Good to see their spirit lives on. This place gets a little bit... no... a lot like a damn high school assembly at times. People trying to prove themselves, and using shock value to seemingly make themselves get noticed, and then there's the garden variety well-to-do ****heads that will never be satisfied and complain and whine about every little ****ing detail of their miserable existence, and that can have a negative effect on the more sincere members who are legitimately here for an actual discussion about music. I can see how the struggle to find a middle ground for the majority of those people will always be a factor in keeping this place relevant. All I can say is more power to you for keeping the torch lit.

I really don't see what all the squawk is about over the decision to close out the SYG thread, as it was a breeding ground for a lot of the immature BS that goes on around here. I found myself sucked into it at times, and felt like like an idiot afterwards for having done so. Really, I feel you're doing as well of a job with all this as is humanly possible, and I'd have been done with it a long time ago, if I were in your shoes.

Not trying to be an ass kisser here, just giving you your due.

:laughing: I mean, your avatar...I couldn't even write this on some other forums, but I will write it here....


......titties.

Damn that felt good. :pimp:

Just don't post any or google will nuke us

Are you going to address the two posts I made directed solely at you, or are you going to continue trying to burn the imaginary witch you're making out of Urban?

Get your shit together instead of this petty attack, and deal with people who are responding to your points.

Jen: I gotta agree with GB it feels like you are so blinded by your dislike of Richard that any thing he does won't be good enough or appease you.Food for thought.

If I'm included in this, I'd just like to point out that I try to only go as far as the community is comfortable with. Even assuming I was a rape joke kinda guy, I wouldn't make them cause I know this forum doesn't tolerate that ****. But I'm a great lover of anti-PC humor, and if I feel that racist humor isn't going to rustle the forum's jimmies then I'm perfectly happy to let loose. If anyone was legitimately offended when I used "faggot" ironically in the last week or so I'd back off. All it takes is one person to give me grief and I'm perfectly happy to hold my tongue. I might take joy in good-naturedly annoying people, and if others want to really stir up **** then I may very well find amusement in that too, but I have no desire to personally create a hostile environment -- though if I feel that others are being overly sensitive in a "flying ****ing carpet of social justice" kind of way, then I will disregard their disingenuous outrage with a middle finger and a douchey gif.

But if the mods are specifically talking about some of the **** I've been saying recently as what needs to stop, then by all means, I'll tone it down. I'd just some clear guidelines. Faggot's off limits? Fine. But is it unacceptable to insinuate that Pet_Sounds is gay as a friendly jibe, even if he doesn't take offense? Can I not call Roxy a "flat-chested beaner", even if it makes her laugh? Your (Urban's) "suggestions" are kind of vague. Other people might not have to worry about pushing any envelopes, but it's pretty easy to guess that some of this might be directed at me, at least partially. If so, I need specifics. Seriously.

You know I love you too but I disagree with this.

I don't dislike Urban and Urban knows that.

I have said this plenty of times to him as well as to others on this site.

This is not about whether I like or dislike him as a person.

This is about his faults as a moderator of this site.


I don't need to be apart of personal conversations to physically see for myself that there is a visible absence of order and leadership here.

He doesn't want to admit to any faults...and that's fine.

It is hurting the forum though. Also, I did not argue that he was the ONLY problem with this forum but sorry I think its cowardly to blame members and not take any responsibility since he is in a position to make change.

This attitude entirely misses the point. It's not, at all, about drawing lines in the sand.

If I made some rules up that said "You can say X, but don't go as far as Y", then all that would happen is people would say X a hell of a lot more INSTEAD of Y. And they'd get off scot free under the "rules".

In reality, the problem is more often than not that people who say X far too much, consider it double standards if they're punished for it while a member that says X much less often is let slide.

That's not favouritism or poor rulemaking - it's people failing to recognise that, like Urban Said before - while he won't be offended if you call him a twat once, he'll come down on you if you KEEP DOING IT.

There's no need to outlaw given types of posts or off colour jokes. Eventually, someone is going to post a dead baby joke or something equally horrendous, on these forums. If it's a newbie with no context they'll probably get banned for it. If its a longstanding problem member, they'll probably get banned for it. If it's a longstanding borderline member, they'll probably get warned for it. If it's someone like Janszoon, where we have a long and well known track record of his actual opinions and the fact he's a perfectly nice guy whose morality doesn't endorse that sort of thing in any genuine sense, the likelihood is we'll let it go. Especially if it's clever and witty rather than just offensive and crass.

But the fact is, people need to be aware that when they're posting that sort of stuff they're playing with fire, and have nobody but themselves to blame if their hilarious jokes and knee slapping attitude gets them burned for misjudging their audience or the amount of priveledge the mods (and other members) are willing to extend to them.

Bat I don't think its you.Everyone knows you and I fully believe that if there was an issue with your brand of humor thered be a pm for you to knock it off.Same with me.Rather I think it becomes a problem when it becomes 20 pages of rape jokes by ppl who dont have a filter and want to top eachother.Regardless you have a filter and you use it.I can tell after 2 years reading your posts.Same as me.Now wheter you admit you have one or not is well another thing.

Holy hell will you stop sidestepping what I said? Talking a bunch of unrelated rubbish in reply to Roxy, when she literally quoted me demanding a response to you?

Straight up, are you going to address what I said at any point, or are you going to keep doing this? Yes/No.

We just want it toned down a little, that's all. By all means call Roxy a flat chested beaner or whatever, but just do it once. don't repeat it in every thread or turn the time you do call her that turn into a 20 page drama about some unrelated topic and then come back again the next day and do the same thing again.
If you want to have conversations where you just want to rip each other new ones do it in the shoutbox, that's what it was put there for.
We're fine with a bit of it in the Lounge but it's getting to the point where it needs to be scaled back a bit.

As for faggot: well that depends on everybody else. I'd rather you didn't use it but that's a personal opinion not a moderating one simply because if anyone does use it I know I'll have to step in at some point. And also I don't think it looks good to new people joining if it's used freely.

If people genuinely find it offensive and complain about it's use then we will take action, but as for now what I think isn't really relevant, I would ask you ask yourself why you'd want to use it knowing people find it inflammatory and it could cause trouble.

And now I'm trying to imagine a scenario where Jans would make a dead baby joke

Seems highly improbable

Its not the 20 pages of topping each other. The problem starts loooooong before that, at the point people start taking liberties with their conduct that they've seen others get away with, without understanding why they were let slide.

Which is exactly why we'd let it slide - We know Jansz wouldn't make a joke like that unless he was confident it was witty enough, or lent enough to making his point, to take the risk. And it is a risk. And thats how people should treat it when they decide to be off-colour.

This definitely makes a lot of sense. I'm guilty of doing the same thing especially with Batty where we'll go one on one with each other in one thread, and it continues in another. I see no problem with toning that down. Batty and I were in the shouty last night and it was a good time.

The funny thing is you wouldn't want anyone to ignore your posts but you feel so entitled that you ignore other peoples post and dismiss them when you realize you are wrong.

But I guess its okay to do that with me because I am "Soulflower" after all and nothing I say is never right or matters to this forum. You have a lot of nerve to sit here and act like you get criticized daily when people do nothing but kiss your ass here but as soon as someone criticizes you all of a sudden "You can't do nothing right." You are beyond arrogant

I hope other independent thinking posters like Oriphiel will continue to give you honest constructive criticism because that is honestly what you really need (although you don't want to hear it and you misinterpret it as attacking when I have been objective this entire time).

This clique and group thinking mentality of this board is not helping you with that because they all tell you what you want to hear

Not once have I disrespected you but you now want to act immature and ignore my posts because you don't want your flaws to be put on display for all to see, fine.

But dont sit and argue that you are interested in hearing criticism and other peoples perspectives when clearly you are only interested in people giving you appraisals and agreeing with you. When a little challenge comes your way you back out because you don't want to put in effort in accepting critique because you are to close minded to hear anything besides "Urban is the best or Urban does his job"


You need to be challenged in order to grow as a moderator. It doesn't matter how long you have been here and quite frankly doesn't justify your lack of leadership here. If anything, more should be expected of you since you have been here longer.

But anyway, you have clearly shown your true colors as a moderator and you have shown once again with your actions all I need to know.

Like I said, I try to gauge the forum's environment as a whole. The issue of using that word in any context was never really addressed before, so I had no way to know how it would be received even as just a well-placed one-off. Recent developments however have shown that the odd use of "faggot" in a limited context doesn't seem to cause problems (it was JWB's tactless use of it, and his reputation for stirring **** up that caused all the drama), so I rolled with it.

It's not like I'm now going to start throwing it around with assumed impunity, but I judged that the time and place had made it comedically relevant in a topical way, and being me I wasn't about to let the opportunity go to waste. Still, I judged that even without this new edict the time for its acceptability, or at least comedic value, would have been short-lived, and therefore I was prepared to drop it once the "trend" had run its course. I'm not emotionally tied to making homophobic jokes, so if the "Age of Faggot" is now over it's no skin off my nose. I'm a tongue-in-cheek troll whose desire is to annoy, but not to actually offend (Unless of course you're a wannabe social crusader who I feel is just begging to have your nipples twisted.)

Of course in a perfect world I'd love to be able to use any joke I pleased, no matter how offensive, but even if I think this forum can be a bit oversensitive and touchy-feely for my taste, I still love its general atmosphere far more than many, more un-PC forums populated by legitimately bigoted white male twenty-somethings who bitch about feminism and whatnot. I was briefly a member of a comic book forum a little while ago, but male nerd culture can be repulsive at times, and so I never had any desire to make it my new go-to forum. Here I sometimes butt heads with more "comedically conservative" members, but there all of a sudden I felt like a mini-Sansa. It made me feel dirty.

Fair enough. You're right, i'm new here, and I really don't know your relationship with the owners and the other moderators. All I can do is go by what you tell me, and so far all you've told me is that you went to Yac for advice and he gave you the only kind of advice that someone in his position possibly could. To paraphrase, you asked him if the lounge could use improvement, and he said "Yeah, I guess it could", which is what a boss is always inevitably going to say. You can't blame me for being kind of mad when you cited this "advice" of his as orders from the owners, which is kind of a really disrespectful thing to do to us. If you personally have a problem with the way things are, and you have Yac's approval to clean things up, all you have to do is say so. You can trust us to listen to you, because you're a good guy and we respect you. Just express what you have a problem with, instead of playing things up to try and shock us into being good, as if we're children that won't play nice unless we think that the owner's are actively trying to punish us.

I'm sorry if i'm just making things worse, and honestly you can feel free to not respond to my post since we'll probably just be going back and forth, I just wanted to put that out there and get it off my chest. I'm just kind of mad that it took Soulflower probing into your vague choice of words to get you to give us the whole story, instead of you just trusting us and being upfront with us from the get go. I'll try to be less of a troll from now on, but i'm not going to do it because i'm afraid that the owners are going to swoop down and smash me with a Mjolnir-esque banhammer. I'll do it because I respect you and understand the frustration that your job entails, and because it's legitimately the right thing to do at the moment to clean things up for the next few weeks to off-set all of the hate and spamming that's been going around lately.

Hoooooly hell Soulflower, how long are you going to dodge what I said?

You probably want to get used to that since it seems like she's been dodging everything. She's focusing more on the negatives and not giving the constructive criticism a chance. I honestly don't understand most of what she's saying anymore because she keeps talking about Urban avoiding her questions yet i've seen him answer her questions multiple times. Same with you, she's askd questions and you've answered them, yet she feels that she's still being treated unfairly.

What i don't understand is why she came back after the long time she was gone, just to start an argument with the moderators and members here. Seems a little odd don't you think? I'm not saying I don't like that she's back, i'm saying she came back and instantly started an argument.

Keep your hands off my eagle!!
I think you misunderstood, as it was qualified by "I don't know what goes on with them behind the scenes." He was just saying of those who work and are active now, this is what I think". I could be wrong, but that's how I read it.
And what have you done to improve the forum, other than whine and bitch?
Saying someone has failed in their job is not disrespecting them?

Actually, I don't know why I'm bothering: you have completely ignored any of my posts directed at you, while at the same time ranting on about people ignoring you. :rolleyes: Is there an echo in here?

Apart from anything else, why is everyone talking to/at Urban like he's the only mod here? There is a team: if you want to blame one, blame them all. Not as if there's anything to be blamed for.

And Orph, with what very very little I know of Yac, I would have taken "food for thought?" as "better do something about it or we may have to take this further". I think we should trust Urban to know Yac better than we do, and not to make suppositions we can't possibly justify.

I've made every attempt to address everybody who's posted in this thread.

I've gone out of my way to try to accommodate you to the point where even people who like you are telling you that you're being unfair. Yet you keep on making this about me when I said in the very first post this wasn't about pointing fingers and just asking people to stop and pause before they post. That's everybody, including me.

I've tried to do what you wanted by saying where I thought I'd gone wrong and the reasons why I act the way I do, I also offered to keep an open dialogue with you in future if you had any problems, you didn't like it.
I'm not going to keep on with this till you do, just accept I've taken on board your criticisms and we still have differing opinions. Do you think you can do that?

Why only him? Just because he agreed with you.
I gave you my reasons, I accept you didn't like them. Can we move on now?
I told you I'll apologise if you felt they were misleading but I won't apologise for my reasoning for posting what I did. That's 3 times I've said that now.

And why not everybody who's posted in here, I'm taking on board their comments too. I've never really seen eye to eye with GB and he's never been one to kiss anybodies ass least of all mine and I think he's talking a lot of sense.

I only speak with 2 people from the forum away from it, one of them is in hospital, the other is a friend of yours.
If I do show any bias it's to people like Trollheart or Unknown Soldier or Frownland or Plankton or Lisnaholic or the many others who come here, cause no trouble, put a lot of work into the place and are patient with people and who have to be really irritated about something before they ask for action to be taken. Those are the people I show favouritism to and I will continue to.
There are no cliques with me inside them.
and maybe, just maybe the people who are agreeing with me. Maybe they're doing that because they actually do think I have a good point. Did that ever occur to you?

Not once have I said or even implied you have disrespected me. There's a difference between not answering your posts and not answering your posts with what you think I should say.

How many times now have I said now I take your criticisms of my first post on board?
Believe it or not you are just one person with one opinion as am I. I am just as likely to take your opinion seriously as I would someone who goes 'Yay Urban you're so right' because if I was wrong people would be quick to tell me on here and they have done in the past. If 20 people tell me one thing and 2 tell me the opposite obviously I have to go with the 20.
I don't know what you think this thread is about, but it's about cleaning up the lounge, not regurgitating all your frustrations out on me. And it seems to me the majority think something needs to be done, which is what I guessed based on what people were saying to me before I started all this.


And if the rest of the forum thinks I'm unfit to moderate I'll go. I've done it before when I felt I was burned out and not adding anything to the place and was gone almost 2 years. I don't need to be a moderator here. I'd much rather be writing a journal entry right now than doing all this back and forth but I'm not out of respect for you.

The past few days around here have been the absolute weirdest in the ~5 or so months that I've been here. How long before it gets back to the fun loving place (sans all of the bitching) it use to be?

http://memecrunch.com/meme/4ZVVQ/kum....jpg?w=535&c=1

I think people are missing the point of this thread. It was merely done to point out some shortcomings of the lounge, and our ability as members of the site to take action and ensure that we moderate ourselves. This isn't about pointing fingers and degrading the moderators. Urban has been pretty tireless in his efforts to maintain a level of respect in the forums. The SYG thread was solid gold until people used it as a dumping point for retard humor. I want this minute back from my life.

Add to that "And others members"

And Yes, the pointing of the fingers needs to stop.

Without blaming anyone in particular, i think one of the problems is sometimes we indulge the off topic banter a little too much and can sometimes flood threads with it. it happened on the SYG thread and it's kinda happening now on this one.

My suggestion would be to close this thread now. It's served its purpose, has been explained and now is just becoming a battleground for people who refuse to accept it is not all about them, or a place to start another war. It's just going to go on forever until it's closed and everyone can move on. There's no real need for it to be left open anyway, is there?

Well, have to admit it was a bit entertaining catching up with everything over morning coffee this AM.

(ya, nuke it)

Oh, please. I've looked at older posts in the SYG thread, out of curiosity, and it's the same now as it ever was. I'm getting tired of all of these people coming out of the woodwork to bash on it, whining about how MB is going to hell, when in fact they used to post in it as often as anyone else.

Seriously, what is this? Why is everyone getting so defensive, pointing fingers at each other, as if everyone is desperate to vilify someone so that they themselves look good in comparison? We're all good people, and we all get a little carried away every now and then. I feel like this crack-down on the Lounge has actually made things worse, because now everyone is trying to find out who the "culprit" is, who is responsible for spamming to the point where the mods feel the need to take action. In reality, we're all responsible. Maybe it's time to just stop pointing fingers and start talking with each other, instead of at each other.

You're gonna have to name names and offenses because I just don't see it that way. Aside from the occasional racey joke no one is any of those things.

I understand how in a general sense the forum can lack restraint when moderating those things but I don't think anyone has crossed the line repeatedly enough to be singled out or banned. I was not a member here during all the drama with vilified members of the past but from what I've heard about them no one currently deserves to join their list.

Only person I see still pointing fingers is Soulflower and that's only because she's unable to listen. Otherwise this thread isn't even that bad.

Yes I know I'm pointing a finger.

Shush
It's kept posting in the lounge to a bare minimum

The SYG thread used to be just that a way to express how you feel about people on the site. Making it an alternative spam thread isn't exactly spilling your guts but I digress. I don't recall getting defensive about anything except for the mods who take far too much **** on a site that they put alot into. I think I mentioned the pointing of the fingers also which was my main point so glad you at least swallowed that.

Please don't close it. I think this is a good opportunity to air everything out, and a lot of members haven't given their input. It's also been mostly civil albeit some what aggravating.

Welcome, new comers. The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people! And now you're gonna hear about it!

...I've lost my train of thought.

I will answer your post Urban not ignoring it.


Did you see the post where Urban was caught in a lie with his original post? Urban has apologized and I have accepted it but I feel members have a right to feel "upset" because of that and as Opriel put it, it was quite disrespectful to blindside members as an "excuse" to argue changes have to be made.

Thats not how you reinforce changes. It lacks intergrity

You dont have to agree with all my opinions about Urban but that was clearly....wrong

Oddly nobody besides me and Opriel has express disappointment in that.

But in the SYG thread, we were just speaking our mind and talking candidly with each other, which is also known as "spilling our guts". It's off-topic banter in the part of the website that was set up specifically for off-topic banter, and while it had lately become quite silly, it wasn't nearly as offensive and full of spam as everyone is making it out to be.

I have to ask, what's with the end of your post? The "glad you at least swallowed that" part, I mean. I find it rude as hell. It's not like we were arguing with each other, and you finally convinced me of something. If you read my posts in this thread, I've been trying to talk with Urban about what exactly was going on with the owners, while also trying to keep people from throwing insults at each other. My post, even though it quoted you, wasn't directed solely at you when I talked about the surge of finger-pointing that's been going around. I think I've been pretty civil so far, and if you disagree, then please let me know what exactly I've done wrong.

Carry on, I don't see you doing anything wrong.

Trollheart read what I did and took it the same way I did.

Doesn't mean we lied

Well with regard to the SYG thread read the OP and see what it was designed for. I've been as guilty as anyone throughout my tenure of going off topic and creating what some would deem spam, but the SYG thread I found to be somewhat constructive at one point.

I'm not much for arguing with people in general, some might disagree. I wasn't trying to convince anybody of anything just conveying my point. I didn't really think saying swallowing something was negative, I think we agreed on the finger pointing that was my point. I try to avoid insulting people also, and I don't really think i've done so. If you feel that way then I apologize to ya. I'm not inclined to insult people, I like to keep a semblance of respect for everyone.

First, Jennifer welcome back. I don't look at it as lying. I think he wanted to keep the conversation between him and Yac private which is kind of admirable if you ask me. Anyway people can choose to interpret things however they like and express their opinions. I don't think we are at the point of re-enforcing change, I think he wanted to clear the air and make people aware of the fact that he doesn't want to police the site he wants to moderate it and also contribute. I'm not disappointed in Richard he does a fantastic job by my standards.