Board Thread:Community Discussions/@comment-5374144-20161222055559/@comment-4964341-20161231095105

Obi the LEGO Fan wrote: Keplers wrote: Obi the LEGO Fan wrote: Keplers wrote: Obi the LEGO Fan wrote: Keplers wrote: Obi the LEGO Fan wrote: A lot of the conversation in this thread seems a little off the mark. Chat has been fine recently. Moderation has been competent, people haven't been banned, nothing terrible has been reported.

Not only that, but chat has been leniently moderated. It's been quite chill lately, at least when I've been on. Plenty of stuff is allowed, no one's fun is being ruined by new oppressive crackdowns.

Such a comprehensive list is definitely not needed. What's needed is common sense and decency. It seems to me the only problem is that a few select users just don't know how to handle themselves on chat. We shouldn't have to make an extensive, tedious master-list for the benefit of a few people who don't know how to behave.

These users should take their cues from the vast majority of people on this wiki, who use chat without getting banned. Further proof of targeting. The moderating suddenly gets lenient and certain language gets allowed as soon as the "problem users" are banned?

Maybe the problem is with the administration. Proof of targeting? Care to elaborate what you mean by targeting? If you mean we sit around discussing how to get rid of you, then no, we don't. Don't flatter yourself. :P

Obviously, I hadn't been active for many months prior to December. But during my activity over Christmas break I and the moderators I have seen have been very lenient (before and after your bans). As long as nothing abusive or harmful is happening I honestly give no fricks about what people say. Over the few days where I logged chat for most of the day, nothing happened that fits your description. I have witnessed no targeting or favoritism.

So please, be specific if you want to make such accusations. Use some evidence; make some good arguments. Otherwise neither I nor anyone else can work with you on a solution. Given how you are lenient toward all other users who break the "don't mention hate groups" rule but you punish Ulrich, Sat, and myself for the same infraction, I have cause to believe you are targeting this group in a move that is either politically-motivated or otherwise solely designed to affect us. Your so-called "lenience" has indeed extended to everyone except for the aforementioned users, with Ulrich and myself being at the forefront. The scenario we are concurrently discussing as well as the Fort/Kira "Hitler" dialogue serve as my evidence. I regret to inform you that I have no further evidence, because I was banned for a disproportionate amount of time for entirely baseless accusations, and therefore have not had the ability to collect further evidence. Alright, so you are making the specific claim that I am treating you, BNR/Ulrich, Sat, and the rest of your group (??) than I am treating any other party. First, I'd like to clarify whether you are referring to me specifically or to admins in general, as I never banned you or anyone in your group in the last year. I also haven't seen Sat get kicked or banned for anything recently by any admins.

I haven't taken action against anyone for mentioning hate groups. This policy was passed when I was inactive and I've had nothing to do with it, tbqh. Also, and this is the most important part — you were not banned for mentioning hate groups. Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Rio ban you for using the f-bomb on top of trolling/ignoring warnings? And BNR was also banned for a combination of problematic language (including his ableist rhetoric I already mentioned) and behavior, not for simply mentioning a hate group. Yeah, "group" (!!!). Ulrich, Brick, Sat, myself. To a limited degree, Rom and Slice. We're for the most part libertarian and pretty loose on how we behave, with certainly no ill-will toward anyone. I do believe that you and Rio treat members of this group much differently than you treat those outside, with varying degrees of difference relative to the individual's "closeness" in the group (you would treat Ulrich and me the most differently whereas Slice and Rom are not too differently treated than normal users). Though you have not taken specific disciplinary action against us, you have used quite stirring rhetoric to both turn the opinions of other users against us and cement in policy your opposition of us -- thereby forcing other admins and CMs to support this interpretation of policy and go forward with it. Your "Clarification of UCS" in particular overruled, somehow, Alemas and AP's previous stance that "as long as nobody voiced a complaint, it was permitted." You effectively changed policy without a vote, just by "interpreting" it differently and presenting your interpretation as the sole one. Specifically regarding Sat's lack of punishment, this is because he has intentionally silenced himself to avoid disciplinary action for voicing his opinion. Yeah, I guess it's not only "certain users" who are afraid that "people" [we know you mean our group, thanks] will bully them for complaining. I guess some of us might feel the same way.

Yeah, "trolling" and "ignoring warnings" (I didn't receive warnings and I didn't even speak regarding hate groups or ableism, so whatever). Had this new interpretation regarding UCS, and the ban on hate speech -- which I do regard as portions of the same policy, given how inherently related they are -- not been carried out, none of us could be targeted with policy justification. Yes, I used the f-bomb once. Yes, Ulrich used "ableist rhetoric" and ignored warnings (so did Slice and Rom, on the latter). My one redx during my show of disgust was not a "lot of trolling beforehand," nor was it "a lot of warnings," though Rio appears to disagree.

Also, for the future, for God's sake, never say "ableist rhetoric" to me again. I laugh and cringe at the same time. The day the word "cripple" becomes as powerful as a long-winded apology with a strong thesis and appeals to logos, pathos and ethos is the day I decide to go to the moon and take off my helmet. Thank you for clarifying your argument. From your perspective, I can see why you came to those conclusions. If you don't mind, I will supply you with some information from the other side, to allow you to see things from my perspective.

When I returned to LMBW during Christmas break, I was chatting with an old friend when they brought up some crap that had been said recently. I asked for specifics and got some logs. These same complaints had already been made to the admin team, who was currently discussing how to deal with them. I discussed things with Rio and he told me that currently, Alemas and AP thought their hands were tied — they had to allow this behavior because of UCS.

Now, after reading the logs I was rather angry — the fact that phrases like "autistic screaming" and even transphobic slurs were being thrown around in chat and no one did anything was surprising to me. So I went on to the admin's site and explained that UCS does not protect this kind of language. This is not a new interpretation, but the original meaning of the policy — that I wrote. The original admin team understood this, but now that new admins were largely interpreting policy, the original meaning had been forgotten (apparently).

Now, to solve this some had proposed a specific policy banning discriminatory/bigoted comments completely. I supported this but also made the case for the original meaning of UCS. Alemas (who hopefully doesn't mind me telling you this, lol) then said I should just make a blog and we don't need a new policy if that was what UCS meant. AP also agreed, saying the blog was enough without a new policy.

Thus, I wrote the blog, targeting specific rhetoric that I read in the logs and also being clear that moderators cannot allow that kind of language. This clarified the meaning of UCS so that a consensus could be built. Now that that is over, there haven't really been any such problems.

For me, it never had to do with you or your group. In fact, I thought that everything was going to be fine with you, Keplers, after you sent me a private message and we discussed this issue. I genuinely thought we had an understanding. My vendetta was not against you, but against the fact that such language had been allowed at all. This is why I didn't outright ban you and your friends. My goal is to end specific behavior, not to ban specific people.

Hopefully that lets you see things from my perspective.

As to your note on "ableist rhetoric," I think we are using rhetoric in a different way. Obviously, I am not referring to rhetoric as in the science of persuasion, the eminent part of the trivium of classical education. I am using a more recent use of the word — rhetoric as a particular system of phrases. I'll try to avoid this usage, since it's a pet peeve of yours lol. Having seen the full story I do apologize, and though I am unable to communicate it live to a wider audience, I just want to remind them what Alemas had deduced -- that behavior was only allowed with no complaints. Had I been quietly pulled aside and told of the complaints -- not in a large, public way, but 1:1 -- I'd have relented.

lol, I guess you can see I'm pretty traditionalist when it comes to using language. I didn't even use "queer" in LGBT terms until like 2014.