Important Summary of Punishments on 10 October 2020

[Leepysheepy]

He decided to stick his foot in a shark tank, no one should be surprised it got bitten.

You keep using that example, I don't think you realize how bad it makes your side of the argument look. That's a bit of a pattern that formed in the last thread, in fact; horrific or at least obviously negative examples hastily covered with just "well that's not what I meant" and little further explanation.

"I want the seitch to be a quaint Viennese coffee house"
"So you want a prissy frou frou affair too formal to be conducive to honest discussion?"
"Uh... Nooooo"

"I want everyone to act as if the mods were a pack of hungry sharks"
"So you want everyone to leave the seitch?"
"No no like friendly sharks or something"

"I want everyone to talk as if they were speaking to a violent transient who may stab them at any moment"
"So intimidated into silence or compliance?"

If these ARE just a string of horrible examples you can't just say that, you must EXPLAIN precisely how you erred in the construction of your example, how it differs from your intended message. If you just say "it's not like that" and don't explain then the conclusion reached by a majority of onlookers is that your example is completely accurate and you just didn't realize someone would find your idea undesirable.

Edit: spelling

 

[FriedCFour]

Let me pose two scenarios to people.

You have an individual who is normally a pretty chill guy, doesn't violate the rules, doesn't cause drama. He jokingly posts about somebody else 'We hear from Hitler guy' in a plainly joking manner.

You have an individual who is constantly dancing on the edge of the rules, who lives to troll and see just how much he can get away with, who constantly is playing 'I'm not touching you!' games with the rules to see how far he can go. He jokingly posts about somebody else 'we hear from Hitler guy' in a plainly joking manner.

If you cannot see the difference in those two scenarios, I'm afraid I can't help you any further.

Karl Donitz makes a good point tbh.

 

[Leepysheepy]

Let me pose two scenarios to people.

You have an individual who is normally a pretty chill guy, doesn't violate the rules, doesn't cause drama. He jokingly posts about somebody else 'We hear from Hitler guy' in a plainly joking manner.

You have an individual who is constantly dancing on the edge of the rules, who lives to troll and see just how much he can get away with, who constantly is playing 'I'm not touching you!' games with the rules to see how far he can go. He jokingly posts about somebody else 'we hear from Hitler guy' in a plainly joking manner.

So either

"neither member broke the rules, but because of a personal distaste for the second user we punished them regardless"

Or

"Both members broke the rules, but because of a personal bias in favor of the first user we didn't punish them"

 

[LordSunhawk]

Or, perhaps, both technically violated the rules, but the first gets a friendly warning and told to cut it out and the second gets his hand slapped with a threadban.

Or is that too difficult a concept to understand, that we base our responses to member's behavior... on the member's behavior.

 

[Emperor Tippy]

So letter of the rule is more important than the spirit of the rule? Healthy forum requires a bit of a leeway, which includes friendly ribbing. Humour is part of healthy life and healthy psyche, so I really don't get why his comment should have led to this sort of reaction. Also, what you stated differs significantly from Zoe's OP, specifically this part:

We give quite a bit of leeway. That leeway does, however, have limits.

Comparisons to Hitler, whether joking or serious, are pretty much always going to be rules and/or TOS violations. It is essentially always going to be uncivil behavior that adds nothing to a thread or discussion and is of zero value.

Making such a joke in a thread explicitly made by the forum Owner to notify the user base that the staff would be stepping up the enforcement of the civility rules and both an Admin and Super Moderator had affirmed that position is basically the sheer embodiment of uncivil behavior.

Bluntly speaking, if @Shipmaster Sane hadn't been joking in that post, he would be enjoying at least a very extended ban from the entire forum if not an outright permanent ban.

He is lucky that we decided to treat his post as a joke and nothing more than either an attempt to bait the staff into hitting him or to prove some ability to flaunt the rules.

---
To make this very clear. "I was joking", "It was humor", "I didn't mean it.", "I wasn't serious." and variations on that theme are never going to be counted as acceptable excuses for violating the rules.

In some cases they may well be mitigating circumstances that reduce the punishment, it other cases the very act of it being a "joke" may well act as a contributing factor in increasing a punishment.

A joke in the Talk About Anything thread is going to be treated differently than one in a thread for an official forum policy announcement. That this is the case should be blindingly obvious.

So either

"neither member broke the rules, but because of a personal distaste for the second user we punished them regardless"

Or

"Both members broke the rules, but because of a personal bias in favor of the first user we didn't punish them"

Or, both members broke the rules. The punishment for breaking the rules on TS is largely based on previous user behavior and can be highly variable.

If you have a history of good behavior, being a generally decent member of the forum who positively contributes to discussions, and not being too much of an asshole then one rule breaking post is probably only going to get you a friendly warning to tone it down.

If you have a history of riding the very line of acceptability, generally being a troll whose very presence actively inhibits discussions, and act like a complete asshole then any post of yours that does violate the rules is going to get hammered with little to no sympathy from the staff.

Be an asshole but obey the rules? You won't get hit.
Be a positive, helpful, member but occasionally violate a rule? You will probably get a slap on the wrist as we extend the benefit of the doubt.
Be an asshole and violate the rules? You have no good will and are liable to get hit significantly harder.

 

[FriedCFour]

Be an asshole but obey the rules? You won't get hit.
Be a positive, helpful, member but occasionally violate a rule? You will probably get a slap on the wrist as we extend the benefit of the doubt.
Be an asshole and violate the rules? You have no good will and are liable to get hit significantly harder.

This is not a joke or ironic in the slightest. You are 1 to 1 indentical to Hitler in your lack of humor and tolerance of fun.

 

[Zachowon]

Sane made a stupid attempt to bait the mods on the rules, rules that have been not all that well enforced for a while, and he got hit for it.

That it was a joke DOES NOT MATTER.

He decided to stick his foot in a shark tank, no one should be surprised it got bitten.

Eh it kinda does
If Invictus took offense it would mean more

 

[Bacle]

Eh it kinda does
If Invictus took offense it would mean more

No, not when Nazi stuff, and Nazi comparisons, are explicitly noted in the ToS as being against the rules.

Sane, and now Fried, have tried to see if they could get away with breaking that rule, and they've gotten hit for it.

 

[Leepysheepy]

Or, perhaps, both technically violated the rules, but the first gets a friendly warning and told to cut it out and the second gets his hand slapped with a threadban.

Or, both members broke the rules. The punishment for breaking the rules on TS is largely based on previous user behavior and can be highly variable.

So a personal bias, like I said

 

[FriedCFour]

No, not when Nazi stuff, and Nazi comparisons, are explicitly noted in the ToS as being against the rules.

Sane, and now Fried, have tried to see if they could get away with breaking that rule, and they've gotten hit for it.

I broke that rule four times lol it took being that aggressive with it to get a 0 point warning once. I just wanted to show just how much personal bias played into this. Ya know, the thing that drove most of us off SB? That we complained about forever? That thing? Where the rules were not being fairly exercised as a rule but instead exercised based on how moderators felt about those members, leaning heavily political? I would say I made my point and made it effectively.

 

[Bacle]

I broke that rule four times lol it took being that aggressive with it to get a 0 point warning once. I just wanted to show just how much personal bias played into this. Ya know, the thing that drove most of us off SB? That we complained about forever? That thing? Where the rules were not being fairly exercised as a rule but instead exercised based on how moderators felt about those members, leaning heavily political? I would say I made my point and made it effectively.

No Fried, you just look like a spoiled brat upset that Mom and Dad are actually enforcing the rules, and taking past questionable actions into account when doing so.

 

[FriedCFour]

No Fried, you just look like a spoiled brat upset that Mom and Dad are actually enforcing the rules, and taking past questionable actions into account when doing so.

Bruh, they aren’t enforcing the rules fairly and equally. I just fucking showed that by calling mods Nazis four times and only getting hit once with a tiny warning for it when I dropped all subtlety. Do you even read what I’m writing? It’s blatantly not enforcing the rules well. I mean, now they finally might, but even still the rules are shit if they are being used an excuse to hit people that the mods don’t like at a minor joke. Like, everything Tippy said was flagrant bullshit about the civility thread. I called a mod a Nazi as a joke twice in that thread and nothing happened. All he’s doing is making up reasons as he goes along for why Ship should be infracted, because the real reason is that he just doesn’t like him. I had, key word had, lots of goodwill from the moderators so I wanted to demonstrate that, and I did so easily.

 

[Zachowon]

No Fried, you just look like a spoiled brat upset that Mom and Dad are actually enforcing the rules, and taking past questionable actions into account when doing so.

He made some comments that should have warranted points in the civility thread

 

[Bacle]

Bruh, they aren’t enforcing the rules fairly and equally. I just fucking showed that by calling mods Nazis four times and only getting hit once with a tiny warning for it when I dropped all subtlety. Do you even read what I’m writing? It’s blatantly not enforcing the rules well. I mean, now they finally might, but even still the rules are shit if they are being used an excuse to hit people that the mods don’t like at a minor joke.

He made some comments that should have warranted points in the civility thread

Hey, if you guys want Fried to get hit with more warnings, and want to overreact to the mods no longer letting things slide, that's on you.

Ship actively shit up a lot of threads with trolling/assholery for assholeries sake, driving people away from this site while toeing the line on rules, and now the mods aren't going to let that slide anymore.

 

[FriedCFour]

Hey, if you guys want Fried to get hit with more warnings, and want to overreact to the mods no longer letting things slide, that's on you.

Ship actively shit up a lot of threads, driving people away from this site while toeing the line on rules, and now the mods aren't going to let that slide anymore.

Can you even think my man? I just showed them letting things slide. My entire issue with Spacebattles moderators, with stricter enforcement of their rules, was that they would let things slide for those they liked and come down a hell of a lot harsher on those they didn’t. They are obviously and blatantly letting things slide as I showed. They can’t even go back to correct it because then it’s just saving face at that point, but there is no way you can even argue this man.

 

[Emperor Tippy]

So a personal bias, like I said

To some extent? Yes.

Moderation is done as follows:
1. "Does this post, in the moderators opinion, violate the TOS?" If yes, escalate it, if no go to step 2.
2. "Does this post, in the moderators opinion, violate the rules?" If no, then go to step 2a.
2a. "Is this post the kind of content that is disliked?" If yes, make note of it and close out the report.

3. "What, if any, mitigating or exacerbating circumstances apply to this rules violation?" This step does take note of previous behavior.

---
Our general position is that content that is rules (and TOS) legal will not be hit. If the moderator doing the hitting can't point to a specific rule the post violates and prove that violation to the satisfaction of higher authority (SMod, Admin, or Owner) then the infraction will be overturned regardless of other circumstances. This is the step that we promise, and actively seek to maintain, a fair and even hand.

Once a post is established to have violated the rules; we don't promise fairness or evenhandedness. Our staff has broad leeway in how hard to hit a given infraction and does not really have to provide much, if any, justification for hits that are within their authority to give. Just like higher ranked staff don't have to provide much, if any, justification to reduce a punishment (and our general policy is to do so if we have any real excuse to do so).

I broke that rule four times lol it took being that aggressive with it to get a o point warning.

And yet you bitch about how mean we are... Perhaps, instead, you should grasp the point that while a line exists; it is nowhere near as easily breached and the doomsayers suppose.

Bruh, they aren’t enforcing the rules fairly and equally. I just fucking showed that by calling mods Nazis four times and only getting hit once with a tiny warning for it when I dropped all subtlety. Do you even read what I’m writing? It’s blatantly not enforcing the rules well. I mean, now they finally might, but even still the rules are shit if they are being used an excuse to hit people that the mods don’t like at a minor joke. Like, everything Tippy said was flagrant bullshit about the civility thread. I called a mod a Nazi as a joke twice in that thread and nothing happened. All he’s doing is making up reasons as he goes along for why Ship should be infracted, because the real reason is that he just doesn’t like him. I had, key word had, lots of goodwill from the moderators so I wanted to demonstrate that, and I did so easily.

If you want to go and report your posts, I'm sure that I could take official cognizance of them. As it is, you should be glad that I am a lazy bastard and am unwilling to actually go look through your posts in that thread to find whatever rules violations might exist.

I mean you are behaving like you actively want us to hit you with some more lasting punishment. You've been told to knock it off, you've been given an official friendly warning on the topic. If you want a longer term vacation from the thread then you should already be very aware of all you have to do to get one.

 

[FriedCFour]

mean you are behaving like you actively want us to hit you with some more lasting punishment. You've been told to knock it off, you've been given an official friendly warning on the topic. If you want a longer term vacation from the thread then you should already be very aware of all you have to do to get one.

Nah. I just wanted to show to Bacle the idea of fair enforcement isn’t happening.

And yet you bitch about how mean we are... Perhaps, instead, you should grasp the point that while a line exists; it is nowhere near as easily breached and the doomsayers suppose.

Some people get passes others don’t. That’s my point, and you’ve again proved it.

 

[LordSunhawk]

People get treated based on their behavior.

A person who accidently forgets to scan a single can of soup in his cart and doesn't notice until he gets to the parking lot is technically a shoplifter.

So is the person who stuffs a dozen cans into his pants and tries to sneak out.

If both are noticed by store security, the first will probably get a polite heads up about the mistake, apologize, pay for it, and life goes on.

The second is probably going to be talking to a police officer in the near future.

Broke the same rule. Different consequences, because the situations are different.

I am not going to waste anymore time trying to explain the concept of fair enforcement. We are not mindless robots, and this isn't Mock Trial LARPing. If you don't like it, then that's purely on you.

 

[LTR]

This is troubling. I guess I can only wonder where Zoe and this forums 'new' announcements will take us weeks from now.