Just why am I here?

Site Management
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Not to jump on the dogpile, but my first ban was because Indub started doing his weird brand of “flirting” with me and I gave him a very minor rebuff… which caused Indub to flip out and try to escalate the conflict, by making a post whining about it. I didn’t even get to see it, let alone comment, because the next thing I knew, I was locked out.

That’s what the orange angry thing calls “scorching the earth” whenever there’s a problem that needs moderating; he bans everyone involved.

What really sucked was I had some people doubting my integrity, as if I was being dishonest about why I’d been kicked; like surely I’d done something to deserve it, right?

0_o

But on the other hand, what rocked was seeing how much of the community stood in solidarity with the ‘new kid on the banana’; so many fangs or vamp avatars popped up, it truly warmed my cold black heart.

#^_^

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Yes, yours was one of the abusive bans I was thinking of. Glad I’ve left his house - I’m not going back.

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I’m still going to read the BBS for what’s trending, because I’m just used to that particular delivery system for what news I should be googling.

But I’m probably going to be commenting less and less, as more of the community joins this site, and of course never in any jlw post.

I won’t even click on those.

What I do want to know is how I can help contribute to the financial upkeep on this forum; I’m broke, but willing to chip in a couple bucks a month to help.

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I’ve already found myself sliding quickly down that particular slope. Sure, I’ve never been a prolific commenter to start with, but lately I find myself self-censoring just out of worry of what might spark off something new… and I just don’t have time for that kind of mental static.

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I logged out but still lurk every once in a while - less and less as I break the habit. Trying to shift to just reading the blog view and skipping comments. Needed more time for projects anyway.

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There’s a thread on how we are going to make this sustainable; Get Your Vapes and Headphones Here

As for other comments about mod abuse, I’m thinking part of what we develop as a mod policy is a transparent internal policy about what and how to enforce. A sort of quis custodiet ipsos custodes doctrine.

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I’m with @Melizmatic; although I have a bit more dollars than time. So is there any way some of us can help financially?

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so, I did it yesterday. made it short, “no-pressure-y,” and clear I was asking him to join us, not be our mod. no reply as of yet.

anyone?

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40

I hope this is the right place to post this.

It is great to have this forum right now as a way for the former BB regulars to transition out of that status, as a replacement for what should have been a graaaaaadual phasing out of the category. That’s why I joined. However…

As I read the various threads here I am not sure I am clear on what will be the mission going forward. Is it just a refuge for BB exiles? Apparently not. How will membership be determined? Since many here came because of overmoderation over there, how will that be avoided? Revenue stream? Some like affiliate links, others don’t. How will we contribute to/deal with blog-like content? All of this is still TBD.

Already there are numerous discussion threads being started here that duplicate threads on BB, except here the number of participants will necessarily be much less. Restricted membership was nice for the lounge, but does it make sense for other discussions?

I started reading BB years ago because I liked the authors’ taste in stories. I still do, for the most part, and will likely still go there for such content. Likewise I think most of the discussions over there were generally pretty good, and while the regulars were pretty visible in most threads any given thread also had many excellent contributions from people who were not regulars. If someone is just interested in cars or copyright or citchen crapware then they will probably participate in relevant threads and not others, and not have become regulars.

It is unlikely that I will participate in a given thread over there and the same thread over here.

Before we commit more time, energy, and @LockeCJ’s hard-earned money, maybe some of these existential questions should be explored more conclusively?

In Max Shulman’s hilarious The Zebra Derby, the main character visits a town which was a one-factory town (quartz processing) during the war, but is faced with closure as the war draws to a close. The discussion by the townspeople of what to do next reminds me a bit of the situation here. (I can’t find it online, so here are images of the relevant pages - sorry for the graphics bandwidth.)

image.jpg351×512 90.6 KB



Apologies for being a bit of a wet blanket.

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41

It could go that way. We don’t know yet.

But it’s not just the closure of the lounges. For some, that was the last straw, but for others here, it’s the canary in the coalmine. It, combined with inconsistent and over-the-top moderation, along with other comments made have raised the possibility that TPTB may nuke the BBS altogether. People have decided to make a backup for if that happens.

The duplicate stuff here isn’t lounge threads and they never were. They are some of the fun user generated things that people enjoy doing. Content that may be disallowed on BBBBS in the future even if article comments are allowed to remain. I think many of the contributions by what were regulars are going to phase out over there. I am spending more time here atm, because there are interesting conversations going on right now.

shrugs Maybe nothing more will happen there, things will settle down and nobody will notice. Maybe after the initial burst of novelty, this will fizzle out and everybody will wander away. We don’t know either way. But we also won’t have a chance at what might be, if we don’t see where it goes…

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The rough plan, as I understand it, is to create an alternative to the old site, owned and operated by the community at large, with a focus on building a friendly and tight-knit community. This includes creating a Lounge where long-time members can have conversations free of idiots, a blog system that Regulars can post to, and it will be funded by donation/recurring voluntary subscription. We do have patrons we can rely on in months of shortfall, but our goal is ultimately for the

Posters to own the means of production.

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43

I would argue inconsistent moderation is the problem more than authoritarian moderation. And it’s not just a bad owl in the bunch, it’s the thin blue line of moderation being drawn and no one even being willing to say “yeah it might have been a bit much” in public discourse despite double-speak of transparency.

I don’t think there is an unreasonable expectation to say bring back trust level discussions and setting precedents for moderators to follow along with posters solves the issue, and it’s pretty typical of successful forums.

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Even manual promotion to TL3 with no lounge and no thread editing permissions would be goodness. The weighted flags were nice. We could make spam posts go hidden right away.

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It is easier to be consistent and rule by consensus when a forum is new and there are only 100 members - most of whom sorta kinda know each other - than when there are thousands of registered users and the forum is several years old.

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I mean like, drawing an example of a forum I was on for years, MTGSalvation had 10K visitors a day at its peak (>20K registered) but mostly transparent moderation and a system to place feedback against moderators - and then the moderators would actually take action. I was a moderator there for a while and got to see the inner politics a bit too, and there were established rules and how to handle bans and editing posts similar to a terms of condition for posters.

I’m not saying it prevents the people keeping the lights on from changing that system to whatever they want, it just means that a moderator would be breaking he agreed upon rules of the community to slap decade long bans on everyone.

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Oh, Christ. I remember that now. That whole thing was so petty and over the top ridiculous.

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88% of what OP @MalevolentPixy posted, plus I am sad to say I’ve had enough experience with capricious bullies to identify one. I can only go by stated community guidelines and standard interpersonal courtesy: I disengage and withdraw at any rages or tantrums brought on by hidden, unstated triggers, and the more people here disclose of their mysterious bans elsewhere, the less inclined I am to login to that other site.

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Hi guys! This is where we go to read posts by Modusoperandi, right?

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Quite possibly :wink:

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“…Penry the mild mannered janitor?”

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