RobL's HD thread closed for no reason

[jack]

Acuracy.

I think it's "Accuracy". Don't mind me

 

[jack]

You didn't miss how that works on more than one level, and wasn't just a simple spelling troll response, right anna?

 

[Tamar_Garish]

Oh do shut up Anna.

No one gives a flying fuck about your insipid garbage and retarded comparisons to you and your activities.

Obviously me finding your incredibly stupid blunder of real name next to handle on the internets has owned you so damn hard you still whine and cry and simper about evil Tamar and her cardinal sin of using Google.

Oh my god! I looked and linked to actormikes LiveJournal...you know...those things people are supposed to read on the internet? How dare I read it?! Oh the shenanigans!

Go back to lousy fan fiction about lousy shows and fuck off already, you dumb ninny.

 

[Anna]

Obviously me finding your incredibly stupid blunder of real name next to handle on the internets has owned you so damn hard you still whine and cry and simper about evil Tamar and her cardinal sin of using Google.

Oh my god! I looked and linked to actormikes LiveJournal...you know...those things people are supposed to read on the internet? How dare I read it?! Oh the shenanigans!

My post was saying Crosis's claims about ruining someone's RL were step up above that shit, and a lot more worrisome. I know full well you know where to draw your battle lines.

Calm the fuck down. Geez.

 

[Tamar_Garish]

Nobody was ruining anyones life and every person here knows it.

It's all about causing the biggest stink possible to try and make apathetic people and stupid people believe the sky is falling so some people can wank over being revolutionaries.

Hell, I can't blame 'em. Ousting Borg's corrupt ass was not only necessary but fun. Elwood isn't that bad and everyone knows it so things have to be blown out of proportion to try and repeat history. If Gul was really worried then I'm the queen of fucking England.

 

[Crosis]

Nobody was ruining anyones life and every person here knows it.

It's all about causing the biggest stink possible to try and make apathetic people and stupid people believe the sky is falling so some people can wank over being revolutionaries.

Hell, I can't blame 'em. Ousting Borg's corrupt ass was not only necessary but fun. Elwood isn't that bad and everyone knows it so things have to be blown out of proportion to try and repeat history. If Gul was really worried then I'm the queen of fucking England.

Wow. You certainly have come at me now with both barrels. Your whole attitude towards me has made a radical shift. Maybe I just made Storm cry too hard. You do seem better with words than he is.

Ok, Tamar, here's the thing: I would never, if I owned the board, let you be a mod or an admin. You see nothing wrong with telling someone "Hey, I know where you work, and I'm gonna call your boss and get him fired." It doesn't matter if they are bluffing or not, because we can't know for certain, now can we?

But, several days after the fact, I just can't muster the outrage anymore. I am, for the most part, happy here. You and Storm seem more upset about this than I am, and I just don't feel like arguing in circles over here about what happened at a place I'll never post at again.

It's done. I don't care anymore. If you're still pissed, for whatever reason, that's fine. But I'm just not interested anymore.

 

[Tamar_Garish]

No, I just see it for what it is and I don't have to restrain myself anymore so I ain't gonna.

On the internet...no I don't give a damn about some stupid troll. Considering how many times someone said they were going to come kill me or some stupid shit, if I reacted to every threat made I might as well get offline and hide under the bed.

I guess it's a good thing I have no desire to mod or admin at a board you own then, isn't it? And I'm not upset...I think it's ridiculous and frankly laughing at how much you over-reacted to a troll. :shrug:

 

[missmanners]

Considering how many times someone said they were going to come kill me or some stupid shit, if I reacted to every threat made I might as well get offline and hide under the bed.

With a shotgun.... don't forget the shotgun!


mm

 

[Crosis]

No, I just see it for what it is and I don't have to restrain myself anymore so I ain't gonna.

On the internet...no I don't give a damn about some stupid troll. Considering how many times someone said they were going to come kill me or some stupid shit, if I reacted to every threat made I might as well get offline and hide under the bed.

I guess it's a good thing I have no desire to mod or admin at a board you own then, isn't it? And I'm not upset...I think it's ridiculous and frankly laughing at how much you over-reacted to a troll. :shrug:

You can laugh if you want to, Tamar. I'm just tired of repeating myself ad nauseum.

If you don't think that what Storm did was wrong, ok. That's your prerogative. I think you're wrong, but what we think of each other doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

At any rate, I think I've said everything that can possibly be said about all of this. Any reply I make now will just be quoting myself.

 

[Tyrant]

Denny Crane who are you???

Messenger/Zodiac/Chatacranny/Chadarnook

 

[Volpone]

The one thing that really, really amazes me about this whole mess is the deep, deep disconnect between the Loyal Toadies and the General Populace.

Tamar, this isn't trolling. This is genuine frustration. We've tried to fix things, and we keep getting summarily shot down by The Powers That Be. And Elwood, in his hubris, has ignored anyone who had the backbone to stand up to him and say he was wrong. So he's driven off anyone who said the Emperor had no clothes and is now left with Yes Men (and Women, although to your credit you did finally leave).

So now he's playing catch-up. Fixing things that should've been fixed YEARS ago, and hoping that will placate people. Well it's too late. That's like reducing speed and doubling the lookouts AFTER you've hit the iceberg. :shrug:

Still, in his clueless, wrongheaded, and assholish manner, Listkeeper has again pointed the direction for Wordforge. We'll figure out what needs to happen to save the place. And we'll make it happen. Either the changes Wordforge needs will be implemented at Wordforge.net, or we'll move things to another URL. It is high time, people realized the "owner" of Wordforge merely owns the mechanics. Wordforge belongs to you and me and gul--even CheekyMonkey. :enty:

It's well known I don't give a fuck about personal information that can be found on the internet.

I think the WF rule is retarded and pointless. If WF was mine...and I don't want it so don't worry....neither Storm or Gul would be banned. Some pointless threat with no reason to believe it's even credible? So what?

Crosis was crying and whining about the horror of personal information at WF and went on about how he was burned and people shouldn't even have a hint of worry about their personal info and then comes here and acts like he doesn't give a damn?

Either he is a major hypocrite or he's the troll he keeps claiming he isn't. Either way it's pretty funny. :lol:

 

[Volpone]

Fuck. I forgot about the second part of my post--my rebuttal--until I posted it. I typed up a dramatic and stirring "If Wordforge Was Mine" essay, but it took me like, 5:30 to type it and it got lost because of the policies here. I may retype it later.

It was beautiful. Brought a tear to my eye. Basically, if you imagine that picture of Christopher Reeve as Superman, holding an American Flag while hovering over the edge of the Grand Canyon while "America The Beautiful" plays in the background, you'll have an idea of what my essay was like.

 

[Tamar_Garish]

Except in yours, Superman would have his big old E-peen out and whacking it furiously into that big crack in the ground.

 

[Volpone]

OK.

"If I Ran Wordforge: An Essay by Volpone" [Realize that what I was going to say was an off-the-cuff, spur-of-the-moment screed. That moment is gone, so this may be a bit more involved. Or not. I dunno. :shrug: ]

If I ran Wordforge, my first action would be to announce that the longest I would stay would be two years. History has shown that after a couple years WF needs a change. (Although I leave the Teddy Roosevelt option open. I'd come back after a break, IF people wanted me back.)

And If I ran Wordforge, I would have nothing to do with the day-to-day forum stuff. My purpose would be strictly outward-facing--making sure we weren't breaking any laws, and maintaining good relations with other board moderators like Miss Manners and :dry: T'Bonz. My only inward-facing roles would be in any board-wide rules like "no private information" and the technical feasibility of meeting poster requests.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. If I ran Wordforge, my first action would be to dust off Cass' mission statement (again, as much as she annoys me, she's a smart girl and I'm pretty sure she did one). I'd open a discussion on it and entertain proposed changes. At the end of say, a week or two, the whole board would have the opportunity to vote to ratify the mission. Then I'd do something similar with the bylaws/constitution. (Oh, and I'd retain a non-voting purely advisory capacity for the next leader--my option.)

If I ran Wordforge I would have three types of staff: Moderators, Technical Admins, and (for lack of a better word) Judges. Technical admins would be essentially as they are today. They would be appointed by me (maybe approved by a majority of Mods, but I doubt it) and would exist solely to make things work and figure out how to do the cool things.

As much as Nick can piss me off from time to time, I gotta say, he seems to be a shit-hot admin, and I'd like to keep him around. (I'd keep the current staff around long enough for the transition, more on that later.) I'm thinking a primary and secondary tech admin. The secondary could (SHOULD) do work when the primary is around, but only as directed by the primary. Then you'd have a unity of command but both admins would maintain proficiency.

For Moderators, I'd get rid of all the current moderators and elect them from the board (SIDEBAR: I'd continue to allow duals, but I'd hunt them aggressively, and when identified, I'd have them set up with restricted permissions, so they couldn't vote or rep.) I'm not sure how many Mods we'd have, I'd rely on input from the staff and the board while working up the constitution (SIDEBAR II: I'd bring back the Embassy as a place for n00bs to post, pending approval and a general get-to-know-you place. And the Mission and Constitution would be stickied in the Embassy for everyone to read.) My thought is to be a Mod, you'd have to have been a poster for a year with--I dunno--a thousand(?) posts. Then someone would have to nominate you. And someone would have to second the nomination. Then if you accepted the nomination, you'd be added to the ballot. After a set period of time, we'd have a poll for an election, with the top nominees as moderators. (There might have to be controls for removing mods but that is too in-the-weeds for this discussion.) Then Mods would serve at the leisure of the Posters. My inclination would be for set term limits, although I'd entertain unlimited terms and a recall (maybe with a 2/3 vote or something) as a way of changing mods.

Finally, there'd be the Judges. I'd break the Help Desk into two subforums. One would be technical and would be run by me and my Tech Admins. The other would be the Court. Moderators could make rulings in their forums (Oh, by the way, Moderators would set the rules for their forums (I think)), and if they were out and another Mod had to make a ruling in their absence, the Primary could overturn the ruling. But if a poster had a problem with a ruling, they could take it to the Court. In court they'd present their side of things and the Mod would present his/her side. And anyone who needed to testify could. Then the Judge would review the Constitution and board common law, and either uphold or overturn a ruling. If either side had a problem, they could escalate the issue. I'd have three judges. They'd be elected like the Moderators. If there was an appeal, the other two judges could either hear the case or overrule. For the appeal, no new information would be entertained and the ruling would be upheld or overruled. I might allow myself the option of pardoning posters, but I don't know. Oh, and the Judges would also need to keep a record of rulings to build on the common law.

Granted, all of this has a lot of overhead. But remember where I said I wouldn't be involved in the day-to-day moderation? I'm thinking that would leave me the time to make sure the trains continued to run on time, as it were.

Yup. A lot less inspiring than the initial post, and not perfect by a long shot, but there you go.:shrug: I'll entertain any questions, suggestions, and comments now.

Oh, and "If I ran Wordforge" implies Elwood steps down. A year ago, he might've been able to implement these changes. But right now, he needs to step aside for the [gag] healing to begin. Lanzman was on the short list, and I don't have a problem with him owning the board. He could have me as his vice. Or as an advisor. Or just tell me to fuck off. But I really think it would be useful to have me in any private areas. During my short time on staff, I saw a lot of things I was trying to shape and think I could've made a difference on, but I didn't have time.

EPILOGUE: If I were mod, as soon as I opened discussion on the Mission and Constitution, I would unban Hood and everyone who has been banned in the past 6-8 weeks. I'd give Hood a commuted formal warning for posting private info and I'd warn CheekyMonkey and Storm formally. Gul and everyone else (Crosis, Chatacranny, etc) would just come back (if they'd be willing)--maybe I'd "friendly" Gul and Crosis. I still haven't seen anything from CM's thread that looked like personal info to me (assuming it was all a pack of lies), what was it? That his fiancee is a nurse? That he had to shoot a dog? :gagh: Wordforge was about policing ourselves. That is how this thing should've went down. :shrug:

PS: I hate you all. Two hours ago I should've been on the phone with a girl about a date. Or masturbating to "Dogfights" on The History Channel. Or went out for a run instead of sitting here.

 

[Tamar_Garish]

Too convoluted and complicated, IMO.

Simplicity is better, but needs to be clear, spelled out and less vague.

Creating more government or beaurocracy isn't the answer.

 

[Crosis]

If I ran WF, we'd have a staff of two admins (Who'd be longtime posters), two tech admins (could be anyone adept, really) and five mods (only the "blandest" of posters)

Do we need more than that? I don't think so.

All bans would be lifted. Amnesty.

And finally, I think that WF has evolved from what it used to be, that being a refugee forum of sorts. It has instead grown into something of a family, a bit of a unique thing from what I've seen, and something that should be cherished.

Most of our forums are flame and troll free, moderated, and generally nice, quiet places.

We have meetups and people routinely chitchat over the phone and the like.

I think our rules ought to change to reflect this change, unless we think J. Allen leaving is good thing.

We should, most of all I think, stop encouraging posters to leave if they "can't take the heat."

 

[ctmelvital]

Too convoluted and complicated, IMO.

Simplicity is better, but needs to be clear, spelled out and less vague.

Creating more government or beaurocracy isn't the answer.

See, that's something I'd like to see changed myself. That whole fucking "let's not do anything new" attitude. Sure, it's a nice board with 100 members posting pretty much every day. A bit of that, a bit of this. But is it really necessary that you basically have to fight for 3 months until you get a new forum that plenty of people want?
You people haven't done anything new but at best kept the board running. All three attempts at actually doing something new - well, they worked pretty well, didn't they? But alas, I doubt you really want to increase the membership. Pretty happy with the people you have around, posting pictures of your private areas, talking about cats and dogs and the weather and what your kids do and occasionally saying "Bush = shit" and "No, Bush = great" or "the government is the evil! get rid of it! but please leave the part of it that gives money to me and my pet project alive". That ain't intellectually challenging. Maybe it's interesting to a majority of posters - and maybe you want to keep the membership consisting mainly of that kind of poster but I really think people like Scorp who put plenty of effort and actually try to improve WF deserve a bit more respect than just saying "Nah, too much effort/won't work/why change anything".

Edit:
Also, I really, honestly, truly don't want to get back on staff. Nor do I want to own the board.

 

[RobL]

In all of this dick waving and breast flashing, nobody answered my question,, as to why my thread was closed.

I think Elwood deserves some mutual love of WFers and TKers. We can all be fucked up sometimes.