MTGS Mod Lounge Post of the year

[Col. Khaddafi]

This is the nomination thread for the best MTGS mod lounge post.

This year, ladies and gentlemen, we have the crop of the cream ready for your enjoyment!

[Col. Khaddafi]

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

To be perfectly honest, I can keep giving feedback, but everywhere I look I'm finding things that don't work anymore or are broken in subtle ways, and I don't see most of them being fixed.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

You are ":-/" because the things that need to be fixed haven't been after being live for an hour? That isn't what you mean is it?

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

I'm because this place is different in some pretty fundamental ways that aren't just "fixes".

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

I know, and I'm really not
trying to be negative just for the sake of "I don't like change" (I mean, obviously I hate change as much as the next guy, but yeah). But the way you interact with the Beta is different in some pretty significant ways from how you interact with MTGS, and even if they're trying to accommodate us, some of them are Pretty Big Changes indeed. But maybe I'm just being cynical.

I'm going to be here for better or worse, but there are communities here I fully expect to look into switching forums after this.

Originally posted by ExpiredRascals on MTGS

You're speaking to one of the most old-fogey users here. I love vB. I've learned all the quirks to our forum, to our ACP, to everything. And I've grown to love it.

If I could, I would just settle down on this and watch the ages pass me by.

But we're on a forum software that went out of support literally years ago. vB 3.8 is impossible to get nowadays, and it's not a safe platform to stay
on in the long term since it's a high profile target for people designing exploits and is outside of security update support.

Curse's software is homegrown and always going to have a dev-team ready at our beck and call to fix things and protect our users. That's why I'm behind this change even though I would rather never experience change. The big thing for me though is that I need you guys to help them catch every little thing that needs to be fixed. Sometimes it will be small things, sometimes larger, but we need to get it all fixed now while we've got a beta devoted 100% to user feedback.

Originally posted by ExpiredRascals on MTGS

I should note that the plan as I understand it is for a week long beta at which point they huddle up and go to town on the feedback. Not just beta direct to live new site

Originally posted by Barinellos on MTGS

I don't care for the change.
That is all.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

That is
a reaction I expect from the majority of people

Originally posted by rianalnn on MTGS

"Last edited by rianalnn on < 1 minute ago"



Lightning Edit is Dead, Long Live Lightning Edit

Originally posted by Sene on MTGS

Do you guys know who Trotsky311 is and how he found the beta?

Originally posted by ISBPathfinder on MTGS

No clue, would there be a chance he could find it through google or anything?

Originally posted by BlackVise on MTGS

I tried Googling it and can't find it.

My guess is either that there's been some sort of leak
somewhere or he thought to try beta.Mtgsalvation.com. Considering the url is actually quite predictable for a beta site I can see the latter being a possibility.

Originally posted by kaburi on MTGS

IP search turns up a number of addresses, most of them only Trotsky, and none of the overlaps are usernames that throw up red flags for me. His main solo IPs are all AT&T based out of Kansas City Missouri, if that helps.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Well huh. Apparently subscriptions are carried over to the beta forum, so if someone posts in a subscribed forum/thread/whatever, whatever normal users were subscribed on here are subscribed on there and get notification of it. With links to the beta.

Edit: E-mail subscription, not PM subscription.

Originally posted by ExpiredRascals on MTGS

Ok, until we're live let's stick to threads that users won't be subscribed to please.

Originally posted by Sene on MTGS

You nathed
me. Had a conversation with Yomako. Apparently he didn't discover Beta via AIM chat, but via an email subscription. They go out even to users who haven't registered on the Beta. So now we know why some guys found out about it early.

Originally posted by Drifting Skies on MTGS

So, what do we do regarding those who already know?

Do we make a public announcement about it, or do we ask them to keep it on the down-low?

I get a feeling that while the latter might be the better option, it may not sit well if there are further leaks going forward. It was the same issue re:Sale to Curse a few months ago. I feel as though it may be wiser to have a thread up sooner rather than later if it's already gotten out to a few people than let false rumors build up and reach a boiling point before we go public.

Originally posted by ExpiredRascals on MTGS

Do we have a list of users that know?

I'm not concerned about Yomako, but I'd like to know if we're in for any
less pleasant surprises.

Originally posted by Arcadic on MTGS

It should not be a big deal if it leaks. Its far from finished and far from deployment.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Maybe make everything invisible to non-staff as a stopgap? It shouldn't affect our testing and it'll keep normal users from being able to see anything.

Originally posted by Drifting Skies on MTGS

I agree, but that is why I feel it best to move forward with a public announcement sooner rather than later, to reassure those who would be skeptical. I don't want the leaks to take an unsightly turn based on false or incomplete information. I can see it now:

"They're taking away our usernames! What are they going to do next? Mods are Nazis - they sold us out! "

Originally posted by Sene on MTGS

This is where I'm at. It's
really not a big deal. It's supposed to go live shortly anyway.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

To us it might not seem like a big deal, but there will be people who think otherwise. And I would rather be the CI OP than some paranoid chip-shouldering grump. Or just a curious member. Or anyone. We know how big the facial on this CAN be so why risk it?

Originally posted by Drifting Skies on MTGS

That's where I am. Better get out in front of the news to reassure the user base and be able to control the news cycle than let it boil over, let falsehoods grow in the shadows, and have a CI fiasco.

The whole Curse-sale leak clearly showed, at least to me, that trying to hide this and throw it under the rug after it's gotten out of hand, is a very bad idea, and I'd rather not risk it again.

Originally posted by Kahedron on MTGS

The sales is an odd situation though as there were contractual/legal reasons we had to keep that secret until the
sale finally went through. And the only reason why that went south is because some one decided to put the needs of a very small yet very vocal minority above the needs of the rest of the site.

Here there isn't quite the same burden of secrecy and it appears we have inadvertently invited a couple of people to take part in the beta without knowing it.

Rascals, can you put the text you have prepared up here as well before you unleash it to the masses.

Originally posted by Drifting Skies on MTGS

I agree that the sale was in a weird contractual/legal grey area where the staff was caught in between a rock and a hard place, but I still think that it showed that we want to, as much as possible, be open about what's going on and what to expect going forward.

I'm not familiar with every detail of what went down then, and it's probably not the sort of thing that I need to be intimately familiar with. But it does show that there is at least some figment of the users here that is
going to go into panic mode because of these unknown changes on the horizon. We do have to respect the wishes of Curse and its representatives, but we also have an obligation to the members of this community as well. In that sense, we have a difficult balancing act. I am hoping that Curse will agree that on this topic, we do want to be more open than the last time this came up.

Originally posted by Sene on MTGS

DakmorQueen just found the Beta too. We really need to go to CI soon.

Originally posted by Kahedron on MTGS

you want us to drop her a PM asking her to keep quiet for a bit as she is a clan member?

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Asking people to be quiet is half the ingredients for an explosion.
It just means we need to post it.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

DakmorQueen is a pretty reasonable girl though, I don't think she'd be the type to throw something like that at us.

[quote1=ISBPathfinder;
10265418]Belgareth is going to raize some hell and I can already see it....

I think I am just going to step away and let the higher paygrades handle him [/quote1]

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Uh yeah. Duh.
He is the ultimate forum conservative and anything we do that isn't the way he did it is usually met with:
3-4 posts.
1-2 reported posts.
1-2 strongly worded PMs.

Nothing wrong with that - I genuinely value his input - but he is a known commodity and conserving the old days is his thing.

Originally posted by ISBPathfinder on MTGS

I am getting really sick and tired of people threatening to leave MTGS over every little thing and then never leaving. Grow some balls and follow through dammit!

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

It's a bit annoying for
me too, but I think that the main issue is that Curse sites are blocked at a lot of places and switching will block a lot of our users - which is bad.

Originally posted by Kahedron on MTGS

For me its the assumption that the change is just being done so Curse can shove its name over the whole site.

IT appears we might have been a little to successful in hiding the creaking infrastructure and how much the back end of the site is going to be improved once we have completely ported the site over.

Originally posted by mikeyG on MTGS

What a shock, MtGS users are having extreme reactions to inconsequential details.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Yup. And 6 months after I thought they should

So confused. (not really. I've been here long enough to know the pattern.)

Originally posted by mikeyG on MTGS

The Internet: where logic, reason and empathy
go to die.

This will pass, and the randoms screeching about leaving will still be crapping up the place in six months. Feel free to call them on it.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

What they don't understand is that there is a constant exodus from the site that is slightly overpowered by our new registration. Basically, people are always moving on for any number of reasons.

And no, this isn't me downplaying their concerns... it's just that it's nothing new.

Originally posted by Moss_Elemental on MTGS

I am getting really sick and tired of people threatening to leave MTGS over every little thing and then never leaving. Grow some balls and follow through dammit!

Why tell us this?

Originally posted by mikeyG on MTGS

That's a very common mentality online. From the internet:

That "leave without anyone noticing" is actually a rarity on the net.
If you've ever moderated or fully ran your own forum, one of the biggest inside jokes you've likely had with other moderators is the dumb jackoffs who demand that their account be deleted. It's almost always in response to a moderator enforcing a rule like "no bumping your own post" or deleting something they wrote because it was flat out against the forum rules. Like maybe it had homemade animated Legolas porn or something ... because you just can't let go of that goddamn movie.

I used to be horrible about this back in my early Internet years. Back then, I'd been known to get drunk and delete my entire website or forum accounts without notice or explanation. The sudden dramatic disappearance got me attention. "What's wrong? Are you OK? I couldn't imagine what would make you do something so drastic -- it must be
huge. Is there anything we can do?" I could have easily just walked away from it while I destressed and then came back a month or two later, site and forum account still intact, but that wouldn't have been grand enough to get a reaction from people.
Understand, that was never at the front of my mind. I never went into it, consciously thinking, "I need some attention and someone to show me that they care. The best way to do that is to destroy everything that made strangers interested in me in the first place. Here I go." It was always just a feeling that I needed something big and dramatic to happen in my life, and when that never presented itself, I created my own. And as the Internet becomes more of a social playground, you see it all over the place. Two dudes get into a tiff, and one of them ends the confrontation with, "**** you. You're an arrogant prick. Feel free to block me now, *******." He couldn't just walk away. He couldn't just sever the
relationship by quietly blocking the other guy, himself. He had to create a situation in which he gets the last word and pretends to walk away while forcing the other guy to "do the dirty work."

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-obnoxious ... z2UtAJQi7O

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

What they don't understand is that there is a constant exodus from the site that is slightly overpowered by our new registration. Basically, people are always moving on for any number of reasons.

And no, this isn't me downplaying their concerns... it's just that it's nothing new.

Originally posted by mikeyG on MTGS

No, feel free to downplay their concerns, that's what I'll be doing.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Good Cop
Bad Cop

Originally posted by Kahedron on MTGS

Can I be bored cop???

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

To imply that you are bored and not totally up in it... hysterical.

Originally posted by Kahedron on MTGS

Mod lounge discussion and site history yeah that interests me.

But despite being a mod for less than 5 months getting more than a little jaded when the usual suspects show up complaining about something.

And yeah as you said Curse bought all our details 5 months ago and people are only complaining when they are changing the site format over... Please get over your self the fact you have been visiting a Curse site for the past 5 months kind of negates any argument you might have had.

[Col. Khaddafi]

The best advice in trolling countermeasures, by world renowned expert: the lapdog

Originally posted by ExpiredRascals on MTGS

Ok, I'm more than a little frustrated by this happening repeatedly, so we get a ML thread about it.

Don't take the troll bait.

Recently we've had a situation develop in CI because people bit on trollbait. First a local and then an admin. This is not something that happens just to the inexperienced, this happens to all of us eventually. That being said, it's also something that inevitably creates CI drama.

Don't take the troll bait.

People will try to exploit your good nature by making a blatantly wrong post for you to correct. Often it will be something with a false assumed premise or fallacious logic. The purpose of the post is to get a response from you that they can then springboard off of.

Don&
#39;t take the troll bait.

If you see an low post count account suggesting the GRRRRRRRRR should be publicly archived with the gutter, it's a troll account.

Don't take the troll bait.

If you see a post addressing you that is ignoring a mod request, it's troll bait. The entire point is to make it so that you feel compelled to respond.

Don't take the troll bait.

I've made the mistake more times than I can count, and I'm sure everyone else has as well, but we need to be much more careful about this. It's important to realize that you as a staff member have a larger target on your head than most, and that a troll can generate a much larger stir if they can get you to bite.

Don't take the troll bait.

Look at the post you're replying to. If it's made by a low post user or a known troll, don't touch it. Maybe card it, maybe report it, but to blindly approach with benign innocence will result in
more work and drama for you and everyone else. Look for the clear memes used in the past when targeting the staff.

Don't take the troll bait.

I get that this got pretty pedantic, but I'm tired of dealing with drama because a troll succeeded in exploiting someone's good nature. It's not a big deal for it to happen now and then, but this is turning into a major hassle that I'd rather not see repeated frequently.

Anyway, that's about it. Any questions, frustrations, or musings are welcome below.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

Before you even post in CI, double-check to see who you are replying to and if you're saying more than what is necessary. If you're remotely angry or otherwise emotional, don't post. Etc...

Originally posted by Megiddo on MTGS

good thread; would read again

Originally posted by kaburi on MTGS

This really should be stickied for future generations to reference.

Originally posted by Arcadic on MTGS

Before you even post in CI, double-check to see who you are replying to and if you're saying more than what is necessary. If you're remotely angry or otherwise emotional, don't post. Etc...

If we have to know the user is a troll to not reply to the troll, shouldn't we just ban the trolls? Save us all the trouble? Allowing ourselves to be openly trolled by those who are only here to do so and keeping them around is the problem.

Originally posted by parinoid on MTGS

We really should be a little more willing to say "tough titties" to more people.
It shuts down directed bitching quite nicely imho.

Originally posted by Etched Chester on MTGS

Before you even post in CI, double-check to see who you are replying
to and if you're saying more than what is necessary. If you're remotely angry or otherwise emotional, don't post. Etc...

This.

Or, better yet, Vanillas might not post in CI outside of their helpdesks.

Originally posted by kaburi on MTGS

Vanillas might not post in CI outside of their helpdesks.

This is my personal policy, but YMMV.

Originally posted by Poppeleseed on MTGS

If we have to know the user is a troll to not reply to the troll, shouldn't we just ban the trolls? Save us all the trouble? Allowing ourselves to be openly trolled by those who are only here to do so and keeping them around is the problem.

We really should be a little more willing to say "tough titties" to more people.
It shuts down directed bitching quite nicely imho.

nI think these two pretty much covered everything I wanted to say on this

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

Or, better yet, Vanillas might not post in CI outside of their helpdesks.

Nah. This isn't a vanillas vs. senior staff thing, this is an everyone thing.

Originally posted by TK-421 on MTGS

I want vanilla's in CI. I want Arcadic, viper, Sabett, and B_A commenting on Rumor Mill threads. Maybe it's because I haven't waded into the CI battlefield, but I must agree with parinoid in shutting down the trolls.

Originally posted by Etched Chester on MTGS

Nah. This isn't a vanillas vs. senior staff thing, this is an everyone thing.

Vanillas vs. senior staff? I didn't say that.

I'm
done posting in mod lounge, seriously. I'll be in casual if anyone needs me. Christ almighty.

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

Nah. This isn't a vanillas vs. senior staff thing, this is an everyone thing.

Vanillas vs. senior staff? I didn't say that.

I'm done posting in mod lounge, seriously. I'll be in casual if anyone needs me. Christ almighty.

Uh, I think you misunderstood me. I just meant that I don't think the problem is restricted to vanillas, so having vanillas not post wouldn't solve it.

Originally posted by Annorax on MTGS

It happens to everyone. This isn't a vanillas vs. senior staff thing, this isn't any kind of a vs. thing at all. This is "the trolls are in CI, watch for their bait & don't bite." It can happen with staff of all levels, it's
not confined to any particular group or level.

Originally posted by Lanxal on MTGS

Vanillas might not post in CI outside of their helpdesks.

This is my personal policy, but YMMV.

to this thread in general.

Originally posted by votan on MTGS

Last time someone was baited? Yours truly. So no, this isn't just a Vanilla thing...
As for the trolls, we're planning on taking care of that, so, stay tuned.

[Col. Khaddafi]

Originally posted by Boubouille on MTGS

Hello,

I waited a little before starting a big thread in the ML but now is the time!

What would you say you do here? (Yep!)
As some of you might know, I'm that "Curse guy" who is in charge of MTGSalvation now that we took over. Some of you might have seen me hang out in the new Staff chat on AIM and jump in a couple of threads but I tried to lay low for a while to get a better feel of the community and let you guys adapt.

My job on the site isn't to replace the admins, I will definitely be around if needed but ultimately most of the responsibilities still fall on admins. I'm mostly here to make the link between our team and Curse when needed (developers, marketing if we want to do giveaways,
etc) and sometimes share my experience when it looks like it could be useful.

You can pretty much talk to me about any concern you have, best way to do that is to drop me a mail at [email protected] or talk to me on skype (fbonte-curse) and AIM (BoubouilleMMO). You should still go through the admin team for 95% of your concerns but it doesn't hurt to say hi and chat a little. ^^


What's going to change?
A lot and not much. We will move the site to our own platform in the near future (say 2 or 3 months) but you guys and the entire community will be involved as soon as we have something decent to show. We'll keep things in public testing for a while and make sure a huge majority is happy before we actually go through with the change, it's pretty challenging to push something new on a 10 year old community full of people with very old habits but assuming we don't screw up, it should be make
everyone's life easier.

On the moderation side, I did push a couple of ideas to the admin team but ultimately the decision will boil down to the mod team. I just assume that you know the community more than I do and I'm pretty fine with not having to micromanage moderation anyway. I'll definitely give my input to admins or in ML threads if necessary but the bottom line is that for a crushing majority of moderation-related issues my word isn't law and admins will have the final say.

In the short run I would also like to go through forums and see how we can expand them, see if we can run a bunch of contests or giveaways for example, and I'll be happy to hear random ideas you might have for the future.


So... Gutter?
The Gutter is a situation I somewhat took over when we acquired the website because of how messy it got. Having new blood in the conversation did good and the situation isn't as bad as it used to be, to the point where we reach the
critical phase: we might have to unban people.

The reason for this is that a lot of these bans were done in the middle of the summer drama and left people with a sense of injustice/incomprehension. I do realize that a lot of these people had a heavy past, but in the end we're stuck in a situation where a lot of people got banned at the same time in the middle of the summer dramas with what I think was a bit of collateral damage.

I do believe that the easiest way to "fix" the entire drama is to allow people who are willing to join the community and be positive members to come back. The admin team suggested a wave of appeal to let the mod team decide and it sounds pretty good to me, we had an example earlier this week that worked pretty well. I do realize that it might be hard but I think if everybody involved try to stay slightly objective, the situation can be resolved.

Of course it will come as a trade off on their side, the Gutter will remain closed (and is very unlikely to be
reopened), account sharing/multiple accounts will be forbidden, and we will probably keep a slightly closer eye on them (as long as it doesn't turn to harassment and trying to get them banned by all means)

Overall I think this is something that took way too much importance for the moderator team in general and that's why I really want to turn the page. The last stage on this is to get ML feedback so ... well, here we are.


Anything else?
Not much. I do realize that the situation might have been a tiny bit confusing over the past month. I took things slow on purpose to allow some discussion in the team and I think it was overall a good thing. I was also swarmed with real life, that part didn't help.

Hopefully you guys will leave me with enough blood to go home when we're done with this thread. I'm a tiny bit scared.

Boubouille

[Col. Khaddafi]

Originally posted by Nai on MTGS

Hey guys.

I've seen, in a lot of threads recently (most notably the 'bias and you' thread) similar comments from lots of mods about where they feel the upper staff, mostly the admins, are on the Gutter situation. A lot of you believe that we're in a place where the admins simply want to unban them.

After having spoken to Sene and ER, I thought this thread was appropriate. To let you all know where we are.

When Boubouille informed us that he believed there should be unbannings, I was unhappy. There is a lot of bile over there on MTGC, a lot of upset with us and constant attacks on us. I've been following them off and on for a while. Believe me, I see what's going on there.

So one of the things I decided to do, about a week ago, is be honest with them. Tell them where I felt we went wrong, and where I felt we went right. And then
tried to lay the groundwork so that, if appeals were made and we were to consider unbannings, it'd be done on our terms. Not 'our' as in 'admin'. 'Our' as in 'staff'. If there will be unbannings, I want us to agree to it. I want us also to be the ones to say 'here's the stipulations, deal with it or get out'. Which is why, for anyone who's been following the MTGC thread, I've been sticking to my 'get in appeals' guns.

So that's that thread. And this is this one. So we can tell you exactly where we're at.

Boubouille has said something I agree with, though he said it in the admin chat, and I'm going to paraphrase that here: If a poster becomes a good poster, if they contribute and cause no problems, then their history becomes moot. I think it'd be a good idea to work on this ideal. So with that in mind, here's what I think.

Of the Gutter folks, here's what I think:

- N_S is outright 'no'. He's made
it very clear, on that site on and on that thread, that he holds nothing but ill will for us. I can't imagine a single thing he could say that would make me change my mind on this. He can wait a couple of years until he learns that he's not in charge here.
- Kijin would probably get my 'unban' vote if he applied. He's also being very clear over there, but he's showing that he wants to work with us. To not only make the site better, but also to add content and basically be a good poster. I've talked with Kijin directly through PM and IM, in various threads and over there. I think he's being sincere, and I'd like to give him the chance to prove it.
- Kpaca is a hard one for me. Again, I've spoken to him through PM and IM. I feel as if I know his standards of speech and his general speaking pattern when it comes to posting. The whole '**** you' thing doesn't phase me much, since I can see what he thought I was typing. I'd have responded the same way if
the staff told me to 'come back on my knees and beg'. I'd like to give him a chance, but I'm also willing to ask him to wait.
- Madding has been talking to Sene for a while now, and had a whole PM that he wrote to Sene that had all sorts of information in it about the Madding and Belza accounts. I felt there was enough reasonable doubt of their identities to make an unbanning just. Nothing more, nothing less.
- As for the rest of them, I haven't seen enough of them to make a decision on that.

But at the end of the day, guys, I want them to appeal. I want them to actually do it, to show they're willing to follow our rules and do things our way. And I want us to go into those appeals threads with 'if we bring them back, will they be a good poster and add value to the boards' and the front of our mind, not as much 'what they did in the past'. If they cause problems I'll ban them myself when it comes to it.

Most importantly, though, I'm not going to
overrule you guys. We, as the staff make decisions by checking with everyone who wants to weigh in. I'm not going to simply say 'Well, I think they should come back' and go ahead and do that. I've told them that, I've told Boubouille that, and I'm telling you that. We're making sure that a great deal of the staff agree with a decision before we send it through.

That's all from me. I know Sene and ER want to post in here for you guys.

Let's get on the same page folks; your opinion matters. We're not going to act without you.

Originally posted by Sene on MTGS

To be brief (about to go to bed), my position is "I can live with unbans, but I'm not thrilled with them. Kijin I could maybe vote in favor of, if he appeals. I'm against an unban on kpaca right now. I am firmly against N_S getting an unban anytime soon. My primary concern in this case is the staff."

[quote1=Galspanic;
9652025]Am I part of this or have I run my mouth enough? [/quote1]

Originally posted by Nai on MTGS

Am I part of this or have I run my mouth enough?

There was a PM recently saying that people were of the opinion that we want people unbanned and might go over the heads of the staff. I think it'd be good if you made your position on everything clear.

Originally posted by Megiddo on MTGS

My primary concern in this case is the staff."

mine too.

Originally posted by ExpiredRascals on MTGS

My personal opinion is that the unbannings should be on a case-by-case basis through appeals.

I'm trying to avoid pre-judging, but I know already
that I just can't see letting N_S back on site. All that crap that we've been spewing about "not making the staff take abuse" is really important to me, and I just see him spoiling for a fight. Worse for him is the amount of just outright malicious actions that we've seen from him. From the plethora of stuff we saw before his banning, to the PM he sent ria from a gimmick, he's proven that he's looking to hurt the site and the staff. He's toxic to our community and MTGC's, and I don't see why we should let him back.

For everyone else, it comes down to appeals. I posted in kpaca's thread that I was willing to listen. It was not that I was already or am already convinced (I think I'm leaning opposed atm, but it's not a hard stance). I am just committed to allowing each a shot. And this stands for every case. I've been trying to stay relatively silent in the ML threads to allow you guys to hash out your opinions, and to let me see how
each of you feels on this without the megaphone of admin dissent or concurrence. I'm happy to change this though.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Okay. In short I take all opinions into account, but it's my job to act in a way that I feel is best. I know that some people will not be thrilled with the stuff I want to do but I respect their points of view and get my mind changed all the time. I posted in one of the other threads so I'll just c/p here:

Banning people who are chronically and incorrigibly detrimental to the community should not be seen as "hardline ****."

I just reread this all and I get the impression that you might think I am saying no more bans - That is not the case. I do not want people like Tormod, who really aren't that disruptive but are one infraction away from being banned permanently, to have some room to work with
us. I think that for a lot of semi-trouble users long suspensions will be just fine and I want us to be more liberal in issuing those. But full on bans need to be reserved for seriously ****ed up things and the worst people on the site. The unmoderatable.

People that I think suspensions are okay with that we've had issues with:
Swazi Spring - that guy should already be iced.
Tordeck - Ass. But still okay most of the time.
Tormod - Grumpy guy that likes to argue infractions, but the arguing is worse than the infractions.
Kijin - He comes at you with essays and it's obnoxious to have to deal with him when he complains. Years of service that ended with an all around bad situation I am willing to take partial responsibility for - not a lot but I think we could have worked with him differently.
Kpaca - Sort of the same, but holy **** is he making it hard.
Poggydude - Spam spree was stupid but banning the gimmick and booting him for a month would also be fine.
Yanni - Similar to Madding. I
still think he evaded his ban, but there is some doubt there. AND, if he did by today's policy we would just extend his suspension.
People that try to sell Proxies - It's illegal, but the cultural norm of MTG pretty much allows it. If we make a strong effort to keep this from happening (and we do), I think that there isn't enough legal liability on our end to warrant a full ban. A month off? Yeah. I would obviously need to contact legal about that.
People that troll the hell out of non-MTG subforums that currently get 1 point infractions - 3-7 days off. F that.

Banned:
( N_S ) - He's been okay lately off site, but as recently as 2 weeks ago was browsing CI with Pinkfloyd's account. I started piecing together his personal history and he's been an absolutely unrelenting since Fall of 2011. There is a wake of destruction in his path that goes back at least that far. He is just too damaging to the site for me to believe that he can ever NOT be a problem that
will take out staff members.
Rippers - They stole stuff.
USMCFahey - Has made numerous threats against the site and when you call him on any of his BS he tells you that he can blow up CI - more threats. He stalks Teia and will go places simply to cause drama.


Sooooo, that's where I am at with that.

Originally posted by ExpiredRascals on MTGS

/barn the "ban fahey" stance from gals

Originally posted by Nai on MTGS

Basically, one of us got a PM from one of the mods who told us that there's scuttlebutt going around that the admins have already made up our minds and we're just going to forge on ahead. Wanted to show where we're all at (I know the 'groupthink' word has been thrown around) so that everyone knows 'this is what each admin is thinking'. We tend to speak as a group a little too much, apparently.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

If Fahey is going to be considered for a
ban, I think Tordeck should be too. Remember all the **** he pulled with ria? The fact that he's in perma-suspend mode now is one thing, but the bull**** he pulled was pretty much on Fahey's level, so...

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

If Fahey is going to be considered for a ban, I think Tordeck should be too. Remember all the **** he pulled with ria? The fact that he's in perma-suspend mode now is one thing, but the bull**** he pulled was pretty much on Fahey's level, so...

It was also a relatively long time ago and Fahey is still swinging. But, if Tordeck ever posts again and goes after anyone the way he did I think there is merit there.

Originally posted by ExpiredRascals on MTGS

I'm with gals again on tordeck. We should have banned him last year when he was swinging at ria, but he's not a problem right now as all he does is keep suspending himself. If he goes after
anyone again as he did ria, then he'd deserve a ban.

Originally posted by voltan on MTGS

I want to make sure 2 points are clear from my end (on top of what the other admins have said):

1. I think kpaca should be unbanned. I've made this very clear. However, if you look at his profile, you'll notice there's still a "banned" under his name. That's because we will only unban him if the staff, as a whole, agrees with it. I still have my belief, but I'm not going to ignore anyone because I have an opinion. In fact, I have already accepted that he'll stay banned, simply because the majority of the staff thinks it's the better option. I will not argue that, I will not try and go over your heads. I accept it and I'll defend your decision even if I don't agree with it. If there was any "going over the locals" thing going on, kpaca would be unbanned by now.
2. The abuses of the
   past will not happen again. If someone tries to misstreat mods half as bad as they did in the past, they'll be shown the door. I don't care if they are Gutter, non-gutter, Angels, or even Boubouille (yeah, I'm a badass ). Seriously, you're experiencing PTS and I want everyone to be sure that we will not tolerate stuff that was tolerated in the past...

Originally posted by ISBPathfinder on MTGS

Personally, I dont really bother forgiving them and allowing them to come back. However I agree with you in the fact that I want them to want to contribute and if all they are coming back is to try to bash staff again I dont want them. I think it is fairly clear how they think of us and I dont need more crap from them.

Originally posted by Kahedron on MTGS

Madding is wading in offering to act as a liaison between us and the gutter [
url=http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost ... ostcount=1]here[/url] regarding bans.

Should we take him up on his offer?

Originally posted by voltan on MTGS

I've replied to him with general information, but I don't think there needs to be a liaison. People appeal and they get a reply. There's no point in making it a group thing. I think we're better off letting each person be responsible for his/her actions....

Originally posted by Nai on MTGS

They're basically asking for another concession. I get less and less inclined to listen each and every time I see one.

Originally posted by voltan on MTGS

They're basically asking for another concession. I get less and less inclined to listen each and every time I see one.

They

[Col. Khaddafi]

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

Hello everyone!

As you are surely aware, at present there has been some discussion about the perception that there is a particular bias running rampant right now, a bias in favor of the men and men of the Gutter over straightforward application of the rules. However, until now this discussion has been scattered over a dozen threads in several forums and subforums, and as a natural result it has not come to any sensible conclusion. So let's change that.

Maybe you don't know where I am coming from here, so let me go back in MTGS history, because I'm a geriatric fart and I enjoy it. Now, I have never been a fan of the Gutter or the community it spawned--indeed, my vocal opposition to it was recorded a fair while back[/
url]. Nor, for that matter, have I ever been [url=http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=48722&highlight=Kijin]very fond of its principal members.* I don't tell you this because I think it's important in itself, but because I hope I can come to you with some credibility here when I say that whatever my position is on the Gutter bannings, it is emphatically not because I am fond of the Gutter community, friends with the people who want to be unbanned, or really in any way interested in making their lives easier because of their common association.

That said, I am disturbed by the attitude some people have taken in discussing the various Gutter appeals, both because I think it is contrary to the interests of the forum, and because I think it's missing the point. There are really two issues at play here.

The first is this perception of pro-Gutter bias, the
sort of thing a couple of you like to pithily sum up as "because Gutter." I ask you now: look at the people you're arguing with. Are any of them friends of the Gutter, or strangers to Gutter drama? What interest do you honestly believe that any of them have in strengthening the Gutter community or helping out former Gutter members?

I know that there have been a lot of breaches of trust with the members and leadership of the Gutter community over the years, and many (if not most, or all) of us are understandably gunshy of dealing with them on even the same playing field as other users, much less giving them any sort of special dispensation. But I see not just this, but an attitude which has swung so far away from them that any thought of lenience is assumed to be because of a pro-Gutter agenda, when it is evident that the agenda has nothing to do with the Gutter really; the agenda is not pro-Gutter, but pro-universal lenience and reconciliation.

The
question for many of us is not whether these users deserved to be banned under the old rules, or whether the old rules were just; these discussions have been had, and there is no sense in revisiting them. What I am asking myself is: are we really better off with these people banned? I ask myself, to appropriate the old saw by Lyndon Johnson: is it better to have them outside pissing in, or inside pissing out (or maybe in, still, but at least we'd be able to see them)? What benefit do we get by having these guys banned and causing mischief that is hard to track that we don't gain by having these guys in the system? These are real questions, but they are continually lost in accusations of bias and doctrinaire expressions of fealty to the rules.

That brings us to the second point, which is the idea of "bias" itself, the concept that we need to be impartial and unflinching policemen of legal doctrines. This is the idea that giving any user a different treatment than a different user
who broke the same rule is not just inherently wrong, but morally corrupt. To this I ask: why? And if it is: who cares?

The whole reason we exist is so that there is a human factor in moderation. If all we wanted was a neat forum with no obvious spam and no Goatse, we could set up a spam filter that would be Good Enough for nearly all cases, and we could sit back and post about Magic cards. But we don't want that, first of all because that would be stupid, and also because a spam filter doesn't understand context the way a human does. But asking us to apply the rules straightforward-no-matter-what is essentially an attempt to rob us of our human agency, to make us into some sort of impossible automata.

The fact of it is that circumstances do matter. We card a flame that was goaded, to be sure, but is there anyone among us who wouldn't feel differently about that card than a card for an unprovoked attack? When we see a thread that has
recorded several pages of spam, we don't card every post, because we know that the thread created an environment where spam was natural. We allow such small concessions every day, because to do otherwise would be to create a system with all the technical trappings of success but with no sense of what was truly important.

We have sympathy for the man because he is only a man, but tries to be something else; we have no respect for the beast because he must be a beast. To be certain, someone like Kijin is a pain, a scoundrel, a man who has made life unpleasant for more than a few people here. He is also a smart man, a man who has contributed thousands of hours of his life to making this website better, a man who wants to continue to make this website better even despite his and our misgivings. What basis is there to treat this man the same as the random internet troll who signs up and immediately begins to flame, except that we have dedicated ourselves to unquestioning fealty to the rules?

Those rules
exist to make this place better, to make it more fun for all of us to talk about brightly colored cardboard and play games and swap jokes. They may be good rules, they may be bad rules, but they only exist insofar as we think they actually make this place better. If they are doing something wrong, it is not just our prerogative to ignore them, it is our duty to do so. To do otherwise is to sacrifice our judgment and common sense--and to what end? So that the Fahey's and Viricide's of the world not be able to accuse us of bias? What higher good does that serve?

Instead of pretending to be internet police or rules lawyers, let's start imagining ourselves as shepherds. We should lead by example, addressing wrongs when they need to be addressed, but only when they need to be. We don't get anywhere culling our sheep for the sake of culling them.

tl;dr: come on guys


*: These are hoary old threads, but similar ones
could be found from more recent days.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

I am a bit of a rules nazi but the rules have flexibility in them and we need to have the nut sacs to use that flex. I agree with looking at cases individually and trying to include as many people in our community without sacrificing the greater good.

You pretty much sum up what a solid year of busting, banning, and interrogating people has brought me to - beating up on people doesn't make this place better for anyone, it's just a stupid hobby site, and we should be finding every loop hole and excuse we can to include people instead of ripping them to pieces.

EDIT:
The Gutter has been the most vocal of the exiled but I am looking at all of this in a larger context than just them. We've banned a lot of people since I've been here.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

Senori beat me to the topic. Haven't read it yet but I can guess the contents

EDIT: Exactly what I thought. 10/10 would read again. I want to add that the Gutter is dead. Zombie Gutter has a 99% chance of being closed any day now. There is MTGCommunity, and friends, but no Gutter.

Originally posted by The Cold Monarch on MTGS

tl;dr: come on guys

"Come on guys?"

Is that really your response to those who might feel the rules are bending to fit the needs of a certain "former" sub-group? Maybe we should be considering new rules and creating a different outlet, but the way you are going about it, honestly looks like this agenda is doing nothing less than undermining every single long winded conversation we had about each banned member on a whim. Hell, even Madding's appeal (which I agreed with, more for his humbleness rather than whether I believed him) was more or less because we
were positive he evaded (which is why he was banned), but because we couldn't technically prove it, he was let off the hook.

Kpaca has been nothing more than a complete asshat in the appeal thread, proving both not and at the time of his ban that he can't control himself in an internet forum, and yet we are considering unbanning him?

tl;dr: Maybe these changes are for the greater good, but even seeing what happens in the discussions here, I confess that it looks an awful lot like the rules are being bent to the benefit of this group.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

Why. Why are people arguing on behalf of people who have caused them trouble and many of whom don't like the people they are arguing for (and the other way around). You have to answer that before any accusations of bias. What do these people gain. Be critical. Accusations of 'corrupt' bias are serious and I'
m going to challenge them.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

tl;dr: come on guys

"Come on guys?"
...
I confess that it looks an awful lot like the rules are being bent to the benefit of this group.

I know for me it isn't just them. They happen to be the most vocal and most banned members weren't 5000 post, former mods. I will give the same olive branch to others too.

Originally posted by Rai Kerensky on MTGS

I dislike the concept of the gutter. I dislike how some of the more vocal gutterites act. However, I take each member as what they post outside of the gutter when looking at them, since I have not see what is inside of the gutter. Same with on MTGC (I have read what they post there). No one should take how I act in GRRR as to how I am when it comes to moderating and interacting with users outside of
the GRR. I care what they say to us directly on our forum and how they act on the forums.

I am fine with them getting an Xth chance provided they show they have some positive level of maturity and are willing to follow the rules without being shown any favoritism. Banning without the possibility of coming back does not help anyone. I rather have those members back as productive members of MtGS then not.

I agree, Gutter members should be treated like anyone who broke the rules. Personal feelings should not factor into treatment of the former gutter members. If they come seeking our hand, we should offer it in good faith. However, they should go through the process as everyone should.

In Kpaca specifically, I am not even factoring his gutter behavior or why he was banned in the first place. If he had gimmicked and not been disrespectful to the staff, I would have voted for him to be unbanned. I feel that he is a problem and that is why I am voting against him being unbanned.


The
gutter is dead. Holding people to something committed to the past when they have moved on seems counterproductive. However, if they act the same way they did here on Salvation as they did in the Gutter, then they do not deserve to come back.

Originally posted by mikeyG on MTGS

I'm of two minds about this.

I can appreciate trying to adjust policy to better serve the forums. I may not agree with every change but I ultimately respect the intent fully. I can also respect trying to address what the administration considers their mistakes from a very messy, turbulent time. That's all well and good, but the issue I think some are having here is that all of this is seemingly benefiting one particular subset of banned users more than others. I think that's a trick of perception based on that subset of banned members being at the centre of the mistakes you'd like to address as well as largely banned under circumstances open to reexamination based on recent policy changes.

I don&
#39;t believe the administration has a particular bias, but I can certainly sympathize with fearing so given how things look from the ground. It's especially disturbing when the staff had so many charged discussions during the banning processes, the apparent eagerness to overturn those bans so soon after would sting. But again, that's less a problem of bias as it is one of muddied perceptions.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

We destroyed the Gutter and banned most of the members (most were rightfully so). Where is the bias there? It is hilarious to suggest to those banned people that the staff is too biased in their favour.

Originally posted by voltan on MTGS

tl;dr: come on guys

"Come on guys?"

Is that really your response to those who might feel the rules are bending to fit the needs of a certain "former" sub-group? Maybe we should be
considering new rules and creating a different outlet, but the way you are going about it, honestly looks like this agenda is doing nothing less than undermining every single long winded conversation we had about each banned member on a whim. Hell, even Madding's appeal (which I agreed with, more for his humbleness rather than whether I believed him) was more or less because we were positive he evaded (which is why he was banned), but because we couldn't technically prove it, he was let off the hook.

Kpaca has been nothing more than a complete asshat in the appeal thread, proving both not and at the time of his ban that he can't control himself in an internet forum, and yet we are considering unbanning him?

tl;dr: Maybe these changes are for the greater good, but even seeing what happens in the discussions here, I confess that it looks an awful lot like the rules are being
bent to the benefit of this group.

We are trying to make the site better. The only reason this appears to be a biased agenda to favor the Gutter is because they are appealing. The first user to benefit from our policy change was Gideonjur@. No one talked about him, because he isn't gutter. Madding was unbanned because we weren't sure he evaded and we didn't want to find him guilty on instinct...
As for bias, is it realistic that I'd spend 12 hours a day on a site trying to do what's worst for it? I'm biased towards what I think is best for MTGS. I may be right or wrong, but I'm not trying to **** Sally up... Neither is anyone else. I'm pretty sure of one things. Every single member of this staff, be you in agreement with me or not, is not acting on bias, but trying to defend what they feel is best for our beloved site. At the end of the day, that's what I care about and that's what makes me turn on the computer and log on to
Sally at the beginning of each day and stay logged on for the better part of it....

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

tl;dr: come on guys

"Come on guys?"

Is that really your response to those who might feel the rules are bending to fit the needs of a certain "former" sub-group? Maybe we should be considering new rules and creating a different outlet, but the way you are going about it, honestly looks like this agenda is doing nothing less than undermining every single long winded conversation we had about each banned member on a whim. Hell, even Madding's appeal (which I agreed with, more for his humbleness rather than whether I believed him) was more or less because we were positive he evaded (which is why he was banned), but because we couldn't technically prove it, he was let off
the hook.

Kpaca has been nothing more than a complete asshat in the appeal thread, proving both not and at the time of his ban that he can't control himself in an internet forum, and yet we are considering unbanning him?

tl;dr: Maybe these changes are for the greater good, but even seeing what happens in the discussions here, I confess that it looks an awful lot like the rules are being bent to the benefit of this group.[/color]

Is that really my response? Yeah, pretty much.

I mean, look in the Ban Appeals forum right now. There are as many appeals for non-Gutter members as Gutter members right now, and people are giving them the same treatment even though there is no "because Gutter" to speak of. This isn't carving out special exemptions, this is changing general policy.

And even if it were special exemptions: what of it? Why does it matter?

edit: also, I suspect if Madding had applied asking for lenience
instead he still would've been unbanned.

Originally posted by Sene on MTGS

First off, good post Senori

I have a few things to say about this. I am personally incredibly torn about the "Gutter unbans". I don't yet know exactly where I stand, and for those of you who get access to the Admin Lounge at some point, you'll be able to find a number of very conflicted chatlogs between the five of us. As for bias, I think we're talking about a bias in favor of unbans in general, at least for myself. I think we should reduce the number of banned members we have, as has been talked about at length already. However, whether that should apply to these guys, who've been thorns in our sides for a long time, antagonizing us, caused burnout and resignation en masse, that's a tough question.

I feel
there are good reasons to unban, but those would NOT be unbans on merit. I already said to them (on MTGC) that I think all of the bans were valid, and I stand by that (with the possible exception of Madding, given that we didn't have enough proof). That said, while we're trying to deal with a ban system that I honestly think is generally bad, I'm not yet sure if I am ready to embrace a number of users that were definite "problem users" almost no matter your definition.

Also, we are definitely in some kind of transition here. Some of us have already accepted and taken for granted a more discretionary approach to rules enforcement, and are in basic agreement about the "fewer bans" policy. But we must also realize that this is not official staff policy yet, and acting as though it is might alienate the staff members who haven't been in those discussions, or plainly disagree with it. Both are valid, both are positions we must respect and be considerate of.

nBut those of you who think we're doing this in order to excuse an unban of Gutter members: no, just no. I hope there are no one who really think this, and that you have more faith in your admins than to believe that we would try to implement a number of changes under the cover of a "fewer banned members is good for the site because of X, Y and Z" argument, just to get some gutterites unbanned, after all we've been through this summer. There are no users on MTG Salvation who have pissed me off more than some of the banned Gutterites. After all my work to try to see things from their side, hundreds of hours of talking, I was vilified, got stamped as "morally corrupt", and generally labeled as incompetent and internet mad and such. You who know me know I've always had the best intentions, but I got comprehensively burned. The same is true for the other admins, to a smaller or bigger degree. If anyone's got a reason to be biased against the Gutter, it&
#39;s us.

I am an extremely forgiving person though, I know this. It's simultaneously a great strength and a great weakness that I have. I don't carry grudges, I don't have long lasting bad feelings, and I would much rather try to work things out than keep having a bad relationship with someone. And although I am of the opinion that the Gutter ****ed itself this summer, and that their attitude made it extremely unpleasant to try to deal with them, we (myself included, without a doubt) were also at fault for what happened. I am also of the opinion that from a purely pragmatic point of view, it's going to be better for us to shake hands and move on, and reduce our number of "enemies" significantly. It's better to have them here, under control, on at least neutral terms, than to keep up the hostility. We're not going to escape their influence anyway, most likely. Plus, the Gutter is inevitably going to be shut down very soon, and not after unbans would happen (if
at all). So they would be without the on-site clubhouse that we have to worry about at all times, and was honestly the root of all of these problems to begin with. Lastly, from Curse's point of view, having a bunch of members who were banned for leaking information about them looks bad, and unbans are a good show of faith.

Like I said though, I am incredibly torn, I'm well aware of potential negative consequences, and the precendents this would set, so I am nowhere near submitting my vote one way or the other. As you can see, I'm showing skepticism in the discussion thread about kpaca, because I am. I don't know exactly where I stand.

It's a good idea to have a sit down and talk about where we're at when it comes to general rules policy enforcement, and reach some sort of agreement, or at least make sure we understand where the other side is. Right now I'm afraid a lot of staff members are like "Whoa, what?" when reading some of the discussions in the ban
appeal discussion sub.

Originally posted by Arcadic on MTGS

We destroyed the Gutter and banned most of the members (most were rightfully so). Where is the bias there? It is hilarious to suggest to those banned people that the staff is too biased in their favour.

Its not the bans that you can show lacks favoritism or bias, is the countless skirted infractions and suspensions and twisting of the rules in the face of this administration that shows the bias. You have a small group of people who did nothing more to this site that talk **** about it and at every turn would attack the people trying to run it. They have never cared about the rules of this site, they have always cared about their boys' club way before this site and its well-being. Something they proved when they did the things that ended up in their ban.

You want to handwaive the obvious bias, but every single time and punuitive action was even suggest
against a gutter member, it was a 10 page thread. It was then a 26 page CI thread and another 10 page appeal thread and another 26 page CI thread. When do you simply realize that the staffs time WAS BIASED towards these members? How much of the volunteer time has gone into telling these anarcists and ****throwers off?

Call my biased against them all you want, my bias is towards people who want this site to thrive. Those who actively tried to sabotage and undermine the staff do not fall into that catagory. Those who's main source entertainment was insulting the community do not fall in the catagory.

I'm done wasting my time listening to their garbage. If you want to continue to waste the MTGS's community's and sites time on 3-5 members, go ahead and waste that time. The site is far bigger than those people, yet somehow we have wasted a year on their pathetic attacks and childishness. I'm at least smart enough to know that when someone spits in my face, not to let them do it again
and again. Lets MOVE ON. Show your not biased by MOVING ON. Lets not waste another year of productive work on people who would only tear it down.

Originally posted by mikeyG on MTGS

Also, we are definitely in some kind of transition here. Some of us have already accepted and taken for granted a more discretionary approach to rules enforcement, and are in basic agreement about the "fewer bans" policy. But we must also realize that this is not official staff policy yet, and acting as though it is might alienate the staff members who haven't been in those discussions, or plainly disagree with it. Both are valid, both are positions we must respect and be considerate of.

I've noticed that mentality growing recently, and while I am very supportive of the staff adopting a more discretionary stance on rules enforcement in general, I am very wary of the attitude towards bans. It doesn't make me confident that we'
ll see an end to that sense of entitlement amongst some users, if anything I think a reluctance to ban and an eagerness to unban will only make that attitude worse.

But those of you who think we're doing this in order to excuse an unban of Gutter members: no, just no. I hope there are no one who really think this, and that you have more faith in your admins than to believe that we would try to implement a number of changes under the cover of a "fewer banned members is good for the site because of X, Y and Z" argument, just to get some gutterites unbanned, after all we've been through this summer. There are no users on MTG Salvation who have pissed me off more than some of the banned Gutterites. After all my work to try to see things from their side, hundreds of hours of talking, I was vilified, got stamped as "morally corrupt", and generally labeled as incompetent and internet mad and such. You who know me know I've always had the best intentions, but I got
comprehensively burned. The same is true for the other admins, to a smaller or bigger degree. If anyone's got a reason to be biased against the Gutter, it's us.

True. But on the other hand, you also have the most reason to overcorrect. As you said, the staff is decidedly forgiving (it's not just you, the staff as a whole is more forgiving now than it had been in years past) and with the administration's role in the fates of the gutterites, it's only natural that you may want to allay the guilt associated with that. And that can lead to overcorrections in the name of righting wrongs.

Point being, actions can have very different interpretations of motivators. Where you see reasons you could be justifiably biased against a group, others may see where you could be unintentionally favoring them out of a desire to fix a mistake or a sense of contrition.

I am an extremely forgiving person though, I know this. It's
simultaneously a great strength and a great weakness that I have. I don't carry grudges, I don't have long lasting bad feelings, and I would much rather try to work things out than keep having a bad relationship with someone. And although I am of the opinion that the Gutter ****ed itself this summer, and that their attitude made it extremely unpleasant to try to deal with them, we (myself included, without a doubt) were also at fault for what happened. I am also of the opinion that from a purely pragmatic point of view, it's going to be better for us to shake hands and move on, and reduce our number of "enemies" significantly. It's better to have them here, under control, on at least neutral terms, than to keep up the hostility. We're not going to escape their influence anyway, most likely. Plus, the Gutter is inevitably going to be shut down very soon, and not after unbans would happen (if at all). So they would be without the on-site clubhouse that we have to
worry about at all times, and was honestly the root of all of these problems to begin with. Lastly, from Curse's point of view, having a bunch of members who were banned for leaking information about them looks bad, and unbans are a good show of faith.

The issue I take away from all this is one of authority. Unbanning members who indisputably caused the most ruckus this year sends a very clear message. There is just about nothing you can do to be permanently removed from the site and if you are all you need to do is raise hell about it and the staff will probably submit if you keep it up. That does not instill a sense of confidence in the staff. I recognize that you have very good reasons for wanting to move in this direction (I don't even disagree with the reasons, I'm just unsure the results are worth it), but you're going to have to sell it hard because you're going to get a lot of people on the site looking at you as doormats.

[
quote1=Senori;9641762]

You want to handwaive the obvious bias, but every single time and punuitive action was even suggest against a gutter member, it was a 10 page thread. It was then a 26 page CI thread and another 10 page appeal thread and another 26 page CI thread. When do you simply realize that the staffs time WAS BIASED towards these members? How much of the volunteer time has gone into telling these anarcists and ****throwers off?

The staff is biased because the members of the Gutter are vocal?

I'm done wasting my time listening to their garbage. If you want to continue to waste the MTGS's community's and sites time on 3-5 members, go ahead and waste that time. The site is far bigger than those people, yet somehow we have wasted a year on their pathetic attacks and childishness. I'm at least smart enough to know that when someone spits in my face, not to let them do it again and again.
Lets MOVE ON. Show your not biased by MOVING ON. Lets not waste another year of productive work on people who would only tear it down.

Please be civil. This accomplishes nothing.[/quote1]

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

The issue I take away from all this is one of authority. Unbanning members who indisputably caused the most ruckus this year sends a very clear message. There is just about nothing you can do to be permanently removed from the site and if you are all you need to do is raise hell about it and the staff will probably submit if you keep it up. That does not instill a sense of confidence in the staff. I recognize that you have very good reasons for wanting to move in this direction (I don't even disagree with the reasons, I'm just unsure the results are worth it), but you're going to have to sell it hard because you're going to get a lot of people on the site looking at you
as doormats.

For me (I say this a lot, huh?), the problem is that even banning people doesn't permanently remove people from the site. They don't leave. Back before wireless carriers I guess you could look at an IP address and figure out who people were, but even in the last year I've seen my ability to track people almost vanish. Lord Sodious is Kireek - a banned member and the only reason I know this is because both members have IP addresses in the London metro area and in the Manchester metro area. Think about that... the best I could get is placing the two accounts in a city of 8.3 million people and 2.3 million people. The confirmation came when we said "Hi Kireek" and he opted not to play dumb. My point is that no matter what we want to do, flat out banning people isn't realistic in a lot of cases. It's not enforceable. So, instead of using Bans against problem members (not criminals) we can try Suspensions instead... looooong
Suspensions if it comes to that. Suspensions give an incentive that Bans never could - an incentive for future good behavior. If they come back and aren't cooperating then we suspend them again.

For me, none of this has anything to do with the Gutter except that they are the test cases because they are the ones currently appealing (and why are we ignoring the other people appealing?!). This line of thinking started a few months ago when I started looking at other websites and noticed that nobody is as strict about this stuff as we are and most of them seem to function just fine or better than we do. And yes, I looked at big sites as well as small sites. We do things in a way that doesn't yield results and doesn't work FOR the community at large.

So yeah, if I had my way we would give people another chance not out of mercy/lenience but because I want to change the way we treat people we've deemed unfit for this site.

EDIT:
I don't even know if this is relevant, but
the people currently banned, if they successfully appeal, are having Gutter access taken away. I want them to be regular old normal members that don't have a place on-site that allows for detrimental behavior outside the scope of the mods.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

By the "banning doesn't cause people to leave the site anyway" logic, there are two conclusions:

1) Suspensions don't either, so why not just abolish suspensions too?
2) Why ban rippers? Banning doesn't remove them permanently. Why not just give them suspensions too?

Which, I think, illustrates my problem with being too lenient: The staff members who are don't really seem to be learning anything. Gutter explodes and pushes people from staff in the name of keeping the clubhouse? They're given a pass on that. Gutter members are a detriment to the community, then pull some serious **** and wind up getting banned? They're forgiven, apparently. CI becomes a
sea of fire? Staff lets it burn itself out rather than putting it out. It seems like it's getting increasingly hard for the staff to puts its collective feet down, and that only fuels the culture of user self-entitlement that we're supposedly working to correct. You can get infracted, you can get suspended, but unless you do something outright criminal, you can't ever be banned? That doesn't sit right with me. That's a doormat philosophy as I see it.

Yes, someone might immediately return following a ban, but I imagine most banned users eventually get bored and leave. They don't besiege the site in the long term. They give up and look for new forums. There's no reason to act like bans as a system are broken.

Originally posted by The Cold Monarch on MTGS

The staff is biased because the members of the Gutter are vocal?

You said to look at all the appeals for gutter members/n0n-gutter members.
His point is to look at our discussions about each banning.

Please

be civil. This accomplishes nothing.

He has a point. We had LONG discussions about each gutter member we banned. The number of times the phrase: "If this were any other member we would have...." came up was astounding. We finally settle on a decision, and then policy changes to bring back members who were not only toxic to this site, but openly badmouth the site, its staff, and bring this sense of entitlement they think they deserve to be unbanned? And instead of just closing the door, we seem to be trying to get them to appeal.

The issue I take away from all this is one of authority. Unbanning members who indisputably caused the most ruckus this year sends a very clear message. There is just about nothing you can do to be permanently removed from the site and if you are all
you need to do is raise hell about it and the staff will probably submit if you keep it up. That does not instill a sense of confidence in the staff. I recognize that you have very good reasons for wanting to move in this direction (I don't even disagree with the reasons, I'm just unsure the results are worth it), but you're going to have to sell it hard because you're going to get a lot of people on the site looking at you as doormats.

This.

For me (I say this a lot, huh?), the problem is that even banning people doesn't permanently remove people from the site. They don't leave. Back before wireless carriers I guess you could look at an IP address and figure out who people were, but even in the last year I've seen my ability to track people almost vanish. Lord Sodious is Kireek - a banned member and the only reason I know this is because both members have IP addresses
in the London metro area and in the Manchester metro area. Think about that... the best I could get is placing the two accounts in a city of 8.3 million people and 2.3 million people. The confirmation came when we said "Hi Kireek" and he opted not to play dumb. My point is that no matter what we want to do, flat out banning people isn't realistic in a lot of cases. It's not enforceable. So, instead of using Bans against problem members (not criminals) we can try Suspensions instead... looooong Suspensions if it comes to that. Suspensions give an incentive that Bans never could - an incentive for future good behavior. If they come back and aren't cooperating then we suspend them again.

So, you are pretty much saying that since we can't techincally keep everyone banned, might as well do away with the system?

We do things in a way that doesn't yield results and doesn't work FOR the community at large.

As far as I can tell, the community at large could give two ****s. You have to constantly (or hugely) **** up to even get a suspension, let alone banned.

So yeah, if I had my way we would give people another chance not out of mercy/lenience but because I want to change the way we treat people we've deemed unfit for this site.

We could go the MTGC route and just ignore them completely.

EDIT:

I don't even know if this is relevant, but the people currently banned, if they successfully appeal, are having Gutter access taken away. I want them to be regular old normal members that don't have a place on-site that allows for detrimental behavior outside the scope of the mods.

That's about the equivalence of taking away their Gamecube, after they just got the Wii U. It is clear MTGC is the new gutter, and most of the "gutter members" want to see the gutter trashed
anyway.

Is that really my response? Yeah, pretty much.

Bravo. Don't see it your way, I guess that means we're wrong.

And even if it were special exemptions: what of it? Why does it matter?

A special exemption should be gifted to someone who actually deserves it, not someone who thinks they do. For instance, if Sakura re-appealed for leniency after clearing her head, I would think that would be a special exemption.

Not somebody who constantly flaunts the rules, and calls the staff 'morally corrupt'.

edit: also, I suspect if Madding had applied asking for lenience instead he still would've been unbanned.

Even if you have 100% proof he was lying about that gimmick bull****?

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

You said to look
at all the appeals for gutter members/n0n-gutter members. His point is to look at our discussions about each banning.

Do you really think it's unusual to have a longer appeal discussion about a long-term member who was banned under controversial circumstances?

He has a point.

Look, it doesn't matter if he has a point or not. We're here to work together, not to yell at each other. If we can't be civil we shouldn't be talking.

We had LONG discussions about each gutter member we banned. The number of times the phrase: "If this were any other member we would have...." came up was astounding. We finally settle on a decision, and then policy changes to bring back members who were not only toxic to this site, but openly badmouth the site, its staff, and bring this sense of entitlement they think they deserve to be unbanned? And instead of just closing the
door, we seem to be trying to get them to appeal.

First off, those users were banned, what, four and a half months ago? Probably a fifth of the staff wasn't even here when it happened, including a fair few who have been pretty vocal in these threads. I don't see any harm in discussing them in the light of new information or new attitudes.

Second, do you really think the whole reason those policy changes were instituted was to let the Gutter members back in? Really?

Look, I don't like these guys as much as anyone else, but basic fairness obliges us to consider them at least as carefully as we'd consider anything else.

There is just about nothing you can do to be permanently removed from the site and if you are all you need to do is raise hell about it and the staff will probably submit if you keep it up.

To begin with, is anyone raising hell? If we ignored MTGC and banned the
occasional gimmick we pretty much could never hear from these guys again.

And is whatever hell they're raising the reason that anyone is actually considering unbanning them? I couldn't care less about their drama; I want (some of) them unbanned because I think keeping them banned doesn't do us any good.

(I think we should keep Scumbag banned at the very least, but that's another thread.)

So, you are pretty much saying that since we can't techincally keep everyone banned, might as well do away with the system?

What's the use of a deterrent if it doesn't do any good?

If a deterrent isn't doing any good and wasting a lot of people's time, it's a bad deterrent. That's a perfectly sensible reason to get rid of it.

Bravo. Don't see it your way, I guess that means we're wrong.[/quote:
26k85dyx]
I mean, my view is really the fifteen or so paragraphs above the tl;dr, but if you want to be dismissive, sure.

A special exemption should be gifted to someone who actually deserves it, not someone who thinks they do. For instance, if Sakura re-appealed for leniency after clearing her head, I would think that would be a special exemption.

Not somebody who constantly flaunts the rules, and calls the staff 'morally corrupt'.

Sure, but then we should be having a debate about whether these people actually deserve lenience, not whether the concept of lenience is good or bad. The idea of being hardline on the rules no matter what is what disturbs me, not the fact that some people disagree with me about the Gutter guys.

Even if you have 100% proof he was
lying about that gimmick bull****?

I mean, I'd support it just because we're already doing that semi-amnesty, and because Madding is one of the safest cases of a net positive to the site among the former Gutter users.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

By the "banning doesn't cause people to leave the site anyway" logic, there are two conclusions:

1) Suspensions don't either, so why not just abolish suspensions too?
2) Why ban rippers? Banning doesn't remove them permanently. Why not just give them suspensions too?
...
You can get infracted, you can get suspended, but unless you do something outright criminal, you can't ever be banned? That doesn't sit right with me. That's a doormat philosophy as I see it.

1 - They might not either but they carry with them and inherent incentive to get your **** together - if you do you can come back. A ban
says "buh bye" and they have 2 choices, right? Stay away or sneak back. We can keep banning them, digging in our heals, or we can say "dude, this guy wants to be here. Let's see if there is a way to mend this." I don't want to heal people since that's just too much work for all involved, but if you approach most people in the right way they will calm the **** down. With the right approach I really think we can prevent a lot of the problems we've had.
2. If you steal something of monetary value from people it's in a whole different ballpark than calling people bad names. Banning rippers does not remove all of them permanently but as I have told you before, we have a security system built into the way we do things in Market Street that isn't realistic for the rest of the forum. People outside of MS don't have to have their Location field filled in, don't get IP checked by me just for browsing, don't have to exchange addresses with people when
they trade, and don't have their home addresses published when they get banned. It's in MS that I see what it actually takes to keep ~most~ banned members out and that's bull**** for the rest of you. We have 5 active mods covering a section that at any given time has no more than 20 people browsing.

1. So, you are pretty much saying that since we can't techincally keep everyone banned, might as well do away with the system?

We do things in a way that doesn't yield results and doesn't work FOR the community at large.

2. As far as I can tell, the community at large could give two ****s. You have to constantly (or hugely) **** up to even get a suspension, let alone
banned.

So yeah, if I had my way we would give people another chance not out of mercy/lenience but because I want to change the way we treat people we've deemed unfit for this site.

3. We could go the MTGC route and just ignore them completely.

EDIT:

I don't even know if this is relevant, but the people currently banned, if they successfully appeal, are having Gutter access taken away. I want them to be regular old normal members that don't have a place on-site that allows for detrimental behavior outside the scope of the mods.

4. That's about the equivalence of taking away their Gamecube, after they just got the Wii U. It is clear MTGC is the new gutter, and most of the "gutter members" want to see the gutter trashed anyway.[/COLOR][/
quote]

1. No. See above.
2. Asking a guy to buy a playmat in Magic General will get you suspended. Joking about beating up a hooker will get you suspended. Flaming a mod will get you suspended. These things should give you a time out, but I'd hardly call those huge issues. Trying to sell proxies is something I see at every game shop I've ever been to and have done myself and if you do it here, boom, gone forever. Now that evasion is no longer instant death it will ease up on things, but it is still pretty easy to get time away - and I want it to be easier actually.
3. What do you mean?
4. Is this really such serious business that what people do on other sites matters here? I used to think so, but I just don't anymore. Stu55's appeal was denied because we saw him bad mouthing us on MOTL. What the everloving **** was I thinking? Was I thinking that if he came back here he would cause trouble here that we couldn't handle? I think that's what I was thinking,
but ... They can derp around on MTGC all they want and talk **** all they want but if it's not here we can't and shouldn't do anything about it. Sure, if there are staff members doing stuff elsewhere that violates the CoC that's different I guess, but regular users do and say stuff elsewhere. Good, we don't have to moderate it.

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

By the "banning doesn't cause people to leave the site anyway" logic, there are two conclusions:

1) Suspensions don't either, so why not just abolish suspensions too?
2) Why ban rippers? Banning doesn't remove them permanently. Why not just give them suspensions too?

Which, I think, illustrates my problem with being too lenient: The staff members who are don't really seem to be learning anything. Gutter explodes and
pushes people from staff in the name of keeping the clubhouse? They're given a pass on that. Gutter members are a detriment to the community, then pull some serious **** and wind up getting banned? They're forgiven, apparently. CI becomes a sea of fire? Staff lets it burn itself out rather than putting it out. It seems like it's getting increasingly hard for the staff to puts its collective feet down, and that only fuels the culture of user self-entitlement that we're supposedly working to correct. You can get infracted, you can get suspended, but unless you do something outright criminal, you can't ever be banned? That doesn't sit right with me. That's a doormat philosophy as I see it.

Yes, someone might immediately return following a ban, but I imagine most banned users eventually get bored and leave. They don't besiege the site in the long term. They give up and look for new forums. There's no reason to act like bans as a system are broken.[/quote:
26k85dyx]
This is a strawman, Teia.

People argue bans don't work because people have no (realistic) incentive not to evade them. People have a very good incentive not to evade a suspension; it means they won't be banned. If you're banned, you have nothing to lose by evading and coming back. If you're suspended, you do.

And I don't think anyone is arguing that, if we really really really want to, we can't make absolutely certain that every member who is ever banned never manages to post here again. The question isn't whether it's possible, but whether it's desirable to expend all that energy, whether expending that energy leads to some purpose other than making us feel like we're doing something. Banning rippers is both necessary and inherently worth the risk, because they're breaking the law with fraud, and we really can't allow that under any circumstances. The amount of time sunk into
maintaining those bans is a necessary evil in the face of the greater evil that letting them come back presents. But everyone else? What do we get by spending hours and hours keeping these guys banned, except that they don't get to make (worst case scenario) three infracted posts a month?

If that means we "put our foot down" less, well, maybe that's alright? We're already one of the most rules-heavy and strict forums on the Internet, and all because of a card game. Is getting stricter really going to make things better? Maybe if we took ourselves less seriously and just let discussion happen, there wouldn't be so much drama to begin with.

edit: 'nath'd

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Bans carry the incentive of not getting banned if you don't **** up. And people who evade bans are going to be evading suspensions anyway.

Also it being hard to catch rule-breakers doesn't mean we shouldn't have those rules if they're
reasonable. Making it impossible to be banned basically allows bad behaviour to continue and lets that behaviour spread to other people because there's less downside to breaking the rules. The approach you're talking about can only have a negative outcome even if it does seem easier and friendlier on the surface.

Restorative justice plain and simply doesn't work on an Internet forum. That's a fact.

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

Bans carry the incentive of not getting banned if you don't **** up. And people who evade bans are going to be evading suspensions anyway.

What?

Maybe you didn't understand what I was trying to get across, so let me restate this. Once someone has been banned, what's the incentive for them not to evade?

And how are long suspensions not as good an incentive not to "**** up"?

And finally, do you know that? Madding evaded his ban, but did he ever
evade a suspension? etc.

Also it being hard to catch rule-breakers doesn't mean we shouldn't have those rules if they're reasonable. Making it impossible to be banned basically allows bad behaviour to continue and lets that behaviour spread to other people because there's less downside to breaking the rules. The approach you're talking about can only have a negative outcome even if it does seem easier and friendlier on the surface.

No, but it means that it's entirely possible that it isn't a good use of our precious time. I think we all have better things to do than pursue a policy that has few results and an enormous time investment.

Restorative justice plain and simply doesn't work on an Internet forum. That's a fact.

Uh, why? You can't just claim things like this.[/QUOTE]

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

[quote="Megiddo;9643018":
26k85dyx](she's saying that bans are a deterrent and that the idea is that people will try to not get banned if they know that they can be)[/quote]

Exactly. Suspension evasion currently merits a ban. If it no longer merits a ban, you can be damn sure we'll be seeing a lot more suspension evasion.

Also Senori: It doesn't work because there's little to no incentive for the offender to change their behaviour for the better on the Internet like there is in real life. You work with people who should be banned, only give them suspensions, and in general go easy on them? You'll just see more of that behaviour from other members in the community who wouldn't have acted out in a stricter system. You'll see more of the CI Warrior mindset of the staff being something they can just walk over if they put the effort into it. It's really that simple.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Suspensions are a deterrent too.
I really don't
think people think about the penalties before they act though.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Suspensions are a deterrent too.
I really don't think people think about the penalties before they act though.

Suspensions can only go so far as a deterrent. Some people are just plain incorrigible and should be removed from the community. And the threat of a ban for such behaviour deters people from pushing that envelope more effectively than the threat of a suspension does.

Sure, some people don't think before they act. Some people just do whatever they want and don't care about the rules. But we shouldn't cater to those people. They agree to follow our rules when they sign up. If they don't or can't, then it's their problem, not ours.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

You think someone will stop if they know they'll be banned forever but not with a 1-6
month suspension?

And what kind of behavior are you imagining as you are having this discussion?

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Yes, I do. A suspension can be rode out. A ban can't. The fact that some of the people we ban try to evade their bans doesn't mean that the permanency of a ban isn't an effective deterrent in a general sense.

Plus if someone gets a 6-month suspension, they'll be inclined to evade it anyway if they're inclined to evade a ban.

As for what kind of behaviour I'm thinking of that warrants a ban, basically the existing auto-ban stuff, flagrant disregard for the rules, chronic bad behaviour over an extended period of time with no sign of improvement, and other things that show the user is a net negative for the site or its community.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Yes, I do. A suspension can be rode out. A ban can't. The fact that some of the
people we ban try to evade their bans doesn't mean that the permanency of a ban isn't an effective deterrent in a general sense.

Plus if someone gets a 6-month suspension, they'll be inclined to evade it anyway if they're inclined to evade a ban.

And if they behave well riding it out that means they can play nice.
Why not evade a ban? I would.

I don't know if banning actually does us any good. What proof do we have?

Originally posted by Megiddo on MTGS

i like banning people because it makes people I don't like go away

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

i like banning people because it makes people I don't like go away

Except they don't.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

I love two things here. First, the bull**** revisionist outlook on the Gutter members as if almost everything they were punished with
wasn't bull****. Suspension for making a joke about being in the same city as Rianalnn. Infraction for replacing 'gang' with 'black people' in an obvious satire. Probation for voting in a poll while suspended and then informing the staff in an apologetic manner.

Second, the idea that we are parents and internet police that have to impose morals onto people. Pretending that people complaining about the staff is in any way even a legitimate factor in determining whether they should be allowed to post here or not. Pretending that we gotta look like internet tough guys or our 'authority' is undermined.

Get a reality check from the people on the outside looking in, guys.

to be continued.....

[Col. Khaddafi]

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

Teia, the facts are arguing against you. History is arguing against you.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

And if they behave well riding it out that means they can play nice.
Why not evade a ban? I would.

I don't know if banning actually does us any good. What proof do we have?

What's to stop them from just going back to their old behaviours once their suspensions are up? If they aren't deterred by the original suspension, what's another suspension going to do to deter them?

If we have no proof that bans do any good, then what proof do we have that suspensions do us any good? Bans provide us a way to be permanently rid of someone, at least in the long term. The really dedicated ban evaders are very few and far
between. The system looks like it works to me, outside of a few outliers like the Gutter members. And even then, they've shown that even they can move on after a little while. Being banned tells them they're no longer welcome, and once they've worked past that, they don't give us any trouble anymore. Most people don't even get that far—they just move on.

Basically it seems to me that you're suggesting we change our rules to fit a very narrow section of people when we should be focusing on the main user population.

Talore: You might want to elaborate if your argument is that the facts are arguing against the efficacy of bans in general. After all, we're mods. It's our job to keep the forum orderly, to make sure users follow the rules. We can't separate our roles from that. We can change how we approach it, but that's about the extent of it.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

Go read the CI thread and watch how frequently 'X member is
banned for being a banned member'

This is all aside the point that the staff is biased against the Gutter.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

And if they behave well riding it out that means they can play nice.
Why not evade a ban? I would.

I don't know if banning actually does us any good. What proof do we have?

What's to stop them from just going back to their old behaviours once their suspensions are up? If they aren't deterred by the original suspension, what's another suspension going to do to deter them?

If we have no proof that bans do any good, then what proof do we have that suspensions do us any good? Bans provide us a way to be permanently rid of someone, at least in the long term. The really dedicated ban evaders are very few and far between. The system looks like it works to me, outside of a few
outliers like the Gutter members. And even then, they've shown that even they can move on after a little while. Being banned tells them they're no longer welcome, and once they've worked past that, they don't give us any trouble anymore. Most people don't even get that far—they just move on.

Basically it seems to me that you're suggesting we change our rules to fit a very narrow section of people when we should be focusing on the main user population.

Q: What's to stop them from just going back to their old behaviours once their suspensions are up?
A: Another suspension.

Q: If they aren't deterred by the original suspension, what's another suspension going to do to deter them?
A: It will keep them away for longer and longer periods of time. Eventually they change, give up, or we do ban them. Bans should be the absolute last resort though.

Q: If we have no proof that bans do any good, then what proof do we have that suspensions do
us any good?
A: When suspended Tordeck doesn't post as far as we know. That's what good it does.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Go read the CI thread and watch how frequently 'X member is banned for being a banned member'

How many of those evade in the long term, though?

Also Gals: If you're too light on their behaviour, then it just shows that people can get away with that behaviour for longer than should be reasonable. If you've been suspended like three or four times, I think it's pretty safe to say that suspensions aren't going to work. Yes, the benchmark is five suspensions... but we have chronic problems with the CI Warrior mentality and rampant trolling. Clearly, if we want to curb that behaviour, being more lenient isn't going to solve anything.

Also one user as an example does not proof make.

[quote1=Talore;9643205:
1tni2oww]Too many to count. Nakamura, ffs. I also recall people like Xenphire, Motleyslayer, KCW, etc. that evaded frequently and were eventually unbanned. This is all aside the point that the staff is biased against the Gutter.[/quote1]

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Are we still hunting down Naka gimmicks? I haven't seen any in the banned/suspended user thread in quite a while.

Either way, if you're looking at serious policy questioning, then single examples (whether Tordeck or Naka or whoever else) are the wrong way to approach this. Look at overall patterns, not single outliers.

Edit: Here's another way to look at it. Evasion is a problem. I think we can all agree on that part. But going easier or even nixing bans entirely doesn't actually solve those problems. It's not doing anything new to address the problem. Suspensions already don't work for a subset of users. Removing the next step up in terms of sanctions without replacing it with
something ideally more effective (as opposed to giving them more suspensions) doesn't actually accomplish anything.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

This is all aside the point that the staff is biased against the Gutter.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

This is all aside the point that the staff is biased against the Gutter.

Do you think I'm talking specifically about the Gutter or something? The Gutter is but one set of users who went out of their way to make trouble.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

That's the point, Teia. This is all besides the point of this thread. It is off-topic. You also say that as if the staff didn't go out of its way to make trouble for the Gutter.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

People are pointing at the Gutter and saying, "We need to make changes because of things like this." I'm
simply saying that that's a misguided approach.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

It is off-topic, so I'd appreciate if everyone dropped it or took it to the appropriate thread.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Tordeck is a good example of how Suspensions work. He will come back and if he reports that post again, we suspend him. It's a level of labor I am okay with. If people want to just ban him we can talk. But I am sort of done with using bans as a way to get rid of problems so early on.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Tordeck is a good example of how Suspensions work. He will come back and if he reports that post again, we suspend him. It's a level of labor I am okay with. If people want to just ban him we can talk. But I am sort of done with using bans as a way to get rid of problems so early on.

He also made it clear he has no intention to stop,
so why continue to play whack-a-mole when the outcome is foregone?

Originally posted by Sene on MTGS

That's the point, Teia. This is all besides the point of this thread. It is off-topic. You also say that as if the staff didn't go out of its way to make trouble for the Gutter.

Eh. Gutter is a part of this site, a site which we are running. If we decide Gutter is bad for the site, that is perfectly legit and valid. I certainly think it was/is bad for the site, but we could have approached it with "You Must Change" instead of "We Will Now Shut You Down", but that's another discussion.

Basically, "as if the staff didn't go out of its way to make trouble for the Gutter" is something I would expect to hear from N_S, and it is not something I view as being valid. Howe we went about it is one thing, but trying to do something about it has been necessary for many years, IMO.[/quote1:
1tni2oww]

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

You can still make trouble for the Gutter while acting in the best interest of the website. I accepted that we had to close it for Curse when that was presented. It still caused trouble for the Gutter.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

He also made it clear he has no intention to stop, so why continue to play whack-a-mole when the outcome is foregone?

Because he isn't disruptive enough to the rest of the community to exile. He and I can play this game all day long and it's no skin off anyone's back but his.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Sounds like incentive for others to do the same thing. "Sure, keep breaking this rule, it's not like you'll ever be banned or anything."

Sure, it might be trivial to keep suspending him, but it doesn't change his behaviour or get rid
of it or anything.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Not yet it hasn't. But he is being stubborn. That's not bannable.

You really think other people are going to go "Hmmmm, I am going to prove a point by hovering over this website I can't even use until my suspension expires in a month or two..." Most don't.

Most people shape up or go away.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

And Tordeck is one of the people who has no intention of shaping up, so he should be shipped out rather than made into some kind of farcial game of whack-a-mole.

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

And Tordeck is one of the people who has no intention of shaping up, so he should be shipped out rather than made into some kind of farcial game of whack-a-mole.

Why? Eventually he'll either give up or go away. And if he doesn't, it's no more skin off our back (
actually a lot less) than trying to keep track of his evasion.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

I think you're missing the point here. Suspensions clearly aren't working, so instead of trying something else, we're sending the message that we won't escalate as long as it doesn't inconvenience us. Quite frankly, that's irresponsible.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Suspensions aren't working?

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Suspensions aren't working?

Not if they don't deter him from the offending behaviour.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

He is a unique case. But I do know for sure that while suspended he isn't posting garbage here. If he keeps on we can talk about banning him, but I still do not see how I can ban a guy for reporting a post that is borderline flaming. In a more abstract sense if
we do ban people like him we just prove them right... Not that that matters much but just icing him might create a fade away instead of an explosion.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Suspensions do a greAt job for most people though.

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

I think you're missing the point here. Suspensions clearly aren't working, so instead of trying something else, we're sending the message that we won't escalate as long as it doesn't inconvenience us. Quite frankly, that's irresponsible.

How are they not working? He's being an ass, so he's not on this forum. It's effectively a ban, except that Tormod holds the keys to his own redemption if he just shuts up and goes back to being a normal guy.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

I may have left out a detail that matters. I don't think bans should be for pests even if they are
persistent. Bans should be for people that are serious potential IRL threats to people. My entire argument revolves around that assumption.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

I may have left out a detail that matters. I don't think bans should be for pests even if they are persistent. Bans should be for people that are serious potential IRL threats to people. My entire argument revolves around that assumption.

Whereas I think they should be for people who prove themselves to be a severe and consistent negative influence on the community, and who show no intention of improving their behaviour after initial measures (warnings, infractions, suspensions) fail.

Originally posted by Yukora on MTGS

i like banning people because it makes people I don't like go away

Except they don&#
39;t.

No, for the most part they actually do. I banned plenty of people for evasions over the years, Only a small percentage returned and they didn't last long. It's easy for the returning guys to stick out in your mind, but for the most part, people move on to other places when they're shown the door.

I get where you're coming from, but I seriously believe you're underestimating the effectiveness of bans in general.

I can also somewhat agree with Teia here. The staff seems like it's trying to better itself, but it also looks like it doesn't have an ounce of backbone left.

Originally posted by Yukora on MTGS

I may have left out a detail that matters. I don't think bans should be for pests even if they are persistent. Bans should be for people that are serious potential IRL threats to people. My entire argument revolves around that assumption.

Pests drive members
away from a community. It is in a forum's best interest to get rid of people that spam up the forums or flame users or people that would otherwise come here and enjoy the place will leave rather than deal with annoyances in their online hangout.

I agree that we shouldn't be getting rid of people just because they are difficult for us, but our rules exist for a reason. It's not to make our jobs easy or fun, they';re there to make these forums as enjoyable for our users as possible. Making moves to keep around trouble-makers goes against that.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

i like banning people because it makes people I don't like go away

Except they don't.

No, for the most part they actually do. I banned plenty of people for evasions over the years, Only a small percentage returned and
they didn't last long. It's easy for the returning guys to stick out in your mind, but for the most part, people move on to other places when they're shown the door.

What bans are we talking about? When CK came back on staff he was finding tons of gimmicks of people that were evading but not caught before he started his sweeps. I mean, as a person that spends a lot of time watching out for this stuff I see a very different story.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Didn't I hear at one point that CK also flagged a lot of false positives?

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Didn't I hear at one point that CK also flagged a lot of false positives?

More than I would have liked, but it was still staggering how many there were that appear to be correct.

Originally posted by Yukora on MTGS

[quote=&
quot;Yukora;9644526"]

i like banning people because it makes people I don't like go away

Except they don't.

No, for the most part they actually do. I banned plenty of people for evasions over the years, Only a small percentage returned and they didn't last long. It's easy for the returning guys to stick out in your mind, but for the most part, people move on to other places when they're shown the door.

What bans are we talking about? When CK came back on staff he was finding tons of gimmicks of people that were evading but not caught before he started his sweeps. I mean, as a person that spends a lot of time watching out for this stuff I see a very different story.[/quote]

I'm not going to list five years worth of bans and gimmick culling. There's a list that chronicles the whole adventure already.

Like
I said, we had guys that came back. I'm not denying that in the slightest. However, the vast majority of the people that were banned stayed banned, and the vast majority of the people we suspended got through their suspensions without mucking them up. Bans served as a rather effective means of getting people to learn from their mistakes before they risked not being allowed back into the site.

Was it perfect? **** no, but I don't believe it's anywhere near as broken as you are representing it as being.

Also, far too many of CK's bans were false positives. We had to undo a lot of them, and there were plenty of suspension appeals and ban appeals that were closed by CK prematurely, before admins were ever able to finish the discussions on those accounts.

I do think it's very important for you to take stock of my comments about "pests," Galspanic. I feel like you're viewing our responsibility revolving around those users entirely incorrectly.

[
quote1=Galspanic;9644782]I wasn't really talking about specific bans at all. I more meant discretionary? Market Street? Evasion? Threats? Etc.

But it went in a slightly different direction there and at this point it's pretty off topic from Gutter Bias, but I'll ride it through....
There are a million people we've banned, a lot of gimmicks, and no real data. I just don't see any reason to take this site more seriously than I need to and locking people away that aren't very damaging forever seems harsh and not very PR minded. We want people to come here. Sites all over die off because the staff are overly severe.

How do you know people learn from their mistakes? Because when they come back they aren't **** posters anymore? That's how I would know.

CK wasn't that accurate yes, but he was able to find a really large number of people that had evaded and gone unnoticed. My point there was more that the data looks off if nobody is looking for
gimmicks.

Pests deserve to be suspended much more liberally than we do now. But bans? No. Take a month off, you come back and don't change? Quickly take another month off. That doesn't work, 2 months. Whatever. I'd rather have people in limbo with the possibility of returning than just banning them. We can lower their impact either way.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Ban appeals exist. That's their possibility of returning. The main difference between a ban and a year-long suspension, then, is that a suspension ends whenever it ends, but a ban only ends when we want it to. That simple difference sends a pretty strong message to the user: "Take a time-out and come back at this point" versus "yeah, you done ****ed up, you're only getting back when we're convinced you've learned your lesson."

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Right, and they take time and if the rules allow them back we usually let
them back. We also reject people for the sole reason that the rules don't allow it. 11 months since your ban? Tough. You evaded a bunch because there wasn't any reason not to? Well, we changed the policy but still require you to wait 12 months.

I want us to use our discretion to be less severe but more regular on small problems and more open to forgiveness or whatever motivates you all in appeals. If someone wants to be on our site and don't cause trouble, let them in. If they are pests but not terribly disruptive, fine (See Morphling).

I don't want to waste our time with appeals when its hand waiving or :armscross:.

Originally posted by Yukora on MTGS

I wasn't really talking about specific bans at all. I more meant discretionary? Market Street? Evasion? Threats? Etc.

But it went in a slightly different direction there and at this point it's pretty off topic from Gutter Bias, but I'll
ride it through....
There are a million people we've banned, a lot of gimmicks, and no real data. I just don't see any reason to take this site more seriously than I need to and locking people away that aren't very damaging forever seems harsh and not very PR minded. We want people to come here. Sites all over die off because the staff are overly severe.

How do you know people learn from their mistakes? Because when they come back they aren't **** posters anymore? That's how I would know.

CK wasn't that accurate yes, but he was able to find a really large number of people that had evaded and gone unnoticed. My point there was more that the data looks off if nobody is looking for gimmicks.

Pests deserve to be suspended much more liberally than we do now. But bans? No. Take a month off, you come back and don't change? Quickly take another month off. That doesn't work, 2 months. Whatever. I'd rather have people in limbo with the possibility of returning
than just banning them. We can lower their impact either way.

That works all well and good if we actually make moves to suspend the trouble-makers of the forums, but we don't. Hell, we're already trying to rework the rules to make it harder to be suspended for anything other than out and out dickery, and now we're moving towards eliminating bans.

I just don't understand how we're expecting the two systems to work out well, and it's easy to see where people can be concerned that we're catering to people that cause ****. I'm not even talking the Gutter specifically, we just seem to be making it harder to actually curtail rules infractions on our forums in any meaningful way.

I understand not wanting to be too severe or draconian as a mod team. We went through this same process a few years ago. The problem we had then is we swung too much in the other direction and thus we had to tighten up the rules again. I want us to stop having the pendulum swing
back and forth, find a happy middle, and just thrive in that spot.

I do not feel like that will be accomplished with this direction.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

3 infractions = suspension. 4 suspensions = review for banning. This has not changed. It is only 'harder' to suspend and ban people on technicalities. As if the goal of moderation is to ban people. We're customer service, not a court of law.

Originally posted by Megiddo on MTGS

don't forget that the people who are negatively impacted by troublemakers are also customers, and we have to act in their best interest as well.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

That works all well and good if we actually make moves to suspend the trouble-makers of the forums, but we don't. Hell, we're already trying to rework the rules to make it harder to be suspended for anything other than out and out dickery, and now we're moving
towards eliminating bans.

I just don't understand how we're expecting the two systems to work out well, and it's easy to see where people can be concerned that we're catering to people that cause ****. I'm not even talking the Gutter specifically, we just seem to be making it harder to actually curtail rules infractions on our forums in any meaningful way.

I understand not wanting to be too severe or draconian as a mod team. We went through this same process a few years ago. The problem we had then is we swung too much in the other direction and thus we had to tighten up the rules again. I want us to stop having the pendulum swing back and forth, find a happy middle, and just thrive in that spot.

I do not feel like that will be accomplished with this direction.

I was actually hoping to make it easier to suspend people and to bring shorter suspension for small things like "sucking at posting." I know that phasing bans out except for severe problems
sounds like I want it to be nicer, but it isn't. I want people to get suspended for sever flaming, almost suspended for really bad trolling, and maybe not even close to suspended for using mod text in their Sales Thread. But that's another thread.

I am not looking to be nice to troublemakers - I am looking for a more effective way to remove them from the site in a way that doesn't create long term hostile relationships.

don't forget that the people who are negatively impacted by troublemakers are also customers, and we have to act in their best interest as well.

Which is why I want these changes along with a graded infraction scale and public infraction list. But again, that doesn't really have anything to do with the Gutter and how we've developed biases against them.

Originally posted by Yukora on MTGS

3 infractions = suspension. 4 suspensions = review for
banning. This has not changed. It is only 'harder' to suspend and ban people on technicalities. As if the goal of moderation is to ban people. We're customer service, not a court of law.

No, the goal of moderating is to make the site as nice of a place as possible for the majority of our users, not to cater to people that can't follow a simple set of rules.

The system isn't the same thing when we're trying to make everything that isn't a severe flamefest into a non-offense, or when we're trying to take bannings out of our option list for anything outside of attacking the site and ripping. It's a pretty significant difference.

That works all well and good if we actually make moves to suspend the trouble-makers of the forums, but we don't. Hell, we're already trying to rework the rules to make it harder to be suspended for anything other than out and
out dickery, and now we're moving towards eliminating bans.

I just don't understand how we're expecting the two systems to work out well, and it's easy to see where people can be concerned that we're catering to people that cause ****. I'm not even talking the Gutter specifically, we just seem to be making it harder to actually curtail rules infractions on our forums in any meaningful way.

I understand not wanting to be too severe or draconian as a mod team. We went through this same process a few years ago. The problem we had then is we swung too much in the other direction and thus we had to tighten up the rules again. I want us to stop having the pendulum swing back and forth, find a happy middle, and just thrive in that spot.

I do not feel like that will be accomplished with this direction.

I was actually hoping to make it easier to suspend people and to bring shorter suspension for small things like "sucking at posting." I know that
phasing bans out except for severe problems sounds like I want it to be nicer, but it isn't. I want people to get suspended for sever flaming, almost suspended for really bad trolling, and maybe not even close to suspended for using mod text in their Sales Thread. But that's another thread.

I am not looking to be nice to troublemakers - I am looking for a more effective way to remove them from the site in a way that doesn't create long term hostile relationships.

don't forget that the people who are negatively impacted by troublemakers are also customers, and we have to act in their best interest as well.

Which is why I want these changes along with a graded infraction scale and public infraction list. But again, that doesn't really have anything to do with the Gutter and how we've developed biases against them.

You're right, I have deviated things slightly from the absolute core of the thread,
but we have far too many threads about individual aspects of this issue, and this was the most natural conversation for me to tell you I think you're overcompensating with these changes.

Again, I respect where you're coming from and the end goal you are going for, but I disagree with your path to attempting to achieve that goal and the priorities you seem to be placing on fixing our problems.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

3 infractions = suspension. 4 suspensions = review for banning. This has not changed. It is only 'harder' to suspend and ban people on technicalities. As if the goal of moderation is to ban people. We're customer service, not a court of law.

No, the goal of moderating is to make the site as nice of a place as possible for the majority of our users, not to cater to people that can't follow a simple set of rules.

The system isn't
the same thing when we're trying to make everything that isn't a severe flamefest into a non-offense, or when we're trying to take bannings out of our option list for anything outside of attacking the site and ripping. It's a pretty significant difference.

Nothing you just said contradicts my quote. Abloobloobloo, less people get banned. We're still addressing and solving the actual issues, and we happen to be doing it without so much hardline ****. Take a look at the NSFW lounge when you have the time.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Banning people who are chronically and incorrigibly detrimental to the community should not be seen as "hardline ****."

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

Banning people who are chronically and incorrigibly detrimental to the community should not be seen as "hardline ****."

I just reread this all and I
get the impression that you might think I am saying no more bans - That is not the case. I do not want people like Tormod, who really aren't that disruptive but are one infraction away from being banned permanently, to have some room to work with us. I think that for a lot of semi-trouble users long suspensions will be just fine and I want us to be more liberal in issuing those. But full on bans need to be reserved for seriously ****ed up things and the worst people on the site. The unmoderatable.

People that I think suspensions are okay with that we've had issues with:
Swazi Spring - that guy should already be iced.
Tordeck - Ass. But still okay most of the time.
Tormod - Grumpy guy that likes to argue infractions, but the arguing is worse than the infractions.
Kijin - He comes at you with essays and it's obnoxious to have to deal with him when he complains. Years of service that ended with an all around bad situation I am willing to take partial responsibility for - not a lot but I
think we could have worked with him differently.
Kpaca - Sort of the same, but holy **** is he making it hard.
Poggydude - Spam spree was stupid but banning the gimmick and booting him for a month would also be fine.
Yanni - Similar to Madding. I still think he evaded his ban, but there is some doubt there. AND, if he did by today's policy we would just extend his suspension.
People that try to sell Proxies - It's illegal, but the cultural norm of MTG pretty much allows it. If we make a strong effort to keep this from happening (and we do), I think that there isn't enough legal liability on our end to warrant a full ban. A month off? Yeah. I would obviously need to contact legal about that.
People that troll the hell out of non-MTG subforums that currently get 1 point infractions - 3-7 days off. F that.

Banned:
( N_S ) - He's been okay lately off site, but as recently as 2 weeks ago was browsing CI with Pinkfloyd's account. I started piecing together his
personal history and he's been an absolutely unrelenting since Fall of 2011. There is a wake of destruction in his path that goes back at least that far. He is just too damaging to the site for me to believe that he can ever NOT be a problem that will take out staff members.
Rippers - They stole stuff.
USMCFahey - Has made numerous threats against the site and when you call him on any of his BS he tells you that he can blow up CI - more threats. He stalks Teia and will go places simply to cause drama.


Sooooo, that's where I am at with that.

Originally posted by Yukora on MTGS

Banning people who are chronically and incorrigibly detrimental to the community should not be seen as "hardline ****."

I just reread this all and I get the impression that you might think I am saying no more bans - That is not the case. I do not want people like Tormod, who
really aren't that disruptive but are one infraction away from being banned permanently, to have some room to work with us. I think that for a lot of semi-trouble users long suspensions will be just fine and I want us to be more liberal in issuing those. But full on bans need to be reserved for seriously ****ed up things and the worst people on the site. The unmoderatable.

I hope you realize that we have that policy in place already. Extended suspensions came about years ago because we were too draconian with our bans then.

I'm not sure where that got lost in the shuffle, but we were always supposed to have the authoritative discretion to decide not to ban someone, just give them more suspensions if they couldn't be bothered to read the rules. We're only supposed to get to the ban decisions when it's obvious they are a detriment to the forums and there's no real hope for them growing up with a suspension.

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

Banning people who are chronically and incorrigibly detrimental to the community should not be seen as "hardline ****."

I just reread this all and I get the impression that you might think I am saying no more bans - That is not the case. I do not want people like Tormod, who really aren't that disruptive but are one infraction away from being banned permanently, to have some room to work with us. I think that for a lot of semi-trouble users long suspensions will be just fine and I want us to be more liberal in issuing those. But full on bans need to be reserved for seriously ****ed up things and the worst people on the site. The unmoderatable.

I hope you realize that we have that policy in place already. Extended suspensions came about years ago because we were too draconian with our bans then.

I'm not sure
where that got lost in the shuffle, but we were always supposed to have the authoritative discretion to decide not to ban someone, just give them more suspensions if they couldn't be bothered to read the rules. We're only supposed to get to the ban decisions when it's obvious they are a detriment to the forums and there's no real hope for them growing up with a suspension.

But that's clearly not how the policy has been implemented, nor is it how a lot of staff members clearly expect the system to work, so the fact that theoretically this is the policy isn't really that important.

Originally posted by Yukora on MTGS

Banning people who are chronically and incorrigibly detrimental to the community should not be seen as "hardline ****."

I just
reread this all and I get the impression that you might think I am saying no more bans - That is not the case. I do not want people like Tormod, who really aren't that disruptive but are one infraction away from being banned permanently, to have some room to work with us. I think that for a lot of semi-trouble users long suspensions will be just fine and I want us to be more liberal in issuing those. But full on bans need to be reserved for seriously ****ed up things and the worst people on the site. The unmoderatable.

I hope you realize that we have that policy in place already. Extended suspensions came about years ago because we were too draconian with our bans then.

I'm not sure where that got lost in the shuffle, but we were always supposed to have the authoritative discretion to decide not to ban someone, just give them more suspensions if they couldn't be bothered to read the rules. We're only supposed to get to the ban decisions when it's obvious they
are a detriment to the forums and there's no real hope for them growing up with a suspension.

But that's clearly not how the policy has been implemented, nor is it how a lot of staff members clearly expect the system to work, so the fact that theoretically this is the policy isn't really that important.

It's how it was implemented, and it's how it worked for years. If that [policy is still written the same today then our issues are one of personnel and how we as a staff aren't holding to our own policy, not how we need to change our policy to what was already there.

We just need to go back to how the policy is actually written rather than the course we've gone down.

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

Banning people who are chronically and incorrigibly detrimental to the community should not be seen as "hardline ****."

I just reread this all and I get the impression that you might think I am saying no more bans - That is not the case. I do not want people like Tormod, who really aren't that disruptive but are one infraction away from being banned permanently, to have some room to work with us. I think that for a lot of semi-trouble users long suspensions will be just fine and I want us to be more liberal in issuing those. But full on bans need to be reserved for seriously ****ed up things and the worst people on the site. The unmoderatable.

I hope you realize that we have that policy in place already. Extended suspensions came about years ago because we were too draconian with our bans then.

I'm not sure where that got lost in the shuffle, but we were always supposed to have the authoritative discretion to decide not to ban someone, just
give them more suspensions if they couldn't be bothered to read the rules. We're only supposed to get to the ban decisions when it's obvious they are a detriment to the forums and there's no real hope for them growing up with a suspension.

But that's clearly not how the policy has been implemented, nor is it how a lot of staff members clearly expect the system to work, so the fact that theoretically this is the policy isn't really that important.

It's how it was implemented, and it's how it worked for years. If that [policy is still written the same today then our issues are one of personnel and how we as a staff aren't holding to our own policy, not how we need to change our policy to what was already there.

We just need to go back to how the policy is actually written rather than the course we've gone down.

Then I have to confess I'm a little confused, because it seemed like you were arguing against that
policy earlier in the thread, but maybe that's just my confusion.

Originally posted by Yukora on MTGS

Banning people who are chronically and incorrigibly detrimental to the community should not be seen as "hardline ****."

I just reread this all and I get the impression that you might think I am saying no more bans - That is not the case. I do not want people like Tormod, who really aren't that disruptive but are one infraction away from being banned permanently, to have some room to work with us. I think that for a lot of semi-trouble users long suspensions will be just fine and I want us to be more liberal in issuing those. But full on bans need to be reserved for seriously ****ed up
things and the worst people on the site. The unmoderatable.

I hope you realize that we have that policy in place already. Extended suspensions came about years ago because we were too draconian with our bans then.

I'm not sure where that got lost in the shuffle, but we were always supposed to have the authoritative discretion to decide not to ban someone, just give them more suspensions if they couldn't be bothered to read the rules. We're only supposed to get to the ban decisions when it's obvious they are a detriment to the forums and there's no real hope for them growing up with a suspension.

But that's clearly not how the policy has been implemented, nor is it how a lot of staff members clearly expect the system to work, so the fact that theoretically this is the policy isn't really that important.

It's how it was implemented, and it's how it worked for years. If that [policy is still written the same
today then our issues are one of personnel and how we as a staff aren't holding to our own policy, not how we need to change our policy to what was already there.

We just need to go back to how the policy is actually written rather than the course we've gone down.

Then I have to confess I'm a little confused, because it seemed like you were arguing against that policy earlier in the thread, but maybe that's just my confusion.

I was misinterpreting Galspanic's intent. I thought he wanted to do away with our ability to ban anyone other than people attacking the site and rippers. What he outlined above is actually the system we put in place four years ago with extended suspensions.

Originally posted by Nai on MTGS

I think the problem right now is that extended suspensions are a little too long, so they might as well be a ban, so we ban anyways for something like that. Or we feel that banning anyways saves work. That might be where the
problem lies.

Originally posted by Arcadic on MTGS

You want to handwaive the obvious bias, but every single time and punuitive action was even suggest against a gutter member, it was a 10 page thread. It was then a 26 page CI thread and another 10 page appeal thread and another 26 page CI thread. When do you simply realize that the staffs time WAS BIASED towards these members? How much of the volunteer time has gone into telling these anarcists and ****throwers off?

The staff is biased because the members of the Gutter are vocal?

The staff has had to bias their time in talking and attempting to reason with these troublemakers for more time that we have on ANY ONE SUBJECT COMBINED in the last year. That freaking includes the sale of the site! The staff should not be concerned with a tiny group of discenting voices for that much of our time. The upper staff has gone from (
rightly) not trusting the lower staff with infomation, to (incorrectly) trusting lower staff with information to spending countless hours absorbing the low-blows and personal attacks made in public. For what? To have them simply come back and cause even more ruckus? Move the **** on. They can appeal when the sun burns out.

I'm done wasting my time listening to their garbage. If you want to continue to waste the MTGS's community's and sites time on 3-5 members, go ahead and waste that time. The site is far bigger than those people, yet somehow we have wasted a year on their pathetic attacks and childishness. I'm at least smart enough to know that when someone spits in my face, not to let them do it again and again. Lets MOVE ON. Show your not biased by MOVING ON. Lets not waste another year of productive work on people who would only tear it down.

Please be
civil. This accomplishes nothing.

I'm done being civil with terrorists. They deserve nothing from those of us who care about this site but our malice.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

I'm done being civil with terrorists. They deserve nothing from those of us who care about this site but our malice.

I don't even know how to respond to this.

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

It's somewhat on the strong side, but I can see why one would make that comparison. The Gutter's MO when bringing its grievances against the staff has traditionally been inciting drama and rabble-rousing, to the point of bringing their grievances out into the open in CI and stuff to pressure the staff into action. Though I disagree with the "meet malice with malice" viewpoint.

Originally posted by Talore on MTGS

I think if you're comparing anything on a web forum
to terrorism you need to take a long, hard look at what you're doing with your time.

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

I'm done being civil with terrorists. They deserve nothing from those of us who care about this site but our malice..

[/quote]

I'm not asking you to be civil with Gutter members, I'm asking you to be civil with our peers on staff.

Originally posted by Rai Kerensky on MTGS

Using those terms to describe our opposition galvanizes the other side and makes an already heated conversation even worse.

It is not much different when I called Yugioh players abused wives. The term fit, but it did not help the argument.

I disagree with some our staff members about letting Kpaca back, but I am not going to demonize them. I just think they are wrong. [/quote1:
1tni2oww]

Originally posted by Sene on MTGS

Kindly refrain from calling people involved "terrorists" or anything similarly ridiculous. It's no better than calling the staff "corrupt", it's actually even worse. It will do nothing to advance discussion, instead it'll make people rightfully upset and annoyed.

[Col. Khaddafi]

And we close the nominations with this little pearl of hipocrisy by none other than MTGS finest!

Originally posted by ExpiredRascals on MTGS

I thought it important to inform you all about the recent demodding of Gaea's Regent.

Gaea's Regent was let go after extensive discussion among the admins and global moderators. Since his return to staff he's has been a frequent source of problems such as repeated unprofessional conduct, leaking the confidential information of a user he disliked to the gutter, and passive-aggressive lounge-posting to the point of becoming toxic. Multiple discussions with different members of the senior staff proved ineffective at bringing about change.

It's not something that anybody is happy with, but the decision was unanimous and we feel it was necessary for the health of the site and the staff.[/quote1:
3ottrnpn]

Originally posted by Lanxal on MTGS

This makes me sad in many ways, but not in the way that I would argue to see him back. Just sucks to see him go. D=

Originally posted by BlackVise on MTGS

I didn't always agree with his views on things, but I'm still sad to see him go.

Originally posted by Blutsau on MTGS

Not to beat about the bush: Do you think he was the leak?

Originally posted by Teia Rabishu on MTGS

Just as far as my personal opinion goes, I'd be surprised if he was the leak. He could be contrary, obstinate, and even belligerent at times, but I don't think there was ever any malice to it. Plus some of the leaks happened while he was off staff, IIRC.

Originally posted by ExpiredRascals on MTGS

Not to beat about the bush: Do you think he was the leak?

Not at this time.

n

Originally posted by mikeyG on MTGS

D:

Originally posted by ISBPathfinder on MTGS

Not that happy to see him go but I understand the reasons. He did clash a lot in a lot of ways. He did have a lot to contribute as a moderator but also had some issues as one. Its too bad to see him go in this manner however keeping a problematic moderator on staff has its own repercussions.

Thanks for keeping us in the loop regardless.

Originally posted by voltan on MTGS

This makes me sad in many ways, but not in the way that I would argue to see him back. Just sucks to see him go. D=

Not that happy to see him go but I understand the reasons. He did clash a lot in a lot of ways. He did have a lot to contribute as a moderator but also had some issues as one. Its too bad to see him go in this manner however keeping a problematic moderator on staff has its own repercussions.

nThanks for keeping us in the loop regardless.

I'd just like to point out that, like the PM said, this was an unanimous decision, so I was in favor, but it's not like we think he screwed up. I have to leave a positive note for him. He did a great job while he was here, but in the end he couldn't put his friendships aside to do his work. Although this is something that can't be tolerated, I don't think it's his fault. I for one, think that if I was caught in that same situation, wouldn't handle it that much better. He was caught between Sally and his friends. Not an easy thing to juggle and not a position I envy.
Like I said in the Global Lounge. He's gone, but it's not really his fault, IMO. He's more like a victim of his friendships and affiliations and his inability to handle them... alas, he was demoded for being a human being in a situation a human being can't normally handle.

Originally posted by Frox on MTGS

Never good to
see someone get "fired" from a volunteer position, but I can understand this. I can get behind the decision when I look back at the type of behavior ER explained. It wasn't his fault necessarily, but GR did have a conflict of interests between MTGS and his friends (and that new website). I think this was the best decision.

Originally posted by voltan on MTGS

Never good to see someone get "fired" from a volunteer position, but I can understand this. I can get behind the decision when I look back at the type of behavior ER explained. It wasn't his fault necessarily, but GR did have a conflict of interests between MTGS and his friends (and that new website). I think this was the best decision.

Yes, like I said, I don't blame him at all. He just found himself in the middle of a ****storm and wanted to do go to everyone. In the end, he forgot he's only human.
Anyway, what I can say
about him is: he tried.

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

As much as we disagreed, I'm sad to see that this was necessary.

Does he still have Mod Chat access?

Originally posted by Promatim on MTGS

He was a solid resource, a good voice of experience to have in TGITOK thread.

But yeah, as soon as I poked my head into MTGCommunity, it was apparent that this was inevitable.

Originally posted by Megiddo on MTGS

As much as we disagreed, I'm sad to see that this was necessary.

Does he still have Mod Chat access?

no.

Current policy is still only global+.

We have discussed revising that, but that issue is not really high priority.

Originally posted by Poppeleseed on MTGS

I don't care how callous this sounds: this is the best news I've heard all week.

Maybe the appeals forum will be a little more productive now. Or, at least with the gutter-related
ones.

Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS

I have been an advocate for having him on staff for a long time. He was a valuable member of the Mod Team and pretty good at his local level job too. But, as most of you seem to have noticed, the conversations with him have become very predictable and counter productive. A couple of key points:
1. I don't care what he does on other sites.
2. I do not think he is the leak.

The issue with point 1. is that his signature has been a direct link to a part of another forum that bashes the staff of MTGS. I need the staff to be respectful to one another and when I see my colleagues being ripped to shreds in forum he is directing traffic to, I cannot allow that... morale is bad enough as it is. Having someone on staff being that okay with attacks just doesn't make good sense. Point 2. is one that I really don't have a good sense about. He might be, he might not be. This was not a factor for me.

[quote1=Nai;
9376187]My vote of 'yes' on here has nothing to do with MTGC either. It's specifically because of his behavior towards the other mods in here, and his behavior towards the site in general. Things like that new sig of his that he actually thought would be acceptable, and wouldn't back down even when others did. And the aggressive behavior (or, in some cases, simply passive aggressive) towards anyone who disagreed with him on the Gutter issue was spiraling out of control.

I talked to him personally with a small PM chain about this, and he said he'd try to get it under control. That simply didn't happen.

Originally posted by mikeyG on MTGS

Although, let's face it, those Forum Razzies are pretty ****ty.

Originally posted by mabberman on MTGS

That's a shame about GR. He seemed conflicted at times about his duties to the staff and the gutter.

If anybody is needed to fill the void he left, I'd be happy to step in where
needed.

Originally posted by Etched Chester on MTGS

Although, let's face it, those Forum Razzies are pretty ****ty.

True, but I'm still grieved to return and find him absent.

Originally posted by the_cardfather on MTGS

That's a shame about GR. He seemed conflicted at times about his duties to the staff and the gutter.

If anybody is needed to fill the void he left, I'd be happy to step in where needed.

The biggest need would be in the Magic Software forum. Mem and I have MTGO general pretty well handled, and he's got the subforums the way he likes them.

GR never really went in there anyway.

Originally posted by Senori on MTGS

Although, let's face it, those Forum
Razzies are pretty ****ty.

Hey, at least I'm gettin talked about somewhere.

Originally posted by mabberman on MTGS

That's a shame about GR. He seemed conflicted at times about his duties to the staff and the gutter.

If anybody is needed to fill the void he left, I'd be happy to step in where needed.

The biggest need would be in the Magic Software forum. Mem and I have MTGO general pretty well handled, and he's got the subforums the way he likes them.

GR never really went in there anyway.

If needed i can do that and casual.

Originally posted by Barinellos on MTGS

Well, I thought he would be a risk to let back in given his behavior back when the issue of remodding came up, but I wanted to give him the benefit of doubt since he'd always been a good mod in my opinion.
Unfortunately, it's just a
matter of Because Gutter... AGAIN, and I was sad to see his attitude never really approved after coming back to staff.
There's nothing for it, but to wish he had lived up to my faith in him.

[iamabadman]

talore is so mad. what a butt monkey

[iamabadman]

i wonder if mikeyg ever backstabbed his IRL friends too. I said backstab guys, not butt rape

[Blackhound]

LEEEEEEAAAAKKKKS LEEEEEEAAAAKKKKS LEEEEEEEEAAAAKKKKSSS

[iamabadman]

wait, customers? those fucks ARE getting paid

[Col. Khaddafi]

You just love'em don't you Blackhound?

[iamabadman]

i like banning people because it makes people I don't like go away

[Col. Khaddafi]

MTGS moderation standards at their finest!

Don't like someone? Just ban him and problem solved!

[iamabadman]

troll ci tiem?

[Col. Khaddafi]

Don't get banned!

[iamabadman]

for the truth!

[rezombad]

holy fuck. my sides. the laughs.

[Kaitscralt]

[Corruption Watch]

[Col. Khaddafi]

[( G_R )]

Man do they like to type.

[( G_R )]

BTW, I confess. I was the leak. I gave privileged information about the sale to Scumbag, after reading about it in the admin lounge.

[( G_R )]

JK. We all know Nai was the leak.

[Captain Murphy]

Nai was the leak, proof all furries are evil

[Captain Murphy]

Plus we have more leaks lol

[Blackhound]

I liked this part.

Originally posted by mikeyG on MTGS


What a shock, MtGS users are having extreme reactions to inconsequential details.


Originally posted by Galspanic on MTGS


Yup. And 6 months after I thought they should

So confused. (not really. I've been here long enough to know the pattern.)




Because posting in blue text to come off as angry and suspending jj for his joke about newyork is not an extreme reaction at all now is it ?