You don't backseat mod in the thread. You don't handle justice by way of the mob. If you don't agree with moderation you make a website feedback thread and you talk about why you feel things went wrong. Staff has changed bans before, will consider changing it, and will do it in the future.

I've certainly had problems with the moderation that I've received at the time but its always made sense to me afterwords. I'm still slightly suspicious that ET has a grudge against me for something that I've done to him but I don't go and tell that to everyone in the thread that I got banned or warned by him.

I've had nightmares of a black(I think its a black hammer I really don't know what the color of the mods hammer is) hammer outside my window yelling at me in some odd language that had a British accent.

Powerpill

United States1692 Posts

October 21 2012 03:32 GMT

#22

On October 20 2012 23:55 MoltkeWarding wrote:

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I think you mistake for personal hypocrisy something more intractable and inchoate about this forum.

That the moderation has become pedestrian and martinent in the past decade, is so. That the poor and uninitiated newcomers can no longer breathe as freely without looking over their shoulders and guarding their lips is also true to some extent. The hypocrisy is the intractable hypocrisy of generations. The founding fathers have grown old, lost their passion but retained their advantage in being one step ahead in the lessons of life, and are eager to restrain the romp and riot of their former selves.

It is inevitable when a clan grows too large and too old that it loses its folkish charms and becomes encumbered with the machinery of a bureaucratic republic. So has it happened with tl.net. My best years of online interation with the SC community were before 2004, before I joined tl.net, on a completely unmoderated forum with 100-150 regulars, among whom the more dedicated were the chieftains, but who were backbone of the community rather than its policemen.

Consequently I've always appreciated the approach that Drone took to moderating tl.net in those early days, though I have always abstained from having an opinion in such matters, generally speaking.

P.S. The other consideration is my personal inclination: sometime after 2001 the casuals who played the game left the game, and we were left with the awful deterioration of manners in the online gaming community, who betimes would take great troubles to affect pseudo-Korean bearings. I am probably one of a few people who ceased taking SC/BW seriously thereafter, but channeled my interest in other directions, including taking an amateur interest in professional gaming, which again ceased with the decline of the professional scene a few years ago. For a brief period after 2010, the casuals were back, and all kinds of normal people, including your girlfriend's little sister were playing your game. This time though you are no longer an ingenue and could no longer look upon gaming virginity with a charitable heart.

A fair description of tl.net's social millieu: bunch of normal kids being chaperoned by a bunch of grown-ups with abnormal childhoods is probably broadly right.

It has been too long since I read one of your posts Moltke. Insightful as always.

(I too was a big fan of drone's moderation way back when).

RebirthOfLeGenD

USA5860 Posts

October 21 2012 05:45 GMT

#23

On October 20 2012 15:48 NicolBolas wrote:

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I agree with the mods here. It's one thing to be warned for a thoughtless joke in poor taste. But then he decided to make an issue of it, publicly. That's whining, back-seat moderating, and off-topic, a hat-trick.

Once again, I think you are really loosely applying each one of those except possibly hat trick. It was hardly whining, it was a single comment not done in a bitchy manner, and he was hardly back seat moderating. He explained his discontent with how his warning was only "Don't do that" which is completely valid to be annoyed about. It seems somewhat dismissive.

The point is, I don't believe the ban was justified. A second warning, with the directions to take it to website feedback would of been much more appropriate, unless this user has been warned before not to bitch about moderation in public, and been told to do so in website feedback. I have been on the site for around 5 years, and around a year or two ago I did something similar after being warned, was told that it didn't look good and the MOD's would prefer I PM any type of issue or make a website feedback thread if I thought it necessary and since then I did so. I never naturally assumed I couldn't say something in a thread like that, but out of respect after receiving that message I have always PMed a mod if I ever had a question. In my case I felt the issue was dealt with mutual respect. If I was banned instead of just a kindly worded PM I definitely would of been annoyed.

KwarK

United States42573 Posts

October 21 2012 07:25 GMT

#24

On October 21 2012 14:45 RebirthOfLeGenD wrote:

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He's PMed the mod who warned him regarding the warning and is unhappy with the outcome. His next option is to explain to the mod that he is unhappy with the explanation and feels that the moderation is inconsistent. Should that fail, or if he wants to skip that step, it's straight to website feedback where the site admins do read stuff, even if they don't necessarily feel the need to intervene. What is not, and has never been, acceptable is grandstanding about the injustice in a completely unrelated topic. It's an issue between you and the tl staff which is irrelevant both to the general tl public and to the topic in question, going "Raaarggghhh, oppressed masses of tl! Rise up and throw off the shackles of the hated oppressors!" has no place there.
Don't grandstand about how you disagree with moderation in non moderation related topics. It's that simple.