The Batlord

P.S.: And as much as tore seems to complain about when he stepped down as a mod, that was actually one of my favorite times he was around. I think he forgets that it was as much frustration with having to set an ideal example as a poster as it was frustration with the way the forum was running.

As a mod, tore was always reserved and professional, but the day he stepped down, I was flabbergasted at the filth and profanity he posted. Don't let him fool you. Tore's mind is in the gutter just as much as ours.

Reminds me of a cadet platoon sergeant from military school who stepped down halfway through the year. He was mega-cool before, never abused his authority, but was still mostly professional. Then he quit, became a Private, and next thing you know, he's as much of a cutup as anyone else in the barracks. He introduced the tradition of nailing people in the nards with a Slim Jim (and yes, that ****ing hurts). Much love to Sergeant/Private *******.

__________________

Guybrush

To Bats, besides generally being too kind, that's an eerily accurate description. You even mentioned my corrupt and filthy sense of humour which is something I've generally tried to keep away from the forums.

Thanks for the kind words, Bats (you creepy little man)

I feel like you're implying that I have an ulterior motive and, fun as that might be, I really don't.

I see myself more as an engineer than a politician. If I see something that doesn't work as well as I would wish, I want to improve on it and I like fiddling with projects like this. I prefer to look for solutions rather than problems and as Batlord writes, power (like modship), is merely a means to an end (to fix something I perceive as a problem).

Regarding discussions and others opinion of me, I want people to like my suggestion or see the sense in my arguments. If they like me as a person, that's nice, but ultimately not what I think is important. I myself tend to not take things personal, looking more at what people write than how they write them, and sometimes I (regrettably) forget that other people might not "work" the same way.

In my daily work, I work with environmental laws towards businesses. Sometimes that means excercising authority. Work on such cases has to be done with objectivity, honesty and transparency (almost all the work I produce is available for public scrutiny) and when modding or discussing serious topics, I basically try to bring that work ethic to these forums.

If two friends are chatting with eachother on the forums about something which has little real relevance to the topic or anyone else, then they could do so on PMs or Skype or Messenger or Facebook or what have you instead.

I generally think that writing posts on a forum should be more like publishing something. That's the way forums are intended to work. Topic titles are a bit like book or chapter titles. The words in your posts will remain there forever (okay, until the forum is deleted). It's just not made for real time chatting.

I understand that many people don't agree with me, but I think leaving The Lounge alone is a good compromise. Plus, there's all those other places where one could "chat", like in plug.

__________________
Something Completely Different

Key

So now you don't want people who are friends to have friendly banter in the forum? I don't like that idea at all. Everyone would be like robots if we weren't allowed to have a little back and forths with the people we like here.

To your second point, I'm also going to have to disagree. I'm not going to proofread and read over and over again every single time I post. I don't think i've actually been on a forum that stood by that either, so if you have proof that this type of forum exists, i'd love to see it. I find the casual posting style to be one of the better qualities of this site. The only time I personally care about what my post looks like is when it's in my journal, other than that, I hardly ever worry about what my post says or looks like.

Overall, what your saying here is if we don't talk to each other in threads that relate to the topic, we shouldn't even talk at all. Bravo on yet another terrible idea.

The Batlord

I don't know why. You were a blast when you started cutting loose. You've got an inane Lounge poster inside of you. You just need to let him out.

__________________

Guybrush

It's not so much friendly banter I have a problem with. If it is friendly banter which is relevant to the topic, that's fine. It's just that some people treat forum posts like SMSes or chat messages. An SMS or a chat message can still have on-topic content with value to the discussion or community (and then it's fine), but sometimes they don't (ex. just "lol" or just an emoticon) and they're the ones that should be discouraged, I think.

For a quick example of how I think bad posting could be improved, see this post.

For the time being, he's chained up in my inner Fritzl dungeon.

__________________
Something Completely Different

Trollheart

This is the best idea yet. A warning with some weight behind it and the obvious implication that it's not just the opinion of one person/one person being singled out by one mod.
Like Roxy (and if you talk to Urban he will confirm this) I accepted the warning I got for insulting SF. It was at the time a bad decision and to be fair to Urban, he explained its necessity very well. I didn't take any offence and I accepted it with good grace. But then, I'm such a nice guy it probably makes the rest of you sick.

If a warning/infraction/ban is deserved, there's no real reason why anyone should whine about it, especially if they've been able to see it coming. There is, admittedly, nothing worse than getting that PM and once you read it you can no longer access the site (or when you go to the site you get a message saying you've been banned, can't remember which but they're both annoying and a little terrifying) but it does hammer the point home that you crossed the line.

I just bet that's a true story!
Exactly. The reason so many of us are against this is precisely because we don't get involved in drama, or if we do we know how to get out of it, even (and I'm talking mega-extreme measures here obviously) if it involves a public apology and climbdown. We can do this ourselves. We're adults, which is why this whole carrot-and-stick-minus-carrot idea is so offensive to me.
He is going against the spirit of the board, yes, I'll grant you.
Also, @tore, if there a reason why the poll is NOT anonymous? That smacks of a rather dark intent to me, even if that's not the case. How many polls have ever been made here that gave names of members out? Why did you feel you had to do that? What's the thinking behind that decision may I ask?

Some people had proposed me (whether seriously or not I don't know, though Vanilla certainly was) as a mod, and I had and will continue to turn it down, as I know I could not give the job the amount of time and energy it would require. If you're going to do a job do it 100%, and I could not guarantee that. So I'd rather not be a mod than be a bad one. I honestly don't know how these guys and girls do it. It's surely not an easy job, nor one replete with gratitude.

You see, that there is the whole problem. This doesn't feel like someone who cares about us trying to make the place better (I'm sorry tore but it doesn't, not to me), more like someone running a cold and clinical experiment, and I feel like a lab rat. With glasses.
This again. Why does it always have to be relevant to the topic, tore? I created a thread specifically with no topic, and it's chaos but fun. Yes it's in the Lounge but again, to go back to my "Metal Month III" thread, which is in the main form (Metal), I wouldn't care if people instead of giving me lists of albums started talking about how hard it is to catch a bus, if the conversation naturally and organically grows into that, as long as it returns to the topic eventually. That's what conversations are; you don't just stick to one topic, you end up being pulled or taking the conversation in new directions. Remember Billy Connolly? There's nothing wrong with that as far as I can see, once it does eventually settle down.
.
So Jansz would be in your sights for an infraction then??

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Neapolitan

There are two threads now, so somewhere in either you said you won't want to be a mod in the present condition. So you do want to be a mod? What it seems like is that you want the other mods to do the dirty work for you and then hop on board as a head mod and rule MB using a junta and your personally engineered rules. And why did this come off the heels of UH? leaving? "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

More like a "social engineer."

The key word is "chat" I don't want those places be considered as troll havens. Kinda the way SYG went from a legit. thread expressing how you felt about other members to a troll haven till it was placed in the "memory hole."

__________________