The OFFICIAL GRIPE THREAD

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by MOBIUS




You ****ing piece of work!

You're so ****ing deluded and wrapped up in whatever mind**** aggie-world stands for that you seriously believe any of us are going to take that seriously...

You just slandered the **** out of Asher, you ****brick.

Every single time Asher gets banned you jump around for all you're worth insulting the crap out of him like the cowardly jizz-soaked piece of human excrement we all know you are, knowing full well he can't defend himself and make you cry like he always does...

Basically you just called him, 1) an anti-semite; 2) that he's got a serious psychological illness; 3) that he's racist...

But don't worry, your diseased tongue is so far up the Poly owners' cracks that you get preferential treatment and not only are you not banned, but your post is incredibly NOT EVEN DELETED!!!

How do you manage that!!?

Nightly spit-roast sessions a la Ming and Rah...?

It must be something like that to allow some whiny little putrescence of a ****stain like you get away with the unutterable double standards bollocks you infest this forum with all your pathetic little childish excuses for posts...

God, I like this gripe thread...

Dang, tell us how ya really feel

[MOBIUS]

What's the point in griping unless you let it all hang out...

[Alinestra Covelia]

When all's said and done, Poly's Off Topic is already a pretty clean place compared to the Internet in general.

I do think it's important for mods to step in and let people know when they're crossing the line. There are too many message boards that I've seen that basically are hijacked by trolls because the mods didn't do their jobs.

I haven't seen anything so far that suggests the Poly mods have gone to the other extreme of oppressive banstick use.

This thread needs more banana though.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
When all's said and done, Poly's Off Topic is already a pretty clean place compared to the Internet in general.

I do think it's important for mods to step in and let people know when they're crossing the line. There are too many message boards that I've seen that basically are hijacked by trolls because the mods didn't do their jobs.

I haven't seen anything so far that suggests the Poly mods have gone to the other extreme of oppressive banstick use.

This thread needs more banana though.

Just for you my friend

[Alinestra Covelia]

Ahhh, yes... now I am sated, having had my banana quotient for today.


Ah, well. Farewell Asher. It was nice posting with him when he was lucid and coherent. He was responsible for such classics as "I HATE YOU AND I WISH YOU WEREN'T MY MOTHER" in the Gas Cloud thread. Seemed like a decent enough guy when he was in the right mood.

[rah]

MOBIUS, I informed Agathon that this wasn't the place for that post, he posted somewhat of an retraction, and agreed not to continue it.

While I don't expect you to do quite the same, I do expect you to not continue it.

Please respect my request. This in not the place for it.

[rah]

Further outburst like that will be deleted. But since I didn't delete the other posts I will leave this one. But that is not a license for others.

We'll consider this an official warning for all.
This thread is not intended for that kind of thing.

[Lancer]

Originally posted by rah
Further outburst like that will be deleted. But since I didn't delete the other posts I will leave this one. But that is not a license for others.

We'll consider this an official warning for all.
This thread is not intended for that kind of thing.

The post above this is your own Rah.

[Locutus]

Okay, here's what happened:

This week we did a major forum restructuring for which we started asking people for ideas and feedback over two months ago. While, as rah says, this is our living room and you're all guests here, you guys do come and hang out every single day, so we take you guys seriously: if we decide we need to redecorate we always try to get your thoughts on the colour of the wallpaper and the like, and ask for your opinion afterwards so we can make further adjustments if needed. We're well aware that the forum structure isn't the only problem on the site and we're working on larger solutions, this has been discussed MANY times, in both the Site Feedback (formerly A/C) forum and here in the OT. These things just take time if they're to be done well.

After we did finally implement the forum restructuring we asked for feedback on it here and responded to all feedback and questions, including those by Asher, politely and IMO with open minds (as you can see on the first page of that thread). However, Asher and Wiglaf kept ragging on on a variety of unrelated topics and started trolling other members of that thread. The thread descended to the point where if it had been any other topic I would have closed it and be done with it. However this thread was about a pertinent issue many of you feel strongly about and changes related to the restructuring were (and are) still ongoing, so I needed to keep it open. Rather than banning anyone or telling them to stop posting altogether, I thought I'd keep the dialogue open by only disallowing off-topic posts in that particular thread.

Most people took that well and dropped their off-topic discussions, but Asher kept going, and going and going... In total I had to delete around 20 posts by him as opposed to IIRC one by Wiglaf and a small handful by a few other people that I'm pretty sure just hadn't seen my warning earlier in the thread (including Ming). To be fair, some of Asher's posts were in response to those and some were on topic (which is why I didn't delete those), but he kept posting and some of his posts were outright trolls, for which I had warned him (and Wiglaf) I would ban him. I posted several more reminders: I didn't want to resort to bannings, I just wanted to keep the thread on topic.

Eventually Asher got the point and stopped posting in that thread, only start a new thread in which he complained how wrong I was for deleting his posts. I deleted that thread too: even if you have issues with us deleting your posts you contact us by PM, you don't start a complaint thread -- Asher of all people should know that. I sent him one final warning by PM to drop this issue altogether or face the consequences, I didn't have time for his games. Asher in the meantime started several more threads about the topics he wasn't allowed to discuss in the restructuring thread and possibly more to complain about my decisions -- Ming came online around the same time and we both started deleting the threads, neither of us have seen the full extent of his posts (or Wiglaf's, who started a thread or two about it as well).

This is the point where I admit I made two mistakes. First, I deleted one thread by Asher (as well as a copy-cat of that which he posted shortly after) in which he brought up a number of issues that were not inappropriate to discuss in a new thread, and he presented them in a polite enough manner. It was IMO a pointless thread because I'd already addressed those points in the restructuring thread before I started deleting posts, but if we start deleting pointless threads on this site our forums would be a whole lot emptier than they are I should not have done that, that was a mistake.

Secondly, I sent Asher a PM telling him to drop this issue entirely, I didn't want to hear anymore from him on this, in the forums and privately. I told him not to send me PMs about it because Asher's MO once muzzled is to spam moderators with a flood of offensive PMs that don't go anywhere (which is exactly what he was starting to do with me), I did not have time to deal with that. Again, this was a mistake, I should not have closed off the PM channel and I certainly should not have extended his ban for every PM sent as I did. As moderators it's part of our job to respond to your queries, however offensive or pointless we may think they are.

I personally and we as administration feel that for all his other actions I was more than justified to ban Asher (which is why as of this writing he's still banned), but those two things were mistakes by me, I should have handled those better. I apologise to Asher and everyone else, next time I will try and do a better job. As rah pointed out, we're all only human, we all make mistakes sometimes. The point is to recognise and learn from them, I hope Asher and you all can forgive me.

[TCO]

I LIKE it that Glonkie was reduced to tears. But who the heck is Locutus? Some on topicer or something? Never heard of him.

[MarkG]

TCO

I should have made you change your name back before accepting your request...

[DaShi]

Locutus, I think it takes a lot of guts to admit when you're wrong. Bravo for that. Asher's behavior may have warranted the first ban, but the second ban concerning the pms is not. He should at least have half his sentence commuted.

[MarkG]

Locutus

[TCO]

Originally posted by DaShi
Locutus, I think it takes a lot of guts to admit when you're wrong. Bravo for that. Asher's behavior may have warranted the first ban, but the second ban concerning the pms is not. He should at least have half his sentence commuted.

Nooooo.....

It's even better if it's unfair. Makes it that much sweeter.

[SlowwHand]

Locutus, you just earned a little of my respect. It may not count for much to you, and that's ok.
It takes a person of integrity to say they made a mistake, and I'm not saying it was all a mistake.
I'm saying, you finally showed this me that you have balls. Good on you.