules. So really: If you don't want to follow them, don't post. It's extremely simple.

Again, only the post I made about the Stonites was a fully knowable offense. The reasons for that are irrelevant, but the 'tendency' you mention is not to out-right violate the rules on purpose, the reason I have been mentioning that I might get modded for posts made is because I have made posts that, I knew were likely borderline, but I did not know all the different ways it could be interpreted by others, so I felt it was fair to effectively state that "I make this post trying to stick with the rules but I agree it might be borderline." [thus it might be modded] Beyond the Stonite post I have never intended to intentionally break the rules, the previously modded post was the only exception to this.

I don't see Havo suggesting you don't post, I see him suggesting that you are posting disingenuously. (1) I tend to agree, given that you seem to be expressing outrage over being modded (2) for breaking the rules, after posting something along the lines of 'I'm going to break the rules.' That might also be why you have a short leash - because you have not only been modded many times, but several times for the same thing. Going back, I count 4 different threads where you indicated you knew you were breaking the rules and decided to make that clear and then post anyway.

1. I read his statement as "You are posting disingenuously in this tread" not "this forum" - my offence was from the belief that he claimed that because I had been banned before, my involvement in this tread (where I responded to a completely separate topic with no self-serving motives) is dishonest and not in good faith.

2. I have never intended to express outrage over being modded because I have never raged over being modded. I know perfectly why I have been modded. I can read, and I can work out the legitimate reasons why I was modded in any and all cases on these boards. I have never been angry with being modded, I have however in the past brought up arguments with situations I feel are unfair, we had a long argument over the case with Morwen some time back and this tread I got involved with because I got the impression Havo wanted to utilize his modding powers to out-right perma-ban people for what was effectively his own pet-peeve. That was proven incorrect however so again, case closed as far as I am concerned.

As for the rest of your statement here I've replied to the impressions about my habits above.

So...

You got the impression I was raging over moderation. That is simply wrong so I messed that one up.
You got the impression that I intentionally broke the rules while even stating that I knew I was and did so anyway. That too is quite simply not what I intended so I messed that up as well.

Again, I have never meant to either deliberately break the rules (barring one recent example that I will freely admit to) and I have never bitched about being modded when I have, because as far as I have been able to see all mod actions so far have been fair, even if we have had arguments about this in the past.