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Old 11-24-2002, 04:16 PM   #81
Cloudbringer
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Join Date: March 1, 2001
Location: Upstate NY USA
Posts: 19,737
Ok, I'm locking this for a while. So maybe we can step away and gain some perspective here.

People, step back, take a few deep breaths, remember it's a FORUM not your career or parents, spouse, kids or the latest rugby match. A message forum. A place to get game info, talk about your new car or exchange ideas.

A few points-

When you begin posting, you've accepted the rules. If you don't accept them, you shouldn't post. The rules aren't very complicated and for almost five years they've kept IW one of the only places on the net that is troll free. Some of you know that this kind of discsussion isn't even possible in many forums.

Mods are NOT anyone's enemies. Why do I feel that there's open hostility simply because a mod might ask you to shrink your signature or stop flaming a fellow member? That baffles me! I don't see mods asking for anything outrageous yet somehow somewhere a few people have the idea we're the enemy and you must rebel? Sigh...

IW is more than all this. I have seen us go through tough times and rally back over the years. Let's remember why we came here and why we stayed members. Let's be a community again.

I'm going to leave this for Ziroc to open or not, as he sees fit. Right now I only see more agitation and miscommunications taking place and it's making me pretty sad.

Cloudy
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Old 11-25-2002, 03:19 AM   #82
Memnoch
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Join Date: February 28, 2001
Location: Boston/Sydney
Posts: 11,771
Quote:
Originally posted by Luvian:
There is one thing you do not understand. This is NOT a public place. This is Ziroc's house. If someone come to your house, try to boss you around, and tell you how to do things. You ask him to leave.

This is NOT a democracy. You have NO right, and Ziroc make the Justice. True, you can not disagree with the mods. You can't go in someone house, and tell him to move his things around, and to buy different things than what he does. You are a guest here. Displease the host, and you are not welcome anymore.

Did you read the rules here? They are all very fair, and for the best of the forum. We don't want people that can't respect those rules. We don't want spammers and trolls.

And as for the title and avatar of the banned users, no, they are not going away. As you said, respect is earned, not given. And banned users did not earn any respect.

Here is a warning for all of you who can't understand.

Do not question a moderator. Especially not now!

Understood? We do not want to hear any more arguments. Lots of members where banned for that recently. Do you want the same thing to happen to you? No? then stop. If you have a problem, Email Ziroc.

We are not asking you all to stop, we are ordering you to stop.

Luvian, I'll have to disagree with this - this is not the way to earn respect. I appreciate where you're coming from and your heart's in the right place [img]smile.gif[/img] - from a moderator point of view it's very frustrating to have to keep repeating our message until it begins to be understood by all, and I appreciate the sentiment you are putting forward, but this type of message will just inflame a situation that does not need any further inflammation. I can accept that maybe not everyone who posted on this thread may have been aware of earlier warnings made on previous threads, and the general tone seemed to me more questioning in nature than deliberately out to cause trouble. But shouting at people isn't the answer.

Let me reinforce one thing though. Moderator decisions are NOT and have never been up for debate/discussion/disagreement on the forum. That is a precondition of participation here. It is not signing your thoughts away, it is not killing off your right to freedom of speech - it is showing respect for the wishes of the person who owns the place, because, as difficult a concept as that is to try and accept, the person who owns this place IS God here. **see footnote That is reality and there is nothing any of us can do to change that - aside from walking away. There are other forums where you can argue, debate and defy moderators and admin. This is not one of them.

Now we would be disappointed if people walked away because they couldn't follow those guidelines - but they are a condition of participation here. Let's say you were invited to a dinner party where the invite said: "Please do not discuss sex, politics or religion over dinner." Is it not fair to accept the owner's wishes and not discuss sex, politics or religion while having dinner? Or will you decide that it's your democratic right to dicuss any damn topic you like since you live in America (or any other democratic nation) and if the owner of the house doesn't like that, tough luck? Think about this, because this is what this situation is like. If you feel your freedom of speech rights are being trodden on because the owner of the house said you couldn't talk about sex, politics or religion then wouldn't the tactful thing to do be to not accept the invitation? Or if you think the owner is a fascist and you don't like him anyway then why would you want to be in his house?

I'm gone to the trouble of explaining this since I think that people are really struggling with this concept. You can think that a particular moderator is an idiot - personal respect is earned as has been said before, and that moderator has to earn your respect by his actions. But when he asks you to do something we still expect you to do what he tells you. This is what this is about - this is what we mean when we talk about RESPECT. There are other communication mediums to flag your disagreement or unhappiness at a particular ruling (email or PM). Conversely, if you want to be respected by a moderator, you have to do the right thing - repeated breaking the rules will not endear you to us.

These rules are not negotiable. There's not very many of them, and they are there for a very good reason. I used to be a member of the BGDungeon forum which at one stage had 15,000 members. Some of you may remember this forum. It collapsed after numerous flamewars a couple of years ago, a victim of its own size and success, because nobody gave a shit what the moderators said or did. In the end the owner threw up his hands and shut the site down - just like that. We don't want that to happen here - Ironworks is run by both Ziroc and the mods in our spare time - we all have 8 to 5 jobs as well and don't have the time or inclination to moderate in that environment.

Re: the LS, Neb and Lavindathar issue. This is the ONE AND ONLY time I will explain this here - it will NOT happen again. I am explaining this to stop this rumor mill from running riot. I am also NOT prepared to debate this on the forum - moderator decisions are not up for debate. if anyone wants clarification, and approach me in a reasonable manner, I am happy to answer these questions based on what I know of the situation.

Lord Shield was banned for flipping off a mod in a spam thread he created after a) knowing that you are not allowed to create these threads (NOT his first offence); and b) defying and showing contempt for a moderator after being told to stop. I counted Lord Shield as a mate, but as far as I'm concerned he deserved to be banned for this action - we don't need that attitude here, sorry to say - even if you personally hate a mod you don't do that.

Neb, after having a discussion in one of the Respect for Moderators threads, decided that he was unable to work with our guidelines and so decided to withdraw his membership of his own volition. He was not banned to my knowledge, unless something happened I'm not aware of.

Lavindathar was suspended for 30 days for disrespectful comments made about a moderator an earlier thread. He has not been banned.

I hear rumors that Arledrian was apparently also banned. This is NOT true - he asked to have his membership withdrawn after a personal issue with a couple of members here. You can contact him for further details if you wish.

Hope this provides some clarity as this situation is really getting to the ridiculous stage. If anyone is still unclear about this then email me and we'll thrash it out until you understand it. It will most certainly NOT be up for debate here so don't even bother asking for details on the forum. You've been told the way to seek clarification on this issue (email or PM). Please respect this request.

** Edit: I wanted to clarify this as I received an email where people appear to have taken this comment the wrong way, and I apologize for that. Ziroc is not intended to replace God, what I meant was that in this forum he is "god" of this forum (perhaps I should not have capitalized earlier ) in that what he says, goes. That's the way private forums are. It is NOT intended to be offensive to Christians, as I am one myself. I'll try and explain it in gaming terms, it might be easier - if Ironworks is Faerun, then Ziroc is Lord Ao, and the mods are the pantheon - they serve the members by keeping the Balance. Hope this clarifies. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 11-25-2002, 10:10 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]
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Old 11-25-2002, 10:05 AM   #83
Memnoch
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Join Date: February 28, 2001
Location: Boston/Sydney
Posts: 11,771
** Edit: I wanted to clarify this as I received an email where people appear to have taken this comment the wrong way, and I apologize for that. Ziroc is not intended to replace God, what I meant was that in this forum he is "god" of this forum (perhaps I should not have capitalized earlier. ) in that what he says, goes. That's the way private forums are. It is NOT intended to be offensive to Christians, as I am one myself. Maybe it's easier to understand in gaming terms - if Ironworks is Faerun, then Ziroc is Lord Ao, and the mods are the pantheon (eg Tyr, Mystra, Torm, Cyric (maybe not Cyric) - they serve the members by keeping the Balance. Hope this clarifies. [img]smile.gif[/img]
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