Wiki and Forum Policy - General Discussion

Yeah, it's all rather confusing, Fighteer's statement came with a claim we'd get something "official" from the mod team and people were curious about followup. Septimus responded as though Fighteer's post was conclusive which doesn't align with the previous.

So then:

The only punishment for years and years of bullying, abuse and bigotry is "a break" with vague promises that there'll be "harsher" punishments later if he re-offends.

calling it "disingenuous" to raise concerns over a moderator charily dismissing how holocaust denial is treated

Claims that the allegations against Fighteer are coming from "glass houses" and people "with similar history" needing to police themselves better. I would like to know which users have been moderators who abused their position and engaged in the passive and open bigotry he did.

This is supposed to be a final statement to instill trust? This is a statement from the mods that strongly indicates they'll protect their own over the community, with completely opaque decision-making and no consequences for any negative behavior. That statement just reads as accusing us of being disingenuous.

Edited by Lightysnake on Dec 26th 2022 at 9:38:23 AM

I find this post vague and unconvincing to be honest.

So basically no punishment of Fighteer, no admission of wrong doings or problems. Just 'look at what we already said and people already raised questions about' and 'you lot are also bad.'

You're moderators. If people are behaving badly take them to task. That's kind of the point of Moderating. Fighteer was an issue because they had that position so no one seemed to be willing to take them to task.

Edited by dcutter2 on Dec 26th 2022 at 5:40:13 PM

It's nice to see the moderators will continue to strawman us (in the vaguest, most non-specific terms possible, at that—this literally reads like a No, You post) when the basic expectation is just A) an admission of accountability, even if it's just an apology and B) an expectation of better behavior and more communication going forward.

Never mind pretending the idea that the head moderator's years of abuse are anywhere near equivalent to any one of the scattered users who neither have the authority nor the influence to keep getting away with this. Entirely separate playing fields. No, I'm not impressed by this at all.

Edited by Scraggle on Dec 26th 2022 at 10:41:00 AM

Yeah, I am genuinely confused how anyone in this thread could have a "similar posting history" to a mod who, I think it's been acknowledged now, was at the very least passively abusing mod power

Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?

Sync's a great mod who does great work.

But that statement was a fairly disastrous way of wrapping this up. After pages on end exhaustively trying to make a case for a modicum of oversight for Fighteer and repeated assurances by the moderation of "we hear you and understand your concerns", the final statement is a back-handed "no, we won't do anything and also most of you are shameless hypocrites". That's a wonderful way to carpet-bomb whatever was left of faith in the moderation's capacity to handle situations like this, if I'm being perfectly honest.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

So the way this ends: no accountability, no consequences. Just deflection and rank closing. After avoiding the issue.

I said before it seemed Fighteer was being shielded by the moderators for years. Now it seems absolutely confirmed.

So Fighteer doesn't even have to give an unconditional sorry, one that isn't just him doubling down in disguise, for all his years of unprofessional and suspendable behavior? That's not right. It doesn't instill in me hope that he'll be any better when he does return at all.

And why does it matter if some of us posting in this thread have questionable histories of our own? When over 50 regular posters (before accounting all those who left of their own accord, possibly because of Fighteer) have repeatedly brought up evidence of his abysmal behavior with receipts, it doesn't matter if some of them are better than others.

Especially since Fighteer was was a full-blown moderator who abused his privileges to steamroll discussions he didn't approve of, and we are not. These are things you can't say are true of even the worst posters among our numbers.

Unlike possibly some posters, I'm not asking for punishment because I like seeing bad things happen. I'm asking because I don't think this is actually going to stop anything in the long term and we'll wind up back here with even more upset people because Fighteer has shown a history of zero self-control due to a lack of proper accountability, because the solution to all his past issues has always been the same of "m-maybe he'll do better", and we know by now that doesn't work.

Edited by AlleyOop on Dec 26th 2022 at 12:49:43 PM

I said it earlier, and I think it's being demonstrated here, but I don't believe anyone will believe a promise of better behavior from Fighteer. What are the mods prepared to do when (as many of us are expecting) he inevitably backslides?

I will address the 'disingenuous' comments since that was legit my reaction as someone who has been away for the past few days and came into this with an 'outsider' POV. Because it feels in no way equivalent to the issue of recurring behavior at hand, it feels a lot like scrabbling for punishment, akin to digging up a celebrity's old tweets and demanding cancellation.

Yeah, "a lot of folks said similar things" seems like a pretty broad and vague statement here. I don't know the full post history of everyone involved in the discussion and have no desire to do so, but I doubt "a lot" of them repeatedly behaved similarly - at least without getting suspended at some point. (And that's not even getting into the point that these are regular users vs. one of the mods...)

I like to believe in second chances and for people to improve, but at this point it's honestly just hard to trust Fighteer as a mod.

Edited by Zanreo on Dec 26th 2022 at 6:50:17 PM

"Leftover items still have value!"

The whole conversation was about "well, the mods can determine what's bigoted or not." This was a counterpoint to that. And it's a pretty vital subject. Nobody demanded Crazy step down from the mod staff. His own response felt extremely problematic after and less than convincing to a very legitimate and important matter

Uh... yeah, this is kind of baffling? "If he's not better in future after a voluntary break, then we'll talk about it", but that would require users to be hollering and bringing it up again, so we'd be in exactly this spot anyway. This is, at most, a feeling of pushing it off maybe another few years. I was at least expecting some clear idea what happens if it doesn't improve, rather than another week-long conversation in this thread.

And criticising us for similar behaviour is ridiculous. Yes, maybe some of us have had the same sort of behaviour. But we get suspended for such things, which is a big red line that if we want to keep posting, we have to modulate it and change our behaviour. 'We'll talk about it again next time it happens' is no different from a holler.

(Also, this STILL doesn't answer the PM question, because the issue isn't if mods are going to look in PM's, it's what counts as banworthy for PM content about third parties).

This all started because of a series of thumps in OTC when the conversation started, nothing far in the past. The reason previous incidents were brought up (and general conduct) is to point out how this is a pattern and users aren't expecting it to improve.

Edited by RainehDaze on Dec 26th 2022 at 5:51:41 PM

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It's a lack of faith in both Fighteer and the general culture the moderators have been cultivating, TBQH. All of the recent discussions have been a product of this culture and the responses we've gotten to them range from non-answers to deflecting the blame back on us.

I'm not saying the moderator team as a whole is problematic, but if this is the sort of response you people think is appropriate to the varied concerns of the community, I'm seriously concerned about the sheer lack of self-awareness that implies.

I really am flummoxed as to what else we should even expect from you at this juncture. If this is the "final stance" and we're not expected to expect anything else from you, well, shoot, I guess there goes any lingering hint of trust I had for the people running this community.

Edited by Scraggle on Dec 26th 2022 at 10:50:00 AM

It's a very catch-22 situation. If we don't bring up any of Fighteer's past behavior, there's "no proof of sustained misbheavior" and "insufficient grounds for punishment", if we do bring up Fighteer's past behavior, then we're being "vindictive" and "persecutory". There's just no single way to approach this that would have been deemed to the moderation's liking, is the sense I'm getting.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

Oh, yeah, let alone "if a user's behavior concerns us, we may go through their P Ms."

That's vague and completely subjective. So if someone in this thread is critical of a mod, is that "concerning" enough to go through their messages?

Yeah, I have some...mixed feelings on this.

I'll simply say I hope your faith in Fighteer to be able to change his behavior isn't misplaced, because if you thought it's been ugly to this point, this is just going to be the warmup for what comes after that.

x3 Exactly. We're not gathering his old posts to gather together a "List of Everything Bad Fighteer Ever Said/Did" and "cancel" him, it's to provide actual examples of unacceptable behavior from one of the site's mods.

Edited by Zanreo on Dec 26th 2022 at 6:52:26 PM

"Leftover items still have value!"

You've effectively declared that the rules of netiquette on this site don't matter, or at least that the mods are above the rules. Is that nothing statement the result of days of 'intensive discussion'? I am seriously disappointed.

Edited by minseok42 on Dec 26th 2022 at 10:55:18 AM

"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory Doctorow

That "glass houses" comment is real gross. Like, what, someone shouldn't get consequences because some other people maybe behaved in similar ways, but generally did get thumped on a more regular basis?

Not Three Laws compliant.

If no action whatsoever is being taken about Fighteer now (which is what it really sounds like), then that promise of harsher action (any action?) being taken upon further incident will have to be held to. Frankly, the apparent lack of action now seems to leave the door wide open for further incident to occur, in which case, nothing has been accomplished except delaying the date of actual accountability to whenever the next problem happens. I seriously hope Fighteer never causes a stir like this again, but if he does, you've now given us a statement of "next time, we promise" to hold up to you. Are you truly prepared or willing to honor that, or is that just a pacifying attempt with no intent behind it? We've been through the Fighteer cycle far too many times already.

I also don't like the tone of whataboutism in telling the posters here to watch themselves. If they have issues, they aren't fully relevant to their grievances about Fighteer's and it feels disrespectful in the least to call that out without once condemning the behavior of Fighteer. I don't know if this was the intent of the phrasing, but the common denominator of the controversy should not be remotely implicated as the userbase who raises concerns. It's one guy at the center of this pattern.

Edited by 8BrickMario on Dec 26th 2022 at 10:09:32 AM

I think the basic expectations from any community of its staff should be:

• we should be able to communicate with you without feeling threatened or talked down to
• that when a problem comes up within the moderating team themselves you work with us to address that issue
• you do not fucking strawman us

Seriously, what goodwill is this meant to cultivate?

You know why that analogy is gross?

I did get suspended. I was given the warning. I faced consequences and resolved to do better. I have received no thumps, have worked on myself, and have tried to be a productive community member to help out elsewhere, exactly as I was told was expected of me.

So now that past is being held over my head, that I have no right to criticize someone who's behaved worse and has received no discipline? That's wrong. You just repeated Fighteer's own argument, too. He didn't even apologize or promise to do better! What would the mod team say if someone came into Edit Banned with that post if it wasn't a mod? A thing T Vtropes promotes is "suspensions aren't a punishment, we want you to come talk to us."

Except when we do, and make efforts to do better they get trotted out as examples of us being hypocrites?

Edited by Lightysnake on Dec 26th 2022 at 10:05:57 AM

Especially since that was made in reference to posts Fighteer made pre-mod being referenced, but the sheer bulk of problematic behavior that concerns people is stuff that happened post-mod. As noted, anything before that only establishes pattern of behavior. Frankly, I think the fact we've had about 3 or so major incidents within as many years is establishment enough.

This is a forum, not a face-to-face or a chat room, where I can expect a heated conversation to be more likely. To my mind, every single word a person posts on a forum is a choice. We have to hit "Add Post", take however long we want to write our post, decide "yes, these are the words I want to represent me", and then hit "Post". That's at least four active steps to make before posting, all of which require conscious action such as moving and clicking.

Every single time Fighteer has caused problems it was through forum posts that followed this sequence. He's been admonished and promised to do better before and failed each time. A mere assurance "this time will be different" when he comes back is unconvincing, at best.

Edit: Ironically, I hit "Post" accidentally when I meant to hit preview...

Edited by sgamer82 on Dec 26th 2022 at 10:06:10 AM