Please post the forum rules. To start with..

[fyrephlie]

ferno: you and kb both didn't get what i was saying. my point in saying that i don't care if my donation went to an offshore account is that i don't care. i donated to what i think is a great forum, in the hopes of it going faster. it's going faster. so i don't care if that if my money went to fund your meth habit or bought bunt cake at a church rally. i just want a solid server to post on.

Why did you bring 'meth habit' into this?

why did i bring bundt cakes into this?

behind the back discussions. ferno... do you ever talk to md outside the dbb?

do you speak to other people outside the dbb? If so, it effectively negates this argument.

let me help you with this:

also your remark about 'behind the back' discussions; the Feedback forum is viewable to ALL DBB patrons. So how can it be 'behind the back' when everyone can see it? It's not like you have to be in a special usergroup or something, ala NHB.

so... what i am saying, since you didn't get it, is that i am not talking about our discussion in this forum as being 'behind the back', but the discussions you and the other mods, users, and general public may have that are not public via private message, email, carrier pigeon or smoke signals are 'behind the back, as in 'not in front of me and the other general public'.

sorry if you have so much trouble understanding me ferno, i appreciate the continued attempts to blame your lack of cognitive ability on my writing habits. before you respond to something, read it, think about it, then type something.

another personal attack.

instead you throw together a poorly written statement and then blame others for not understanding.

another personal attack.


really though, i like your ideas of poorly written.

actually, i never got any bad marks in english, believe it or not. as i have said before, until someone here starts paying me, i am not going to try all that hard.

Dodging the question.

what, this question?

Would you take the same stance with an english teacher? Write an essay or piece, get a bad mark and then throw a fit, blaming the teacher?

no, i answered that with the personal attack, remember? i said that perhaps it wasn't my fault you couldn't understand what i was saying.

as to your being angry, i don't want your anger, i want your attention, but all i am getting is negative attention. i don't know why i would expect anything less.

Are you having trouble understanding what I wrote? I said it before, and I'll say it again. I'm not angry. I don't need to get angry. It doesn't help anything.

no, i read right here that you said you weren't angry. and i said: As to your being angry....

i didn't say you were, i responed to the subject you presented. since you are having a lot of trouble following subject matter, i will go back to the old stand by method of 'quote festing'

[Krom]

the nazi comment was meant to be more humerous than it was taken, i actually think krom got that too

Understood it? Yes.

Thought it was funny? No.

Why not? Tact. While I did post a \"Evil Nazi Moderators Official Stamp of Disapproval\" when I closed that one thread in the Tech Forum, I highly doubt anyone would strongly disagree with the closing of that thread, it was totally obvious, so it is a \"safe\" thread to use an image like that in.

Sometimes when I think there is a risk of someone taking a joke the wrong way, I add in an excess amount of winks and other hints so they should not take things the wrong way. And in some threads even when I think up some insulting joke that I think is brilliant, I won't post it because there are times when it is a plain bad idea.

[Ferno]

no, i read right here that you said you weren't angry. and i said: As to your being angry....

i didn't say you were

as to your being angry, i don't want your anger

accuse me of being angry, and then backtrack when i call you on it. nice.

no, i answered that with the personal attack, remember? i said that perhaps it wasn't my fault you couldn't understand what i was saying.

so you WOULD blame the teacher.

you keep bringing up the same point where 'i don't get it' ad nauseum. but it looks like the truth has come out. It also looks like we've found out tho really is 'unreasonable' in all this.

if you want to continue this discussion you might want to get new material.

[Lothar]

seeing flips public response: why should anyone here speak differently in public than in private.

1) he would be answering a different request: "please reopen the thread" vs "please tell me your definition of pointless".

2) he would be answering a less hostile / confrontational / mean question, provided you worded your request in a civil way.

3) He has the option of taking some time to think about it and ask questions without feeling like he has to act quickly before things boil over. Public confrontations tend to lead to overreactions.

Overall, it's pretty obvious flip's reaction could have been far different if someone sent him a PM that said "please reopen the thread, I think it was interesting" rather than what actually happened.

saving face: the term was presented by kb near the outset of the thread, and it really is what we are talking about when talking about going private

I'd missed that KB had spoken of that. I still disagree that it's "what we are talking about"... it may be a small piece of what we're talking about for some moderators, but it wasn't what I was talking about (before KB's post); it's only a small part of one of the issues. I'll talk "saving face" here for a moment, but I'll bring up the other issues too.

You said early on you don't see any reason to help an overbearing moderator 'save face'. Have you considered what an arse that makes you sound like? "No, I'm not going to give you the opportunity to settle this peacefully. I've already decided you're overbearing so I'm going to make sure you can't save face. You made a mistake so now you pay." This is the hostile attitude I have a problem with. It's OK that you disagree with certain policies, and it's OK that you think the thread should have been reopened (I did too!), but it's lame that you decided it just had to lead to a nasty public confrontation.

Reason #1 for sending PM's: it shows that you're looking for a peaceful resolution. It shows you're more interested in solving the actual dispute than in making a public scene, having a fight, "putting him in his place", hurting his credibility, etc. "Saving face" might come into play here sometimes, but even if a mod has no reason or desire to save face, most prefer peaceful resolution to pointless fighting.

Reason #2: it allows the moderator time to think without as much pressure. The moment you go public, you create a sort of time bomb the mod feels like he has to diffuse, and you're likely to make him act without thinking things through. (This is *especially* true of new mods.) Making a public complaint forces the issue, and it tends to compound mistakes.

Reason #3: it's respectful to all of us. It's respectful to the person you disagree with because it lets them work things out with you personally, and it's respectful to the rest of us because it doesn't involve us in unnecessary drama -- it respects our time.

Reason #4: in my experience, it just plain works better.

The moderators are here to do a job. That job is to promote the flow of the topics at hand, NOT to judge the content. Personal attacks, inapropriate content like porn or warez, racism, gross derailment of a serious thread, fine. Moderate it. But don't second guess the members by choosing what they can or can't discuss.

It's perfectly reasonable to judge content as appropriate or not appropriate for a given forum. That's why we have over 20 different forums -- not all content goes in the same place. If you post about politics in the Cafe, the mod *should* judge it as inappropriate and send it to E&C; if you post a request for a level to be hosted in E&C, the mod *should* judge it as inappropriate and send it to the server ops forum. And if you post kiddie pr0n, that's inappropriate everywhere.

I think a better point is this: pretty much anything that doesn't fit into another forum and isn't pr0n, warez, or hate speech should be considered appropriate Cafe content. It's not that you can't judge content, just that the criteria of "boring" or "pointless" shouldn't come in to play. Boring and pointless threads will die on their own, so if you really want to start a thread on boogers, warts, or cat litter, go for it. (Posts that actually have no content -- like ++postcount threads -- should be deleted on sight.)

But, of course, this is just my opinion. I'm not the Cafe moderator, and I'm not KoolBear, so don't interpret my opinion as permission.

[Lothar]

Paging fyrephlie...

[Avder]

What, you want this to start up again? I thought this thread got locked since there hasnt been any new posts in feedback for a few days.

[MD-2389]

It was never locked. Fyrephlie got backed into a corner, and couldn't answer anything so he took off hoping nobody would notice his inherent concession.

[KoolBear]

No he didn't take off he's just been invisable for a few days

That's nice thing about admin, you get to see all

[Krom]

What, you want this to start up again? I thought this thread got locked since there hasnt been any new posts in feedback for a few days.

Nah, not locked, just everyone's favorite Hero of Justice, Liberator of the Oppressed, Champion of Righteousness, Defender of the Weak, Savior of Integrity, etc... seems to have run out of hot air.

[Top Wop]

Im one of the people fyrephlie mentioned who remained quiet in this thread up until now because I feared of the moderator oppression and its impending doom if I was to ever speak up. So now im taking my chance.

Oh wait, the only ones who complained were only the one or two twats who always bitched and moaned about everything and needed to grow up. Nevermind. My bad.

[Lothar]

What was that about \"trying to save face\" and \"hiding things\"? If you're going to accuse mods of such things, at least be man enough not to hide for several days instead of responding.

[MD-2389]

Im one of the people fyrephlie mentioned who remained quiet in this thread up until now because I feared of the moderator oppression and its impending doom if I was to ever speak up. So now im taking my chance.

Oh wait, the only ones who complained were only the one or two twats who always bitched and moaned about everything and needed to grow up. Nevermind. My bad.

Oh FFS....

I'm going to make one thing perfectly clear. If you have a concern, and bring it up politely, then there won't be any "backlash". The reason why some of us jumped onto Fyrephlie was not the fact that he disagreed with us. Its HOW he acted from the very start that offended us. Fyrephlie's insults and accusations were flat out uncalled for. At the very least he owes fliptw an apology...though I doubt he'll be man enough to do it. He's too much of a coward to even try to speak to him directly.

As for "moderator oppression", I challenge you to find anywhere in this thread where WarAdvocat's posts, Fyrephlie's posts, or your post has been "oppressed" in any way. Not a damn thing has been altered in this thread. Theres a phpBB mod out (though I don't know if its been installed) that records the actions of moderators and admins so if anything has been closed/deleted/edited, there would be proof of such actions.

[Gooberman]

WOOOOSH!

Seriously dude, I think thats like twice this week...

[MD-2389]

WOOOOSH!

Seriously dude, I think thats like twice this week...

Dude, I know perfectly well he was kidding. I was playing along.

[Kilarin]

If you're going to accuse mods of such things, at least be man enough not to hide for several days instead of responding.

Perhaps he's out on vacation. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt the same way we are asking him to give the moderators the benefit of the doubt.

[Lothar]

If you're going to accuse mods of such things, at least be man enough not to hide for several days instead of responding.

Perhaps he's out on vacation.

No he didn't take off he's just been invisable for a few days :)

That's nice thing about admin, you get to see all ;)

EDIT: oh, and he's been quite active over on the other board.

[Kilarin]

No he didn't take off he's just been invisable for a few days

Ah, I need to work on my reading comprehension.
My apologies.

[Gooberman]

WOOOOSH!

Seriously dude, I think thats like twice this week...

Dude, I know perfectly well he was kidding. I was playing along.

lol, sure.

[Top Wop]

WOOOOSH!

Seriously dude, I think thats like twice this week...

Dude, I know perfectly well he was kidding. I was playing along.

lol, sure.

Actually, yes. I was just kidding. Now go get a clue .

[MD-2389]

Actually, yes. I was just kidding. Now go get a clue .

You'd think that after all the sarcastic posts I've made over the years that Goob would pick up on it. After that thread of yours about the smileys, I knew that had to be a joke so I ran with it.