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Author Topic: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.  (Read 4454 times)

Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #15 on: July 26, 2022, 09:37:19 PM »
Pundit, I just realized that you mass thread-banned 9 posters simultaneously a couple months ago in the "Woke Companies" thread, and SHARK was one of them. Is it possible that he missed the warning post you made, or only skimmed it....and didn't actually see his name in it?

No, if you scan a little down from the group warning post in May, you can see that SHARK immediately deleted a couple of posts he'd made after the warning, so I think he did see the warning at the time and responded properly to it. I believe he simply forgot that he had been threadbanned when he posted to ask a question in July about something he'd read a few posts earlier, which makes equal sense to me given that the threadban was made nearly three months ago.

I understand the use of the "no drifting into political topics" ban to discourage willful violations, but it seems to me that there should be at least a little flexibility to account for unintentional ones -- a temporary (two weeks?) rather than permanent ban, perhaps. As others have noted, it seems a shame to permanently deprive the boards of a valuable contributor because of a moment's lapse in attention -- the rules are made for the community, not the community for the rules, to paraphrase Jesus's words about the Law.
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Sacrificial Lamb

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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #16 on: July 26, 2022, 10:13:15 PM »
Pundit, I just realized that you mass thread-banned 9 posters simultaneously a couple months ago in the "Woke Companies" thread, and SHARK was one of them. Is it possible that he missed the warning post you made, or only skimmed it....and didn't actually see his name in it?

No, if you scan a little down from the group warning post in May, you can see that SHARK immediately deleted a couple of posts he'd made after the warning, so I think he did see the warning at the time and responded properly to it. I believe he simply forgot that he had been threadbanned when he posted to ask a question in July about something he'd read a few posts earlier, which makes equal sense to me given that the threadban was made nearly three months ago.

I understand the use of the "no drifting into political topics" ban to discourage willful violations, but it seems to me that there should be at least a little flexibility to account for unintentional ones -- a temporary (two weeks?) rather than permanent ban, perhaps. As others have noted, it seems a shame to permanently deprive the boards of a valuable contributor because of a moment's lapse in attention -- the rules are made for the community, not the community for the rules, to paraphrase Jesus's words about the Law.

You're probably right then. He probably just forgot.

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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #17 on: July 26, 2022, 11:18:48 PM »
Fuck Shark! He's a dork! :)

Please unban him and Pat.

Better yet, fuck banning altogether.

We're already considered the most horrific Mos Eisley gaming forum on the interwebs so we might as well embrace radical free speech. Let's go full nutbag moshpit.

Treat the forum like a rowdy neighborhood bar. Let everybody shoot off their dumb mouths and if nobody likes them, they will get dogpiled until they leave. Or not.


Reckall

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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #18 on: July 27, 2022, 09:11:38 AM »
Quote from: Reckall
I also kind of understand The Pundit's worrying (to be clear, only The Pundit knows what is in Pundit's head). Let's say that you establish "zero tolerance - out of ten". Then someone commits a level-one infraction. Everybody says "Come on! It was a minor infraction! Let's try to be flexible!" OK. But now you have a "one tolerance" policy, and this opens the door to "Come on, in was a two tolerance infraction! Let's try to be flexible!" And so on. When your policy is successfully debated once, it can be debated forever.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

No s**t, Sherlock. I could even point out how "A jump into an empty pool is the harbinger of broken bones".

The point, here, is not "consistency" but "is consistency foolish in this specific case?" Because if you think it is, just say so. A circular argument says nothing.
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VisionStorm

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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #19 on: July 27, 2022, 09:50:48 AM »
Better yet, fuck banning altogether.

We're already considered the most horrific Mos Eisley gaming forum on the interwebs so we might as well embrace radical free speech. Let's go full nutbag moshpit.

Treat the forum like a rowdy neighborhood bar. Let everybody shoot off their dumb mouths and if nobody likes them, they will get dogpiled until they leave. Or not.

TBH, I think this is a separate issue altogether that likely detracts from this topic, cuz the issue here is that even if banning is deemed necessary by the admin, banning SHARK in this instance is heavy handed and absurd. Even to the degree that it might be argued that he broke a rule or ignored a thread ban, that act was facilitated by the fact that this site uses zero mechanicisms to enforce or even inform users of a thread ban other than a post in the thread. And relies entirely on the user noticing the warning post in the first place, then remembering that they got banned from a thread that may go on indefinitely and following the honor system.

And to top it off there's no degrees of infractions and a "ban" usually means an outright ban (permanent), rather than a suspension, even for silly innocuous stuff that happened to have ticked off Pundit that day. It's basically walking on eggshells. Even TBP initially bans people for like a week of something.

Rule moderation is clearly broken on this site and lacks mechanisms to ensure that users will not post in a thread again if they've been banned from it. So permabanning a user for posting in an old thread they forgot they got banned from is too much.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2022, 09:53:20 AM by VisionStorm »

rytrasmi

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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #20 on: July 27, 2022, 02:13:26 PM »
    Shark was a net positive here. He was bombastic and opinionated, and often couldn't help himself, but he created a lot of interesting threads that centered on gaming. He should be unbanned.

    Also the policy of warning then permanent ban should be reconsidered. Something like warning, 1-month ban, perma-ban would be better to retain generally constructive posters.

    Yeah, it's not hard to stay on topic, but what is the utility of a 200+ page thread anyway? These things should be archived and refreshed once in a while. "List: TTRPG Guide to Woke Companies" isn't even an accurate title any more given what the List has become. What is the topic here? Woke companies, the List itself, what people think the List should be, or what?
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DocJones

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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #21 on: July 27, 2022, 02:22:21 PM »
Even to the degree that it might be argued that he broke a rule or ignored a thread ban, that act was facilitated by the fact that this site uses zero mechanicisms to enforce or even inform users of a thread ban other than a post in the thread. And relies entirely on the user noticing the warning post in the first place, then remembering that they got banned from a thread that may go on indefinitely and following the honor system.
I never noticed the warning post to several users in that thread until it was linked to on this thread.
If it would have included myself for some reason, I certainly would have been banned as I've posted in the thread since then.

I suppose it might be helpful to also send a personal message to a poster who crosses the line .

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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #22 on: July 27, 2022, 05:41:59 PM »
Shark didn't just do a post in the "Woke Companies list" thread (a thread I'm ESPECIALLY concerned about, because I know that leftists want to sabotage it with off-topic drivel so as to reduce the importance of the list itself, it's probably the most famous rpgsite thread in years) after being thread-banned.
He was thread-banned for OFF TOPIC Posting and then goes, on the woke companies list thread, and asks for more information about mommy porn.

To be clear, there is NO EXCUSE whatsoever for off-topic posting of any kind in the main RPG forum. If you want to post off topic, you can try to start a thread on my RPGPundit's subforum, and if I let you, great. If not, go to fucking 4chan
"It is really big news right now" is not an excuse
"someone else started it" is not an excuse
"this is a leftist and I have to counter his lies" is not an excuse (if you see a leftist posting off topic on an RPG forum thread, report it; but please don't report them just for being leftists, that will not do anything)


Now, had Shark done a normal post, I might have been willing to let it slide with a second warning. But no, he went BACK on the one thread I care most about protecting, and decided he had to as for more information about Mommy Porn. 

There is absolutely no question that he needed to be banned for that.

Claims that "he's old", and "he probably forgot" is not really a good argument for bringing him back, because it's just saying he's likely to do it again. The argument I need to hear is that HE WILL ABSOLUTELY NOT DO IT EVER AGAIN, and I need to feel convinced of that.  It's not impossible to not do it again (you just have to NOT WRITE ABOUT SOMETHING OFF TOPIC to RPGs), and yet there are people who are so obsessed with veering off topic or with diverging into political fights that they can't seem to help themselves, it's like a disease.





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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #23 on: July 27, 2022, 05:43:06 PM »
Even to the degree that it might be argued that he broke a rule or ignored a thread ban, that act was facilitated by the fact that this site uses zero mechanicisms to enforce or even inform users of a thread ban other than a post in the thread. And relies entirely on the user noticing the warning post in the first place, then remembering that they got banned from a thread that may go on indefinitely and following the honor system.
I never noticed the warning post to several users in that thread until it was linked to on this thread.
If it would have included myself for some reason, I certainly would have been banned as I've posted in the thread since then.

I suppose it might be helpful to also send a personal message to a poster who crosses the line .

Were you reading that thread before now?

Because it seemed pretty clear to anyone who was reading it. I didn't mince words.
Maybe I need to start using colored text??
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Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #24 on: July 27, 2022, 08:36:13 PM »
He was thread-banned for OFF TOPIC Posting and then goes, on the woke companies list thread, and asks for more information about mommy porn.

If SHARK had asked for links to representative samples, or started gleefully discussing it in detail, I think nobody would disagree that that would have been a banning offense. But the request was simply to ask what it was, in the manner in which one would ask for clarification on any unfamiliar term one stumbles across. (I myself didn't know exactly what it referred to, and might well have asked the same question if I'd been participating more actively in that thread.)

If simply asking for clarification on unfamiliar terms constitutes "off topic" should the term happen to be sufficiently loaded, to the degree that it is permanently costing us one of our best posters for a single moment's slipup -- a slipup which is obviously neither a knowing violation nor a deliberate attempt to poison the board or the discussion -- I think that is a counterproductive level of strictness.

Quote
Claims that "he's old", and "he probably forgot" is not really a good argument for bringing him back, because it's just saying he's likely to do it again. The argument I need to hear is that HE WILL ABSOLUTELY NOT DO IT EVER AGAIN, and I need to feel convinced of that.

It took him sixteen years to make this kind of mistake once. If it takes him another sixteen years to repeat it, I think that is probably close enough to "never again" for horseshoes, grenades, and thermonuclear war, as the joke goes.

Keeping politics out of the forums is a good policy, and I think most long-term posters accept the spirit and purpose of that rule. It's another thing entirely to enforce the letter of that rule with such zero-tolerance strictness that a moment's carelessness earns a permanent ban -- especially when it's for one of the best and most valuable contributors to the site. Part of the reason this entire community exists in the first place is as a counter to the arbitrariness with which most other forums nowadays ban posters; if there is no mechanism to distinguish between accidental and deliberate rules violations, no ability to customize penalty appropriately to the degree of offense, and no room for context, common sense and personal history to make any difference to policy adjudication, I honestly think that this will only wind up damaging the community rather than protecting it.

Thank you for your patience, and I appreciate you hearing me out.
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rytrasmi

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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #25 on: July 27, 2022, 09:32:34 PM »
So what about a cool down ban of like 1 week or even 1 month? What’s the rationale on 0 to 100?

The “he’ll do it again” argument doesn't hold water if this is his first ban after posting here 16 years. My gods, 16 years and one slip up and gone? How is that fair?

I get that you want to protect that thread, but there has to be a common sense middle ground.
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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #26 on: July 28, 2022, 02:58:01 AM »
So what about a cool down ban of like 1 week or even 1 month? What’s the rationale on 0 to 100?

The “he’ll do it again” argument doesn't hold water if this is his first ban after posting here 16 years. My gods, 16 years and one slip up and gone? How is that fair?

I get that you want to protect that thread, but there has to be a common sense middle ground.

I get that. And from here on in I'll consider temp-banning long term members who do an off-topic posting offense. But with Pat and Shark I'll need to hear from them before they get unbanned. Both were aggravated by repeatedly ignoring countless warnings over the years, and specific warnings to them.
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Reckall

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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #27 on: July 28, 2022, 04:04:21 AM »
So what about a cool down ban of like 1 week or even 1 month? What’s the rationale on 0 to 100?

The “he’ll do it again” argument doesn't hold water if this is his first ban after posting here 16 years. My gods, 16 years and one slip up and gone? How is that fair?

I get that you want to protect that thread, but there has to be a common sense middle ground.

I get that. And from here on in I'll consider temp-banning long term members who do an off-topic posting offense. But with Pat and Shark I'll need to hear from them before they get unbanned. Both were aggravated by repeatedly ignoring countless warnings over the years, and specific warnings to them.

Since, for what they know, their participation to this forum is over, they need to know that they can contact you, and how.

I don't have other ways to reach them outside this forum. If someone can, then they should be advised that they can talk to you. Also, can SHARK and Pat PM you even if they are banned? If not, what is the best way for them to contact you?
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VisionStorm

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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #28 on: July 28, 2022, 10:06:09 AM »
To be clear, there is NO EXCUSE whatsoever for off-topic posting of any kind in the main RPG forum.

Dude, absolutely everyone here and every forum I've ever been to--with the possible exception of technical forums (where people only go to ask for help with technical problems)--makes off-topic posts from time to time. You yourself even posted a clip of Bill Blurr at the Steven Jackson thread saying "Bill Burr's view on the topic is similar to my own.", which was not only off-topic, but also political. I refrained from replying cuz any comment I made related to it would've been political as well.

We could probably pick any three threads at random off any page on this site and find loads of off-topic posts. Off-topic posts are commonplace.

rytrasmi

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Re: Request for un-banning re: SHARK.
« Reply #29 on: July 28, 2022, 02:10:41 PM »
So what about a cool down ban of like 1 week or even 1 month? What’s the rationale on 0 to 100?

The “he’ll do it again” argument doesn't hold water if this is his first ban after posting here 16 years. My gods, 16 years and one slip up and gone? How is that fair?

I get that you want to protect that thread, but there has to be a common sense middle ground.

I get that. And from here on in I'll consider temp-banning long term members who do an off-topic posting offense. But with Pat and Shark I'll need to hear from them before they get unbanned. Both were aggravated by repeatedly ignoring countless warnings over the years, and specific warnings to them.

That seems reasonable. If they want to come back, they'll have to take a step in that direction.
The worms crawl in and the worms crawl out
The ones that crawl in are lean and thin
The ones that crawl out are fat and stout
Your eyes fall in and your teeth fall out
Your brains come tumbling down your snout
Be merry my friends
Be merry