GuitarBizarre

And neither has anyone else before or since, including you - You cannot possibly believe that you have the answers to getting us all to get along with sopsych. Enough people are so vehemently pissed off with him, for reasons good, bad, and in between, that it cannot possibly be your belief that his integration with the forum community is a reconcilable thing.

Stop dealing with some bull**** moral approach, and take a practical view - Can sopsych continue to contribute in any worthwhile way, to this discussion, or any other, in the foreseeable future, if his attitude does not either undergo a drastic change, or he is removed as a factor in those discussions?

I do not believe he can.

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Guybrush

I will answer, but just read this first. What I want is a community in which threads don't get out of hand with hostilities. I want a community where moderators are the ones who deal with disruptions, not members. I want a community where people see that acting riled up and angry only adds to the drama. I want a community where, if people choose to break rules, they do so accepting that they may get moderated for doing so. I want a forum where people take responsibility in making this an enjoyable place for all of us.

I'm not saying I want a community where everyone agrees, but where even if you strongly disagree with someone, you do so in an orderly fashion () with the rules of the forum in mind. I do want more high road kind of thinking.

Just thinking out loud now. I know this probably sounds like a boring, impossible utopia to most.

As the community is now, I don't think Sopsych can continue to post as he does without stirring hostilities against him. I don't hold him personally responsible for the fact that his posts will generate anger in others if he's not doing that with intent, but from a practical point of view, his presence is a disturbance, like a crow in a hen house.

It puts the moderators in a pickle I do not wish on them. Sometimes, all your alternatives may seem like bad choices.

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Something Completely Different

GuitarBizarre

Can I also suggest by the way - I think the mod team need to re-establish some measures of respect. I can honestly say that before the big "member bans" thread that Dirty started way back when, I don't recall the mods ever getting this much complete **** from people.

After Dirty started that bandwagon however, the mods have seemed to recede from the forum and almost sought out a non-existence, where Janszoon the mod, and Janszoon the member, are two different people, and Janszoon the mod is some sort of alter ego brought out only to fight crime, and be hidden away at other times.


I suggest that the mods be less afraid to take their own moral stances on things in a semi-official capacity.

I mean, take for example occurences in the past where Hermione has, after working as a dominatrix, taken to the shoutbox to mock her clients preferences or gloat over their willingness to give her money.

Personally, I find that particular behaviour somewhat abhorrent - at the very least unprofessional, to mock an innocent person's extremely private life in a public forum, if not outright cruel, and/or betraying a lack of respect for others.

Now of course, this sort of moral judgement isn't within a mod's purview - or is it? Let's consider this - if I go into the shoutbox and express the opinion that Hermione doing that is abhorrent or unprofessional, I don't think I'd ever be a million miles away from the truth to expect an insult, a haranguing, or simple offensive language being tossed my way with abandon.

If, Janszoon the member shows up, honestly, very little stops Hermione from doing the same thing, since he's not portraying himself as anyone with the power to have a say.

On the other hand, if Janszoon the mod shows up, Hermione suddenly has to carefully consider whether she resorts to that same offensive or dismissive or confrontational language - not because Janszoon, with his mod hat on, has chosen to tell Hermione that he will moderate based on what he finds distasteful, but because Janszoon with his mod hat on, is someone where Hermione can't just give both barrels without a care as to the consequences.

Has Jansz in this instance moderated based on his opinions or morals? No. What he's done is he's laid down a line of respect between himself and that member that can be used as a measuring stick for how respectfully that member should treat OTHERS, who are NOT mods, in future. It makes plain that an acceptable level of argument or debate between Jansz and Hermione, is one that remains civil, respectful, and hopefully results in a mutual understanding of boundaries.

If in future then, Hermione oversteps that boundary significantly, with a non-mod member, Janszoon can, quite rightly, say "Hermione, you'd never treat me with this kind of disrespect, and if you continue to treat this other member with that disrespect, I will be forced to take action".

Is Jansz moderating based on his morals or beliefs there? Again, no - but his willingness to put his morals and beliefs against Hermione's informally, but with his mod hat on, has informed a situation where a more clear cut judgement can be made in a situation where a moral debate is occuring.

Mods, I'd really like your input from this perspective - do some of you feel that in aiming to be as close to the members as possible, or in the interests of avoiding heated debates or argument in order to seem professional yourselves, you have given up your ability to directly reference from personal experience, the levels of argument and respect that all members should use the moderators as a yardstick to determine? Is that sort of lack of defined mod example, perhaps a reason why some members can at times take a mile, from the inch of leniency you intended to give?

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Trollheart

GB, I'm in awe at your reasoning, logic and debating prowess. You've said (and done) everything I was going to, but far better than I ever could.

Tore, I'm disappointed. Your frankly blinkered attitude here to sop makes me cringe: it's almost like you're looking for ways to defend the indefensible. I can't understand why you would believe that someone who constantly winds people up here is not a bad influence, and I think the mods have show incredible restraint in not banning him. I truly don't understand your position. If this were anyone else I'd doubt you'd be so supportive. I must agree I echo GB's sentiments about your purported new Eden: if this is the idealism that would drive it, then I'll stay here thanks.

Well, to be fair, I like it here and I was never going to move. But your unexpected attitude here has convinced me I made the right decision.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Guybrush

Trollheart, I am convinced that you're simply misunderstanding or misinterpreting my position on this. I am discussing this from the angle of principles, but I think those principles somehow continue to get lost in the communication. If you want, we can take it to PMs and discuss it there.

edit :

My idea for a new site is also being misinterpreted. I am not suggesting a site in which I somehow rule what goes and what doesn't. Either way, my ideal forum would be one where people are held accountable when they break the rules. That's basically what I ask and it seems strange to me that people find this to be some sort of unreasonable idealism. I thought it was universal!

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Something Completely Different

GuitarBizarre

Tore, until you can apply your principles in a practical manner, they're so much hot air when it comes to solving the immediate problems of MusicBanter, or indeed the immediate problems of setting up a new forum.

If this were a forum that needed not worry about such practical concerns, then I and others might be more willing to consider the more philosophical points you're raising about interpersonal interaction, but at present we don't have that luxury and your insistence on making the discussion about that is really making it seem like you're simply building an ivory tower. Perhaps it's time to take that discussion (Which is worthwhile, just perhaps not here, and perhaps not now) to a seperate, more hypothetical thread, while we discuss more immediate or practical-minded suggestions in here?

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Guybrush

I think it has real relevance here and now. As I wrote, this thread is about drama and hostility, right? This thread has generated lots of hostility and drama, right?

What is the general reaction to it? That it's Sopsych's fault. But that doesn't explain the number of other threads that get derailed by bickering. The simple fact of the matter is that the common factor for the drama and hostility that goes on on these forums is not Sopsych. By looking at this particular situation from an objective point of view, we could perhaps learn something about how drama arises, what feeds it and how it can better be moderated. But any attempt at that fails because people are still only interested in blaming Sopsych for it all and acting defensively. Regardless of my attempts at discussing this, I feel my posts are simply being disregarded as white knighting the guy who blew smoke up my ass.

Please try to understand?

Watching this conflict from an analytical point of view, I've made some observations.

• Newcomer with unpopular, somewhat uninformed and provocative opinions start discussing
• Other members get irritated by him and many start acting on their anger. They escalate the conflict and some of them break forum rules.
• Moderators join in the conflict on the side against newcomer.
• Situation escalates to the point where moderator feels he has to moderate thread by moving posts to a separate thread.

This is just matter-of-factly.

Do we want MB to react like that to situations like this? Perhaps some do, but I don't and I believe I can think of practical ways to go about this in the future that would lead to less hostility and drama should the situation arise again in the future. And that's what this thread is about, right?

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Something Completely Different

GuitarBizarre

Tore, sopsych himself pointed out in one of his first posts in this thread, that he is not, nor does he consider himself, a newcomer. Stop representing him as if he's new. Everyone apart from you, INCLUDING HIM, has already accepted and/or pointed out the opposite.

Secondly, everyone pointed out to you already in many, many different ways that he has a history of doing this, an attitude problem when he does it, an ego the size of a small planet, etc etc. All of which are VALID reasons to be pissed off with him.

You are massively, hugely oversimplifying this argument in order to make this into everyone ganging up on some innocent child who doesn't know better that nobody knows, and you are getting to the point of being genuinely frustrating because you are dealing with some impractical, vicious circle of endless philosophizing and NO actual action being taken.

Were I a mod at this point Tore, I would be telling you to take your discussion to another thread, so that we can sit the **** down after god knows how many pages of pointless back and forth, and actually analyse a practical, practicable suggestion and its IMMEDIATE feasibility or potential dangers.

What you are doing cannot fit into the remit of "Immediate candidate for implementation or action", and for that reason it is utterly, completely irrelevant to the entire concept of a thread wherein we try and solve an immediate issue. YES, your position might make some sense on a practical level IN THE FAR FLUNG FUTURE, but for right now, you're creating no less a derail than sopsych was.

You have accepted already that sopsych for the foreseeable future cannot contribute without engendering animosity. There is precisely zero reason for you to continue defending him if you have any intention or hope of bringing a practical solution to any problem the forum currently faces in any respect. Not only that, you call for an analysis of what may ENGENDER animosity or poor feeling towards other members on this forum. Defending sopsych is not that analysis. It just isn't.

How about instead of telling us all how wrong we are to do anything that anyone has done for the past 20 pages, you stop being his defense attorney, and start being a forumgoer who wants to tell us EXACTLY, and IMMEDIATELY, what the ****ing problem is, and SUGGEST. SOMETHING. TO FIX IT.

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Urban Hat€monger ?

Hold on one minute, I don't think that's fair in the slightest.
I never sided on anybody's side in fact I warned people earlier in this thread not to make it about one person. I also deleted posts that were inflammatory about him as did other mods.

It wasn't until he said that he had no intention of doing anything himself and casually dismissing other efforts that I called him out on trolling, and the reason I did that was because as a moderator I was under the impression that pointing out when someone was crossing the line was my job. I did it to others earlier in the thread and now I was doing it to him.

I don't see how any of this is sided against a newcomer.

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GuitarBizarre

He's NOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTT AAAAAAAAA NEWWWWCOMMMMMMMERRRRRRRRRR

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