Discuss New Forum Policy Here - Pt 2

Well, this hits upon the fundamental difficulty of moderating human discourse... people have varying levels of sensitivity to being disagreed with. There are people who argue things passionately and expect to be met with equal passion, and then there are those who are very uncomfortable being disagreed with and are inclined to see it as a form of abuse even when absolutely none is intended.

I have answered to the best of my ability.

Sorry to disappoint.

April, you have not offended me, you have never offended me in the slightest.

Now the rest of you - you who so want to pretend this is all in my head, you who want want to turn what I am saying into my saying the Lindens are puppets, and so forth, when I have made it perfectly clear that they can act only on reported posts -

you who keep insulting my intelligence with your pitifully inept attempts at logic -

Jeska, Robin, everyone. Everyone. Every newbie reading this thread.

Take a look at the "Victory" thread in off-topic. It celebrates the demise of Prok. Who was killed of by those very people. It was a long and bloody battle, but they succeeded. Despite the protests of others. And if you think this isn't going to happen again, you are most assuredly mistaken. If you think you or I can't be the next one, you are again mistaken. And the next one to go will lose his whole game.

If you think they represent all of us, you are mistaken.

Lindens, you are letting children ruin this game.

I advise you put someone on the job of reading your own forums, 24/7, and thoroughly, or you risk turning off more adults like me, adults who could otherwise enjoy the game if it were not for these disgusting displays. The Ulrika thread being yet another one.

I am thoroughly disgusted.

coco

Wow I have taken the time to address you twice and you have just ignored me, and apparenlty lumped me in with those trying to insult your intelligence with "pitifully inept attempts at logic". So much for wanting a discussion - or not dismissing anyone else's view. Do you think your post just now was not insulting - that it did not attack anyone?

I don't understand "dismiss", Cristiano. Many of us use forum posting alts. I do myself.
In my case, I adopted the practice purely because of the constant string of personal attacks and insults, all coming from one (multiple) source. The forum ethos has been contaminated and threaded with hostility for quite a while, and my guess is that many people have been driven away.

I hope the new guidelines can use a firm hand to distinguish between strong debate on the issues (which is fine) and hostile personalisation, endless insulting misrepresentation of other posters motives, etc etc (which is not).

If a drastic reduction in this can be achieved I will happily stick with one identity for forum posting, which is what I would prefer.

But none of my alts are banned, none has ever received a warning, no two have ever posted in the same thread in support of each other, or carried out a charade of debating with each other.

My basic policy has been to abandon a name once it gets followed everywhere it posts, with insult, innuendo, and attempts to provoke. A new name gives me a breathing space, but not for long. Soon I am recognised, and it starts again. And mud sticks. If someone endlessly posts lies about ones motivation, some will begin to believe it.

I recently made a slip, and linked one such name to my main in-game avatar, and now I am encountering in-game hostility too. I'm getting sick of it.

I post on issues, and only on issues I believe in. If I have ever been provoked into doing anything other than this, I apologise.

And I still think you are wrong on this one, but of course I am not infallible.

The use of an alt to post in the forums is not the problem. In the case of your particular post, it seemed quite apparent that you were implying she is the alt of a banned account and should not be posting.

When you state that simply by ARing, that LL will take action, you do two things: you assume that in fact a large number of people are on an ARing spree. There is no proof of this. Sure, a couple of people have said they would AR - to assume that a large number of people were, is projecting a couple of people's behavior onto others. Not fair. For the record, I have ARed only a couple of times - when there were direct attacks on other people's reputations and/or businesses.

The second thing you do, is to make it look as if certain people's ARs are considered more weighty - you may not mean it that way, I am unsure - but that is how it's coming across to me.

Now, Prokofy stated on SLH that the Lindens said that he did not violate the TOS. So how could ARs, which report TOS violations, affect their decision? Me thinks they have been considering this issue for quite some time.


This sounds like an attack.

The people discussing this new policy with you in this thread, the vast majority of them - have not posted to that thread, myself included. You seem to be once again, projecting.


Nope, they don't.


Sounds like another attack.


What is disgusting about the thread Ulrika started?

I am for 24/7 moderation as well, the problem is; who would want to read this forum for 8 hours a day?

I do.

To call her an alt is to attribute to her the actions and writing of the presumed primary account. Coco is neither a clone nor alter-ego of someone else. She is capable of framing her own thoughts and words. Naming her an alt is to deny her individuality.

In case some of you find this cryptic, I'll risk going further off topic by explaining it to you.

Margaret is trying to "out" what she believes to be my alts, by putting bits of their names into a sentence. Or maybe just to tease me. An ex-friend. We made the mistake of mixing pleasure with business. Sadly fatal consequences, as can so easily happen.

Nolan I am serious. If people think it is fine to discuss other people in the forums instead of ideas I really want to know why. I have yet to see any explanation for this by anyone and am really interested in hearing their points of view. As I type this I assume there are posts being created about personalities instead of the subject of this thread which is the new policy about discussing ideas instead of the people posting their ideas.

Maybe I am just dense or something.

I don't think it's possible to ever completely seperate the two Susie, quite honestly. The written word is imprecise and in order to try and fully understand the point someone is trying to make then very often what they feel, their motives, and their biases or predispositions all become important. If you pick apart the logic of someone's post you are picking apart the poster's logic. That's simply part of engaging in debate or disagreement. Where is the line exactly? If I point out to someone that I think they've misunderstood something or that perhaps they're not seeing something in the right context is that the same as me calling them stupid? Some people will be predisposed to take it that way no matter how it ends up phrased. The only way to avoid that would be to never disagree with anyone. Clearly calling someone stupid would be over the line, but is calling into question the logic or motives behind an argument?

I am with you 100% Susie. I apologise for my response to MM - not on topic.
But my main posting was. I have great hopes that the new forum guidelines can eradicate this endless personalisation, my experience of which I describe in my main post. If the main culprit (s?) can be quieted, then we can all build a better practice.

I am serious too. You are unlikely to get an answer, because you are asking people to self-incriminate. Usually people who attack people's characters in public, view themselves as righteous, and beyond reproach.

I don't think you're dense, I think you are fixating a bit though - on something that can only be attributed to human nature.

Yes Chip calling their logic and thought process into question is addressing their personality instead of their idea. To me the new policy is very clear cut but I guess it isn't so black and white to everyone.

See I just disagreed with you without questioning your sanity. It can be done.

I just noticed something - the Victory thread in off topic was started a full day before Prokofy's ban. How is it about Prokofy again?

How dare you question my logic!

I disagree my friend. By that criteria, a math or computer programming instructor is engaging in personal attacks by correcting mid-term exams.
Stated another way, how does one successfully contest an idea without contesting also the logic and process from which the idea is arrived?

I'm sorry Susie, but I'm not seeing what you are seeing. If you really see this, I think it would behoove you to report it.

I hope it's not me because I am trying hard not to attack individuals but to discuss the issues. If it is me and you don't want to report me, please PM me what offensive posts I have created.

Only by working together can we move forward and create a more positive fourm atmosphere.

ROFL I give up!!!! I can't take it no more!

Oh, see I didn't see that as you saw it. I guess we all see different things. I just assumed logic was a part of the idea process and not a personal attack.

I guess I learned something new.

I agree Vestalia.

Given the fact that different people view the foggy lines between a person and their ideas differently, it makes a "personal attack" a very difficult thing to quantify.

I think that this why we see some inconsistency with the forum moderation, especially with respect to "personal attacks". The mods don't all think the same, they are individuals too. Not to mention, LL has to be somewhat vague to that end (as far as the guildelines, CS, and ToS goes) to allow for the moderation of unforseen events.

In my case, I feel that ideas and opinions are a big part of what makes us individuals, therefore attacking one's ideas and opinions is synonymous with attacking the person.

Hi Vestalia. A math or programming instructor is someone you have paid to correct your exams and they are only doing their job by explaining where you went wrong. That is quite different from the forums in my opinion as we really aren't here as educators. I am suggesting that people address other people's conclusions in the forums instead of how they got there.

Are you addressing people's approach or the way they got to their approach? Because it almost seems to me to be the same thing. So we should focus on the final outcome and not how the person got to the outcome but by focusing on how the person got to the outcome (in this case by commenting on their logic) aren't we focusing on their thought processes instead of their final outcome?

April I am suggesting we don't discuss someones approach at all as some see this as a personal attack. They may have arrived at their conclusion in a drunken frenzy for all I know and that is not important to me. All I am saying is that we discuss ideas and leave the personal stuff out of it.

This is the second time I have seen you reference "drunken" people. Is that not questioning someone's mental state, and not their ideas?