Alex

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So I take it you'll be citing Sinsboldly for her oblique swipe at iamnotaparrakeet just prior to my first post in this thread? Notice that I also did not belittle or antagonize another poster, I merely pointed out that claiming something doesn't exist because they personally haven't noticed it is far from conclusive, and that perhaps they should examine their own viewpoint before attacking that of someone else. Also, I did not discuss any banned topic, I merely pointed another member in the direction of several threads that are still available (for now) for anyone to view, just not to post to, nothing in your precious rules against that. But lately that hasn't seemed to matter much to you people anyway, hence my complete contempt. If I were to post examples of moderator skulldrudgery, of which there are many, I'm sure you'd try to bust me for cross posting, or trying to "provoke or belittle" you, or some other such foolishness. For now, any interested parties can dig through PPR for a thread about whether or not a conservative WP member should move to Australia or not, where they will find the moderator Quatermass not only launching a direct personal attack on a member, the OP in fact, but then attempting to justify it because he felt that the member's politics were not to his liking. That's just one of the bodies I happen to know where to dig up, between the threads I've tagged and the PMs I've received documenting abusive mod behavior, I've got a lot of mud to throw if you want it to be like that.

Last edited by Dox47 on 11 Nov 2009, 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You seem to be misunderstanding me here, this isn't some little pissing contest between me and the mods, my only motive is what's best for WP, and I don't think running the site like a dictatorship is it, not by a long shot. We're not talking opinions that can't be verified or proven one way or the other here, the following is indisputable:

• Members have no input on the selection or deselection of moderators
• Members have no recourse to contest a mod's decision, and often merely doing so in public is considered a rules violation
• The site rules are confusing, vague and arbitrary, and may have been fine in '04 when Alex created the site, but need a major revision to handle the current site size and make up, and to clarify many issues
• Mods have no oversight and no accountability, save to themselves, and this does not inspire confidence as to their impartiality.
• The mods bend the rules whenever they feel like it, e.g. the recent stretch to add "advocating violence" to the list of prohibited activities, even though it exists nowhere in the site rules, and is extremely vague and practically unenforceable.

I could go on further, but that's a pretty good start, and if I didn't respect their privacy, I'd post some of the anonymous warnings, messages of support for my reform message, and abusive mod PMs from my message box to further convince you that this is far from simply MY problem, and it effects all of WP. Before I'm asked the question "why do you stay here then?", it's because as far as I'm concerned the as*holes don't get to win, and leaving would be conceding the contest. This place used to be great, and with a little reform it could be great again, and that's something I'd dearly love to see, it would be a shame to let a few megalomaniacs to ruin a site that helps so many people.

Yet every post is crowned by someone (you?) brandishing a weapon. Do you really think others don't see that as a threat?

Weak, very weak, even for you. I've explained my Avatar before in other threads, it's always me (yes that's me) with a gun because guns are my strongest "special aspie interest", and it saves time by letting people know where I stand politically. I'm far from the only person on here with a gun toting Avatar, it's not against the rules, and strangely enough I'm the only one that gets harassed about it, and only from one particular source. Feeling threatened by an Avatar is just silly anyway, I could be plenty threatening if I wanted to, but I prefer to win contests and debates fairly with superior argumentation, not with threats of force like some people around here seem to like to.

so everything is a contest?
Have you ever asked yourself "humm. . I wonder why they haven't just banned me and be done with it?"

I took the liberty of making the above a numbered list (list=1), so as to easily answer you:

1. True. This has never been the case. All the moderation term just arrived out of thin air.
2. False. There are many members who can tell you that we are completely approachable, and regularly amend or reverse decisions.
3. False. How can you say this, when you appear never to have read them. Whenever you are told that you are breaking the rules, your only answer seems to be that you don't want to abide by them therefore you are correct, and the rest of WP (who seem to have little trouble abiding by the rules) must wrong.
4. False. We are certainly not accountable to your whims.
5. False. If you continue to break the rules (such as by swearing, which you did above, and do regularly), then we will enforce them, by banning you. Consider this a final warning.

Who said anything about a contest, I was merely pointing out that trying to project threatening behavior onto me due to my choice of avatar was a very weak argument, leading me to question why you would bother posting it.

As to banning me, I don't troll, I don't launch personal attacks, I don't spam the board, and I contribute to the site, the only times I break the rules is when I question the mod's qualifications, in which case the "rules" are so Orwellian and vague that one can't help but break them, and rules such as those do not deserve anyone's respect. Besides, banning me would only further prove my point that the moderation of this site is fascist in nature and can only defend itself through draconian secrecy measures and threatening or "disappearing" any member that steps out of line. A legitimate regime wouldn't have to hide behind threats and questionable rules every time they get cornered or start losing an argument, why don't you think about that a bit yourself?

Last edited by Dox47 on 11 Nov 2009, 4:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Flippancy aside, you acknowledge that the general membership of this site, for whose benefit it supposedly exists, have no say in who is tapped for the moderator positions or whether someone who is abusing the position is stripped of it.




Be that as it may, it depends from mod to mod and situation to situation, and if a mod still won't reverse what seems like an arbitrary or personal opinion based decision (e.g. Sinsboldy's behavior regarding threads that offend her feminist credentials) there is no recourse. In the most recent case involving a thread about connections between a man's wealth and how it affects woman's perception of his sexual ability, taking it to the forum and intense argument was needed to get the thread restored, and it was another mod that did it in the end. There needs to be an OPEN and transparent dispute method that allows for forum input on these issues, otherwise it defacto causes the sole deciders of appropriate content to be the individual mods, when it should be a decision for the forum at large.



How can YOU make this assertion when you appear to not be terribly familiar with my posts? Like I said to Sins in my post above, I don't make personal attacks, I don't troll people, I don't spam, the rules I fall afoul of tend to be the draconian ones I have an issue with, such as "no discussion of banned members" or "no discussion of locked threads". Who's a banned member? They're not marked in any way, and as I've heard you personally say, the banhammer falls silently, so in fact merely asking if an inactive member had been banned could in fact be considered a rules violation and open the questioner up to a ban, does that seems sensible to you? Locked threads comes back to not having any system in place for disputing a moderator decision, since mods can arbitrarily lock or remove threads at their whims, and have asserted that they don't even need to explain themselves (to us mere members), so the only way to dispute the decision is to take it to the forum, and in the process break a rule. I'm not even going to go over all of the vagueness in the TOS that's often used to distort the intention of a rule, that's a whole other thread.

As to the rest of WP having "no problem" abiding by the rules, look a little more carefully, there's hardly a thread here that completely conforms to the rules, most of them just aren't up in your face about it. There are also those particular Aspies that need a structure, any structure, and don't care if it makes much sense, plus the others that you've collectively cowed into submission with threats to their membership or condescending posts. I'm far from the only one with a problem here, I'm just a bit more direct than most Aspies tend to be, and am perfectly willing to risk my membership here in order to fight for a better WP.



So what you meant to say was "True, we don't care what you little people think". Fixed that for you.



So no explanation refuting my assertion, and a threat to boot, for "swearing". Excuse me Mr "Site Admin", but I didn't do anything to circumvent your language filter, and it has long been understood that so long as you're not using such words to attack a specific member, if it makes it through the filter it's OK. Yet another bending of the rules when it's what YOU want to do, yet complete rigidity when it comes to the members, nice. Let's not forget the initiation of force by threatening my membership too, it's all you have left when you run out of arguments, the favorite tool of tyrants and dictators throughout history, and why should WP be any exception? All I have is my wits and my intellect, you have the gun to my head, so why are you so afraid of me?

I don't like to get caught up in sedition, but I don't think the moderators are handling this too well. Threatening to ban Dox47 is nothing but vindictive. He has made a number of points which are valid. His arguments are (as far as I've observed) clear and rational.

I think they have been coddling him for awhile, Dox47 scares people with the Taxi Driver
guy picture, I think gun pointing sets a very bad or dangerous example for an aspie site
due to the our tendency to flip out or have meltdowns. There are other forums geared
to weapons or violence, I am only here to learn how to live with aspergers.

As you pointed out in another thread, you just don't like "gun people" in general, so I would hardly consider your opinion objective on this issue. I belong to gun forums as well, but I also happen to be an Aspie dealing with Aspie issues, and have as much right to be here as anyone else. Would you rather "send the message" that Aspies are so inherently unstable and volatile that they can't be trusted with weapons? That's a very slippery slope, leading to Aspies being denied civil rights and certain jobs because we might "flip out" or something. If guns scare you, that's your problem, not mine, and tends to be based on an ignorance about them and a distorted media image as much as anything else. I could go on at length on this subject, but that's not the point here. The point to me is that I happen to love guns and shooting, and thus include these elements in my Avatar, and at the same time I HAVE NEVER SAID ANYTHING REMOTELY THREATENING here or anywhere else, any inferred threat from my pictures is purely in the eyes of the beholder. Quite aside from making any sort of threats being possibly illegal, there is nothing more pathetic than an internet tough guy.

Excuse me but I have been at the other end of a pointed gun, and am a victim of violence, and have every right to voice my opinion, I may not be objective, but you have advocated hunting of humans with your Somali Pirate thread, that is evil and has no place on this or any forum. I may not agree with some rules, but you seem to want to test the limits of the mods, and have been cut alot of slack from those same mods

Dox, you have a little trouble understanding that the prohibition against posting something "offensive" might apply to something you think appropriate to discuss. The TOS ask members not to post anything offensive. Just because you don't believe something fits that description doesn't mean that all members feel the same. On that sort of issue, I sincerely try to take the pulse of the membership and decide accordingly. Much stays up that I personally find offensive simply because I can see there is much on both sides. I am sorry that you disagree with the time(s) I've called it differently, and taken something out as "offensive," but by its very nature that term involves a judgement call. That doesn't mean I was being arbitrary. I have reversed on those sorts of issues, when I can see the weight disagreeing with me, but that wasn't the case with the last thread of yours I was involved in taking out. The "offensive" rule is one you like to push really, really hard against, and have broken, whether you wish to see it that way or not.

And all moderators are accountable to the site owner, Alex.