I told sett to do it, but basically I've decided to do it myself.

We have a number of posters threatening to leave or to go "on strike" :rolleyes:  over the fact of how the board has basically been invaded by the Storygames swine and is slowly being drowned in their posts.

So the way I see it, there's three options here:

1. I do nothing, and count on all of you to counter anything they put up by posting more about regular roleplaying.

2. I ban the whole stinking lot of them.

3. I don't ban them but redirect any threads of theirs (plus their de-railing of other people's threads) over to Off-Topic (probably to a special subforum therein).

Give me your opinions.

RPGPundit

PS: If you're either a known swine or a brand-new poster (and thus a presumed shill from Storygames), don't even bother voting. Your vote will NOT be counted.

1

Quote from: RPGPunditIf you're either a known swine or a brand-new poster (and thus a presumed shill from Storygames), don't even bother voting. Your vote will NOT be counted.

Could you let us know if our votes are being counted?  I'm not brand-new, but I don't know if I'm on your swine list or not.

I'm not a regular, so I won't even attempt to vote. But I can still voice my opinion.

I have a certain attraction to banning the swine. They certainly deserve it (after all, that is what they do on their sites to anyone who disagrees), and as their last posts show- they aren't the brightest bunch anyway. And it would be nice to have one site online free of their influence. If I was running a forum, I would ban them on that basis alone.

But there is also something to be said for giving them rope to show just how sick they are. And boy have they taken that rope and ran with it here. It wasn't what I expected when I made my first post- I expected more weaseling, and instead got complete acceptance of perverted gaming. An amazing gift that.

I would imagine things will calm down when this becomes old news, and I would hate to miss their next trainwreck. So in the end I'm going to come down on the side of giving them even more rope. The subject can be revisited in a week or two if the site is really in danger of being overran.

As always forcing a solution is pointless in my opinion. If this site is to truly be a bastion of free speech, then no one should have to worry about what they post-and if people don't like what they post ignoring them is the strongest message they can send.

Hard to argue in a thread that gets 0 replies.

I think posters, regardless of their ideological background or origins, who've proven themselves to onyl be present for the purpose of shilling a product or stirring shit, should be dealt with as any other spammer or troll.

That this policy would probably result in a large number of them being banned is only a consequence of what is a pretty typical policy of an internet forum.

I do not think that addressing the issue in a blanket anti-ideological fashion would be in line with the stated principles of this site, and would only make Pundit and this site look poor in the eyes of many, many people waiting in the wings to see just such a thing happen.  

I do think it's rather a sad state of affairs that it seems impossible to find any medium or forum of online RPG discussion without at least one resident Forge apologist.  Even the #rpgnet and #enworld IRC channels have one now, a source of significant disgust and consternation for me.  Most real-life intelligence agencies would kill to be able to get away with such persistent and open infiltration.

Case by case basis for now, as you're doing it already with the off-topicification of idiot threads.

Other than that, I 'll sneak in my standard recommendation to ban Phony Tony for being a loquacious shill.

Gleichman - why don't you go ahead and vote?
You already seem to fit in here.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Serious PaulAs always forcing a solution is pointless in my opinion. If this site is to truly be a bastion of free speech, then no one should have to worry about what they post-and if people don't like what they post ignoring them is the strongest message they can send.

Hard to argue in a thread that gets 0 replies.

Yup, that sums it up.

Quote from: Serious PaulAs always forcing a solution is pointless in my opinion. If this site is to truly be a bastion of free speech, then no one should have to worry about what they post-and if people don't like what they post ignoring them is the strongest message they can send.

Hard to argue in a thread that gets 0 replies.

I wholeheartedly agree with Pauls stance.

Quote from: Serious PaulAs always forcing a solution is pointless in my opinion. If this site is to truly be a bastion of free speech, then no one should have to worry about what they post-and if people don't like what they post ignoring them is the strongest message they can send.

Hard to argue in a thread that gets 0 replies.

It should come as no great surprise that I think that this is the way to go.  Well put, Paul.


TGA

Quote from: J ArcaneI think posters, regardless of their ideological background or origins, who've proven themselves to onyl be present for the purpose of shilling a product or stirring shit, should be dealt with as any other spammer or troll.

That this policy would probably result in a large number of them being banned is only a consequence of what is a pretty typical policy of an internet forum.

I do not think that addressing the issue in a blanket anti-ideological fashion would be in line with the stated principles of this site, and would only make Pundit and this site look poor in the eyes of many, many people waiting in the wings to see just such a thing happen.  

I do think it's rather a sad state of affairs that it seems impossible to find any medium or forum of online RPG discussion without at least one resident Forge apologist.  Even the #rpgnet and #enworld IRC channels have one now, a source of significant disgust and consternation for me.  Most real-life intelligence agencies would kill to be able to get away with such persistent and open infiltration.

As usual, I find myself in agreement with J Arcane.

The point is that I'm not going to be the one who bites the bullet while the rest of you get to pretend you don't entirely agree with me; you guys are always looking for me to "do something" but then when the moment comes to step up and actually fucking do something, none of you want to go on record about it. So fine, if you're not willing to go on record here with your votes, I'm not going to bother doing fuck all. I'm sick of it, of being the fall guy for the rest of you, fighting the Swine singlehandedly, while the rest of you cheer me on silently and bask in the light of public deniability.

RPGPundit

PS: I've reduced the poll count to account for a few of the swine who voted anyways.

Quote from: RPGPunditThe point is that I'm not going to be the one who bites the bullet while the rest of you get to pretend you don't entirely agree with me; you guys are always looking for me to "do something" but then when the moment comes to step up and actually fucking do something, none of you want to go on record about it. So fine, if you're not willing to go on record here with your votes, I'm not going to bother doing fuck all. I'm sick of it, of being the fall guy for the rest of you, fighting the Swine singlehandedly, while the rest of you cheer me on silently and bask in the light of public deniability.

RPGPundit

PS: I've reduced the poll count to account for a few of the swine who voted anyways.

Let me put it another way:  If you banned pretty much every Forgie that's reared it's head on this site, I'd be quite happy about that.  A month or so ago, my opinion may've been different, but frankly, I'm fucking sick of it, and this organized invasion is disruptive and idiotic.  

What has been done over the past month or so amounts to honest to god interforum warfare, shilling, and trolling, on a massive scale I've not seen since the Forge theory forum closing led to a massive invasion on RPGnet.  And on that reason alone, any moderator on any forum in the world would be well justified in massive action in response, including you.

I'm simply concerned for you, for much the same reason you state here.  I think that if the way you went about handling it was simply to start banning everyone with Forge affiliation, it would play right into the hands of those ideological opponents, who would then use it as a bludgeon and tar the image of this site.  Some of this has to do with the situation you yourself have set yourself up in with the things you have said in the past vis a vis moderation and free speech in forum management.  I do not envy that position, and as I value this site, and loathe it's enemies, I'd hate to see the latter given more ammunition.  

Does that make it clearer what I'm getting at?

Serious Paul has the right of it.

Also, since it's not letting me vote for some reason (I see the thread as if I'd already voted) consider this one more vote for "do nothing from an admin standpoint, and everything from the user side."