Forum editing overkill

I have grown increasingly weary of the forums of late, but something I saw today from a friend of mine has made me really angry. In the spirit of not naming any names, a thread was edited to "remove personal attacks", and informal warnings were sent out (no I did not receive one, did not even post in the thread). The content of the informal warning is absolutely riduculous. Why are we being treated as if we are 8 freaking years old, and need a teacher to scold us?

My god, get a little bit of a backbone - if you can't take someone saying a harsh word to you, perhaps you should see a therapist. The manner of nitpicking over childish bullshit has reached such a ridiculous proportion that if the intended goal is to have homogonized, brainless forums, it's working, oh forum moderator. Congrats.

Yeah, funny thing is it wasn't nearly as bad as some unnamed angry posters best behavior.

Some folks can get away with point blank "fuck you" or "fuck off" on a regular basis. *Shrugs*

I guess one only need but drop a line to the mod and even the least of insults will garner a warning.

Best bet for whiners; if you don't like being insulted, don't start it yourself.

Just to play devil's advocate a moment, why not turn this around and look at it a different way... as in "if you can't take your posts being edited without having a fit..." ? It does work both ways. I'm rather ambivalent to the forum moderation, but it surprises me how bent out of shape people get about it. We are guests on private property after all.

Paying customers of a service, actually, for adults. I get bent out of shape about it because of the haphazard, stupid way it is done. Either moderate consistently, or don't. I don't ordinarily speak up much about this, though I tend to be against censoring anything - but the statement the person received the warning for was so benign that it is just silly.

I will take Cristiano's words and make them mine if he doesnt mind.

Like I said, I'm just playing devil's advocate. I don't know the details of this specific instance. It's just honestly never bothered me.

Yep seems the moderation has been whacked past couple of weeks. I agree Cris, do it consistently or not at all.

The "squeeky wheel" to moderation only goes so far.

I'll concede that you have a point Chip.

In this instance however, the offended party was obviously trolling and started the insults. Then when they get insulted back (which is the point of trolling, to get fiery responses) with a very mild insult considering the impetus, with no profanity involved, they cried to momma and got their way.

Troll gets to throw sticks and stones but can't take it when some of it is lobbed back over the fence...

My point is this; if you are going to enter a thread and label an entire set of people in a libelous fashion, you should expect some less than pleasant responses.

It would also be nice if the mod looked at it in the context of the whole thread, rather than just on a post by post basis and/or because someone whined.

Consistency, consistency, consistency!

This is actually my least favorite aspects of SL. I really don't like the way the Lindens treat grown adults like children (through discipline and reprimand). I feel that this is the result of lumping all users into a flat (lacking formalized hierarchy) second class that is relatively powerless in the forums and in world. Evidence of it is here -- a principal member of the SL community, Cristiano, has to resort to griping in the forums because there are no alternative avenues to seek redress.

The solution to this problem is to imbue users with special powers through election from above (meritocracy) or election below (democracy) to take on leadership roles within the forum or the game. It could be as simple as enabling moderation and metamoderation or karma within the forums or as complex as user-run government in world.

Think about how the forums and SL are plagued by the same set problems, personal attacks, spamming, the building of grief towers, large blocks of land that are auctioned off by the Lindens below market value, inconsistent application of forum moderation, and on and on. With our current two-class system, problems are being solved either at a snail's pace or not at all. It is a stagnant society doomed to suffer from the same problems over and over without ever addressing the underlying problems.


I would like to see the Linden's give to users the ability to control their own destiny. I'd like to see moderation, metamoderation, and karma in the forum -- perhaps even a new slashdot-style general forum. I'd like to see formalized channels for land-holders to exercise power over adjacent builds, preventing grief towers and land extortion. I'd also like a method of appeal to overturn forum and SL bannings by appealing a group of users. We are adults, not children, after all.

~Ulrika~

Not be be flip, but why not just accept that this is the way it is and move on to the next thread? It's seems a bit contradictory to, on the one hand, complain that people don't have thick enough skins to handle a forum scrap, and on the other, not have a thick enough skin to accept that we're subject to moderation, consistent or not.

Fuck off.

I already am, I called in sick today...

Happy VD to you too Charlotte! I know how much you just adore "happy loving couples"!

*Thanks Joe Jackson*

I think it's an awesome idea.

It's not the censoring adults like they were children is the problem, but rather the adults acting like children.

I mean, I read this thread and I feel like I'm conversing with 12 year olds that have nothing to contribute but pointless, offtopic nonsense that have nothing to do with the issues at hand.

What do we all expect?

I don't necessarily see those examples as analogous in this case.

We need context and consistency. If the mod is going to censor a respondant to a trolling set of posts then they need to censor the troll too, or not censor at all. Trolling is after all specifically listed as a forum no-no among other things.

I will admit I have a bit of a thin skin when it comes to being censored and warned for rebutting a troll (probably because they complained AND nearly 24 hours later.)

Was my statement off the cuff and a bit immature? Yes. However, it contained no profanity was in response to a series of ridiculous accusations that started with this one; "lol I love how every old player thinks they have some natural born right to be paid lots of linden dollars every week for doing nothing for the rest of time."

It is not contradictory to be opposed to heavy handed censorship like we are small children - that has nothing to do with not having a thick skin - my skin is quite thick. It has to do with thinking something is fundamentally wrong, and speaking out about it. It may not bother you, and that's fine - it does bother others, myself included.

You are always an interesting case study, because you troll like nobody's business, then you cry foul about trolling and applaud censorship attempts. Whether they are off topic or pointless, we have control over whether or not to read their post. If you don't like someone's posts, block them - instead of having the decision made for us arbitrarily.

let's connect the dots:

1 - i don't want kids in SL. they are immature and inconsiderate!!
2 - as an adult it's my right to act immature and inconsiderate!!
3 - i want free stuff

ps: buy my land!

Hiding behind some sort of faux forum good-guy rhetoric isn't quite doing the job of covering up your personal issues with certain SLer's. A valiant effort none-the-less.

Now that I completely agree with. In an ideal world everyone would avail themselves of the tools we already have at our disposal to control their own forum experience, and people would have thicker skins about snarky posts (which I happen to personally enjoy, hehe). But the fact remains that not everyone is hardened to such things. It would be great if we had truly consistant moderation, but how is that possible unless someone spends all day every day reading every single post, knows all the inside jokes, and can understand the context of every post in every thread? I doubt even the most forum addicted among us could do it to everyone's satisfaction. Jeska can't be in all of our heads (lucky for her!) so expecting truly even handed and logical moderation (according to the subjective logic of each of us as individuals) seems a bit unreastic to me.

Personal preference. It's not that I fear their immaturity or what not. Kids are by nature less mature than adults on average. If they weren't, words like adult, minor, immature, mature, adolescent and juvenile wouldn't be in common use in most languages. I look at it like this; since SL was and still is advertised as 18+ I enjoy it more than other MMOE's. It was one of the main reasons I left TSO and let my There account expire. I liked the idea of an adult created oasis. The same way I like being able to go to certain places RL that do not allow minors. Some kids may be ready for SL or a niteclub before they are of age but that's not the norm and hardly a reason to open the doors to all minors. That said, I am not against the kid grid as long as we get ghosting, TPing and some other severe hindrances fixed.

I did respond with a less than mature remark which was mildly offensive at the worst. Is that my right? No. I really don't have much of a problem with with being censored/warned if I behave inappropriately, I am simply asking for consistency and transparency.

I don't, never have, so I am a little confused why this was included here.

Buy mine first!

(edit myself)

Ah, forget it. This is starting to feel like some kind of sisyphus scenario.

Oh?


First, those two quotes contradict each other, as per usual. You can dismiss the thread as "off topic nonsense" and then come back and define it, if you want to perpetuate your image of being a walking (talking?) contradiction.

Second, you were "conversing" with no one. You were sticking your nose in to take potshots at people you don't like.

Too late, I already quoted you.

Main Entry: Sis·y·phus
Pronunciation: 'si-s&-f&s
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin, from Greek Sisyphos
: a legendary king of Corinth condemned eternally to repeat the cycle of rolling a heavy rock up a hill in Hades only to have it roll down again as it nears the top

Cool word. Not quite as good as feted, but getting there.

Censorship = Facism.

Overstatement = Hyperbole