I just joined and the first post I read is about the moderators permabanning someone for personal attacks in a thread filled with... well, personal attacks. I'm not sure I'm interested in participating in an over-moderated care bear forum for a grungy, hard-edged game like Shadowrun. I would prefer to read freely and ignore freely without someone holding my hand.

ciao

You know they can see your IP, right?

If it's any comfort, the last permaban was... ermm... Well, discounting that same guy who managed to get permabanned TWICE, it must have been about five years ago? Seven maybe?

I can assure you, this forum is anything BUT over-moderated, and the only care bears are SURGE/HMHVV AI drone holograms (or so the Care Bear thread would have me think).

(But welcome aboard.)

If you're poking around in the "hey it must be the banned guy" basket, no. I actually did just join. I was going through my old games bookmarks, rediscovered the archive, and decided to check out the forums. I can't be offended by anything online so I'm not looking for a safe place to let my guard down... especially not for a game in which some of my players insist on back of the head executions for security goons and then ask what loot they had. (insert eyeroll emoticon here)

First, welcome to Dumpshock.

Second, recent events in no way reflect the default posture of the DS moderator staff.

Third, I am happy that you have the ability to ignore others' negativity. It will serve you well here. Others are not so lucky.

Fourth, even though the mods here tend to be hands off, this isn't the Wild West. You can be assured that if we can't enjoy our favorite forum about our favorite game because our inboxes are full of PMs about somebody being an ass hat, we will step in.

Nah. I'm poking around more in the "hey, it's kind of suspicious that amidst a time when people are coming out of the woodwork to insult the moderators, decree that the forums are a draconian dictatorship, and cry over someone getting banned, yet another person comes out of the woodwork and apparently joins for the sole purpose of lamenting a post in a subforum that few people on the forum actually read at all and which also happens to have little to nothing to do with the brunt of the forum as a whole, not to mention insult the moderators for being 'care bears' and the like" basket. I mean, why join a gaming forum for the sole purpose of saying you're reluctant to join it for some silly, momentary drama that has absolutely nothing at all to do with you or the game as a whole? If that doesn't scream either "someone created a second account" or "buddy of the banned person," I don't know what does.

You may very well be a legitimately new member, but it's kind of a hard pill to swallow for the above reasons.

And sorry about that really long run-on sentence there. I'm never sure how to use end punctuation marks inside quotations.

How on earth does Mesh have two posts yet...zero?

Dr Funk: Yes, I get it, but I joined to check out the forums, not join the tiff. My first perusal? Permaban. I don't know the whole story on this. I only know what's in that thread. How does this pertain to me? I don't like it. Based on what I read, I don't like it. I don't have to qualify that, and you'll be suspicious I'm seconding out of spite to stir up whatever mod supporters vs. anti-mod supporter factions you have going here. I'm new to this forum but not forums in general so I get it. I'm still going to post my opinion regardless.

Otherwise, it looks like this is a very active forum on a topic I love so I plan to stick around.

And still a post count of zero, despite another post right before this one.

*Cue Twilight Zone theme music*

You can use them as you would with parenthesis. I'd recommend breaking that into two clauses, condensing or removing unnecessary descriptors, and reorganizing your ideas, such as:

"hey, we are amidst a time when people are coming out of the woodwork to insult the moderators, decree that the forums are a draconian dictatorship, and cry over someone getting banned. It is kind of suspicious that another person comes out of the woodwork and apparently joins for the sole purpose of lamenting a post in a largely ignored subforum, to insult the moderators for being 'care bears' and the like" basket.

But the flow-of-thought writing style was very powerful.

I figured that's how it worked, but the lack of capitalization at the beginning always throws me. Thanks for the explanation though.

No, you did it correctly, and I followed it. About Nezumi though... (insert sigh emoticon) ...never accept grammatical advice from anyone who would tell you to offset a prepositional phrase with a comma. I mean that's just sick.

Are you referring to the "subforum, to" bit? That's a typo, sorry. I snipped a whole big long bit right before it, but missed the comma.

However, I believe it would have worked if I had inserted another comma:

...of lamenting a post, in a largely ignored subforum, to insult the...

As we make 'in a largely ignored subforum' into a sub-clause within. I could have used parens instead, but I'm rather partial to the comma due to its stronger corporate ties.


(I'd look up the rules to double check myself, but funny enough my work internet connection has dropped, so now the only website I can reliably visit is DSF. Alas, how I suffer )

Sorry? What good does sorry do in the field when that tac-com goon gets a lock on your head and sends pieces of brain and gore spattering across the stunned faces of your teammates? "Sorry for the mess, guys." ...?

Like I was saying, Funkenstein... Watch from where your grammatical advice originates.

If you're talking about the What Would Xena Do? incident, it was at least six and a half years; that happened on the previous fora.

~J

I don't remember WWXD, but it sounds like a thread worth following. I was thinking around the time the lounge closed a few people got permabanned, but I may be wrong.

So, what would Xena do in the face of grammatical errors?

Yell, "Ayayayaya!", slice the offender into small pieces and snuggle up to Gabriel.

Wow, the lounge closed.... 8 years ago? 7? And WWZD was back on the old Jive boards wasnt it? Those where the days.. or something.

Interestingly, looking at this thread, I believe that roughly half the posters have at one time or another gotten a temp ban... but this seems to be a bunch of old rebels here too...

Regardless, welcome to DS. Here is your dikoated ally spirit manifested as an Ares Viper Silvergun and yes, you can have sex with it. Also, drop bears.

Engage in rampant piracy of Shadowrun materials, as it turned out.

~J

One of the things that surprised me when I recently crossed over into the metaplane of Dumpshock moderation is how few people actually have warnings. The vast majority have none.

I know we didn't really like to hand them out if we could help it. And even when they're obviously warranted, we still often bicker like a bunch of old men before doing anything.

Unfortunately, the handful of times we really had to step in, it was always due to something very blatant and very loud, and sometimes very frequent. THere ends up being a much higher noise to signal ration than is really warranted when that happens.

Bull

I have a PM from you stating my warnings were the opposite. Not flagrant, not obvious; and in one case, not normally worth a warning. I sent a PM to Caine Hazen, but he never responded. I can send you a copy if you don't recall; it has been a while.

Sorry, I should know better than to use a phrase like always. "Usually" is a better term.

Also, just because we send a notice doesn't mean your Warn Level got ratcheted up. Sometimes if it's something minor, we'll try and head it off at the pass by dropping a note asking you to chill out a bit. We didn't really have any solid guidelines about how we did things back in the day. These days, you should get a very clear message stating you get a warning, and a quote of the TOS referencing why.

I'll likely not even remember what I sent you Cain, especially if it was a few years ago. THere was a while there where you were under fairly close scrutiny though, due to some behavioral issues at the time, so it's likely it was during that period. You've really throttled back on the aggressive behavior though. WHen I stepped down, We had been discussing reviewing our members who have warnings and reducing the warn levels after a probationary period, and I know you were on the top of the list.

Bull

In deed.

Instituting a structured progression of disciplinary actions was a great improvement, but a system for reducing long-standing warnings is definitely a missing piece that we are working to fill in.

Frank for example had a few things noted that hadn't gone onto his "Warn Level", so he was/should have been well above the limit of 10.


A number of people have recently been lowered. The guideline we were going off of was "No Warnings within 6 months of active posting. So just not being an issue while you're not here doesn't cut it, the poster has to show that they're actually moving away from whatever the previous issues were. Hopefully that addresses some of your issues with the past problems Cain.

Cripes. I feel really old now. I remember being around when the Lounge first opened. And when Bulldrek subsequently got the boot. Thanks alot, Lindt!

I don't believe your posts here count towards your total.

Carl

Golly, it's almost like you're trying to make it look like the mods censored you. Tip of the future: Capitalize the name of the forum and use proper grammar; they'd much more likely say "standards of decency" rather than what you faked. If they did anything of the sort at all, that is. Which they don't. I seriously doubt they'd make it a flashy red bit of text, too. But hey, either way, thanks for all but confirming my suspicions for me. 'Preciate it greatly.

I actually thought that Frank's attack on ketjak was done just to show that he was an equal-opportunity asshole and wasn't going to act like a buddy just because ket was confirming the accusations FT was throwing around.

I basically read it as FT trying to prove he wasn't in cahoots with ket just because they agreed on the facts, just as ket brought it up in the first place to say that he holds no special love for Mr. F Trollman.

Is even the perceived need for this kind of behavior something messed up? Sure.
Was it some kind of malicious textual assault? Hardly.

Is closing every thread opened here designated to talk about it helping keep all this garbage out of the main forum? Does it seem that way?

I don't suppose you could put me on that "watch" list? It would make me feel rebellious.

I hope I didn't just piss somebody off.

Everyone is on the "Watch" list.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Everyone can feel free to rebel.

Neat! Before this the worst I ever rebelled was during my teenage rebellion when I stayed up past my bedtime reading. Now I am a hardcase! Or at least a firmcase. Excuse me while I revel in my new outlaw status.

I believe I am the only dumpshock user who was given a temporary ban due to "child pornography." I kinda feel like that's a disgusting badge of honor.

(It was a very offensive text description of a PC, from a MUSH.)

(Edit: It was also *A* PC, not *my* PC.)