Dear Mods/Admins

Below is an open letter, in which I am exercising my legal right to free speech. There is nothing contained within it that is contrary to the forum rules or, indeed, any legal system that I can think of.

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Okay, I've only been back for a few hours after being banned for over a month for merely standing up for what was right (nobody mention godwin's law); but mods, this is ridiculous.

Let's start from the beginning:

1. You did not inform the tavern when you closed it down. There was many things on there which we ewould have wanted to keep, such as AP and AS's tank debate, my WWII sketch script, and, well, there was 10,000 posts, so being told before it's destruction is at the least polite. Power and head's come to mind here (not for alll mods, but for two in particular that stand out).

2. You then seemed to go on a banning spree when the taverners, understandably annoyed, questioned why on earth you'd delete it. I was banned for a month (completely ridiculous. A month. A MONTH. And still no-one as actually given me a reason as to why.), as was AP, subotan, and I'm sure more. This stinks, frankly, and if you can't see how it is wrong then I don't know what to say. Purging people because you don't like opinions, I thought at least, was confined to the history books, or at least China. I do not expect a personal apology, but I do expect an apology to the tavern in general.

3. The Coup. I've just found out about this, but frankly Tosa, this is ridiculous. Are you really so sanctimonious to act as overwatch for what you have just destroyed for fear of opinions? Throwing Meth off this board (after, of course, throwing me off, how very nice of you) does seem to demonstrate a certain control freak aspect. The fact is Tosa, you cannot control people. You are not God, you are a mod, now just let the rest of us be, and all parties will benefit. I would also like to point out, that throwing people out of a group because you do not agree with them is both childish and petty.

I have noticed that the mods here (again, I must stress, not all) have a certain banophilic tendency when faced with an adult conversation beteween adults on a mostly adult section of the site. The tavern, remember, was created to keep spam, flaming and such off the org, which it has done, at least to some extent, and you cannot deny that. If swearing offends you, fine, but good luck in the real world. If jokes offend you, don't read on. Being offended for the sake of being offended is ridiculous eenough, but then taking action? That's, well, DAFT.

Another thing that I find almost sickening is the complet hipocracy of the mods here. You complained to the Tavern about sexism (where?), and yet you have 'The Babe Thread'. You let bigots such as Fragony and Trolls such as Prussian Iron to continue unchecked, but yet whenever someone who does not brown nose anything with power comes along and make the same, if not tamer, remarks, anfd you ban them, that that, my friends is BLATANT hypocrisy.

I expect that either Tosa or Lemur, due to the dangerous level of opinion in this post, will either delete it or ban me. That, or take me out the back and shoot me in the back of the skull with a 9mm, which would certainly please both of them. But I will repost if it is deleted, as opinions have 2 outcomes. Either they stay forever, or are countered. You cannot fight opinion with fire.

I hate to use such a cheap expression, but it does aptly describe the situation, but, to mods, taverners and general .orgers: Man up, and grow a pair.


Yours,


CHE.

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Originally Posted by Che Roriniho

Below is an open letter, in which I am exercising my legal right to free speech. There is nothing contained within it that is contrary to the forum rules or, indeed, any legal system that I can think of.

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FYI, freedom of speech is only legally binding on the government. Private organizations are generally allowed to censor all they want.

Just two comments:

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mostly adult section of the site

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I wasn't aware we had an "adult section" (or "mostly adult section") on this board - please elaborate. I believe it was common knowledge that this is a PG13 board.

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Throwing Meth off this board

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I assume you are referring to the current status of his account? He certainly knows what has triggered this and I would suggest to check with him before making wild assumptions.

:bow:

I am an adult. A mature man. I shouldn't spend my time reading this...well whatever it is. :dizzy2:

I'm going to do something interesting instead.

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Originally Posted by Ser Clegane

Just two comments:


I wasn't aware we had an "adult section" (or "mostly adult section") on this board - please elaborate. I believe it was common knowledge that this is a PG13 board.

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I mean a part of the site where there were mostly adults, not the other meaning

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Originally Posted by Ser Clegane

I assume you are referring to the current status of his account? He certainly knows what has triggered this and I would suggest to check with him before making wild assumptions.

:bow:

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I was talking about when he was thrown off as the head of the Tavern; which he only was head of, not because he wanted to be, but because Tosa made him so. Yes, Tosa used MY ACCOUNT to ask Meth, under my name, to head the tavern. THAT is why he was kicked off, which made a nice excuse for Tosa to exercise all his Hitler fantasies in one go, such as throwing me out of the tavern for no obvious or apparant reason.

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I expect that either Tosa or Lemur, due to the dangerous level of opinion in this post, will either delete it or ban me. That, or take me out the back and shoot me in the back of the skull with a 9mm, which would certainly please both of them. But I will repost if it is deleted, as opinions have 2 outcomes. Either they stay forever, or are countered. You cannot fight opinion with fire.

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The Internet; serious business. :helmet:

To the point; a number of people have manged to have large disagreements with the admins and mods here. They didn't get banned because they managed to do so civilly.

CR

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Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

The Internet; serious business. :helmet:

To the point; a number of people have manged to have large disagreements with the admins and mods here. They didn't get banned because they managed to do so civilly.

CR

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To be fair, I think deleting what was by far the biggest social group on the org without warning is hardly civil. And then banning half the members when they are slightly peeved. And then throwing some members out of the group. And then using one of the member's account to nominate another taverner to be barkeep. And then nominating yourself barkeep, with no permission from anyone.

That is hardly acting civil.

And the internet is serious business, when it comes to my friends. Because of the sanctimonious actions of the mods herre, I have lost many friends, as our meeting place has been destroyed.

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Originally Posted by Che Roriniho

Yes, Tosa used MY ACCOUNT to ask Meth, under my name, to head the tavern. THAT is why he was kicked off, which made a nice excuse for Tosa to exercise all his Hitler fantasies in one go, such as throwing me out of the tavern for no obvious or apparant reason.

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Ohhhkaaay...

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1. You did not inform the tavern when you closed it down. There was many things on there which we ewould have wanted to keep, such as AP and AS's tank debate, my WWII sketch script, and, well, there was 10,000 posts, so being told before it's destruction is at the least polite. Power and head's come to mind here (not for alll mods, but for two in particular that stand out).

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From what I saw, there were several notices about cleaning up the EB Tavern, these were apparently ignored so Tosa took the axe to the whole thing. The Taverners were asked to police themselves, and in the minds of Tosa and the mods, they did not. Yes, there were 10,000 posts, how much time do you expect Tosa and the mods to spend cleaning it up?

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2. You then seemed to go on a banning spree when the taverners, understandably annoyed, questioned why on earth you'd delete it. I was banned for a month (completely ridiculous. A month. A MONTH. And still no-one as actually given me a reason as to why.), as was AP, subotan, and I'm sure more. This stinks, frankly, and if you can't see how it is wrong then I don't know what to say. Purging people because you don't like opinions, I thought at least, was confined to the history books, or at least China. I do not expect a personal apology, but I do expect an apology to the tavern in general.

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Nobody was banned. Some members of the EB Tavern broke forum rules when protesting it's closure. Warning points were given and involuntary vacations were the result. Many members decided to use alts to get around their punishments, so they got extra points. Nobody was purged.

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3. The Coup. I've just found out about this, but frankly Tosa, this is ridiculous. Are you really so sanctimonious to act as overwatch for what you have just destroyed for fear of opinions? Throwing Meth off this board (after, of course, throwing me off, how very nice of you) does seem to demonstrate a certain control freak aspect. The fact is Tosa, you cannot control people. You are not God, you are a mod, now just let the rest of us be, and all parties will benefit. I would also like to point out, that throwing people out of a group because you do not agree with them is both childish and petty.

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I have no idea of what Meth did, but he is also not banned. And Tosa is not a mod, he is the site admin. The 1s and 0s that represent the Org are under his control, so he is essentially God as far as totalwar.org is concerned. This is the reality of the situation, like it or not.

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I have noticed that the mods here (again, I must stress, not all) have a certain banophilic tendency when faced with an adult conversation beteween adults on a mostly adult section of the site. The tavern, remember, was created to keep spam, flaming and such off the org, which it has done, at least to some extent, and you cannot deny that. If swearing offends you, fine, but good luck in the real world. If jokes offend you, don't read on. Being offended for the sake of being offended is ridiculous eenough, but then taking action? That's, well, DAFT.

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The forum rules apply to all sections of the Org, which included the EB tavern. Spam, pr0n, warez, gruesome pics, flame wars, swearing, et al, are forbidden. They were tolerated to some extent within the group, hence the complete removal.

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Another thing that I find almost sickening is the complet hipocracy of the mods here. You complained to the Tavern about sexism (where?), and yet you have 'The Babe Thread'. You let bigots such as Fragony and Trolls such as Prussian Iron to continue unchecked, but yet whenever someone who does not brown nose anything with power comes along and make the same, if not tamer, remarks, anfd you ban them, that that, my friends is BLATANT hypocrisy.

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The Babe Thread has rules, and is countered by the Hunk Thread. People who post bigoted comments or troll do not go unchecked, they get warning points. Warning points and their results are not public knowledge, only account bans get published.

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I expect that either Tosa or Lemur, due to the dangerous level of opinion in this post, will either delete it or ban me. That, or take me out the back and shoot me in the back of the skull with a 9mm, which would certainly please both of them. But I will repost if it is deleted, as opinions have 2 outcomes. Either they stay forever, or are countered. You cannot fight opinion with fire.

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:rolleyes: Remember, the internet is serious business. Lemur can't do anything to you about this post, his purview is the Frontroom. Tosa will probably just lock this thread, the discussion is pointless and he is busy with the vBulletin update.

This thread will only result in more warning points if it continues. It will only drag more Taverners in and start the whole cycle again. :no:

Ladies and gentlemen, Hitler has entered the building...

The Org is what it is. 99.99% of the patrons seem to be happy with this and have zero issues with the administration of this board. Most of the remaining 0.01% that do have issues, live and learn. The remainder play the martyr/rebel-been-wronged card and cause trouble before walking away. Civil discussion of the issue is allowed. It is when it turns nasty that banning becomes a possibility. After the discussion is done though, the choice is to accept the verdict or move elsewhere. Simple really.

BTW, if Tosa is harbouring Hitlerian fantasies, he is failing miserably.

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Originally Posted by Che Roriniho

And then nominating yourself barkeep, with no permission from anyone.

That is hardly acting civil.

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Tosa took over moderation of the Tavern because the assigned moderator did not do anything to edit out posts which violated Org rules. Since it became clear that even after the Tavern was deleted the first time, you were not going to properly self-regulate your social group, there were only two options available to us. First, we could just delete the group again. Second, the group could be switched over to moderation by a member of the staff. Tosa chose the option that would have the least impact on you, and in the process gave himself the extra burden of having to be responsible for editing the posts of the group, on top of everything else he does here. Your anger at him is misplaced, as Tosa actively saved the Second Tavern from being deleted.

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Originally Posted by Che Roriniho

And the internet is serious business, when it comes to my friends. Because of the sanctimonious actions of the mods herre, I have lost many friends, as our meeting place has been destroyed.

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The internet is a big place, it shouldn't be very difficult to relocate to another spot if you find this one not to your liking.

Looks like the circus made another appearance this week.

How does prussian iron troll. I am going to defend this poor innocent boy. And finally your audience in the tavern was not all adults. One of your common posters was Aemilius Paulus who is not 18 yet and therefore not an adult. Older than his years and intelligent? yes but he cant smoke, buy a playboy, or see an rated R movie without his mommy.

Sorry AP, but you were the first example i could think of.

Actually i may be wrong AP might be older than i think but i remeber hearing he was dual enrolled in high school and college.

either way my main point stands, leave poor PI alone, he already gets enough flak from the infamous girl help threads.

Okay, first, the person who was in charge of the tavern was only thuis because Tosa used my account to nominate him. He cleared up pretty well, but for one thing: the acceptence letter of Meth. Let me make this clear, Meth was never going to be in charge of the tavern. He was only in charge because Tosa made him so. I would again like to point out that there was nothing on the second tavern that warrented a closure anyway, and Tosa STILL has not got back to me as to why he threw me out of the tavern.

And as you say, the internet IS a big place, so when you remove landmarks, people get lost.

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Originally Posted by drone

From what I saw, there were several notices about cleaning up the EB Tavern, these were apparently ignored so Tosa took the axe to the whole thing. The Taverners were asked to police themselves, and in the minds of Tosa and the mods, they did not. Yes, there were 10,000 posts, how much time do you expect Tosa and the mods to spend cleaning it up?


Nobody was banned. Some members of the EB Tavern broke forum rules when protesting it's closure. Warning points were given and involuntary vacations were the result. Many members decided to use alts to get around their punishments, so they got extra points. Nobody was purged.


I have no idea of what Meth did, but he is also not banned. And Tosa is not a mod, he is the site admin. The 1s and 0s that represent the Org are under his control, so he is essentially God as far as totalwar.org is concerned. This is the reality of the situation, like it or not.


The forum rules apply to all sections of the Org, which included the EB tavern. Spam, pr0n, warez, gruesome pics, flame wars, swearing, et al, are forbidden. They were tolerated to some extent within the group, hence the complete removal.


The Babe Thread has rules, and is countered by the Hunk Thread. People who post bigoted comments or troll do not go unchecked, they get warning points. Warning points and their results are not public knowledge, only account bans get published.


:rolleyes: Remember, the internet is serious business. Lemur can't do anything to you about this post, his purview is the Frontroom. Tosa will probably just lock this thread, the discussion is pointless and he is busy with the vBulletin update.

This thread will only result in more warning points if it continues. It will only drag more Taverners in and start the whole cycle again. :no:

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I am not complaining THAT it was closed, what I am complaining about is THE MANNER with which it was closed. No warning, just banning.

Me, Subotan, and ACIN were banned, and I know for a fact that neith me nor Subo broke any rules (I can't speak for ACIN, as I don't know his situation)

We never posted Spam, pr0n, warez, gore, and more, and whilst there was swearing, it was not quite as plorific as mods/admins make out.

The fact there is a hunk thread does not detract from the fact that 'The Babe Thread' is not PG13. and yet the Tavern is not allowed.

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Originally Posted by Che Roriniho

Me, Subotan, and ACIN were banned, and I know for a fact that neith me nor Subo broke any rules (I can't speak for ACIN, as I don't know the rules.

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You don't know the rules, but you know you didn't break them?

Hop over to usenet if you want a forum where the membership is adult, and where the conversations are mostly unconstrained, and depending on where you go, unmoderated. Find an appropriate newsgroup to hang out in, and you can talk about whatever you like, up to the point where someone complains to your ISP. Alternatvely, create a Quicktopic messageboard.

@Tincow Sorry, bit of a slip there. What I meant to say was: (I can't speak for ACIN, as I don't know his situation.)

Edited the OP

Having a big social group, or a big social group post count, or being vocal or most of the stuff you do doesnt exempt you from the rules of this site.

Also: OP

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Originally Posted by tl;dr

BLAH BLAH BLAH WHINGE WHINGE WHINGE

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get over it. Tosa has the right to get rid of anything he wants. His site, his rules. :shrug:

IMO, Lemur is fine in his moderating style. I've received quite a few warning points, whereas others wouldnt, but it was after warning.


Meth is... a bit of a :daisy:. He needs to grow up a bit.

There's not really much I can add to Che's post, although I do disagree with certain points he made, such as the suggestion that Tosa has Hitler-esque fantasies (Although he certainly behaved quite rudely to us). So, I'm just going to refer to particular points that people have made. Again, I would appreciate it if this thread was not locked. I don't expect massive replies, but I just want to correct the assumptions that some people have.

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Originally Posted by drone

From what I saw, there were several notices about cleaning up the EB Tavern, these were apparently ignored so Tosa took the axe to the whole thing. The Taverners were asked to police themselves, and in the minds of Tosa and the mods, they did not. Yes, there were 10,000 posts, how much time do you expect Tosa and the mods to spend cleaning it up?

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By several, you mean one. Tosa would also have axed it regardless of whether we had followed his new guidelines to the letter. Personally, I think the EB Tavern has been killed off, but a warning, or at least a notification that that would happen would have been nice. An apology will suffice though.

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Originally Posted by drone

Nobody was banned. Some members of the EB Tavern broke forum rules when protesting it's closure. Warning points were given and involuntary vacations were the result. Many members decided to use alts to get around their punishments, so they got extra points. Nobody was purged.

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Many? You mean one. The other punishments for alts were dished out for the alt thread, which you can see for yourself.

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Originally Posted by drone

I have no idea of what Meth did, but he is also not banned. And Tosa is not a mod, he is the site admin. The 1s and 0s that represent the Org are under his control, so he is essentially God as far as totalwar.org is concerned. This is the reality of the situation, like it or not.

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I'm not asking for a democracy.

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Originally Posted by drone

The forum rules apply to all sections of the Org, which included the EB tavern. Spam, pr0n, warez, gruesome pics, flame wars, swearing, et al, are forbidden. They were tolerated to some extent within the group, hence the complete removal.

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The first five never occured within the EB Tavern, and in the exceptional circumstances that they did, they were then dealt with. The latter we expressed a willingness to cut down after the establishment of the second Tavern, and we did manage to by a huge amount.

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Originally Posted by drone

The Babe Thread has rules, and is countered by the Hunk Thread. People who post bigoted comments or troll do not go unchecked, they get warning points. Warning points and their results are not public knowledge, only account bans get published.

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Personally, I feel that the Babe/Hunk threads by their very nature are worse than anything that ever occurred in the EB Tavern.

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Originally Posted by drone

This thread will only result in more warning points if it continues. It will only drag more Taverners in and start the whole cycle again. :no:

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Civil discussion of the issue is allowed. It is when it turns nasty that banning becomes a possibility.

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I hope not. I am going to stay civil, so there shouldn't be any need for locks. :yes:

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Originally Posted by drone

:rolleyes: Remember, the internet is serious business.

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Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

The Internet; serious business. :helmet:

CR

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This is something that has grated me for quite a while. Apparently, when we protest at the destruction of our social group, akin to the obliteration of the backroom, that is taking the internet too seriously. And yet, the various moderators, admins and certain patrons are treating it as if it were an inhuman scourge upon the .Org, that must be wiped out at all costs. The opposition to the re-establishment of a sensible, self-moderated Tavern is way out of proportion.

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Originally Posted by Gregoshi

Ladies and gentlemen, Hitler has entered the building...
The Org is what it is. 99.99% of the patrons seem to be happy with this and have zero issues with the administration of this board. Most of the remaining 0.01% that do have issues, live and learn. The remainder play the martyr/rebel-been-wronged card and cause trouble before walking away.

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I'd say it was more than 0.01%, if we define patrons as regular users.

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Originally Posted by Subotan

The first five never occured within the EB Tavern, and in the exceptional circumstances that they did, they were then dealt with. The latter we expressed a willingness to cut down after the establishment of the second Tavern, and we did manage to by a huge amount.


Personally, I feel that the Babe/Hunk threads by their very nature are worse than anything that ever occurred in the EB Tavern.

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All the Mods saw the state of the Tavern before it was wiped. It was honestly the single worst thing I have ever seen on the Org. There are many Tavern members who are lucky to not have been permanently banned right then and there. Several suggestions were made about how to handle the Tavern, and you might be surprised to know that Tosa's choice to take no action against any individual poster was far, far more lenient than the actions any of the Mods were suggesting. Needless to say, I find all protestations that the Tavern was remotely in-line with Org rules to be exceptionally questionable.

That said, for the last several weeks the Second Tavern has generally been very well behaved. Please do keep it up.

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Originally Posted by Subotan

The opposition to the re-establishment of a sensible, self-moderated Tavern is way out of proportion.

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The Tavern has failed to police itself on numerous occasions. The infractions before the wipe were so numerous that they took up pages of the Mod reported posts forum. After the wipe, the Second Tavern was allowed to moderate itself, and failed to do so once again. Perhaps if you can prove that your current improvement in behavior is honest and not just because we are watching you, Tosa will return moderation of the group to you. I would expect such proof to take a few months.

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Originally Posted by Subotan

By several, you mean one. Tosa would also have axed it regardless of whether we had followed his new guidelines to the letter. Personally, I think the EB Tavern has been killed off, but a warning, or at least a notification that that would happen would have been nice. An apology will suffice though.

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I seem to remember at least 2, but I may be thinking of something else.

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Originally Posted by Subotan

Many? You mean one. The other punishments for alts were dished out for the alt thread, which you can see for yourself.

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I can't see the warnings, and I can't tie the alts to the original accounts. I'm guessing on a lot of this.

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Originally Posted by Subotan

Personally, I feel that the Babe/Hunk threads by their very nature are worse than anything that ever occurred in the EB Tavern.

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Since it's inception, the Babe Thread has been locked several times due to inappropriate posts (either anatomical or themed). I believe there has been much discussion between the Frontroom mods and Tosa about it, it remains mainly due to it's constant surveillance by the Frontroom staff.

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Originally Posted by Subotan

This is something that has grated me for quite a while. Apparently, when we protest at the destruction of our social group, akin to the obliteration of the backroom, that is taking the internet too seriously. And yet, the various moderators, admins and certain patrons are treating it as if it were an inhuman scourge upon the .Org, that must be wiped out at all costs. The opposition to the re-establishment of a sensible, self-moderated Tavern is way out of proportion.

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Taking the internet too seriously is what the OP is all about.

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Originally Posted by OP

I expect that either Tosa or Lemur, due to the dangerous level of opinion in this post, will either delete it or ban me. That, or take me out the back and shoot me in the back of the skull with a 9mm, which would certainly please both of them. But I will repost if it is deleted, as opinions have 2 outcomes. Either they stay forever, or are countered. You cannot fight opinion with fire.

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I mean, really? :inquisitive: Nothing will be gained with posts like this.

I never read the EB Tavern, I never got involved in the offshoot discussions. But it appears that it took up a fair amount of Org bandwidth, for a few select folks, with no real supervision. Why not have the Tavern discussions with the rest of the membership? Why not have a tank discussion in the Monastery? Or other off-topic discussions in the Front/Backroom? There are only 2 reasons I see the EB Tavern existed: to either exclude other members from the discussion or skirt the rules of the regularly moderated board. And neither of those are very good reasons.

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Originally Posted by drone

I seem to remember at least 2, but I may be thinking of something else.

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No, the alts bans were prior to the deletion of the EB Tavern. I was just mucking around with my alt in that particular thread.

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Originally Posted by drone

I can't see the warnings, and I can't tie the alts to the original accounts. I'm guessing on a lot of this.s.

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I was banned for having one (Socrates on Wheels), despite the fact that it said that they would be banned if they caused trouble. AP was then banned for boasting that he could get around them. And Azathoth was banned for using them.

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Originally Posted by drone

Since it's inception, the Babe Thread has been locked several times due to inappropriate posts (either anatomical or themed). I believe there has been much discussion between the Frontroom mods and Tosa about it, it remains mainly due to it's constant surveillance by the Frontroom staff.

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And yet the whole thing has never been deleted...

But I digress. That's just my personal opinion. I'm not calling for it to be deleted. I just don't visit it.

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Originally Posted by drone

I never read the EB Tavern, I never got involved in the offshoot discussions. But it appears that it took up a fair amount of Org bandwidth, for a few select folks, with no real supervision. Why not have the Tavern discussions with the rest of the membership? Why not have a tank discussion in the Monastery? Or other off-topic discussions in the Front/Backroom? .

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Anybody could join, and most people did. It's just the majority of them didn't post. As it was mainly just one big long thread, running to over 1,500 pages, it wouldn't be permitted to have a big rolling thread about what was mostly inane subjects and what would probably be described as "spam" (Man, that's such an overused word on this board).

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Originally Posted by drone

here are only 2 reasons I see the EB Tavern existed: to either exclude other members from the discussion or skirt the rules of the regularly moderated board. And neither of those are very good reasons.

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Fair points. However, the former was never ever the intention of the baord, and we promoted the Tavern in the rest of the .Org (You can still see the links on some members sigs). And the latter may have been an end result (And even then, only the swearing rule, which we later agreed to abide to most of the time) of the situation of the EB Tavern, isolated from the rest of the .Org, as a "core" membership posted the majority of the posts.

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Originally Posted by Subotan

This is something that has grated me for quite a while. Apparently, when we protest at the destruction of our social group, akin to the obliteration of the backroom, that is taking the internet too seriously. And yet, the various moderators, admins and certain patrons are treating it as if it were an inhuman scourge upon the .Org, that must be wiped out at all costs. The opposition to the re-establishment of a sensible, self-moderated Tavern is way out of proportion.

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No, respectfully bringing up perceived problems with moderation is not "taking it too seriously".

This:

I expect that either Tosa or Lemur, due to the dangerous level of opinion in this post, will either delete it or ban me. That, or take me out the back and shoot me in the back of the skull with a 9mm, which would certainly please both of them.

However, is.

And whatever the appropriateness of the babe thread, going by American movie ratings, the content is "PG-13".

CR

i dont even look at the bloody babe thread they have clothes on, wheres the fun in that.

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Originally Posted by Centurion1

i dont even look at the bloody babe thread they have clothes on, wheres the fun in that.

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Imagine

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Let's start from the beginning:

1. You did not inform the tavern when you closed it down. There was many things on there which we ewould have wanted to keep, such as AP and AS's tank debate, my WWII sketch script, and, well, there was 10,000 posts, so being told before it's destruction is at the least polite. Power and head's come to mind here (not for alll mods, but for two in particular that stand out).

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At least two Watchtower threads were made in which it was clearly stated that .Org rules apply to social groups.

There was a lot of, pardon my french, filth in the Tavern. We are all volunteers here, most of us have a full time job/are studying, have a wive or girlfriend and many mods also have children. There were way too much messages to go through; since there was also enough filth in the tavern, it was decided to just delete it

We gave you guys the freedom to have your social group and we expected you to moderate yourselves. Apparently, we expected too much. You could have prevented the deletion of the EB Tavern by NOT making so many rule violating messages. You could als have told you fellow .Org taverners when they crossed the line and you could have asked your friends to tone it down; you could have reported bad messages; you could have contacted a moderator about certain issues. None of that happened.

Until one day we took a look and noticed you guys were NOT moderating yourselves and our trust and confidence were grossly abused.

Don't blame us for deleting the EB Tavern, please.

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2. You then seemed to go on a banning spree when the taverners, understandably annoyed, questioned why on earth you'd delete it. I was banned for a month (completely ridiculous. A month. A MONTH. And still no-one as actually given me a reason as to why.), as was AP, subotan, and I'm sure more. This stinks, frankly, and if you can't see how it is wrong then I don't know what to say. Purging people because you don't like opinions, I thought at least, was confined to the history books, or at least China. I do not expect a personal apology, but I do expect an apology to the tavern in general.

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We didn't purge people because their opinions were not liked by staff. We didn't purge anyone.

There were rule violations and action has been taken. Your perception is wrong.

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3. The Coup. I've just found out about this, but frankly Tosa, this is ridiculous. Are you really so sanctimonious to act as overwatch for what you have just destroyed for fear of opinions? Throwing Meth off this board (after, of course, throwing me off, how very nice of you) does seem to demonstrate a certain control freak aspect. The fact is Tosa, you cannot control people. You are not God, you are a mod, now just let the rest of us be, and all parties will benefit. I would also like to point out, that throwing people out of a group because you do not agree with them is both childish and petty.

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"The Coup"? Really :rolleyes:

The Second EB Tavern (in fact the 5th or 6th?) was better than the previous one, but still not good enough.

Moderators posted in there to explain the rules and to ask you guys to respect the rules. Those posts were deleted by the person who "maintained" the group, while posts containing swear words and other violations were not.

Since Meth apparently wasn't capable of moderating the group, just like the previous person who maintained the group, btw, we had to decide: delete it again and no more EB Tavern or have a staff member moderate it.

Tosa saved your precious EB Tavern. Instead of yelling at him, you should be thankful.

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I have noticed that the mods here (again, I must stress, not all) have a certain banophilic tendency when faced with an adult conversation beteween adults on a mostly adult section of the site.

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There is no such thing as an "adult section" on this site.

Unless some of you lie about their birth date, some of you are also not adults.

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The tavern, remember, was created to keep spam, flaming and such off the org, which it has done, at least to some extent, and you cannot deny that. If swearing offends you, fine, but good luck in the real world. If jokes offend you, don't read on. Being offended for the sake of being offended is ridiculous eenough, but then taking action? That's, well, DAFT.

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It's called Guild rules and enforcing them. You agreed with those rules when creating an account.

If you don't like our rules, you have only two options:
a) swallow your pride and accept;
b) leave

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Another thing that I find almost sickening is the complet hipocracy of the mods here. You complained to the Tavern about sexism (where?), and yet you have 'The Babe Thread'. You let bigots such as Fragony and Trolls such as Prussian Iron to continue unchecked, but yet whenever someone who does not brown nose anything with power comes along and make the same, if not tamer, remarks, anfd you ban them, that that, my friends is BLATANT hypocrisy.

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The Babe thread is strictly regulated.

I suggest you edit out your personal attacks against fellow .Org members.

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I expect that either Tosa or Lemur, due to the dangerous level of opinion in this post, will either delete it or ban me. That, or take me out the back and shoot me in the back of the skull with a 9mm, which would certainly please both of them. But I will repost if it is deleted, as opinions have 2 outcomes. Either they stay forever, or are countered. You cannot fight opinion with fire.

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Again, there's no need for those personal attacks against fellow .Org members. Those accusations are way out of line. Nobody here will shoot you with a 9mm.

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I hate to use such a cheap expression, but it does aptly describe the situation, but, to mods, taverners and general .orgers: Man up, and grow a pair.

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If you hate it, than don't use such expressions. It's inappropriate, not civil and very disrespectful. They also, technically, violate .Org rules.

You let bigots such as Fragony and Trolls such as Prussian Iron to continue unchecked, but yet whenever someone who does not brown nose anything with power comes along and make the same, if not tamer, remarks, anfd you ban them, that that, my friends is BLATANT hypocrisy.

So who the hell are you then? I keep to the rules, I get a warning if I don't, I do not go unchecked I get the same treatment as everybody else. If you are too much of a wuss for the backroom stay the hell out. This is not only insulting for me but also for the moderators. Love your commitment to free speech by the way.

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Originally Posted by Fragony

You let bigots such as Fragony and Trolls such as Prussian Iron to continue unchecked, but yet whenever someone who does not brown nose anything with power comes along and make the same, if not tamer, remarks, anfd you ban them, that that, my friends is BLATANT hypocrisy.

So who the hell are you then? I keep to the rules, I get a warning if I don't, I do not go unchecked I get the same treatment as everybody else. If you are too much of a wuss for the backroom stay the hell out. This is not only insulting for me but also for the moderators.

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And Fragony was actually a really nice guy if you want to know :medievalcheers:

Come on... everyone here is a friend :beam: .... just don't insult anyone too much...

Shoo fly.

Hello,

As far as I know, noone is banned there. And noone is either banned or demoted from voicing his opinion. No one is talked to for having a different opinion. For the record: noone has eve been banned by me for voicing an opinion. Sure, it may look so in a few cases, but there's always been a much deeper story behind it. Think very colorful language, hacking, harassing, intimidation, lying, ad hominem, violation of privacy, breaking of contracts, posting porn and the list goes on.

A few have been demoted for how things were said and probably also for calling for 'action' (it's a month or more ago, I recall something about that). And even there I applied some 'haven't seen', because The old Tavern did also contain good and I understand people getting upset about the deletion (they would anyway, I know).

You Che, created the second Tavern. But from your behaviour, it's clear to me that you can't have a positive effect on that social group by being leader. You received an 8 pointer and a custom demotion of a month for being hostile, using bad language and thinking you could delete my messages in the social group calling for the group to play nice.

Administrators are given more rights by a script than normal members. This forumsoftware is no exception. An example: administrators can make you say: 'I love daisies and noone in the world would ever know it wasn't you'. Normal members have to hack your account to do that (they risk perma banning when caught, 100/100 now). But for administrators it's a very simple job.

Similarly, I don't have to go through all the hassle when appointing a moderator or social group leader. It's a simple push of one button and the script does the rest. The normal procedure with social group leaders is that any member who is one, can invite another to take over. It's using the PM system and ID's then. I'm guessing the administrative tool is such that once the administrator hits the red button, that the current leader is removed and a is forced to send an invitation PM to another member to take over. That could be seen as a courtesy gesture from the designers of the script. I don't have to do anything fishy or cover up.


You were not banned, but demoted. That means you have a very limited set of permissions around here.Childish? Oh yes. That childish reaction gradually developed during years in response to Hitler crying rebels. Not for sharing their opinion, but for plain terrorizing this site.

You were thrown out of the group by me for some colorful language you used there. The way you said things, not what you said. When I let it slip, the whole group will spiral down and it won't be too long or it will have to be deleted again. It won't be allowed to start another time when that happens.

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Originally Posted by Cute Wolf

And Fragony was actually a really nice guy if you want to know :medievalcheers:

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What went wrong :P

You are just saying that because I gave you every picture that appeared in the Playboy of the last 4 years, which I am willing to share with everone, except Che Roriniho.

pm will do.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fragony

What went wrong :P

You are just saying that because I gave you every picture that appeared in the Playboy of the last 4 years, which I am willing to share with everone, except Che Roriniho.

pm will do.

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LOL!!! He's crying for it frag...

Uncle Fragony knows what's good for you

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Imagine

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no my dear beefy everyone knows my generation has no imagination because of technology......... thats what the google is for.

Insulting TosaInu... -10 points, bad boy :no:

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Originally Posted by TinCow

That said, for the last several weeks the Second Tavern has generally been very well behaved. Please do keep it up.

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It is also terribly boring.

Here is my advise for the mods: Just wait it out and the tavern will vanish. You win.

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Originally Posted by Centurion1

no my dear beefy everyone knows my generation has no imagination because of technology......... thats what the google is for.

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Your generation?

My friend, you are only a few years younger than the Beefmeister and myself.

On that note, you gunna wish me a happy birthday soon Beefy?

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Originally Posted by Fixiwee

It is also terribly boring.

Here is my advise for the mods: Just wait it out and the tavern will vanish. You win.

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If the only reason the Tavern was interesting to you was that you were allowed to engage in behavior that violated Org rules, I will consider its death is good thing.

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Originally Posted by TinCow

If the only reason the Tavern was interesting to you was that you were allowed to engage in behavior that violated Org rules, I will consider its death is good thing.

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Now you are twisting the meaning of my post to your suiting. Of course the tavern meant more to me then just violating rules. I'm not a troll, look at my list of infractions (hint: it's zero). The tavern represented something diffeerent for me, something this board does not offer.

Let's face it, every mod will be happy when it tavern is gone. Seeing the history and the problems it has cause it's hard to blame you though.
The outcry of someone who compares the admin to Hitler is idiotism par exelene. I'm not even defending the OP here.

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Originally Posted by Fixiwee

Now you are twisting the meaning of my post to your suiting. Of course the tavern meant more to me then just violating rules. I'm not a troll, look at my list of infractions (hint: it's zero). The tavern represented something diffeerent for me, something this board does not offer.

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Then help me understand what we have done to make the Tavern 'boring.' As far as I can tell, the only thing we're doing is moderating it like we moderate the rest of the forums. If that alone is killing your fun, it does indeed seem like your fun was derived exclusively from being in an 'anything goes' zone.

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Originally Posted by Andres

There was a lot of, pardon my french, filth in the Tavern. We are all volunteers here, most of us have a full time job/are studying, have a wive or girlfriend and many mods also have children. There were way too much messages to go through; since there was also enough filth in the tavern, it was decided to just delete it
.

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There was a lot of cool stuff in there as well. A lot more.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andres

Since Meth apparently wasn't capable of moderating the group, just like the previous person who maintained the group, btw, we had to decide: delete it again and no more EB Tavern or have a staff member moderate it.
.

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You honestly expected Meth to be a good moderator? :dizzy2:
Btw, I posted my wilingness to be the mod on numerous occasions.

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Originally Posted by Andres

Tosa saved your precious EB Tavern. Instead of yelling at him, you should be thankful.

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Not true. Activity has massively declined since before the "coup". The poor little guy is on life support.

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Originally Posted by TosaInu

As far as I know, noone is banned there.

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I think there is confusion as to what actually constitutes a ban. From our point of view, a 3 day ban is a ban.

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Originally Posted by TosaInu

A few have been demoted for how things were said and probably also for calling for 'action' (it's a month or more ago, I recall something about that).

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Action? Huh? The most extreme action I can think of is poor Fixiwee's attempts to create a refuge.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TosaInu

He
And even there I applied some 'haven't seen', because The old Tavern did also contain good and I understand people getting upset about the deletion (they would anyway, I know).

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The main problem as I see it is that we were not informed about what was going to happen. E.g. The Tavern was deleted. There was no explanation as to why. Likewise, when you took over moderation of the tavern, we were not even notified. Although you might not have meant this, it gave the impression that we weren't worth an explation, hence the outbursts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TinCow

Then help me understand what we have done to make the Tavern 'boring.' As far as I can tell, the only thing we're doing is moderating it like we moderate the rest of the forums. If that alone is killing your fun, it does indeed seem like your fun was derived exclusively from being in an 'anything goes' zone.

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I don't think you will agree to my opinion about it anyway.
"Anything goes" puts it too far. I feel restricted in what I represent because I can't say what I want to.

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As far as I can tell, the only thing we're doing is moderating it like we moderate the rest of the forums.

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It has been argued one too many time. But please think about it. It is true, you are just moderating. And that is the problem. You don't treat us like human beings, you delete, you ban, you kick people out of the tavern, you exclude. This is not very subtle.
And then you shouldn't wonder why certain people are angry and frustrated. You don't even try to work out the problems between the tavern and the moderation (except for Andres, whos post in the tavern was more then impressive). I wish it was more diplomacy and less "just pull the trigger".

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Originally Posted by Fixiwee

I wish it was more diplomacy and less "just pull the trigger".

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I do understand this, but the Tavern also needs to realize that the Mods felt like we had tried diplomacy with your group for a very long time and were completely ignored. Nothing we did or said made any impression on the group as a whole, nor did its behavior ever change or improve until the wipe. Since the wipe, it appears that the Tavern has finally realized that we are serious and is now upset with the belief that we did not sufficiently communicate just how serious we were before the wipe. From our perspective, we made numerous efforts to get the Tavern to improve its behavior both with general statements directed at the Tavern as a group, as well as specific warning given to individual members. We feel we did our due diligence on the diplomacy side a long time ago.

We are not hard-hearted people, but the Tavern has lost our trust in its ability to manage itself in a manner that is consistent with the rules of this forum. The Tavern's choice at this point is to put in the time and effort to regain that trust, or to just let the group die. Honestly, the latter seems like pure laziness. The OP says "Man up, and grow a pair." I concur.

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Originally Posted by Subotan

You honestly expected Meth to be a good moderator? :dizzy2:

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Some people grow with their task...

I don't really see the point of this debate, for one, we've already had it and the only seemingly new point, that only adults went there, is pretty moot because anyone could read it and there are enough children who claim to be older.
If you have a problem with authority, then you can either go to a freer place or work on yourself, but here we respect the authority and I've only seen very few if any actions of the mods that seemed wrong to me.
That said, I hope Lemur will eat the Tavern alive, I've always thought of him as a terribly frightening guy on a powertrip. :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

Oh and by the way, the Tavern wasn't closed, only the backroom was closed over the holidays.

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Originally Posted by Subotan

There was a lot of cool stuff in there as well. A lot more.

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Maybe. But there was a lot of filth and in all honesty: it wasn't possible for us to read each and every single message.

We have to keep this place clean, so push delete was the only option :shrug:

It was not reasonable to expect us to read all that in order to "save the good stuff". You guys had your EB Tavern, you had the possibilities to keep it within the rules (you could have asked a fellow taverner to edit out some bad content, you could have contacted a moderator, you could have reported all bad messages, etc.).

Now you have a new, clean, EB Tavern. Grab your chance. There's also a whole .Org forum. I know some of you enjoy the BR, the Frontroom, the Monastery and/or the Gameroom. You're more than welcome there. You could repeat your tank discussion in the Monastery for example. You'll probably meet some interesting Orgah's you've never met before.

.Org staff doesn't hold grudges. The past is the past, water under the bridge. Make a fresh start. I'm pretty confident that most of you are fine .Org members if only you would just follow our boring rules ~;)

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Originally Posted by Subotan

You honestly expected Meth to be a good moderator? :dizzy2:
Btw, I posted my wilingness to be the mod on numerous occasions.

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A long period of no rule violations in the EB Tavern might result in Tosa leaving the group leader spot open for one of you guys.

As I said: look at this as a fresh start. Things can change. Nothing lasts forever.

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Originally Posted by Subotan

Not true. Activity has massively declined since before the "coup". The poor little guy is on life support.

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It has never been forbidden to be active in your social group. You can have a lot of activity while staying within the rules. Or you could come out and discover the rest of our community.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Subotan

I think there is confusion as to what actually constitutes a ban. From our point of view, a 3 day ban is a ban.

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Maybe it's because I'm old and wrinkled, but 3 days is not thát long.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Subotan

The main problem as I see it is that we were not informed about what was going to happen. E.g. The Tavern was deleted. There was no explanation as to why. Likewise, when you took over moderation of the tavern, we were not even notified. Although you might not have meant this, it gave the impression that we weren't worth an explation, hence the outbursts.

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Deleting the place was the only real option :shrug:

We have to keep this place clean and in accordance with our rules.

Explanations have been given already.

I don't want to sound harsh or rude, but the original social group will remain deleted and the actions taken will not be reversed. The explanations that have been given will have to do.

We have a warm, welcoming and very forgiving community. You know we love you.

Time to man up and grow a pair, indeed.

I'm sure you can do it ~:pat:

:bow:

Okay, minor apology. I posted this comment as a copy of one I posted a while back in the tavern, and I was failry stressed when I originally posted it, so sorry for any ad hominem attacks.. But let's set some things straight.

Tosa, the reason why I wasn't moderating, was because I was banned. You know as well as anyone that nominating Meth could only have one result, so why did you do nominate him?

Another thing:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TosaInu

Administrators are given more rights by a script than normal members.

...

Normal members have to hack your account to do that (they risk perma banning when caught, 100/100 now). But for administrators it's a very simple job.

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Having powers does not make them rights. Saying that an Admin compromising a members account is fine, but if a member does it to another member they are permab& looks, from some angles, to have a slightest tint of hipocricy. Saying what you do is right because you can does not follow. And using those powers, regardless of their 'righteousness', to remove someone who was only going to be a placeholder anyway (I made it clear in my first post (Thanks for deleting that by the way, it was annoying how something that broke no forum rules should have no action taken against it /sarcasm) that I was only a temporary barkeep until Appo came back.), so why removing me and give it to Meth, who any idiot (myself included) could tell you was the least the tavern needed (no offence meth) at that point, is quite beyond, well, everybody.

The reason I was banned was, as I explained when i deleted your post, because you were being deliberately irritating. We were fully aware that we needed to follow the rules, which we were doing, so posting that had no reason other than to annoy us.

The fact of the matter is, and here I am anwering god-knows-how-many mods, the Tavern was not some cess pit of disgusting pr0n (afaik, we didn't actually have any pictures AT ALL with women in any regard, except once, and Appo deleted that within the week), warez (none whatsoever), gore (again, none), flame wars (only a few, and these were all dealt with privately), and whilst there was swearing, the amounts decreased dramatically after we were warned, and several posts were moderated by Appo.(congratulations on reading that sentance in one go, it was a long one).
What you are doing, is pure misrepresentation.

And as regards the 9mm thing, pah-LEASE.

Hmmmmmm...I'm having a hard time deciding if this will go in my top 5 .Org dramas. For me PictureGate/Bansick and ShambleS/JustAGirl are top 2 but other than that the field is wide open.

The fact Frags was completley slandered for no reason gives it a nice touch IMO.

I will continue following this with interest.

Quote:

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Having powers does not make them rights. Saying that an Admin compromising a members account is fine, but if a member does it to another member they are permab& looks, from some angles, to have a slightest tint of hipocricy. Saying what you do is right because you can does not follow.

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Protip: he owns the forum. He pays for your EB Tavern. He can do with it whatever he damn well pleases. Welcome to the Internet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Che Roriniho

Okay, minor apology. I posted this comment as a copy of one I posted a while back in the tavern, and I was failry stressed when I originally posted it, so sorry for any ad hominem attacks.. But let's set some things straight.

Tosa, the reason why I wasn't moderating, was because I was banned.

---

One hour told me enough in this case.

Quote:

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You know as well as anyone that nominating Meth could only have one result, so why did you do nominate him?

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Give it a chance? Just like the whole social group is given another chance? Maybe I know nothing and I should ask anyone what to do? Delete the social group Tavern for good? 50 calls are enough to convince me (I initially said 10, but 50 gives your more chance to survive).

Quote:

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Another thing:

Having powers does not make them rights. Saying that an Admin compromising a members account is fine, but if a member does it to another member they are permab& looks, from some angles, to have a slightest tint of hipocricy.

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I don't say it's right. The point is that administrators (with any software) can do different things than a normal member. I don't have to hack your account to revoke social group leadership.

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The reason I was banned was, as I explained when i deleted your post, because you were being deliberately irritating.

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Deliberately irritating.. yes I'm bored here. Nothing to do.

Quote:

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We were fully aware that we needed to follow the rules, which we were doing, so posting that had no reason other than to annoy us.

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If only that was true, then I would never have to do anything and there would be no need for moderators.

But seriously; 50 people. I need advice please. Close the group or leave it open?

What about leaving it open?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Strike For The South

Hmmmmmm...I'm having a hard time deciding if this will go in my top 5 .Org dramas. For me PictureGate/Bansick and ShambleS/JustAGirl are top 2 but other than that the field is wide open.

---

Does the Pever Rebellion make it into that list?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

Does the Pever Rebellion make it into that list?

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It's n°1 on my list of most annoying mafia player behaviour :mean:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

~;p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Che Roriniho

The fact of the matter is, and here I am anwering god-knows-how-many mods, the Tavern was not some cess pit of disgusting pr0n (afaik, we didn't actually have any pictures AT ALL with women in any regard, except once, and Appo deleted that within the week), warez (none whatsoever), gore (again, none), flame wars (only a few, and these were all dealt with privately), and whilst there was swearing, the amounts decreased dramatically after we were warned, and several posts were moderated by Appo.(congratulations on reading that sentance in one go, it was a long one).
What you are doing, is pure misrepresentation.

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When the Moderators finally took a good look at the Tavern on December 17th, 60 separate rule violations were found in about 2 hours. That included cartoon pornography and a video of a cat being burned alive, with the majority of the rest being swearing, racism, and personal attacks. That was barely scratching the surface of the group as well, no one bothered digging deeper when it became apparent that the entire 10,000 posts would be consistent with the first couple hundred.

You Tavernites were clearly aware that what you were doing violated Org rules as well, as is apparent from a post made by Meth shortly after the Tavern was deleted:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Megas Methuselah

What isn't to be expected, though, is the fact that I wasn't banned after all my countless violations of forum rules in the first tavern's social group. I guess Tosa just grimaced at it all and mercifully looked the other way.

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If Meth was aware that his posts in the social group violated Org rules, I expect that the rest of you were as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Che Roriniho

The fact of the matter is, and here I am anwering god-knows-how-many mods, the Tavern was not some cess pit of disgusting pr0n (afaik, we didn't actually have any pictures AT ALL with women in any regard, except once, and Appo deleted that within the week), warez (none whatsoever), gore (again, none), flame wars (only a few, and these were all dealt with privately), and whilst there was swearing, the amounts decreased dramatically after we were warned, and several posts were moderated by Appo.(congratulations on reading that sentance in one go, it was a long one).
What you are doing, is pure misrepresentation.

---

Actually, those were examples I (a standard member) posted of things not allowed on the Org. The highlighted bit is the crux of the issue. Rules were being broken and not corrected, it took a general warning that the parents were listening in to alert the Tavern members, and yet the rules continued to be broken (albeit to a lesser extent).

If I swear in the Frontroom, I expect to get points. Sounds to me like some of the Taverners got off easy, since the content took the punishment instead of the accounts. If the Tavern is to survive, it will probably require an outsider (and I am not volunteering!) to moderate it. It could be a punishment job, just like the Backroom. ~D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Che Roriniho

And as regards the 9mm thing, pah-LEASE.

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I know it's sarcasm. But it's addition in the post does not help your cause at all, and makes the whole argument look ridiculous. If you are trying to make a serious case and then tack stuff like that on the end, why bother posting it at all?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TinCow

That included cartoon pornography and a video of a cat being burned alive

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I will accept the Swearing, but this is just plain LYING.

At least the cat post I definitely remember. Perhaps you should ask the other Taverners - I am pretty sure that you will find somebody who actually has the guts to admit that it was posted and that it was out of line.

Accusing others oy lying is pretty poor style.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Che Roriniho

I will accept the Swearing, but this is just plain LYING.

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You're right, it was not a cat. It was a kitten. The fire was lit with a zippo. Do I need to give more details or has your memory been refreshed enough already?

EDIT: I'm starting to wonder why I even bothered to make a long reply to your famous "letter" :thumbsdown:

Get your facts right before accusing people of being liars.

And thnx for making us look at that, btw. Very nice and friendly. You wanted reasons for deleting the EB Tavern? There you go. I'm all for being diplomatic and hiding your dirty laundry, but if you're going to play the "you're lying game" then I'll stop being nice and friendly in my rebuttals.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Strike For The South

The fact Frags was completley slandered for no reason gives it a nice touch IMO.

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Haha, I know, eh? Poor moonyash.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Che Roriniho

I will accept the Swearing, but this is just plain LYING.

---

I went back and checked and apparently the pornography was in a Taverner visitor message, not in the social group itself, so my apologies for that.

The video of the cat was most certainly posted in the Tavern though. It was posted in the thread "Official EB Tavern Photo Album."

There's a concept at TWC called probation, where, instead of permabans (which are essentially limited to porn posters and bots), especially egregious offenders would be put on the list, as an extra incentive to abide by the rules. Rather than the regular points system with its graded list of penalties graduating towards longer suspension times, any infraction by a probationee would, at the moderator's discretion, result in a suspension of discretionary length (until recently, a minimum of a month and no set maximum). Probationees are periodically discussed by staff on whether or not they should be taken off the list and revert to the normal system. Perhaps this might concentrate minds a bit?

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Originally Posted by Fixiwee

It has been argued one too many time. But please think about it. It is true, you are just moderating. And that is the problem. You don't treat us like human beings, you delete, you ban, you kick people out of the tavern, you exclude. This is not very subtle.
And then you shouldn't wonder why certain people are angry and frustrated. You don't even try to work out the problems between the tavern and the moderation (except for Andres, whos post in the tavern was more then impressive). I wish it was more diplomacy and less "just pull the trigger".

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Yes, because God forbid your group be treated like everyone else on the forums.

This whining is inane. Anyone who did what your group did in any other section of the forum wouldn't be coming back very quickly. That group got off lightly. The .Org has rules. Everyone else has to follow them, and your group should do so as well. They haven't, and that is why the problem came about. That's really all there is to it.

A MEMBER IS ENTITLED TO HIS RIGHT TO SAY ANYTHING HE WANTS

Che, shut up. Honest to god, why don't you just leave? You barely visit anymore, besides to create trouble for the rest of us who aren't wildly insulting everyone that we disagree with. I was peeved when the tavern was suddenly deleted, and peeved with the watchtower threads which alternated between comparisons of the tavern with 4chan, and comments like "THE MODS ARE NAZIS". Now that is gone, and I am in the least bit peeved. There is nothing to argue. While I do wish to clarify things, I won't even try because it doesn't bring anything new to this rotting horse. I tolerated you, Che, as I tolerated anyone else that I dislike. I avoided just telling you to gtfo because it would be rude. You'll see it as traitorous. I don't give a damn, because this isn't a political entity. You have the personality of a revolutionary, but you're trying to overthrow an internet forum, which is the most absurd thing I have ever heard of. Novaya comrade.

Well, if tavern will be left still opened, but the taverners didn't want to get their group moderated by an admin / mod, then they should appoint an willing outsider, to take charge as the moderators of the taverners. Who have enough guts to delete anything violate the forum rules....

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Originally Posted by TosaInu

Deliberately irritating.. yes I'm bored here. Nothing to do.

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I certainly lol'ed. :laugh4:


As for the poll, Tosa: "Should you close the group or leave it open"- If you were going to poll, just ask the moderators. The rest of us don't spend our free time moderating the forums, so it's not our place to say how this forum gets moderated. And that's if you take a poll. I'm sure the green gods have already weighed in on the matter, and in the end the decision is yours.

As for the overall drama, I don't see where it comes from. The .org is not our house, it belongs to someone else and they make the rules. There's no free speech here. However, this is a place where you can apparently post accusatory things, even insulting things, toward the mods and even the Admin, and not get tossed out in the cold forever immediately. I think that's amazing, and shows the tolerance involved on the part of these apparent "Hitler" wannabes (also lol'ed). The amount of freedom given here is also amazing, and the fact that there are warning points, and temporary bans, show you that these people are willing to let you back in even after repeatedly breaking the rules.

When a social group is full of rule breaks, I'm impressed that the mods do you the courtesy of sitting here and listening to the grievances and explain their position on why the place was deleted. They certainly have other things on their plate, such as the forum upgrade and moderating everyone's posts, in their free time. If this really were such a bad place, I'm not sure why we all would keep voluntarily coming back. If it were about intentionally irritating or annoying people, I'm not sure why they would allow a second or third tavern, or give warnings before deletion. I understand being upset but the facts don't meet the narrative it seems.

:2cents:

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Originally Posted by TinCow

The video of the cat was most certainly posted in the Tavern though. It was posted in the thread "Official EB Tavern Photo Album."

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What cat video? First someone says there was a reference to a cat burning, then it is picture of a cat burning, then it is a video, then it was done numerous times and then, I even heard some say I burned the cat myself... :dizzy2: I mean, who cares about accuracy when you can just throw around accusations to pad one's arguments?

I have noticed that mods like to do what seems to me like dredging through 10,000 posts and finding two-three worst things we ever did - even though those much of that is inaccurate - I have never seen porn in the Tavern, and only once some newbie with less than 30 posts came into the Tavern (it was a public group) and posted a cartoon picture of a woman with bared breasts. That created an outcry among us Taverners, and someone deleted it after it was reported numerous times (either Tosa or Appo). Anyhow, armed with those two-three things, the mods go out and post things casually suggesting that those two things they managed to find after all that digging are stuff of the line for us...

So take the cat for instance. Yes, I did post it. I also posted a warning and a condemnation of the fellow who did it, because I can hardly find a more heinous and repulsive crime. Even a murder of an adult human seems less upsetting, as humans are not innocent, nor are the defenceless as an animal the likes of a cat is. Additionally, there was no picture. It was a link. One could click on the link if he wished to. As I said, there was a warning, and one had no reason to click unless the really wanted to. If this was not enough, I did not receive any complaints about the picture. If I did, I would have taken it down.

And hell, even if I was not cooperative, what is a dead animal, to take this from a different perspective? This is not a community of vegans. We all have the blood of animals on our hands. No need to claim that animal raising, processing, and killing is humane, either, because it is often not, but rather very cruel. Does the difference in the motive change so much in the picture? Finally, even if the picture is cruel, still, I do not see how it goes against .Org rules, as it does not seem to fit under any of the categories, especially since plenty other offensive stuff is posted here, and as long as it contains proper warnings, it is OK. I have done everything to ensure the picture was posted in the most fitting manner, so I do not see why the commotion.

Deletion of the Tavern stuck me as rather, well, not entirely fitting. Take this for instance - it technically does not matter to the Taverners if the Tavern is locked forever on .Org or not. We can always go to some other site, take peever's offer, or go to our TWC backup. There are a lot of choices. We can talk anywhere. The real problem is that the value of the Tavern is not so much consisting of its location, but rather its content. That is what matters, and it is gone. We are mostly a group of teens, and our conversations may not have fully fit the standards of .Org, as an udnerstatement. I do not see anything surprising in this, and neither should the mods - who act as if we spoke of child rape there, and broke the rules there just for the hell of it - which makes no sense whatsoever. Apparently the mods forgot they were teens aeons ago (:tongue:) and that their conversations were not exactly clean either... Really, you do realise that teen conversations are not exactly PG-rated? I say PG, because PG-13 includes a fair amount of profanity and violence - and since the mods claim to use the US system, I will use this against them. So far, save for maybe two or three instances (could be even less, could be more - I am speaking figuratively here), the EB Tavern was PG-13.

And speaking of child rape and pornography, I remember the Babe thread facing the same controversies. Numerous times. In fact, I am given to understand 'accidental' postings revealing inappropriate areas are relatively common in the Babe thread. Oh, and more ominously, I recollect an incident pertaining to child pornography. Now, if you can name anything more despicable, I would be impressed. And the Babe thread does not just feature links, it has the pictures right on the thread... My, my... Yet the worst I saw happen to the Babe thread was a lock. IMHO, that is what the Tavern should have gotten. The mods could have locked it, until some consensus could be reached. You could have punished us this way too, by keeping it locked.

The Tavern is so valuable to us because it has all those conversations, all those moments, and not merely because that is where we can chat. As I said, there are other places where we can do that. You say we had violations. So did the Babe thread, and it was patrolled by teams of mods, and it still managed to shock .Org every so often. But the Babe thread was not deleted. EB Tavern was. Just think what outcry the deletion of the babe thread would raise, and I do not even see a good reason why that should be so, since the pictures of famous female models are hardly unique, as opposed to our conversations...

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Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy

As for the poll, Tosa: "Should you close the group or leave it open"- If you were going to poll, just ask the moderators. The rest of us don't spend our free time moderating the forums, so it's not our place to say how this forum gets moderated.

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:bow: