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[Lyn Farel]

I know, that is only in my own little experience.

[BloodBird]

Decided to dump this in this tread instead of making a new one as my point here will involve the events chronicled in this tread anyhow.

So, regarding Isis' tread that was finally locked:

Hi. I'm on vacation in Yellowstone this week, and am at my computer maybe 2 hours out of the entire day (literally, 15 minutes after breakfast before going out and getting on the snowmobiles, and an hour and a half before/after dinner or before bed). I was hoping not to have to step in and deal with this kind of utter bullshit while I was out, but I guess I forgot that Silver has a job and tends not to get opportunities to check the forum during the day.

I hope you enjoy your vacation. When you are done, you can deal with this - if you bother, simply an opinion and a statement.

The thread would've been locked ages ago otherwise, and as it stands I'm going to be strongly suggesting that a number of people who contributed to the problem instead of reporting posts/the thread and not posting be given formal warnings and/or short-term bans in the cases of people who have already had their warnings for this crap.

Personally, I would not mind a consequence for my actions under normal situations. But if it's coming from you, it feels very unfair. YOU will strongly suggest that a number of people get formal warnings or temp-bans for choosing entertainment at the cost of a fellow member instead of sticking to forum regulations? Again, if that was from practically any other mod, that would be fine. But not you. You see Morwen...

Pretty much everyone who's posted in this thread should know better.

...you should know better as well. As far as I'm concerned you blatantly and deliberately violated the very rules you are supposedly a mod for - in this very tread - in order to 'make a point' or whatever. Silver read this over and, as a fellow mod, practically brushed your offense under the rug. At that point I just said 'fuck it, can't be bothered' to myself and left the issue be. However, I find myself unable to NOT post this post in regards to your most recent ruling.

That is because, if you are the one to render judgment in this regard, then I would like to demand you too be judged by the same regulations that you uphold. Let Silver or any other mod deal out warnings and/or bans. You don't have the right to.

[Vikarion]

Actually, he does, because he's a mod.

Frankly, you are whining. I get the temptation, I once got upset, took my toys, and went home. It was actually kind of a good thing to do so, because it let me re-evaluate my posting style, whether I could post here in a civil manner, and if I should try. I decided to do better, came back, and while I've made a mistake once or twice, on the whole I have done better.

Morwen is exactly right about the content of the catacomb'd thread. The people inside it should have been posting better. And being harsh about modding is pretty much the one sort of harshness explicitly provided for on this board. Go read some of the founding documents - they do not overly vary in tone, I would opine, from the comments Morwen has made, although Morwen can occasionally be a little more brusque than most. And mods do have different guidelines when moderating - not only is that expected, but necessary. A mod's job is, for one, to tell a poster "urdoingitwrong". Another job is to call posters out on breaking the rules, harshly if necessary.

Violating the rules - while knowing that you are violating them - is "bullshit" and "crap". That's one of the ways we refer to violating rules. It's a negative thing. Expecting people to follow the rules and finding them not doing so is frustrating. You were warned in this very thread, right on the first page, not to respond to those breaking the rules. Precisely why do you think that this gives you the right to act the victim? Especially when other people came in, looked at your complaint, and went "nope, that's without merit".

Not only that, but saying that Morwen doesn't have the right to recommend such things? Who do you think you are, the owner of the board? That's an incredibly arrogant statement to make to someone who not only operates the board for your benefit, but operates it with specifically stated absolute authority. Your post doesn't have to be offensive to you to be modded, in posting on Backstage, you have agreed that only the mods need to take issue with it for it to be removed. That's part of the rules. The rules everyone posting here agreed to.

[Morwen Lagann]

Part of me just wants to respond with a dealwithit.gif here, but the irony, utterly hilarious as it would be, would probably not be appropriate, so that part isn't getting to post. To all those who were expecting a witty burn when they saw I'd responded to the thread and are disappointed: Deal with it.

Vik pretty much explained the situation, so in case his response wasn't clear enough...

Regarding fairness: I don't care whether you think it's fair or not. Neither does Silver. In fact, your definition of "fair" in this case, is irrelevant. It is entirely up to him and I to decide what is "fair" for this situation; not you, and not anyone else who posted in the thread.

I'm aware that it might not be immediately transparent to some people here, yourself included, but I typically do not take moderation action in a unilateral manner except in particularly egregious cases. Two and a half pages of image macros (and no less than ten reports for posts in that thread) falls pretty clearly under that category, hence locking the thread. So would people throwing around racist or homophobic slurs. The point of stating that I will be suggesting moderation action to Silver should have made it immediately apparent that he will be involved in the decision and that no action will be taken without his consent to it. If that is still not clear to you, then I have no idea what will make it so.

Regardless: if someone breaks the rules and the mods (again, Silver and I, at the moment) make the decision to take action, your opinion (and those of anyone else on the receiving end of the mod action) regarding which moderator is "appropriate" for taking the action is entirely irrelevant. If Silver doesn't want/have time to do it, that means I do it. In short? Deal with it.

Edit - thanks, but my vacation would be a lot easier to enjoy if I didn't have to deal with this bullshit.

[Khloe]

It's a bit ironic that the individuals that bitch the most about biased moderation are those with the greatest difficulty in maintaining self restraint with train-wreck threads.

[Silver Night]

Morwen is on vacation (and has a job) and I work somewhere north of 45 hours a week - occasionally more like 55 or 60. And we both have other things to do sometimes than mod (like errands, or spend time with our family, or, play Eve.) That means that moderation isn't always going to be instant. Sometimes it might even take a couple of days.

It also means, since we are the active mods, that one or the other of us is going to be doing it - whoever is available. I haven't had time to totally review the thread in question yet, but just looking at the many reports, I certainly support binning it.

If you have a problem with a mod, this is the right place to bring it up. That being said, using every time you get modded to try and dig up this same thread - where the circumstances have already been explained to you - is not appropriate. Saying 'You did this thing that I think was against the rules once, so I'm going to start shit every time you mod' is not appropriate.

If you think the mod team here is biased against you and they don't 'have the right' to mod you, don't post. If you post, you are subject to the mod team - and being subject to being moderated in general isn't something that's up for discussion (distinct, mind you, from discussion of specific instances of moderation - the way this thread started out.)

Disagreeing with Morwen, and then disagreeing with my assessment of Morwen's conduct doesn't make you right. It doesn't make me right either, but the issue has been addressed and the decision has been made. And while there have been mod decisions I was on the fence about int he past, this wasn't really one of them (the original situation that spawned this thread, or the new one). Also, if i wanted to 'brush under the rug' the way Morwen posted, it would be gone or edited. Instead we explained why. Again - disagreeing with your assessment of Morwen's post isn't brushing it under the rug. It's disagreeing.

I'm the admin, I pay for the site, so for better or worse I'm the final word on these things. Rehashing that you think that Morwen broke the rules - and mind you the circumstances have been discussed, reviewed, and explained at length here - to revive this thread is probably not the right move to get the rest of the moderation team (me, at the moment) on your side.

All that being said, I'll probably hand out any warnings or bans for the new thread, sometime in the next couple days, because generally warnings and bans involve a certain amount of discussion within the moderation team (because believe it or not, we do our best to avoid bias, and running these things past eachother is a mechanism for that), and also because Morwen is on vacation and should be able to skip the less pleasant parts of the job (for a little bit) like sending out warnings. (To the degree that something you don't get paid in anything except the satisfaction of a job well done is a job.)

[Laerise [PIE]]

With two active moderators.

You discuss violations.

This is not really unbiased.

(You need more mods and especially more variety in the mod team regarding play- and lifestyle.)

[Silver Night]

We are aware we need more mods. Though we do still sometimes make Ciarente come and look over things too.

That being said, the only bias I really have a chance to develop is, I think, related to the way people post here, since I don't interact with many people IG these days. At least most of the bias I develop.

I'm not really sure what you mean about needing mods with more variety in 'lifestyle' - unless you mean people with a little more time on their hands, in which case I agree. In terms of play style, I'm not really sure what you mean either.

[Lyn Farel]

I have personnally rarely had anything to say on how this forum is moderated.

Except when the moderation of mods themselves is involved (I have yet to see one being actually catacombed, and not just because his post was following a series of failposts).

That being said if you are looking for mods, and even if I have a job, I think that I still have time to devote to such a task. I may be a self righteous jerk but if I can help in any way I would be glad to do so.

It's a bit ironic that the individuals that bitch the most about biased moderation are those with the greatest difficulty in maintaining self restraint with train-wreck threads.

That's quite true and detrimental to those, but that is also a good ad hominem assertion to make. It doesnt adress the point.

[Morwen Lagann]

It's worth pointing out that the number of times I've actually sent out official warnings to people is fewer than the number of fingers on one hand. Thumb included. Usually I ask Silver to do it. Also, I've had several posts catacombed before. Just because it happened either in threads you weren't reading or during a period of time where you weren't looking at the forum doesn't mean it didn't happen.

As to Gyra's point, it's a very valid one and one that's been brought up in the thread already. The people who whine the loudest about moderation are typically the people who get moderated the most because they are incapable of changing their posting habits to follow the rules for whatever reason.

I've already made multiple comments to Silver about us needing more mods. It'll get looked into after I'm back from my vacation on Friday. In the meantime, I don't actually have a job at the moment (contrary to Silver's expectation ) so that means I'm the one who'll be the first-responder to reports during the day on weekdays.

And just so we don't have any omgQQ about that, here's a reminder from my last post: Except in particularly egregious or blatantly obvious cases such as two and a half pages of shitposting, I rarely take moderation action without getting confirmation from Silver, even if it's something like moving one post to the catacombs. And if he disagrees with me, I go with his decision.

People also need to remember that many reports are not acted on - the only time people complain is when we actually take action.

Odd that they respect the decision when we choose not to, tbh.

[Lyn Farel]

Where did I say it never happened ?

[Morwen Lagann]

And where did I use the word never? (Hint: I didn't.)

You might not have said it explicitly, but rather than let the usual "omg qq mods suck forum anarchy 4eva" crowd take the implication and run with the "I didn't see it therefore it didn't happen" nonsense, I made sure you were aware that I've had posts catacombed before. I'm not the only mod it's happened to, either, by the way.

[Sepherim]

Haven't been around for long, so I can't have a full view of it, but as far as I've seen, this forum is actually pretty well moderated. After almost a month around, only one post has been sent to the catacombs, and it's unsurprising that it did. I don't see the point here. It's not like we were back in Chatsubo or something...

[kalaratiri]

I would like to apologise for my part in said thread. The only thing I can really say in my defense is that that form of trolling is not at all something I do regularly, and only when I can't resist it. It tends to be due to the content of the thread, which (no offense intended, I'm just stating it) in this case was fundamentally flawed for reasons that have already been discussed.

I think the moderators do a fantastic job here, and despite this being one of the only ways for me to communicate with the roleplaying community at large these days, I would be willing to take a short ban if necessary.

I apologise once again.

[Lyn Farel]

And where did I use the word never? (Hint: I didn't.)

You might not have said it explicitly, but rather than let the usual "omg qq mods suck forum anarchy 4eva" crowd take the implication and run with the "I didn't see it therefore it didn't happen" nonsense, I made sure you were aware that I've had posts catacombed before. I'm not the only mod it's happened to, either, by the way.

"It didn't happen" is the same thing. As I said, you only choose to read what you want, I never said it didn't happen / never happened / whatever.

I said that I never witnessed it myself. Take the conclusions you want but do not put words into my mouth, please.

Put it more clearly then, my mistake for not doing so : I am refering to several cases where I had to directly or indirectly face a mod aggressive behavior and answers blatantly violating the rules, either reported it or just stupidly answered to them, but no consequences so far.

I can understand that you personally feel targeted every time I bring it on the table since it is mostly about yourself, but I am not putting in question your position as a moderator or anything. I am saying that no matter how justified the mod team feels about a particular issue, a mod should never resort to break the rules himself to make his point across - at the risk of turning completely hypocritical - as you seem to do regularly, with the approval of Silver.

That is my issue, and I consider it important enough not to fall into the same shitty arguments we already had.

And no need to resort to hyperboles and caricatures all over again. What the hell with "forum anarchy 4eva" ? :/