Banstick is ready.

[Quietus]

This thread has become politically polarised. :::escapes through the garbage chute:::

[Gawain of Orkeny]

This thread has become politically polarised. :::escapes through the garbage chute:::

Unfortunatly we all know on what political side the powers to be here come down on. However I must say that at least 99% of the time they are fair. I doubt I could do as good a job.

[Kaiser of Arabia]

I had no problem with Solys or Prols post. Whats your problem? I did have a problem with what he said to Kaiser though. And also for warning Prol.



First off what gives you the idea I dont like Soly? Because I dissagree with him on many matters? Hey I dissagree with you on almost everything other than Isreal but I have nothing but admiration for you most of the time. Oh wai I forgot you like Soly but not DD and Prol. Again your being extremely hypocritical here.

Exactly.

Goofball, you're a good guy, but I don't see why you're being hypocritical in this case. You say we supported our member when he did the retard joke, but it's bad when Soly does it. Well, I never saw DevDave's comment (as far back as I remember, anyway), and I certainly wouldn't have [vocally] supported it. However, Soly is a moderator. He should be above it, especially when he uses it to call other patrons retarted.

What about what he said to me? Was that alright? Because what I said wasn't false, first of all, and second of all, I've never been banned from a forum for my political beleifs. Soly said I deserved to be banned for that, then I guess DA should be banned for some of the things he's said. Or how about banning Navaros, he's said worse than I have. In fact, lets get Panzer, JAG, Gawain, Dave, Pindar, Don, Prol, you, Adrian, RedHarvest, Martyr, and Redleg while we're at it! We can't let the chance of anything "false" to spread, can we?

It was just Soly with a Stalinistic expression of power. That's all. And I find it unacceptable.

[Papewaio]

Watchtower. Try and come up with constructive ways we can improve the Org.

If you need to vent do so.

But try and not mix and match solutions with emotions.

=== EDIT +++

And try and minimise hyperbole.

Stick to the point, express your feelings and be realistic.

This is the place to get the Org improved, so put on your best suit and say where you would like to take the Org. Focus on what you would like it to be. Practice it in your watchroom statements and maybe it will propagate through the Org.

[Strike For The South]

I think we all need to chill. Lets just take a deep breath and realize we are here for fun no one wakes up in the morning logs on and thinks "The insert hated orgnaztion here will die due to my superior itellect". Was Prole's warning justified, I dont know. Should Soly be moderator, I dont know. One of the reasons I decided to join the ORG was becuase in other fourms (ones that I lurked at and shall remain nameles.) People held real honest to god dislike for each other sometimes posting just to take a shot at same avatar on a monitor. I really do not want that to happen here and I dont think any of you do ethier. So mods close this thread buy us all round and lets make up

[Divinus Arma]

HERE IS SOMETHING TO LIGHTEN THE MOOD.

"ORG WARS"



C3GofO
Devastation Solo
Panzerbaca

MORE TO COME

[Strike For The South]

LMAO

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Dude - can you make me a sig?

[Divinus Arma]

Color Test

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Something I came up with, with just about no reason.

[Reverend Joe]

Not a fan of Star Wars myself.

Not sure what would pique my interest... maybe... Easy Rider? Apocalypse Now?

[Divinus Arma]

Something I came up with, with just about no reason.

I like that. Let's cut around him and clean it up. I am going to steal it and add it to my collection (giving you credit of course . Nice pick!

Where did you find the guy at? (the star wars photo)

[Reverend Joe]

A little something of my own:



Divinius Hopper.

"The man, he's... enlarged my mind... y'know, he's a great man, I'm a small man- I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across floors of, ah- silent seas-"

Edited: cleaner picture.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I like that. Let's cut around him and clean it up. I am going to steal it and add it to my collection (giving you credit of course . Nice pick!

Where did you find the guy at? (the star wars photo)

I just Google image searched "Admiral Ackbar," I think.

And you have my permission to steal it (since I'm getting credit) and improve upon it's 20-minuteness.

[Divinus Arma]

A little something of my own:



Divinius Hopper.

"The man, he's... enlarged my mind... y'know, he's a great man, I'm a small man- I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across floors of, ah- silent seas-"

hahahahaha LOLOLOL!!!

SWEET! I love that flick!

I once watched a snail crawl on the edge of a razor blade....

[Divinus Arma]

I just love we hijacked this thread and turned into something truly productive!

After all, everyone is done making nice. Darth Soly used a Jedi Mind trick.

Solypsist must be destroyed.

You will apologize in the backroom and grovel upon thy knees in front of Emperor TosaInu.

Yesssss. My Young Apprenticccccce. You will join us. Oh, and I am afraid that your friends will die.

I'll never join you! Never! Solypsist, there is good in you, I feel it!

Join me, and together, we will rule the backroom! Now grovel!

YES MASTER!!!

YES MASTER!!!

Who's your daddy?

FATHER!!!!!

Retards!

Cue Soly Vader midi death march.

[Strike For The South]

someone is having to much fun

[Reverend Joe]

I'm actually rather concerned about Divinius. On the other hand, I am rather happy that he has had a sort of Henry Milleresque release, though I can't really figure out how or why.

[Divinus Arma]

Included Admiral Corleone Akhbar. COURTESY OF ATPG of course.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Proletariat
Solypsist must be destroyed.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Solypsist
You will apologize in the backroom and grovel upon thy knees in front of Emperor TosaInu.



Quote:
Originally Posted by TosaInu
Yesssss. My Young Apprenticccccce. You will join us. Oh, and I am afraid that your friends will die.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Proletariat
I'll never join you! Never! Solypsist, there is good in you, I feel it!



Quote:
Originally Posted by Solypsist
Join me, and together, we will rule the backroom! Now grovel!



Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Corleone
YES MASTER!!!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Proletariat
YES MASTER!!!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Solypsist
Who's your daddy?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Proletariat and Don Corleone
FATHER!!!!!



Quote:
Originally Posted by Solypsist
Retards!

Ive never laughed so hard hwere. There were tears coming from my eyes.

[Crazed Rabbit]

In fact, lets get Panzer, JAG, Gawain, Dave, Pindar, Don, Prol, you, Adrian, RedHarvest, Martyr, and Redleg while we're at it!

Excellent. Everything's going exactly according to the plan.


Crazed Rabbit

[Divinus Arma]

I really went a little overboard on this thread didn't I?

Oh well. Now I have a cool new sig for my efforts.

[Quietus]

I really went a little overboard on this thread didn't I?

Not really, only your sig is ~14.2x over the 10kb limit.

[Ja'chyra]

Watchtower. Try and come up with constructive ways we can improve the Org.

If you need to vent do so.

But try and not mix and match solutions with emotions.

=== EDIT +++

And try and minimise hyperbole.

Stick to the point, express your feelings and be realistic.

This is the place to get the Org improved, so put on your best suit and say where you would like to take the Org. Focus on what you would like it to be. Practice it in your watchroom statements and maybe it will propagate through the Org.

Fair enough, I think it would be an improvement if people weren't given warnings for reporting posts or criticising mods.

Can somone answer if Prole will have her ban removed?

[Navaros]

I just read this entire thread.

I don't pay much attention to soly's modding hence I had no opinion at all before reading this thread. Unless I have very oddly misunderstood something:

soly indirectly called all the Org patrons who argue in the Backroom retarded.

Proletariat then pointed out how un-classy it is for a mod to do that.

soly then issued an illegitmate warning against Proletariat for pointing out his own misconduct in the same thread where he committed it.

Clearly, that is a blatant abuse of power on the part of soly. And not only that, but also a slur by soly against the mentally challenged community.

The responses from the Mods/members in this thread so far seems to be:

1. "Calling people retarded is funny, and "the good old boys" who were around here over 5 years ago used to do it all the time. Therefore, it's perfectly fine for soly to do it today." --- I am sure that the best mods here would not be able agree with that response, and will be most fascinated to see their responses to it posted here. I wonder why they have not yet posted here.

2. "This is a witchhunt." ---- Well no, it's not. The word "witchhunt" implies that someone is being negatively targetted for an illegitimate reason. Which is very clearly not the case here. The legitimacy for soly being targetted is abundantly clear in black and white for all to see. It cannot be reasonably disputed. Hence to call this a "witchhunt" is to unfairly slander the legitimate criticism which soly is receiving for this.

It seems to me that sometimes the bosses around here do not always exercise the best possible choice in making a Mod. Maybe I just have been so spoiled by the immaculate modding of certain Mods on this site that when a "normal" Mod who is prone to bias, error, and abuse of power gets appointed, then it no longer seems tolerable after having become accustomed to the ultimate Mods.

My suggestion on how to improve the Org: only give "new" Mod jobs to the exact same "old" Mods who everyone already likes and who have modded those areas before.

[Ser Clegane]

2. "This is a witchhunt." ---- Well no, it's not. The word "witchhunt" implies that someone is being negatively targetted for an illegitimate reason. Which is very clearly not the case here. The legitimacy for soly being targetted is abundantly clear in black and white for all to see. It cannot be reasonably disputed. Hence to call this a "witchhunt" is to unfairly slander the legitimate criticism which soly is receiving for this.

Well you are quite wrong here, Navaros - this has been called a "witchhunt" because Soly has indeed been - as you correctly put it - "negatively targetted for an illegitimate reason" or to be precise he has been accused of (ab)using his moderator position to push his partial politics and/or to close threads he politically disagrees with.
These accusations came up before anybody had actually been warned and when only one thread had been closed (and according to some people the topic of the thread would actually have been in line with Soly's alleged political agenda ... go figure).
It seems your definition for "witchhunt" has been met precisely.

[English assassin]

soly indirectly called all the Org patrons who argue in the Backroom retarded

Well, if he did he's got a point....oops.

This has all got rather out of proportion. For what its worth I too didn't pick up from Soly's description of the clip he linked that it wasn't genuine, ("not equitable" meaning "not fair" rather than "not equivalent (to journalism) but then as I didn't click the link I probably denied myself a pretty big clue.

That then lead to the joke that meant, in effect, anyone who didn't understand the clip wasn't real was retarded. A slightly aggressive response but not out of the ordinary in the Backroom. Inconsistent with the new regime of courtesy which we are promised, but let it ride.

I hadn't heard the special olympics comment before, personally I thought it was quite funny, and obviously also potentially offensive. It had the old internet/e mail problem of anonymity/lack of context. Maybe a member has a younger brother with severe learning difficulties whose one pleasure in life is swimming, or whatever? That member would probably be quite upset by a joke whose punchline is "yeah, but he's still a retard".

Compare, for instance, the Ricky Gervaise joke about how if you are an athlete you should always try to compete in the special olympics because, wherever you finish, "everyone's a winner". That I think is gently affectionate of disabled sport whereas the first joke is dismissive.

Anyway, where things clearly went wrong was a mod modding criticism of his onw behaviour. All we need is a rule that henceforth such modding must be done by a different mod and we can all go forward rejoicing and no more need be said.

What's especially unfortunate is that Prole rarely if ever oversteps the bounds of courtesy, so if brickbats are going to start flying they do really need to be better aimed.

[King Henry V]

DA, that is a brilliant sig you have there! Can I be the Emperor?

[Productivity]

In response to the original issue, while the message of closure was clumsy, it was innocuous enough in terms of internet usage and I think it's a non-event.



In response to solypsist's comment about the special olympics, in my view it was well out of line. I have a disability. In the hierarchy of disabilities it's not that bad, but it still is one. I have very underdeveloped coordination (both micro and macro) - tests put me somewhere at a level between the average seven and nine year old. Much better than a mental dissability, but it is frustrating, and it impacts my day to day life. Basically anything that requires complex movements I have extreme difficulty with - I have to give myself 5-10 minutes to tie my shoe laces, my handwriting is near illegible etc. It's enough that I can basically exclude half the average jobs around, anything which can't be done pretty much exclusively at a computer or in conversation is an issue for me (ie. I will never be doing a practical job).

I've heard the special olympics joke often enough, in fact I've been the target of it enough times as well. It's not nice, in fact it can be pretty hurtful at times. I suppose everyone deals with it differently, but my response is to build up a wall to people who have those views - certainly if it is the modus operandi of the staff of www.totalwar.org, then I won't be coming back. If people think the comment is not that much, then consider this one (hypothetical situation) "what's better than winning a medal in the black olympics? being white". Would that be offensive? If you say yes, but don't think the dissability comment is offensive what is the difference? Is it ok to pick on those with dissabilities because they are a smaller number, and for the most can't fight back whatsoever?



As to the comment that it used to be like that, well places move on. To me it seems that trying to bring in an "old school" moderator, in an attempt to bring back the old feel seems the height of top down arrogance. If people want it to go back to the old days when moderators had retard jokes in their signatures then show me where the support for it is. If the staff wants it to move back to that, then that's it's choice - but the consequences will stand - you've allready driven off at least one poster from the backroom, and until I see some kind of official policy direction from either barocca or Tosa, I'm feeling very uncomfortable going in their myself and judging from other reactions at least a few others are feeling very edgy.



The final issue being a moderator issuing a warning for someone reporting the moderators post. In my view this is completely out of line - from where I stand my view of the moderators role is to act as an impartial judge, someone who can make a decision without being tendentious. This does not require them to completely step back from engaging in debate, it is both not necessary, and to require one to do so would be utter folly. However, I struggle to believe that any moderator can impartially judge if their own post is out of line. Unless the decision was made by some consensus of staff and solypsist was nominated to be the messenger (which is hardly a sound decision to make on the part of the staff to use solyspist as the messenger due to his own involvement), then it does seem to me that solyspist has overstepped his role of moderator.

As far as I can tell the post alert system is to be used to inform a moderator that their is a potential for difficulty with a post. Proletariat, although probably making this alert somewhat dry and acidic (which seems to be something of her style), to me appears only to be using this function in the way it is meant to be used. I personally would have reported the post if I had seen it before I knew it was allready reported, because as previously detailed I think it is well out of line - however solypsists behaviour seems to indicate that he has taken a view that he can do no wrong, and criticism of him is not to be allowed. To me this is ridiculous, and goes completely against the ideal of a somewhat open discussion forum.



Having made my view, here are some questions.

1. Are 'retard' jokes acceptable on this forum?
2. What is the broad general direction you want to see the forums, in particular the backroom, heading in the future?
3. Are we allowed to report the posts of a moderator?

[Papewaio]

1. dgb apologies for any offence, btw do you make any sheep jokes about kiwis?
2. good in depth discussion that disects the issue at hand with a good dollop of humour.
3. yes, but I will smite thee back with a village people ensemble.