Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Why can't weee be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?

Give me unlimited power to ban whomever I choose. I'll monitor the comments.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Ha. Tempting.
>> ^Ryjkyj:

Give me unlimited power to ban whomever I choose. I'll monitor the comments.

To be fair, he was a fucking horse fucker. When's the next dinner party?

That seems logical -- spread the axing around.

Plus, it gives the "target" a chance to say -- hey, I don't mind, leave the asshole be, I can take care of myself.

Or maybe the commenter will remove the offending remark if they see doom coming.... hahahahahahahaha.

Still. Pigs might fly. You never know.

I think if we implement some sort of systemic way of doing this, there need to be some pretty clear guidelines about what's out of bounds.

What this freshly clean and washed horse fucker says. If we "only" need 10 votes to temp ban someone, then I fear that dissenting voices might be quashed prematurely.

On another note, I'd like to be able to mark someone as a spammer after they have been banned. There have been plenty of examples where someone has been banned, but they have several spams still hanging around in comments and we can do nothing about them. Of course, we should only be able to do this with people that have 0 star points behind the ban, so that we don't clear out someone temp-banned completely.
>> ^NetRunner:

I think if we implement some sort of systemic way of doing this, there need to be some pretty clear guidelines about what's out of bounds.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I think we have a pretty clear guideline and the added safety that if you are a gold star member, you've been around long enough to know what's over the line.>> ^NetRunner:

I think if we implement some sort of systemic way of doing this, there need to be some pretty clear guidelines about what's out of bounds.

I think it's a pretty bad idea to have a "10 votes for a ban" link or any such thing. If it is being installed we're gonna need more guidelines and rules, as well as repercussions when abusing the feature that is supposed to stop abuse and so on ...

I'm not sure any policing (especially of profile comments) is even necessary. I mean we're all grown-ups here, no? Sticks and stones anyone? Don't like how someone is talking to you on here? Just use the ignore function, problem solved. No policing, no dag screening profile messages, no unnecessary drama. Of course when you ignore someone, that someone shouldn't be able to leave messages on your profile anymore.

I can't believe you're still upset about the whole dinner party thing.. I did apologize already...

>> ^residue:

I can't believe you're still upset about the whole dinner party thing.. I did apologize already...


Well you don't need to apologize to him, it wasn't his horse...

"flag inappropriate" works...also, don't show the community that a comment has been flagged inappropriate because that may change the outcome of somebody's decision to flag. After X amount of flags, it either goes to Dag or Lucky...or if you want to relinquish a little bit of the control put it up for the community to decide (although we decided to do away with siftquisitions). After you are notified, you can communicate with the alleged offender and determine his or her intentions.

Instead of getting banned, perhaps the offending user could be put into "Mute" mode where they aren't allowed to comment temporarily (1 week?).

And we can have a page available to our highly prized Crown members that lists all Muted members with their offending comment, so if a few (10?) decide their Mute was undeserved, they can be un-muted.

Thoughts?

Not really on board with enforced civility. I'd always prefer to have an honest conversation with someone than one where we're both tiptoeing around whatever taboos.

I like @rottenseed's "flag inappropriate" idea. Having the ability flag something, without having a visible count of who else flagged it.

What happens to the offender? I like @lucky760's idea that you get muted. Is this like being hobbled?

I think it would be better if there were no hard and fast rules, or counts resulting in a ban. I like rottenseed's suggestion that crossing some threshold makes the comment appear in your inbox.

Another option is to take the slashdot route. That is, you can't moderate comments in a thread you've participated in. It tends to keep the emotionally charged modding at bay. The downside is, you can't flag when you really take offense to comments directed at you.

Man, I'm going to have to watch my mouf.

Sifters already have the ability to downvote offensive comments. I thought when that feature was added that it was supposed to trigger administrative action when the count reached a certain level.

Why not build on top of what is already in place?!?

>> ^dag:

I think we have a pretty clear guideline and the added safety that if you are a gold star member, you've been around long enough to know what's over the line.>> ^NetRunner:
I think if we implement some sort of systemic way of doing this, there need to be some pretty clear guidelines about what's out of bounds.



Well, we have quite a lot of people whose rank is higher than gold star who're making what could be described as "personal attacks" on a routine basis.

If the bar is high on what's out of bounds in terms of a personal attack ("pig fucker" but not "statist idiot"), then we should probably make that standard more explicit.

If the idea here is to reset the bar, and try to raise the level of discourse, then that also needs to be made explicit.

Maybe we should ease up on some of those bans? I mean, I'm not against banning people, but I do think there needs to be a process. Like a due process? Or at least a bit of consistency. There IS a hobbling feature. That's a good one to do before just banning a motherfucker outright. You know, just in case you want to hear their side before making a ruling.

Also, favoritism seems to play a big role in how this site operates, and now I'm curious if that isn't the case for some of the recent bans.

Or forget what I wrote and just deputize a bunch of hall monitors. I'm sure I can list at least a couple people on here that would jump at the opportunity to run around policing civility. I love this site, but your egalitarian model jumped the shark a long time ago.

@KnivesOut bans @blankfist

It is just so hard not to see myself in here, blankie.

For the record, I was appalled that dag took after chic for calling me a *****. I mean, good lord, there is so much worse stuff on the sift.

I immediately wrote dag privately and told him that I was taking care of it, that chic was mad at me for a reason, and that I would stop engaging with him entirely, that I would take care to keep our feud out of the comment stream.

By then it was too late -- dag had laid down some specific rules and chic ignored them, and he got himself banned.

I have never understood the whole banning thing here. But then, this is the first time I have gotten involved in an online community, so maybe that is naive of me. What would this place be like without the threat of banning?

I like your idea of due process. I also think that the "target" should be consulted before a banning happens. I don't like Chic (one of the reasons he doesn't like me, understandably). I have been savagely attacked by him verbally on my profile page. I think his duping mania is bad for the sift. And I still wouldn't ban him. IT'S JUST WORDS. IT'S JUST VIDEOS.

He has fun here. I wouldn't want to take it away from him. And I wasn't responsible for him being banned.


>> ^blankfist:

Maybe we should ease up on some of those bans? I mean, I'm not against banning people, but I do think there needs to be a process. Like a due process? Or at least a bit of consistency. There IS a hobbling feature. That's a good one to do before just banning a motherfucker outright. You know, just in case you want to hear their side before making a ruling.
Also, favoritism seems to play a big role in how this site operates, and now I'm curious if that isn't the case for some of the recent bans.
Or forget what I wrote and just deputize a bunch of hall monitors. I'm sure I can list at least a couple people on here that would jump at the opportunity to run around policing civility. I love this site, but your egalitarian model jumped the shark a long time ago.

do we get a (another) badge?

@bareboards2, why don't you take a little break from grandstanding for a while. You'll have plenty of time to write a Sift Talk Post about it later and author it as the doe-eyed victim.

Does anyone else see the humor in blankfist calling me out on grandstanding?

Pot calling the kettle black, I'm thinking.


>> ^blankfist:

@bareboards2, why don't you take a little break from grandstanding for a while. You'll have plenty of time to write a Sift Talk Post about it later and author it as the doe-eyed victim.

What?? chicchorea has been banned? Have you all gone mad? Oh man this used to be such a nice community, but somehow both choggie and the people who got him banned ruined it.

>> ^bareboards2:

Does anyone else see the humor in blankfist calling me out on grandstanding?
Pot calling the kettle black, I'm thinking.

>> ^blankfist:
@bareboards2, why don't you take a little break from grandstanding for a while. You'll have plenty of time to write a Sift Talk Post about it later and author it as the doe-eyed victim.



Because you keep PMing me and keep wanting attention from me in the threads, I'm giving it to you. So here you are. I'm sure in real life you're a sweet person with nothing but great intentions, so I'm just going to assume you're in fact really that kind, sweet lady instead of the busybody Delores Umbridge of the Sift.

Fair enough? Let's move on.

Ease up on the hate, already. >> ^blankfist:

@bareboards2, why don't you take a little break from grandstanding for a while. You'll have plenty of time to write a Sift Talk Post about it later and author it as the doe-eyed victim.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

This is all your doing, friend. Ease up on the hate, already. >> ^blankfist:
@bareboards2, why don't you take a little break from grandstanding for a while. You'll have plenty of time to write a Sift Talk Post about it later and author it as the doe-eyed victim.



What is? Getting @BoneRemake and @chicchorea banned? Or are you just jumping to conclusions again?

I'm sick of you bullying bareboards. She doesn't deserve it.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I'm sick of you bullying bareboards. She doesn't deserve it.


Me bullying her? Are you out of your mind?

You know, I'm just going to drop it, because I'm sure some people don't want this to turn into something more than it already has. Suffice it to say I don't think you know the score, pal.

Be civil. Ease up on the namecalling.

Yes, be civil. I agree. Let's ALL be civil. Let's ALL ease up on the name calling. And while we're at it, let's ALL be banned who've-- wait, what? Oh, only the least favored get banned on this site? Well, nevermind that last point then. Carry on.

HAHAHAHA you're all trolling each other. This is fucking brilliant!!!

Here's a list of reasons not to like me, that I know of:

1. I'm opinionated.
2. I'm stubborn.
3. I'm wordy.
4. I am direct.
5. I haven't been visible on the Sift until recently and now I am all over the place, being opinionated, stubborn, wordy and direct.

If ever anyone has any problem with me, please tell me directly. I will change my behavior if I agree with the complaint.

uuuggggggghhhhhhhhhh we get it. You are a valid member of society and videosift. Please continue to fight for the rights of women everywhere...

...and stuff.
>> ^bareboards2:

Here's a list of reasons not to like me, that I know of:
1. I'm opinionated.
2. I'm stubborn.
3. I'm wordy.
4. I am direct.
5. I haven't been visible on the Sift until recently and now I am all over the place, being opinionated, stubborn, wordy and direct.
If ever anyone has any problem with me, please tell me directly. I will change my behavior if I agree with the complaint.

I didn't mention my gender. You did. What does my gender have to do with anything?


>> ^rottenseed:

uuuggggggghhhhhhhhhh we get it. You are a valid member of society and videosift. Please continue to fight for the rights of women everywhere...
...and stuff.
>> ^bareboards2:
Here's a list of reasons not to like me, that I know of:
1. I'm opinionated.
2. I'm stubborn.
3. I'm wordy.
4. I am direct.
5. I haven't been visible on the Sift until recently and now I am all over the place, being opinionated, stubborn, wordy and direct.
If ever anyone has any problem with me, please tell me directly. I will change my behavior if I agree with the complaint.

I didn't know fighting for women's rights was something only women could do...sexist.

>> ^bareboards2:

I didn't mention my gender. You did. What does my gender have to do with anything?

>> ^rottenseed:
uuuggggggghhhhhhhhhh we get it. You are a valid member of society and videosift. Please continue to fight for the rights of women everywhere...
...and stuff.
>> ^bareboards2:
Here's a list of reasons not to like me, that I know of:
1. I'm opinionated.
2. I'm stubborn.
3. I'm wordy.
4. I am direct.
5. I haven't been visible on the Sift until recently and now I am all over the place, being opinionated, stubborn, wordy and direct.
If ever anyone has any problem with me, please tell me directly. I will change my behavior if I agree with the complaint.

>> ^lucky760:

Instead of getting banned, perhaps the offending user could be put into "Mute" mode where they aren't allowed to comment temporarily (1 week?).
And we can have a page available to our highly prized Crown members that lists all Muted members with their offending comment, so if a few (10?) decide their Mute was undeserved, they can be un-muted.
Thoughts?


I like this, especially the part where crowns get the power to pardon, though I tentatively say it should only take 1 of us to unmute.

If we have problems with anarchist crowns unmuting everyone (cough @blankfist cough), then we can just lop off his head and sift the video of it.

Or put a cap on how often you can pardon people...

Checks & balances, and all that.

Given that we, as a community, can't seem to agree on much of anything, I think it would be useful (and, actually, a unique opportunity) to run several short (monthly perhaps?) experiments with different options and see which ones suck less than others.

If everyone understands that the measures are an experiment I think it's unlikely that it would permanently drive people away (which would be my main concern about implementing something that people hated).

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I'd say two for a pardon - should not happen regularly.>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^lucky760:
Instead of getting banned, perhaps the offending user could be put into "Mute" mode where they aren't allowed to comment temporarily (1 week?).
And we can have a page available to our highly prized Crown members that lists all Muted members with their offending comment, so if a few (10?) decide their Mute was undeserved, they can be un-muted.
Thoughts?

I like this, especially the part where crowns get the power to pardon, though I tentatively say it should only take 1 of us to unmute.
If we have problems with anarchist crowns unmuting everyone (cough @blankfist cough), then we can just lop off his head and sift the video of it.
Or put a cap on how often you can pardon people...
Checks & balances, and all that.

No experiments please. No need to add new tools to which cliques can wield some sort of power over another person. This will end poorly.

We had a pretty good system in place: it's called hobbling. It's also been remarkably NOT abused.
Hobble. Then if necessary ban. Then if absolutely necessary perma-ban. But for god's sake just hear people out first. And can we hobble before perma-banning good Sifters, please?!

I think we could also do more to diffuse these kinds of meltdowns before they come to term with kind and reasoned words. It's so easy to get caught up in the downward spiral of hate when we discuss issues that are important to us. If we could all agree to afford our fellow sifters with basic human respect, we'd have a lot less problems. Refuse to escalate hate.

In other news, platitudes get upvotes.

>> ^blankfist:

What is? Getting BoneRemake and chicchorea banned? Or are you just jumping to conclusions again?

Bone was suspended for harassing me. As far as I know, bareboards had no part in it.

I think it's interesting that everyone wants to voice their opinion whenever someone gets suspended or banned, but the consensus on Siftquisitions was that they were too much of a public spectacle.

Seems a little hypocritical of us.

What a bunch of shit.

*controversy

Adding post to channels (Controversy) - requested by MrFisk.

Bring back everyone. Everyone. Install an ignore option that prevents private and public messaging, or some other solution that is simple, effective, and private. Remember Socrates? Let's not repeat his trial.

You've been pissed at me for weeks now. What have I done to earn your ire? Would you like to talk it out? I still consider you a friend and a good guy, despite the sniping. >> ^blankfist:

In other news, platitudes get upvotes.

If things work so great as they are, blanky, why is this discussion even happening?

But alright, let's not ever change anything, because risk aversion is more important than testing ideas and discovering improvements.

I agree with blankfist. The tool to deal with this already exists. The reason hobbling prevents a member from making profile comments is for this exact type of problem.

Of course, only dag/lucky can undo a hobble and I understand that he wants to be disassociated from the entire process. So .. I don't know. Make a private poll where only ruby and above can vote on whether or not to unhobble? It's really an ad-hoc siftquisition no matter how you do it. Either Siftler brings the ban hammer or the community has to decide.

And although I'd like an ignore feature that actually works, even if we had that I don't think it should get people off the hook for breaking the community guidelines .. ie. "you don't like it nigger? too fucking bad, ignore me." Ignore is great for ignoring .. but it doesn't give people license to be abusive assholes.

Remember when VideoSift was just about the videos?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

No. It's always been about the people. We're like the poorly named MTV of the internet world.>> ^Stingray:

Remember when VideoSift was just about the videos?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I disagree with this. Hobbling was implemented primarily as a tool to stop someone with star powers doing something crazy - until a reasoned response could be made. We may have done a couple of punitive hobbles - but that was kind of dumb. >> ^blankfist:

No experiments please. No need to add new tools to which cliques can wield some sort of power over another person. This will end poorly.
We had a pretty good system in place: it's called hobbling. It's also been remarkably NOT abused.
Hobble. Then if necessary ban. Then if absolutely necessary perma-ban. But for god's sake just hear people out first. And can we hobble before perma-banning good Sifters, please?!

>> ^berticus:

If things work so great as they are, blanky, why is this discussion even happening?


They would work great, but not a single person was hobbled. Instead we jumped right to banning three temporarily and one permanently. So... I don't really know why we're having this discussion, to be honest. We should be talking about why people were banned.

So you are going to let petty politics come between us, eh? We had a good thing going, you and me, but it all goes down the drain because I don't like Milton Friedman.

Fine....whatever.... I can't stop you from taking that away from me....

....but what you can never take away from me are my fond memories of our hot weekend in Barbados; particularly the number of mangoes you were able to put up your.... er... fist-hole.... like a fleshen clown car you are.

Goodnight, sweet prince.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

So you are going to let petty politics come between us, eh? We had a good thing going, you and me, but it all goes down the drain because I don't like Milton Friedman.
Fine....whatever.... I can't stop you from taking that away from me....
....but what you can never take away from me are my fond memories of our hot weekend in Barbados; particularly the number of mangoes you were able to put up your.... er... fist-hole.... like a fleshen clown car you are.
Goodnight, sweet prince.

Clearly, we're all opinionated mofos and are going to butt heads.

So yeah, to slow VideoSift's inevitable slide into a niche version of youtube - comments and all - Civility is important.

Since Dag and Lucky probably have more important things to do than babysit, and VideoSift was founded on the principles of self-correcting stewardship or whatnot..

We should find a solution to maintain civility that satisfies both.

All that said, the two best method for returning civility to VideoSift have been suggested by @rottenseed & @lucky760:

      1. Anonymous "flag inappropriate" is a must.

[Tit for tat has been the name of the game on this site for a while, myself included. BoneRemake is just that infuriating sometimes, hah.]

      2. Muting malicious users for a few days is sensible.

[Ten flags by Gold Stars gets you 3 days in the mutebox? Maybe even a new badge to track frequency? Increasing mutebox timeouts of 3,7,11,15 days?]

      3. Crown Stars could be our own CSI!

[Crown users could browse the list of users in the Mutebox in order to help mediate.

We all trust our Crown star members to be honest and somewhat impartial investigators, right? ...right?]

      4. Receiving enough "inappropriate" flags or MuteBox Badge levels summons the heaviest of hitters - @dag & @lucky760

[This insures only the douchey-est of douches are singled out for bannination.

If you don't get the hint to be more civil after 30 or 40 members repeatedly tell you to cut it out, it's clear you didn't join the sift to be a productive part of our community.]

Anywho, that was my 1/5th of a dime.

Peace, bitches trolls and douche bags. = P

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I think this is really well put. I like the idea of a mutebox.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

Clearly, we're all opinionated mofos and are going to butt heads.
So yeah, to slow VideoSift's inevitable slide into a niche version of youtube - comments and all - Civility is important.
Since Dag and Lucky probably have more important things to do than babysit, and VideoSift was founded on the principles of self-correcting stewardship or whatnot..
We should find a solution to maintain civility that satisfies both.
All that said, the two best method for returning civility to VideoSift have been suggested by @rottenseed & @lucky760:
      1. Anonymous "flag inappropriate" is a must.
[Tit for tat has been the name of the game on this site for a while, myself included. BoneRemake is just that infuriating sometimes, hah.]
      2. Muting malicious users for a few days is sensible.
[Ten flags by Gold Stars gets you 3 days in the mutebox? Maybe even a new badge to track frequency? Increasing mutebox timeouts of 3,7,11,15 days?]
      3. Crown Stars could be our own CSI!
[Crown users could browse the list of users in the Mutebox in order to help mediate.
We all trust our Crown star members to be honest and somewhat impartial investigators, right? ...right?]
      4. Receiving enough "inappropriate" flags or MuteBox Badge levels summons the heaviest of hitters - @dag & @lucky760
[This insures only the douchey-est of douches are singled out for bannination.
If you don't get the hint to be more civil after 30 or 40 members repeatedly tell you to cut it out, it's clear you didn't join the sift to be a productive part of our community.]
Anywho, that was my 1/5th of a dime.
Peace, bitches trolls and douche bags. = P

Personally, I'm ready to just do the sensible thing and let Chicchorea back after a week ban or so. Then we can put all of this behind us once everyone is back.

And we'll all go back to being civil and the world will be aligned with Venus, and Jupiter aligned with Mars, and I promise not to go to dag's dinner parties and call someone a horse fucker. Mainly because he lives in Brisbane and not somewhere cool like Whitsunday or Syndey, so I wouldn't go to his house anyways. But if I did, I still wouldn't call @NetRunner a pig fucker.

With power comes corruption and of course it corrupts absolutely; including your perception then your judgment.

Banning can never be easy or like this: narcotic cops: "I smell marijuana; going in!".

i think there is some drama i'm missing....

>> ^bareboards2:

Here's a list of reasons not to like me, that I know of:
1. I'm opinionated.
2. I'm stubborn.
3. I'm wordy.
4. I am direct.
5. I haven't been visible on the Sift until recently and now I am all over the place, being opinionated, stubborn, wordy and direct.
If ever anyone has any problem with me, please tell me directly. I will change my behavior if I agree with the complaint.


look, all I need to know is - are you hot? want pictures, or I won't like you by default

A friend of mine was standing with a bunch of men at the local wooden boat building school with their instructor.

A beautiful blond woman walked in, crossed the workshop floor to get something, and then left. Everyone knew she was the ex- of the instructor.

All eyes followed this beautiful woman. After she left, the instructor quietly shook his head, said tersely "You DO NOT want to go there" -- and everyone instantly understood that she was crazy cakes and not worth it.

So even if I am hot, you might want to consider whether I am crazy cakes or not. It does make a difference!

>> ^kulpims:
look, all I need to know is - are you hot? want pictures, or I won't like you by default

>> ^

>> ^dag:

I'd say two for a pardon - should not happen regularly.>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^lucky760:
Instead of getting banned, perhaps the offending user could be put into "Mute" mode where they aren't allowed to comment temporarily (1 week?).
And we can have a page available to our highly prized Crown members that lists all Muted members with their offending comment, so if a few (10?) decide their Mute was undeserved, they can be un-muted.
Thoughts?

I like this, especially the part where crowns get the power to pardon, though I tentatively say it should only take 1 of us to unmute.
If we have problems with anarchist crowns unmuting everyone (cough @blankfist cough), then we can just lop off his head and sift the video of it.
Or put a cap on how often you can pardon people...
Checks & balances, and all that.



I also think people who've been sent to the Mutebox should still have a place they can go to plead their case to the (royal?) court.

I still say we need a more explicitly written standard of conduct though. Without one, people are always going to make the argument that they're not being punished because they did something wrong, but because they're being oppressed by a clique who doesn't like them personally (or wants to silence their dissenting opinion, or some other form of persecution).

It also helps you (or whoever ends up having to make these decisions) keep yourself honest. It forces you to think about the standard of conduct in abstract, impersonal terms, before an actual incident gets your emotions involved. Then when an incident does happen, you can just focus on determining objective facts of the case, and then hold them up to the ready-made objective standard.

Then finally, when they inevitably accuse you of having wielded your power in a capricious or abusive way anyways, you can point to the law and say "no I didn't, pigfucker!"

And since writing this code probably sounds too much like work to write, you could always crowd source it...

Hey guys, how's everybody be-----

*backs away slowly*

... seconded... I have a broken crazy cakes radar.
In theory I rely on the advice of friends, in practice they always appear to be a fickle bunch.

>> ^bareboards2:

A friend of mine was standing with a bunch of men at the local wooden boat building school with their instructor.
A beautiful blond woman walked in, crossed the workshop floor to get something, and then left. Everyone knew she was the ex- of the instructor.
All eyes followed this beautiful woman. After she left, the instructor quietly shook his head, said tersely "You DO NOT want to go there" -- and everyone instantly understood that she was crazy cakes and not worth it.
So even if I am hot, you might want to consider whether I am crazy cakes or not. It does make a difference!
>> ^kulpims:
look, all I need to know is - are you hot? want pictures, or I won't like you by default
>> ^

... on-topic comment; is there a way that these trolls, once isolated, could be shunted to competing web communities, much as the British populated the snake and spider filled continent of Australia with only its grubbiest and charlatan-iest of scofflaws?

Siftbot, YOU ARE [BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPED]

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

yeah, you don't want to be in the back where we make the sausage.
>> ^Kevlar:

Hey guys, how's everybody be-----
backs away slowly

This thread made me think of 1983 film "Star Chamber."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_Chamber

Of course there's more to the name than just the film:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber

While we're proposing experiments, I think we should rename Siftbot to HorseFucker for a couple weeks.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^dag:
I'd say two for a pardon - should not happen regularly.>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^lucky760:
Instead of getting banned, perhaps the offending user could be put into "Mute" mode where they aren't allowed to comment temporarily (1 week?).
And we can have a page available to our highly prized Crown members that lists all Muted members with their offending comment, so if a few (10?) decide their Mute was undeserved, they can be un-muted.
Thoughts?

I like this, especially the part where crowns get the power to pardon, though I tentatively say it should only take 1 of us to unmute.
If we have problems with anarchist crowns unmuting everyone (cough @blankfist cough), then we can just lop off his head and sift the video of it.
Or put a cap on how often you can pardon people...
Checks & balances, and all that.


I also think people who've been sent to the Mutebox should still have a place they can go to plead their case to the (royal?) court.
I still say we need a more explicitly written standard of conduct though. Without one, people are always going to make the argument that they're not being punished because they did something wrong, but because they're being oppressed by a clique who doesn't like them personally (or wants to silence their dissenting opinion, or some other form of persecution).
It also helps you (or whoever ends up having to make these decisions) keep yourself honest. It forces you to think about the standard of conduct in abstract, impersonal terms, before an actual incident gets your emotions involved. Then when an incident does happen, you can just focus on determining objective facts of the case, and then hold them up to the ready-made objective standard.
Then finally, when they inevitably accuse you of having wielded your power in a capricious or abusive way anyways, you can point to the law and say "no I didn't, pigfucker!"
And since writing this code probably sounds too much like work to write, you could always crowd source it...

After spending a decade and a half deeply involved in online communities, both as a member and as staff, I feel compelled to point out that explicit standards of conduct aren't really much help. The vast majority of people already understand what's "over the line", and making an explicit list of "forbidden" words and actions works mostly as fodder for the rules lawyers ("I didn't say fag, I said fhag, so you can't ban me!"). And people who cross the lines of common decency are -still- going to claim that they're only in trouble because the powers that be don't like them.


I'm personally fine with guidelines just as we already have...they're clear enough that anyone who cares can understand. However, I'm not a fan of the semi-anonymous, pseudo-automated "X votes means a ban" style of systems. I prefer to rely on the judgement of a known person or small group of persons. Dag and Lucky stand as a pretty convincing example for that approach, but if they want to take a break from the stress, I'd really rather we pick two or three new "monitors" to take over the task. How they're picked I don't much care...let Dag and Lucky pick people with calm tempers, let everyone vote on it, whatever. The goal is to get people who care about the site, and who will at least -try- to reach dispassionate answers.

Then Dag and Lucky could spend a smaller, less stressful amount of time just keeping an eye on the monitors (because nobody I can think of is going to have as much incentive to keep things running well as they do).

>> ^Stormsinger:

After spending a decade and a half deeply involved in online communities, both as a member and as staff, I feel compelled to point out that explicit standards of conduct aren't really much help. The vast majority of people already understand what's "over the line", and making an explicit list of "forbidden" words and actions works mostly as fodder for the rules lawyers ("I didn't say fag, I said fhag, so you can't ban me!"). And people who cross the lines of common decency are -still- going to claim that they're only in trouble because the powers that be don't like them.

I'm personally fine with guidelines just as we already have...they're clear enough that anyone who cares can understand. However, I'm not a fan of the semi-anonymous, pseudo-automated "X votes means a ban" style of systems. I prefer to rely on the judgement of a known person or small group of persons.

I'm definitely not suggesting we try to come up with some list of "bad words." I think our issue is hostility, not obscenity.

I'm just saying we need to be a little more clear than "personal attacks," especially when personal attacks get tossed around all the time. People saying "it's persecution" have a legitimate case -- they've been singled out and punished for breaking a rule that everyone breaks.

I think if we're getting people into the "I didn't say fag, I said fhag" mode at least some of the time, it'd be an improvement over the near universal "it's persecution!" response we've seen when people get reprimanded for bad behavior. If our community's argument over bans centered on the circumstances of the incident and interpretation of the rules, then I think we could deduce that the community's reached some sort of consensus that the rules are legitimate, and there's a need to mete out punishments if they're broken.

The arguments I've actually seen here tend to revolve around some sort of argument about dag's worthiness as our king. I don't think that's a healthy place for us to be.

@NetRunner, see, for me it's not about dag's competence as a king or leader. He's the site owner, so I think by default he needs to take an avid and responsible role in the way punishment is doled out.

We don't have a pressing epidemic of "name callers" on here that we must deputize the community to help dag sift through the Sift Raft™. Banning probies and spammers is one thing, but banning actual contributing members shouldn't be a democratic process. It'll just lead to favoritism.

I propose we use hobbling when someone seems to be on the attack. As soon as an admin gets on they can look into the situation and listen to BOTH sides. I'm sure by that point the community will know all about the offense and already be weighing in and doing amateur sleuthing to get the facts. After that temp bans and perm bans would follow.

We've been on a banning spree in the last two weeks or so, and it's not that some of the offenses weren't valid, it's just a bit reactionary to ban people outright. Especially when we're not asking for testimony before walking people off the plank. Hobble them first. Listen to them. Then decide on punishment.

Also, as an aside, I used to have a list of bad words that a certain large studio targeted at kids used for their sites back in the day. I either had it as a CSV or XML file, but it was used to check usernames and comments before allowing them to submit them. It would even censor out things like "ball" and "hairy".

Something like that would probably work well for people who've been hobbled.

That would be a decent compromise. I just think allowing the community to dole out bans or put people in muteboxes is a bad idea. There's strength in numbers. If one person hobbles another, there's one person responsible not a group. It makes it less likely to be abused.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

For someone who is otherwise such a proponent of democratic principles and liberty I'm surprised that you would rather concentrate disciplinary powers in one person's hands.

And, yes, yes - I am the site owner so I could always come down and blow it all away, so we're just playing. I know. But, there would be a lot more social pressure on me not to interfere, if decisions were meted out fairly without favorotism by the Sift public in some kind of system.

I think I've shown my willingness to let self-rule flourish. And honestly, I'm fascinated by the idea of balancing technology and people to make a more equitable, self-managing community. (even if it's just in our little online niche)

>> ^blankfist:



@NetRunner, see, for me it's not about dag's competence as a king or leader. He's the site owner, so I think by default he needs to take an avid and responsible role in the way punishment is doled out.
We don't have a pressing epidemic of "name callers" on here that we must deputize the community to help dag sift through the Sift Raft™. Banning probies and spammers is one thing, but banning actual contributing members shouldn't be a democratic process. It'll just lead to favoritism.
I propose we use hobbling when someone seems to be on the attack. As soon as an admin gets on they can look into the situation and listen to BOTH sides. I'm sure by that point the community will know all about the offense and already be weighing in and doing amateur sleuthing to get the facts. After that temp bans and perm bans would follow.
We've been on a banning spree in the last two weeks or so, and it's not that some of the offenses weren't valid, it's just a bit reactionary to ban people outright. Especially when we're not asking for testimony before walking people off the plank. Hobble them first. Listen to them. Then decide on punishment.

>> ^dag:

For someone who is otherwise such a proponent of democratic principles and liberty I'm surprised that you would rather concentrate disciplinary powers in one person's hands.
And, yes, yes - I am the site owner so I could always come down and blow it all away, so we're just playing. I know. But, there would be a lot more social pressure on me not to interfere, if decisions were meted out fairly without favorotism by the Sift public in some kind of system.
I think I've shown my willingness to let self-rule flourish. And honestly, I'm fascinated by the idea of balancing technology and people to make a more equitable, self-managing community. (even if it's just in our little online niche)


I understand this is a site with rules, and when I voluntarily come here I agree to those rules. So, liberty has little to do with it. And I despise direct democracy especially when administering justice. Democracy has its place, but this isn't one of them.

We don't have an epidemic of rule breakers on here who are also steadfast members. Leave the policing of spammers to the community. Leave the policing of members to the admins.

Using hobbling might have an interesting side benefit: if someone feels they are being harassed, they could warn the harasser that if they keep it up, they will be hobbled. It might lead to a conversation that could clear the air between "perceived" harasser and sifter who "feels" harassed. A lot more grownup than running to dag to fix it, maybe?

The punishments of those who wage war against Allah and His Prophet and strive to spread disorder in the land are to execute them in an exemplary way or to crucify them or to amputate their hands and feet from opposite sides or to banish them from the land. Such is their disgrace in this world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom save those who repent before you overpower them; you should know that Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Ever Merciful.

... The pursuit of interests generates various types of conflict. Thus conflict is seen as a normal aspect of social life rather an abnormal occurrence. Competition over resources is often the cause of conflict

>> ^blankfist:

@NetRunner, see, for me it's not about dag's competence as a king or leader. He's the site owner, so I think by default he needs to take an avid and responsible role in the way punishment is doled out.

...and yet if I read your comments correctly, I don't think you were exactly pleased with the process he went through before banning you.

As a libertarian, sure, you are deeply committed to the idea that dag is and must be considered our king because he's got the divine right of property, and the rest of us are merely his subjects who only are allowed here at his consent.

But that's different from whether you like what the king's doing at any given time.
>> ^blankfist:
We don't have a pressing epidemic of "name callers" on here that we must deputize the community to help dag sift through the Sift Raft™. Banning probies and spammers is one thing, but banning actual contributing members shouldn't be a democratic process. It'll just lead to favoritism.

I think it's all about the kind of atmosphere we want in the community. I think there's been a slide towards greater and greater hostility and incivility. That seems to be the gist of dag's original post, all the way at the top of the page, no?

I don't really want to see some reign of terror where we purge the roles of the sift, but I would like to see people getting time outs for lashing out at people.

As for democratic process, I'm just asking for a code of laws. It seems to me that you can't have "due process" until you write down what the laws are. Without that, it's always going to boil down to the king settling disputes directly.
>> ^blankfist:
I propose we use hobbling when someone seems to be on the attack. As soon as an admin gets on they can look into the situation and listen to BOTH sides. I'm sure by that point the community will know all about the offense and already be weighing in and doing amateur sleuthing to get the facts. After that temp bans and perm bans would follow.

Sounds good, but what constitutes an attack?

If I say I've fucking had it with you calling me a Nazi all the time, and hobble you for it, how exactly do we settle whether I've got a legitimate case or not? Make dag threaten to cut the baby in half?

@NetRunner, I am high. brb.

>> ^NetRunner:

...and yet if I read your comments correctly, I don't think you were exactly pleased with the process he went through before banning you.

I do have a problem with how dag chose to handle the bans. He handled them poorly, IMO. But the alternative would be worse. And this is a website, not city council. The decisions dag make don't affect me in the slightest outside of this website.

People voting to take away the privileges of others is doomed to be abused. Not by the trolls, but by the status quo. That means the majority of people who have similar perspectives on what is and what is not acceptable behavior will determine who is and who is not banned.

>> ^NetRunner:

I think it's all about the kind of atmosphere we want in the community. I think there's been a slide towards greater and greater hostility and incivility. That seems to be the gist of dag's original post, all the way at the top of the page, no?
I don't really want to see some reign of terror where we purge the roles of the sift, but I would like to see people getting time outs for lashing out at people.
As for democratic process, I'm just asking for a code of laws. It seems to me that you can't have "due process" until you write down what the laws are. Without that, it's always going to boil down to the king settling disputes directly.


I don't think people are being so incivil we need to come up with some new busybody central planning tools to handle it. We've got hobbling for the members to use in case someone is being awfully incivil. And I think that'll always be up for determining case-by-case.

Writing it down as law makes it so everyone has to follow the same rule. You call me a pig fucker sometimes, and that's more than cool because we have a relationship that's suited for that kind of banter. But if I called BB2 that same name, she'd probably want dag to do something about it. In fact, I'm sure she would.

I think it really needs to not be a law what can be and cannot be said. We should give people the benefit of the doubt until they lose their privilege to do so by "careful" consideration by one of the admin. That way people who call each other douchebags or pig fuckers can continue to do so, and people will feel comfortable that their speech isn't being policed by a bunch of hall monitors.

>> ^NetRunner:

Sounds good, but what constitutes an attack?
If I say I've fucking had it with you calling me a Nazi all the time, and hobble you for it, how exactly do we settle whether I've got a legitimate case or not? Make dag threaten to cut the baby in half?


It works how things work in every day situations. In sexual harassment training they tell you to tell the offender that what he or she is saying offends you. After that, if they persist, then you have a grievance. Same thing would apply here, no?

Hypothetically, I call you a Nazi, you should then tell me you think that's harassment. If I persist, then you could bring your grievance to an admin, showing that you warned me. I mean, this isn't complicated stuff. It's just basic communication.

I just don't want to see this place become so fucking tedious. It's a better site when it works more like a squabbling family than a clockwork draconian utopia.

>> ^blankfist:

It works how things work in every day situations. In sexual harassment training they tell you to tell the offender that what he or she is saying offends you. After that, if they persist, then you have a grievance. Same thing would apply here, no?
Hypothetically, I call you a Nazi, you should then tell me you think that's harassment. If I persist, then you could bring your grievance to an admin, showing that you warned me. I mean, this isn't complicated stuff. It's just basic communication.

Perfect solution to the problem, IMO. Let's write it down somewhere publicly, and tell people that's how we're going to work things from now on.

>> ^blankfist:

I just don't want to see this place become so fucking tedious. It's a better site when it works more like a squabbling family than a clockwork draconian utopia.


I don't want the site to be tedious either! I want the rules to allow for prurient humor, us lovingly referring to each other as pigfucker in public, and for us to be able to throw an elbow or two in a passionate discussion.

But at the same time, I don't want people to have free reign to act like bullies, or just troll for trolling's sake. I think comments that contain nothing but a personal attack are bad for the community generally. I don't want to feed the people who post them to clockwork dragons, but I do think they should get some sort of feedback from some sort of authority that what they're doing isn't welcome.

And incidentally, friendly clockwork dragons are totally a part of my utopia.

>> ^NetRunner:
I don't want the site to be tedious either! I want the rules to allow for prurient humor, us lovingly referring to each other as pigfucker in public, and for us to be able to throw an elbow or two in a passionate discussion.
But at the same time, I don't want people to have free reign to act like bullies, or just troll for trolling's sake. I think comments that contain nothing but a personal attack are bad for the community generally. I don't want to feed the people who post them to clockwork dragons, but I do think they should get some sort of feedback from some sort of authority that what they're doing isn't welcome.
And incidentally, friendly clockwork dragons are totally a part of my utopia.


But some people like trolling for trolling's sake. Nothing wrong with it, IMO. Bullying, maybe that's different, but everyone has a different perspective on what that is. I've seen firsthand what I think is bullying when you, dft and three or four other likeminded people get together to deconstruct my belief system. And more often than not those conversations turn to attacking me instead of my arguments. I'm called blankfuck, libertard and everything else.

But I'm a big boy, and I have to find ways to make peace with that or else leave the site. So, if I do think people are engaging in a super light version of the Stanford Prison Experiment, I tend to say something to them. And that tends to lighten the situation almost immediately.

I like to debate. Often I play too much and it's read as bullying, though if you knew me personally you'd know I'm a huge ball breaker but nothing inside of me is capable of sincere bullying. Not in a genuine mean way.

And it's "draconian" not "dragon". But I like the sound of a clockwork dragon utopia.

Blankfist said: "Writing it down as law makes it so everyone has to follow the same rule. You call me a pig fucker sometimes, and that's more than cool because we have a relationship that's suited for that kind of banter. But if I called BB2 that same name, she'd probably want dag to do something about it. In fact, I'm sure she would."

Please stop talking incorrect shit about me, @blankfist, or I shall have to do something drastic, like call your mommy and tell on you.

Correct shit? I got no problem with that. I'm a pigfucker, you're a pigfucker, maybe even @NetRunner is a pigfucker. In fact, as a woman, I know for a fact I have fucked some male chauvinist pigs in my day. And my first boyfriend years later became a cop. Can I pre-fuck a pig before they are pigs?

We all see things through the deforming prism of our own minds. To some, bullying is the deconstruction of political philosophy. To others it's ball busting. To others it's the use of invective like libertard or statist. To others it's gossip and shit talk. To others it's the casual use of sexist or racist humor.

>> ^blankfist:


But some people like trolling for trolling's sake. Nothing wrong with it, IMO. Bullying, maybe that's different, but everyone has a different perspective on what that is. I've seen firsthand what I think is bullying when you, dft and three or four other likeminded people get together to deconstruct my belief system. And more often than not those conversations turn to attacking me instead of my arguments. I'm called blankfuck, libertard and everything else.

Well, that's why I like your suggested rule so much. If you feel bullied, and want people to stop, ask them to stop. If they persist, we'll send them to bed without supper Videosift.

Likewise, if people feel like you referring to their concerns as a "vagina monologue" is bullying, they should be able to ask you to stop, and if you persist anyways, then it's you going to bed without Videosift.

>> ^blankfist:

But I'm a big boy, and I have to find ways to make peace with that or else leave the site. So, if I do think people are engaging in a super light version of the Stanford Prison Experiment, I tend to say something to them. And that tends to lighten the situation almost immediately.
I like to debate. Often I play too much and it's read as bullying, though if you knew me personally you'd know I'm a huge ball breaker but nothing inside of me is capable of sincere bullying. Not in a genuine mean way.
And it's "draconian" not "dragon". But I like the sound of a clockwork dragon utopia.


I don't think you ever set out to bully people, but I can definitely see how you could come across that way to someone who doesn't know you from Adam. Same with me.

Oh, and I know the difference between draconian and dragon, but I have a creative license, and I'm not afraid to use it! Especially on a word with such a nice Latin root!

Like I said before, I have no desire to see this place become overly burdened with propriety rules, but I also don't want people to feel like they have no recourse but to suck it up, or leave the site when it comes to verbal abuse. We can do better than that.

I'm sick of walking on egg shells. If I can't be a part of discussions for fear of hurting feelings, then what's the point of being on the site? The discussions are what bring me back to this place again and again. Some of the most interesting people on the site are chatting it up *bareboards2 *blankfist *dag and *netrunner (in alphabetical order) and I can't help to not join in. I don't want to antagonize, so I'll be as diplomatic as possible. Please don't upvote any of my comments, because I don't want this discussion to feel like a competition.

So, I've been thinking about conflict and rhetorical escalation. I genuinely feel bad for hurting blankfists feelings to the point that he will not speak to me, but in all honesty, I feel my comments were far less severe than his, which got me thinking about how arguments effect feelings.

There are two ways to view what is appropriate in a heated discussion.

#1) tit for tat-Code of Hammurabi-eye for an eye: If someone says something nasty to you, you say something nasty back and all is fair.

#2) Taking personal boundaries into consideration: Personal boundaries can vary greatly from person to person; some are resistant to high levels of verbal aggression, some can take very little. And, to make things more complicated, people can have different boundary tolerances between what they give and take. So in this sense, the least offensive language in the world dealt to a sensitive person could be seen as more cruel than the most offensive insult in the world dealt to someone with a high tolerance to invective.

I'm not sure which is correct - my right brain and left brain are beating the shit out of each other.

I don't like the idea of going past peoples boundaries, but at the same time, I feel that when others get exceedingly aggressive, they would be well served to experience some of that aggression turned back on them. Of course, I don't say this out loud, so the logic of it all is lost, and in the end I've just hurt someone's feelings whom I care about.

I'd love to hear more opinions on this. I think this gets at the heart of the psychology of this all. I'm also a bit high, and Netrunner says I can be incomprehensible in this state, so hopefully this comment is comprehensible.

Post Script:

#3): Always be completely polite and completely respectful, regardless of anything. This may be the way to go, but you need to be Ghandi or Mother Teresa to have the patience to pull this off.

You got hobbling right? We shall hobbit people.

But there's the risk of one or both parties crying foul. There's also the risk of moderator mis-use Reddit style.

See the creation of /r/trees, and the close destruction of /r/starcraft.

Not saying you don't have to do something, but you'll never get away from the drama. You just replace one sort of drama with another sort of drama. Which one is worse?

Granted moderator misuse would probably happen less often then comment abuse, it would have much more impact on the community as a whole, as tyranny always does. So in a way transferring the responsibility to the user base is going to gut you're workload, in a good way and insure that the comments get a good seeing too, but the problems that arise have a chance to blow up into a community rupturing event.

What I mean to say, is that what starts out as a way to control asshat comments can turn into a way for users with a vendetta to destroy those they don't agree with, or those they don't "like".

The worst kind of tyranny is the kind where the rules creep. Rules are laid down in good interest and then are enforced differently than they were written. Kinda like Feature Creep but worse.

Eh, but I'm pretty indifferent to what the community decides mostly because I treat the internet as I would my cat. I feed it, I pet it, and I love it, but at the end of the day I just let it do whatever the fuck it wants to do.


PS: I haven't got anytime to edit my comment for spelling and grammar. If I derped it up, then herp derp.

I like the hobble idea a lot.

There was something was said in passing, buried in a long comment, that perhaps might be the key to making it work....

It isn't okay to hobble out of the blue. The person who is offended has to define the boundary being crossed and say -- do it again, and I will hobble you. And it needs to be in an open forum, not privately.

Discussion might ensue, grownup or otherwise. Others can join in, it can be a learning experience for the wanna-be-hobbler and the incipient-hobbled.

This does take some of the flame war fun out of it but hopefully it won't happen often.

@dystopianfuturetoday & @NetRunner, you don't "hurt" my feelings. Oh geez. What did I start? I meant I can see instances of bullying during a debate when people start attacking me and not my argument is all. It doesn't hurt my feelings. I'm a big boy. All is fine in the world. I've made plenty of ad hominem attacks myself.

I don't mind them for the most part, honestly. I just have to point it out because I feel like there's some hypocrisy here when I hear some of you crying foul: "No name calling", "Be civil", "I'm being trolled", "All these PMs are harassment", etc.

Can we stop trying to make mountains out of these molehill occurrences of incivility? I don't see a lot of people on here doing too much to warrant perma bans or even reactionary week bans. I think some of us need to toughen up a bit.

blankfist, your 45 minute ban wasn't because of favoritism. dag drew a line in the sand, which you immediately crossed. dag obviously doesn't like drawing lines in sand or disciplining people who call his bluff, which is why he is trying push that responsibility onto us. I too would rather see the admins take care of these kinds of issues rather than implementing some kind of complicated scheme, but dag doesn't want to be bothered with it, and it's his site, and I completely understand where he is coming from - he's got better things to do, like grilling shrimps on barbies, petting kangaroos and going on walkabouts in the outback.

If anything, favoritism works in your favor, since you are such an old and prominent member of the community. If a probie had dished out those ad homs, he'd probably be gone for good. Choggie is another example of favoritism. No one has abused the system more then he, and he's been banned dozens of times, yet he's allowed to stay because he is a colorful character who has become a fixture to this site.

If a system need be put in place, Genji's seems pretty smart. If it is abused, the admins can remove the offending sifters privileges.

@dystopianfuturetoday, my hour ban was something I didn't even knew existed until after it was lifted and I logged in. If I was wrong, I would've been okay to be banned. But as usual you don't know the whole story, so you're talking out of your ass.

Dag banned me without hearing my side, which would've exonerated me. Hence why the ban was lifted an hour later when NR stepped up to explain the situation. And there wasn't any "line" crossed. Why don't you spend more time figuring out how dft could be a better person instead of telling everyone else on here how they could be a better person.

I do think dag played favoritism, and if you think for a second that dag looks at me more favorably because of my time on this site you're out of your mind. I'm certainly tolerated but not favored. Also dag is overly sensitive towards what men say toward women. As are you. This sort of inequality seems to be the crux of this site's exploits.

*fear

Adding post to channels (Fear) - requested by blankfist.

I agree with @blankfist.

I wasn't happy when dag stepped in when chic started after me and I started arguing.

I'm not happy with myself about calling in dag (publicly) when blankfist went after Januari. It was the same impulse -- save someone else.

This is why I like the hobble idea, with a warning beforehand.

Let the person who feels attacked or who feels that things are spiraling out of control be the one to say "back off and back off NOW."

It's cleaner and more honest.

>> ^bareboards2:

I wasn't happy when dag stepped in when chic started after me.


Hold on. If you didn't call in dag on your argument with chicchorea then who did?

I have always assumed that dag saw the comments (they were all public and in the comment stream) and stepped in on his own.

It never occurred to me that someone might have alerted him that chic and I were having a dust-up.

>> ^campionidelmondo:

>> ^bareboards2:
I wasn't happy when dag stepped in when chic started after me.

Hold on. If you didn't call in dag on your argument with chicchorea then who did?

It's all in print.

The insult: http://videosift.com/video/Jefferson-Memorial-Dancing-on-June-4-2011?loadcomm=1#comment-1220933

The line: http://videosift.com/video/Jefferson-Memorial-Dancing-on-June-4-2011?loadcomm=1#comment-1220948

The crossing: http://videosift.com/video/Jefferson-Memorial-Dancing-on-June-4-2011?loadcomm=1#comment-1221080

The ban: http://stickinthemud.videosift.com/?loadcomm=1#comment-1221119

It was cool of Netrunner to plea for mercy and for dag to give it, but they wouldn't have done that for just anyone. You are a special, prominent member of this site. I'm not saying that dag's favoritism of you is a bad thing, it's more the kind of favoritism one family member has towards another. It's something you have earned. You have a long standing bond with dag and this web community, and that bond has allowed you to get away with things that would not have been tolerated from other sifters. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. There is no conspiracy against you.

I suppose we could summon @dag for clarification and hugs. You may be right. I may be crazy.

I agree that there are gender issues, but I'm no more inclined to call sexist language 'equality' than I would be to call racist language 'equality', but that's a whole 'nother topic. I'm up for that discussion whenever you like.

Anyway, I'm off to make dft a better person.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I hope that the only favoritism I show is in the direction of star levels. eg. I would feel no compunction about banning a "p" member for calling someone a pig fucker - as the chance it's some inside joke is very slim - more likely they are just not a good fit for the community.

The reason I rescinded the ban on BF is less because it was Blankfist and more because Netrunner made it pretty clear that this is a running joke between them. I don't want to ban the word "pig fucker" - as it's very rich and descriptive. I thought Blankfist meant it with malice towards Netrunner - I misjudged.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

It's all in print.
The insult: http://videosift.com/video/Jefferson-Memorial-D
ancing-on-June-4-2011?loadcomm=1#comment-1220933
The line: http://videosift.com/video/Jefferson-Memorial-D
ancing-on-June-4-2011?loadcomm=1#comment-1220948
The crossing: http://videosift.com/video/Jefferson-Memorial-D
ancing-on-June-4-2011?loadcomm=1#comment-1221080
The ban: http://stickinthemud.videosift.com/?loadcomm=1#comment-1221119
It was cool of Netrunner to plea for mercy and for dag to give it, but they wouldn't have done that for just anyone. You are a special, prominent member of this site. I'm not saying that dag's favoritism of you is a bad thing, it's more the kind of favoritism one family member has towards another. It's something you have earned. You have a long standing bond with dag and this web community, and that bond has allowed you to get away with things that would not have been tolerated from other sifters. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. There is no conspiracy against you.
I suppose we could summon @dag for clarification and hugs. You may be right. I may be crazy.
I agree that there are gender issues, but I'm no more inclined to call sexist language 'equality' than I would be to call racist language 'equality', but that's a whole 'nother topic. I'm up for that discussion whenever you like.
Anyway, I'm off to make dft a better person.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

This is true - just saw the comments and history, no reports.
>> ^bareboards2:

I have always assumed that dag saw the comments (they were all public and in the comment stream) and stepped in on his own.
It never occurred to me that someone might have alerted him that chic and I were having a dust-up.
>> ^campionidelmondo:
>> ^bareboards2:
I wasn't happy when dag stepped in when chic started after me.

Hold on. If you didn't call in dag on your argument with chicchorea then who did?

For the record, pig fucker is @NetRunner's word for me. Not typically mine for him. I forgot where it started, but there it is.

@dystopianfuturetoday, you're wrong. As usual. I appreciate NR coming to my aid, but it wasn't a plea. And nice try with the links. That's me making a reasoned reply, IMO. It would've felt better to call everyone an idiot or fuckhead or libertard or maybe claim they need a hug, but I didn't. I've tried to not make ad hom attacks recently. Unlike the nonsense you and someone else (someone who leaves Simpson's Nelson "HAHA" videos on people's pages after they're banned) posted on this video just a couple days ago: http://videosift.com/video/Free-Talk-Live-Ian-and-Wayne-DESTROY-a-statist-idiot

I don't need a hug. Thanks.

You put ad homs in the title of that video (not to mention the 'wrong as usual' in your ^comment). Why shouldn't I be able to respond in kind? Respect is a two way street.

And as far as hollow invective goes, there is no comparison.

blankfist usage of the term statist: 17 pages of comments
(http://videosift.com/search?q=statist&t=c&u=blankfist&o=&vmin=&vmax=&sh=&l=&n=&b=&submit=Search)

dystopianfuturetoday usage of the word libertard: 1 comment, and it's in this very thread.
(http://videosift.com/search?q=libertard&t=c&u=dystopianfuturetoday&o=&vmin=&vmax=&sh=&l=&n=&b=&submit=Search)

>> ^blankfist:

I think some of us need to toughen up a bit.

basically this

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

You put ad homs in the title of that video (not to mention the 'wrong as usual' in your ^comment). Why shouldn't I be able to respond in kind? Respect is a two way street.
And as far as hollow invective goes, there is no comparison.
blankfist usage of the term statist: 17 pages of comments
(http://
videosift.com/search?q=statist&t=c&u=blankfist&o=&vmin=&vmax=&sh=&l=&n=&b=&submit=Search)
dystopianfuturetoday usage of the word libertard: 1 comment, and it's in this very thread.
(http://videosift.com/search?q=libertard&t=c&u=dystopianfuturetoday&o=&vmin=&vmax=&sh=&l=&n=&b=&submit=Se
arch)


DFT, how is statist or statist idiot ad hom? If I said, "DFT is a statist idiot" then that would be one thing, but I didn't - or hope I haven't. When people say "libertard" or "blankfuck" they're referring to me specifically in the hopes of denigrating my argument.

Maybe read up on what an ad hom is? Either way, this is boring me. Moving on.

*deblankfist

BONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome back! I've missed you!


>> ^BoneRemake:

deblankfist

>> ^dag:

This is true - just saw the comments and history, no reports.


Well then so much for "I don't like getting involved"...

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Is that a quote from me? Doesn't sound like me. I generally like getting involved.>> ^campionidelmondo:

>> ^dag:
This is true - just saw the comments and history, no reports.

Well then so much for "I don't like getting involved"...

Well you did say how you don't like playing Kindergarten Cop on these kind of issues (chic vs bb2), but seems to me the opposite is true. There might be alot more productive ways to get more involved in the site than banning contributing members over barely anything.

oh gaddammit!
i always miss the really good fights...sighs..
hey chic got banned?
well it looks like i am going to have to go dig up that gooey bit of gossipy goodness...

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Right. Now I understand what you mean by that made up quote - but it's inaccurate. I'm deeply involved.

I don't like to have to ban or suspend people. - that doesn't mean I don't think it's necessary. You may think it's for "barely anything" <- (that's how quotation works) but that is your opinion and my opinion is different. If the action is performed together as a community - it becomes a consensus rather than an opinion.
That's what this thread is about - not about what a tyrant I am. (I'm deducing your opinion - notice the lack of quotes around that bit) You're welcome to start a thread about that if you like
>> ^campionidelmondo:

Well you did say how you don't like playing Kindergarten Cop on these kind of issues (chic vs bb2), but seems to me the opposite is true. There might be alot more productive ways to get more involved in the site than banning contributing members over barely anything.

At the end of the day @dag, 1 of 2 things is going to happen.

a.) Siftler will have to banhammer
b.) Siftquisition

We can dress up Siftquisitions in pretty 'mute boxes' but they will still be siftquisitions. The community will still be involved (as it should be) in deciding the banning of a member. If you're going to go back to that then do it in the most fair way possible. Let the member be hobbled and put the Siftquisition in a separate tab so people who want to avoid drama can do so.

>> ^blankfist:

For the record, pig fucker is @NetRunner's word for me. Not typically mine for him. I forgot where it started, but there it is.

Behold, the origin of pigfucker becoming my pet name for you:

http://videosift.com/video/Capitalism-Hits-The-Fan?loadcomm=1#comment-654408

It is true that it's more my pet name for you than your name for me. But I think it's only fair you get to use it on me in jest as well.

>> ^blankfist:

@dystopianfuturetoday & @NetRunner, you don't "hurt" my feelings. Oh geez. What did I start? I meant I can see instances of bullying during a debate when people start attacking me and not my argument is all. It doesn't hurt my feelings. I'm a big boy. All is fine in the world. I've made plenty of ad hominem attacks myself.
I don't mind them for the most part, honestly. I just have to point it out because I feel like there's some hypocrisy here when I hear some of you crying foul: "No name calling", "Be civil", "I'm being trolled", "All these PMs are harassment", etc.
Can we stop trying to make mountains out of these molehill occurrences of incivility? I don't see a lot of people on here doing too much to warrant perma bans or even reactionary week bans. I think some of us need to toughen up a bit.


My goal here in saying "we need to write down the rules" is that I'm hoping most people will look at them, find them reasonable, and choose to live within them.

I know you can take it, as well as dish it out. I'm in the same boat, but I don't think "toughen up" should be the right response. This isn't supposed to be like prison (or high school). Sometimes I'd like to have a conversation with people without constantly having to fend off personal attacks. You know, some civility.

I don't really see why you want to fight for the status quo. Right now we have neither civility nor a lack of bans.

I say we try writing down the rule you yourself suggested, pointing people to it, and trying it out as a way to get people to regulate themselves. That should give people some clear idea of what is and isn't okay beyond "don't say pigfucker in front of dag."

Hey @NetRunner, fuck you. Toughen up.

>> ^dag:

Right. Now I understand what you mean by that made up quote - but it's inaccurate. I'm deeply involved.
I don't like to have to ban or suspend people. - that doesn't mean I don't think it's necessary. You may think it's for "barely anything" <- (that's how quotation works) but that is your opinion and my opinion is different. If the action is performed together as a community - it becomes a consensus rather than an opinion.
That's what this thread is about - not about what a tyrant I am. (I'm deducing your opinion - notice the lack of quotes around that bit) You're welcome to start a thread about that if you like

Look, there's really no need to be patronizing. If the mock quote is not reflective of your actual opinion then I apologize, but you mustn't feel the need to correct me in a condescending manner. The way I understood it was that you don't like to get involved in these disputes and that you're not happy with having to make potentially unpopular decisions involving bans and suspensions. Wasn't that why you had that Hitler avatar for a while?

I certainly don't think you're a tyrant, but I have to admit that I don't really understand your reaction to the whole chic situation. As far as I understand, two sifters had an argument via profile messages. Neither of them asked for any kind of administrative intervention. Yet you came in and told chic that he was forbidden to contact the other member, why? There's a perfectly fine ignore function, which neither of the two sifters involved in the argument found necessary to use. Given your stance on self-regulation I really don't understand why you intervened at all.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I can see you really don't understand. You seem to think I don't want to get involved and want to leave things to self-regulation. Actually, I like being very involved but would prefer to have things left to group regulation. I have issues with authority myself - I don't like one person calling the shots on disciplinary matters - that's far from wanting things to be left on their own.

There's a history of abuse in profile comments on the Sift. I don't want it to go unchecked, or other members to view these types of abusive dialog and think that this is permitted and OK.

I'm sorry I was patronising. I don't believe in "mock quotes".

>> ^campionidelmondo:

>> ^dag:
Right. Now I understand what you mean by that made up quote - but it's inaccurate. I'm deeply involved.
I don't like to have to ban or suspend people. - that doesn't mean I don't think it's necessary. You may think it's for "barely anything" <- (that's how quotation works) but that is your opinion and my opinion is different. If the action is performed together as a community - it becomes a consensus rather than an opinion.
That's what this thread is about - not about what a tyrant I am. (I'm deducing your opinion - notice the lack of quotes around that bit) You're welcome to start a thread about that if you like
Look, there's really no need to be patronizing. If the mock quote is not reflective of your actual opinion then I apologize, but you mustn't feel the need to correct me in a condescending manner. The way I understood it was that you don't like to get involved in these disputes and that you're not happy with having to make potentially unpopular decisions involving bans and suspensions. Wasn't that why you had that Hitler avatar for a while?
I certainly don't think you're a tyrant, but I have to admit that I don't really understand your reaction to the whole chic situation. As far as I understand, two sifters had an argument via profile messages. Neither of them asked for any kind of administrative intervention. Yet you came in and told chic that he was forbidden to contact the other member, why? There's a perfectly fine ignore function, which neither of the two sifters involved in the argument found necessary to use. Given your stance on self-regulation I really don't understand why you intervened at all.

>> ^dag:

I can see you really don't understand. You seem to think I don't want to get involved and want to leave things to self-regulation. Actually, I like being very involved but would prefer to have things left to group regulation. I have issues with authority myself - I don't like one person calling the shots on disciplinary matters - that's far from wanting things to be left on their own.
There's a history of abuse in profile comments on the Sift. I don't want it to go unchecked, or other members to view these types of abusive dialog and think that this is permitted and OK.
I'm sorry I was patronising. I don't believe in "mock quotes".

Alright, I guess I misunderstood your stance on your involvement. Point taken. I also get that certain discourses shed a bad light on sifter interactions and there's certainly no reason to keep these kind of exchanges public. And when they are public, I guess it's good to know that someone will step in at some point.

I agree with Berti. It's absolutely worth experimenting. I've been looking for a community like the Sift for some time, and it's not out there. As far as i can tell VS is absolutely unique. No doubt because of this kind of sausage-making thread.