Are you looking forward to Forum reforms?

Sorry. It's like a hacker attack. Trying to essentially crash the forums.

What you are missing is that Horace is being, in effect, silenced by the other posters. Horace may have been willing to risk his participation in the forums by continuing to talk about what he believes, but he probably isn't willing to risk his participation in the game for it.

So Horace - if he wants to exist at all in SL - pretty much needs to give up talking on the forums.

coco

I feel bad for Horace

OK, I understand what you are saying now, Pendari. And I can imagine that people who have been horribly distressed by him would consider this to be further distressing.

coco

Wrong. Horace needs to not violate the ToS and get himself into trouble.

Is Horace incapable of presenting his views without being abusive?

Distressing? I think Pen said harassing.

No, Horace needs to give up lying, making personal attacks, acusing people of crimes, thread-derailing, obsessivly posting on dead issues, libeling posters, and a few other of his favorite hobbies.

Talking is just fine.

Red herring.

Or... just tossing this out there... Horace could keep stating his appearantly unpopular views, and avoid suggestiong also that Marcus likes to have sexual relations with barnyard animals. Thus, he can speak his mind, and keep his SL access as well.

Ah, I see. So Horace can't control himself and will return to the forums to make more trouble. But I thought that Horace breaking was a one-time event because he finally got so mad he could just bust!

Hahaha, bonus points to Jillian for continuing the parable.

Well, what I have seen happen on these forums is the same group of people going into other certain posters' threads, or threads where the certain other poster has posted (and more than one such poster, by the way), and in essence picking fights with them, questioning their right to even talk about anything, and harrassing them and calling them names.

This is de rigeur for these forums apparently, since those who engage in this despicable behavior are still around and talking.

So it isn't always a matter of Horace being abusive. It's more often a matter of people being abusive to Horace until he finally cracks.

Ganging up and bullying is what it is, and because it has been known to happen - and you can't convince me it hasn't - then people should be able to engage in THAT behavior to the point where Horace (or whoever) finally strikes back.

Given that they are allowed to engage in that behavior - to their heart's content, apparently - is all the more reason not to allow such behavior to result in the banning of their victim from the game as well.

Moreover, and more to the point than anything else, this idea that the forum environment is equivalent to the game environment doesn't have any legs at all to speak of.

coco

Funny. I haven't.

Regardless..



Horace is responsibile for Horace's behaivor. Totaly.



We on the other side of this viewpoint have pointed out a number of reasons why they are the same. If your going to disagree and say we have not a leg to stand on, it behooves you to provide at least some factual justification for your viewpoint.

Enough hearsay, Cocoanut. I want proof. Not 'some people' and 'other people.' You're a big fan of creating big, bad vague enemies. I want to see some very specific proof before I write you off as another troublemaker.

Well lookie, Reitsuki, I haven't been here as long as you have, but since I have been here I noticed right off the bat two people getting ganged up on mercilessly, with attacks and abuses hurled at them far out of proportion to anything merited.

Then, when I spoke up for them, the same thing happened to me. Is still happening. In this thread, even.

So - you're just not going to convince me that posters people decide they dislike deserve being banned from the game. Although I know people WISH it would result in that. People wish that I would be banned from the game. Incredible, but true. In view of that, and the bullying that usually precedes this sort of thing, the new rule is a bad idea. And is a bad idea for the Lindens, as well, in that it limits their own options.

coco

You know, I concede that ganging up - dogpiling - happens here. It's a fact of internet life - it happens everywhere.

But I can not allow myself to belive that it is inevitable that "Horace" has to end up making his own throat-cutting mistake in the process. Infinately more so that he would nessesarily make that mistake enough times to end up banned!

Do you not belive in personal responsibility?

It was *one* person that called for this. *One* other agreed. Every single other person (including friends of the originator) said the ideas was full of bunk and to step off (in laymans terms).

Original post here: /108/29/50966/8.html#post543384

Full thread here: /108/29/50966/1.html

Prok dropped a notecard on me about something I posted after the ban took effect. It was very very eerie and a weird invasion into the game. Which further indicates the connection there is between the forums and the game.

__________________________
"To announce that there must be no criticism of
the president, or that we are to stand by the
president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and
servile, but is morally treasonable to the
American public."
--Theodore Roosevelt

Dislike != lying, making personal attacks, acusing people of crimes, thread-derailing, obsessivly posting on dead issues, libeling posters, etc.

Red herring.

And, actually, Ulrika called for an informal warning - not a ban. An informal warning doesn't even show up on record. It's just a moderator speaking to you, in an informal sense.

The forums are one thing. Being in SL is another thing.

1. People are invited to the forums for the express and only purpose (besides gaining information) of sharing their opinions on matters, and naturally, many of the issues are controversial.

Although sometimes people gather in the game to share opinions, this is a small amount of activity compared to the vast majority of activities people engage in in the game.

2. Even when such discussions take place in the game, the conversation is always in real time, with, moreover, the participants themselves depicted as avatars. Thus group dynamics are in effect, as well as plenty of distractions, which is not the case in the more intellectual and antagonistic discourse that goes on in forums as a matter of course.

These considerations make the two places - and their uses and purposes - fundamentally much more different than they are alike.

coco

i would like to see examples. links.

here is one for you: link
we are all patiently awaiting your response to that one while you reconstruct forum history.

This is purely opinion, nothing factual here.



This is a little more factual. However, you can be warned, suspended, or banned in game for IMs, for notecards, for written messages pasted on prims, you name it - all methods which lack either the real-time component or the face-to-face component, or both. If anything, I think that supports the alternate view - The forums are really fundamentally no different from SL.

Having been on the receiving end of a few (pre-forum ban) in-world Prokofy confrontations, I can attest that it's pretty disconcerting.

Actually, what you are seeing is the forum regulars. Be they new or old, who like to discuss things on the forums. These regulars do not always agree, even among themselves. But they do love a good topic to discuss.

You want to bring interesting topics to a discussion board, but you do not want those most willing to actually discuss the topic you post? That doesn't make any sense to me. Disagreeing with someone is not telling them they do not have a right to post. It simply means someone disagrees with them.

YOU think it's eerie? Try being the Clarice in that Hannibal Lector relationship.


Anyways. I think maybe we should let Horace speak for himself...



"The FIC will be wiped clean by the illumination of my teachings."