Moderation Questions

It doesn't seem to be going very well, I agree. Moderation is way over the top now and fails to read the room, issuing bans after the posters concerned have finished rowing and are now getting on well.

However, BGP is way out of order itt.

performance art

Yeah. I regret how rustled I allowed myself to become by the most recent iteration of this discussion. So I apologize to BGP for some of the things I said. They were over the line.

I will repeat what was the mods ruling the last time we did this only a month and a half ago- Victor is allowed to be Victor just like some other people here are allowed to be themselves, so long as they post within the guidelines for the forum. We will not be doing vanity bans for people who insist upon them loudly or long enough, nor will be allowing outside moderators to dictate how this forum is run and who is allowed to post here.

The first line of the Serenity prayer is asking for the wisdom to accept the things you cannot change. If this has been going on for two years, as claimed, then this is several iterations of mod teams that have ruled the same way. Accept it, and please for the love of God, move on. Report posts that violate the rules, and maybe some day you’ll get your wish via merit instead of irritation.

He will never get his wish. Not guilty, that's how I stay filthy.

Bold strategy, Vicarus. Let's see how it works out for you.

I suppose my opinion will matter very little, but as a strong ideological enemy of victor, whose takes i despise on geopolitics a lot (it's hard to think of being more wrong than victor on geopolitics for me), after you (CN) told him to moderate himself, he actually did.

Victor is posting a small fraction of the insane pics/tweets/videos he did like 6 months ago both in the IP and the Ukraine thread, and in general he is just telling his opinion on stuff like it should be allowed to everyone around here (and elsewhere).

I understand the BGP "old school" position of having places where only "adults" discuss but that's not the world we live in anymore imho. BGP should accept that you can be a blatant, transparent enemy of western interests and still be allowed to give your opinion on geopolitics

OK. If Bobo didn't allow you to be the mod, that's between the two of you. I had nothing to do with that decision.

You are conflating being heard with moderators agreeing with you. They are not the same thing.

Hard disagree. You have reported nearly 100 posts from the Politics forum in 2024 alone. The same thing happened in 2023. Not all of those reports concern the same topics or the same posters, but the numbers more or less speak for themselves.

I hope you aren't talking about me because (i) I'm not a mod, and even when I was, I never took any against BGP; and (ii) nothing I said was bullying or outrageous.

Thanks, I really, really appreciate it.

You are involved in some absolutely horrible conduct which should be moderated. Altering a quote to make it sound like a poster said something they did not is against the rules. Mocking someone is against the rules, and it's outrageous that it's gotten to the point that I doubt anyone even reported you mocking a Ukrainian with Russian propaganda memes to dehumanize Ukrainians.

I do not fault you for thinking this though. Many of the "disagreements" are the same things which I have gone over before, so I now just say that they've been debunked and please offer new information. There is not a single argument I have not addressed in good faith.

From last year:

[QUOTE=BGP]It's more a combination of the entire process:

Baseless claim -> refusal to engage with claims -> resort to insult.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=BGP]I don't think you are obligated to change your opinions based on my posting. I do think if your opinions should be defended if you are going to voice them.

For example when you come in and say that Euromaidan was a Nazi coup, and I post overwhelming evidence that it was not, you don't have to change your opinion.

If you repeat your false opinion again I believe it should be with something to back it up in order to keep the conversation going, hence asking for citations. For example when you came in and said that a recent trial proved that Euromaidan snipers slaughtered protestors and no police were involved we were able to discuss that. We looked at the evidence and discovered that actually the trial uncovered that 40 of the 48 protestors slaughtered had bullets from police and there was nothing to indicate that Euromaidan snipers were involved.

The next time when you repeated the false narrative with no new evidence there was nowhere for the conversation to go except to say "Already debunked." and you say "Nuh uh" and back and forth.

This is all entirely beside the point of why I'm here though. It is in regard to your contentless posts that only serve to insult and anger people, your continually trying to derail a thread, and your trolling. I have never suggested you be banned due to your opinions. The only time I have suggested that anyone should be banned for their opinions was when someone suggested that 80%+ of Ukrainians should be exterminated.[/QUOTE]

This behavior continues today. Here's the prime example. I have repeatedly argued against the narrative that "warmongering, amoral" Zelenskyy refused the peace deal as a "trick to stay in power", and I have covered every single aspect of the argument. This is how the argument went a year ago:

[quote=Victor]
your problem is that you have a lot of trouble with opinion vs fact.

your claime that Putin will just always attack is an opinion. I find it baseless, but I dont mind you making a fool of yourself and persisting it. you want to ban anyone that disagrees with such an absolutely idiotic viewpoint.

you really should read my posts and think about them. I am by far the most accurate on this forum and my predictions about Ukraine have been impeccable since the Mass Guardsman leaks.

I am truly sorry that I do not want to see more people die and prefer a ceasefire. but hey, if you want more death and destruction from the West, why dont you jump ship over the Israel side like the rest of your NatSec and OSINT followers did.[/quote]

Here's my reply:

[quote=BGP]No, I don't want to ban anyone with that viewpoint. When someone brings it up I point to all of the evidence showing when Putin has used a peace agreement to regather and attack again, as I have done with you several times.

The problem is that (as you did in this post) you resort to insults: in this case calling it "idiotic" and "making a fool" of myself instead of putting forth your own argument for why Putin is genuine this time.

When I put forward my argument for why I think supporting a ceasefire on Ukrainian terms saves lives you once again insult: here saying I support more death and destruction, and in the thread saying I'm detached from reality, instead of engaging with the discussion.[/quote]

Here's a sample post from over a year ago regarding one of his points, that there was nothing to indicate Putin would attack again if Ukraine agreed to limit its military to 50k troops:

I did this with every single one of his points.

I did this for every single point he put forth. When I asked him to put forth an actual argument instead of just attacking Ukraine he refused to answer why he thought that Putin would adhere to the peace deal. This happened over and over again. It eventually degraded to this:

(Don't have the quote, but I asked him why the peace deal would have worked.)

(I don't have the quote, but same question)

If his own counterfactual is too difficult for him to defend, then he needs to stop stating it as fact when it is a blatant Russian propaganda narrative used to place the blame of the war continuing on the victims of the war. Victor was eventually banned for a month for continuing to do this for over a year.

I went through over a 1 million word legal document in Ukrainian in order to disprove one of his blatant conspiracy theories. There is not a single argument or opinion I have shied away from or not dealt with in good faith. The problem is the constant repetition of blatant Russian propaganda with nothing to back it up, often followed by insults. This is also just one of many major issues.

Explain how.

Think you, I appreciate it. I truly, truly do. I was going to save this for a final post after I decide how to address Rococo, but I will move it up here.

I 100% believe what I'm saying about this being a 2p2 squid game. Part of sincerely believing that is recognizing my own role in your posting. When you began modding it was well on my way down in quality of posting. It is not a surprise to me that you do not think highly of me (although it in no way excuses your actions towards me, much as the environment here does not excuse all of my posts). I sincerely apologize for my own role in this and the stress it has caused you.

There is a specific instance I would especially like to apologize for:

At this point in time I was in such a state that I convinced myself that you were being patronizing and condescending when you said it to me. I do not believe that is the case anymore and I am appalled that I have said this now, and I sincerely apologize. It is a major factor for my leaving. I told the mods a year ago I do not like the trajectory that I was headed. I stuck along for too long, and regressed past a point that I am truly ashamed of. I am extremely sorry. Regardless of what I think about any of the mod decisions, I think that all of the mods here are genuinely good people and wish I had encountered them in different circumstances.

Your opinion matters to me.

It's not an "old school" position. It's the position of the forum which is why those rules exist. I do not want to ban anything for being a blatant, transparent, enemy of western interests. I am willing to argue against any viewpoint. The only one I found too heinous and wanted to banned outright was stating that 80% of Ukrainians should be genocided.

I personally think the main factors in Victor posting less in the Ukraine thread are him being banned for a month, and my posting far less.

Even if he is only posting a "small fraction" of that stuff, I've laid several recent examples of him breaking rules, mods agreeing he has broken the rules, and then done nothing effective about it.

cry more

I don't care about it! There is nothing between Bobo and I, I was replying to this:

You don't mod based on annoyance factor. Trying to warp them into me being the villain for annoying you by pointing out posts which I believe are against is the rules is extremely messed up. I don't care if you think 80% of them were not against the rules, I have reported some which absolutely 100% were. You should have talked to me if you wanted the reports to stop for the things you didn't think were breaking the rules, and actually done something about the reports which you know should have been stopped. Two posters told you to **** off and called you variations of a chauvinist genocidist that they wouldn't take orders from ffs.

You are saying this in a post which continues the behavior of ignoring my actual argument while instead focusing on my reporting of issues. This is literally sandwiched between two attempts at it.

If there were only 100 in 2023 then that was because I had given up on reporting posts before browser asked people to report posts and used it as a metric for how the forum was doing. I mentioned it earlier itt that that avenue of addressing issues was long neglected.

We've gone through 5 mods here. They were addressed to different mods, and more important they were valid concerns. I thought I had a very valid concern, browser told me that he would watch it but wouldn't mod it, so I stopped. For other issues I was just ignored outright, or when asked about it the mods said "yes it crosses the line, but I am doing nothing." If it crosses the line, or reasonably crosses the line, then I'm reporting it.

Once again, this does not address the moderation issues I have brought here. It addresses my post report issues. I am not being heard.

[QUOTE=BGP]It's more a combination of the entire process:

Baseless claim -> refusal to engage with claims -> resort to insult.[/QUOTE]

.

I honestly don't recall this, but I guess that anything is possible.

I tried writing this several different ways, I get too worked up. You deserve a more respectful tone than I'm going to give you, but this is where I'm at, so just going to put it down then try to quit the thread until the details of my ban are finally worked out.

Mike cannot ban other mods. He cannot remove mod status and then ban them either. I was 99% sure of this before so I just went straight to the owners. The owners asked me to wait, I agreed. Since you accused me of being disingenuous, and CN suggested I go to the thread which I also read as accusing me of being disingenuous, I confirmed with Mike that I was correct.

You are technically right though, if I really want to self-perma I could have been more assertive and not been talked out of it. HOWEVER, anyone with your intelligence should realize that it is extremely unlikely that a poster with 40k posts and almost two decades on this site WANTS to self-perma, unless you use "want" in the sense that someone wants a colonoscopy instead of cancer. This is why "want" is your phrasing and not mine:

Do not worry though, this most recent episode has moved me to "want" that colonoscopy more, hence my mentioning it at all in the hope that someone else would get the ball rolling. (Pretty cowardly of me. I've seen gotten the ball rolling again on my own.) I at no point was disingenuous.

Then moderate him and everyone else when they step across that line, especially when there are posters here who have close ties to the issues where the line stepping is occuring (not referring to myself). Do not blame it on me for bringing it up when he does cross the line.

Our moderating styles are extremely different. I am going to walk you through two examples:

On a small, single post, level:

The first time someone posted a video of a Ukrainian in an interrogation where he is tortured, I would been irritated at the person posting the video and permbanned them, I would not have been irritated at the poster reporting it.

When it was pointed out that the POW is handcuffed and in the part before the Curb soundtrack plays he has a visible black eye and is extremely distressed, I would have permabanned the person who posted the video instead of being irritated by the person complaining.

When the numerous other complaints were made, each and every time I would have been irritated at the person who posted the torture, and never (NOT ONCE) at the poster complaining.

(Yes, I posted some videos of Russian POWs talking to Ukrainians, but there was no evidence of maltreatment, definitely no evidence of torture, and the Red Cross works with Ukraine including faciliating interviews with POWs. When people pointed out the inherent coercion involved in a discussion with a POW and that these were occurring close to the frontlines where the Red Cross was unlikely to be, I stopped posting them. These are not the same. The video I'm referring to clearly showed someone before and after torture in a far more intense interrogation setting and the poster saying "this is one I like".)

Let's zoom out a bit to a specific issue that you handled. Let's do a role reversal here, I'll pretend to be the mod to show you I would handle it vs how you did.

When you first complained that someone used the terms ukronazi and ukronazistan I would have banned them.

When you complained that they were gleeful over the "obliteration" of Ukraine, I would have permaed them.

When you complained he called you an "obfuscating bastard", I would have banned him.

When you complained that he called for the genocide of 80%+ of Ukrainians I would have permabanned him.

When you complained and showed me that he literally has a youtube channel where he posts Russian disinformation I would have permabanned him.

When you complained about his Russian disinformation and walked me through how it is exactly the same style, type and content of Russian propagandists I would have permabanned him.

If somehow we get to the outrageous situation where after returning from the short ban for using dehumanizing terms in his calls to genocide (but not for the genocide itself because it's just an alternate political view), and you complained he was continuing to use those terms, I would have permabanned him each and every time you complained about the actual genocide suggestions.

After he called me a western chauvinist and told me to **** off I would have permaed him.

After you complained that he said Putin's #1 mistake was not beginning the "extermination" in 2014, I would have permabanned him.

After you complained he used "homosexual" as a slur I would have permabanned him.

After you complained he used a worse word for a homosexual as a slur I would have permabanned him.

After this was dragged to the mod thread and this entire thing I've typed here was laid out, I would have permabanned him.

After about 20 other complaints I would have permabanned him.

After somehow getting to this situation, if I were a mod instead of banning him for two years for "repeatedly insulting people", I would have permabanned him because of the calls to genocide, dehumanizing, and being a literal Russian propagandist. (It's a good thing I was the one who permbanned the child porn guy yesterday before you gave him a 3 day ban for using all caps.)

At none of these instances would I have ever blamed you for being irritating.

[QUOTE=Rococo]And because BGP apparently mods some forum here, he must know how irritating his complaining is and not give a ****. [/quote]

So no, this is false. I don't have a ****ing clue how irritating it must have been for you to continually ignore these things. I doubt there's a mod outside of this sub who knows how ****ing irritating it must be. Most people would have fixed the issue far earlier. I only know how irritating it was to be constantly ignored despite very clearly laying out some of the most obvious examples of behavior which should be banned or permabanned. So please tell me how irritating my constant complaints were. (Go ahead and throw in the complaints of mine which were far less obvious bans than this, you can even include the ones you consider completely superfluous on my part.)

I know you're not actively modding, but it sounds like you still might read post reports. I imagine I'll feel pretty bad after reading you tell me about how irritating I was to you. So in order to lighten the blow for me can you please tell me how peaceful your day was when it was unperturbed because I did not report someone claiming Ukrainians are evil. Or the day I didn't report the "nazi Ukraine" post. How zen-like was it when I didn't report the Ukrainian who was concerned about the North Koreans invading his home being mocked by two posters with Russian propaganda memes used to dehumanize him and his country in order to justify their invasion and genocide.

I only know how frustrating this **** was from my end. Add on top of this the treatment like I've received here where every bad faith argument is lobbed against me as well as insults (including from the mods), the constant Winds of Wintering: "Oh yeah if he crosses the line, we'll do something. OK, that crosses the line, but next time. That crosses the line, but I'm not going to do anything. Well we don't like moderate opinions. Lighten up. You reporting posts is ****ing irritating." The past few pages detail a few of the ways this was irritating on my end, but there's a lot more I'm not going to mention.

If you want to add a personal element, then those three things I didn't report occurred after a guy I talk to received his summons to the front. I'm not going to oversell it like he was a close friend or anything, but he is someone I've talked to for awhile now. (Kinda funny he originally called me a vatnik.) Coming here and seeing him being one of the people dehumanized as an evil nazi right after learning he is heading to the front was ****ing horrible.

Your whole focus on how irritating it was for you while completely ignoring my actual complaints, your refusal to do anything, and constantly claiming I am asking for things I am not asking for is extremely irritating on my end too. Mods should have brought the issue of my post reports up with me a long time ago, like browser did. If it was going to alter how the mods mod, then it absolutely should have been brought up with me, or discussed when I ASKED TO DISCUSS IT, and not used as a weapon when I bring up mod issues. My arguments should have been addressed in good faith instead of telling me how you're not going to do things that I'm not asking for. I should never be insulted, banned, or have the mod thread locked for bringing up mod issues in good fath. After I layed out how the mods ignore me by instead turning around and blaming me for things in order to avoid what I am bringing up, you are here continuing to do that exact thing while claiming I'm heard. I haven't been heard. The same behavior is continuing.

I will try to avoid this thread until I am off the site. As I said with CN: despite my view of your modding, I think you are a good person. Had we met in different circumstances I am sure we would have got along. Best of luck.

BGP honestly...please move on and put the (known) idiots on ignore. No more posting here.

Your Ukraine/Russia updates are the only honest assessments I see for this issue and I want to see more....

Thanks, had no idea if anyone was still reading it.

There's no need for blatant Russian propaganda on 2p2. I've tried what you suggest, I do not have the willpower to svoid clicking over to the Ukraine thread when I am on 2p2. I do not have the willpower to scroll past or ignore it, knowing what it is and means. (Look at how long I lasted after my previous post where I said I would try not to come back to this thread.)

Not only is it impossible for me, but I don't wish to belong to a site that allows it. (Not saying it can never be brought up, but the way it's used here is the exact same way that Russia uses it.)

bgp, i'm grunching, i haven't been following any of this and skipped over it all

from what i've gleened while skimming down to find a post from d2 calling chez a cuck in new inventive manners, i still have no idea what the beef is nor do i care enough to read back and find out

but, you're one of my favorite posters here, i've lowkey been really bummed out by the time we connected directly was when we were no longer in the same locales and never met up irl

it'd be a really big loss if you self banned imo and losing you would be one more nail in the coffin giving me one less reason to show up here myself

it really saddens me every time we lose someone either through bans (even when deserved) or self bans or just ceasing posting so i really hope you take a day or two off to let things simmer down and that you decide to stick with us

this feels like a nothing burger, i know that's unfair to say since i still don't know what it is and i'm sure it's genuinely a big deal for you - but when you put it to the scales to determine if x is worthy of leaving this place, then x, no matter what it entails, will always be a nothingburger worth ignoring

i hope you stick around, i think you're a great mod and an even better poster and person

-adam

Yeah, BGP, as a lurker want to drop in and say thx for everything u posted.

I used to read the Ukraine thread everyday but stopped reading a while ago when it when I felt it got to the point that the pro Russia crowd was adding nothing of value, just obfuscation and trolling.

For the first roughly 6 months I was reading the thread everyday and seeing you dismantle their arguments was very interesting. but after a point their bad faith replies/trolls got too repetitive to bother reading.

Hope you stay, but completely understand if u don’t.

Cheers

BGP,
Give me a shout next time you're in BKK and we'll grab a beer. I'll shoot you my contact

Bgp, I don’t want you to leave, but if the ultimatum is that you’ll quit unless we acquiesce to your demands, then I don’t think that’s a precedent we can or should set.

Please just put Victor on ignore.

I shouldn’t need to.

You recognise you’re not a Pol mod but make this whole thread all about yourself, as if you’re some kind of Special Case.

You’re incapable of putting someone on ignore or scrolling past their posts, which shows a lack of self control.

The whole it’s him or me shtick is pathetic and close to full cuserounder. NEVER go full cuserounder.

You keep saying you’re leaving but never do.

There are two arguments happening here and there is no conspiracy to move the discussion. One is yours about Victor not being moderated appropriately and the other about whether you’re being reasonable. If the second is coming up it’s because some people think it’s apt. It’s coming from people who don’t have any objection to you as a poster or your politics. It’s also kind of telling that you object to this discussion not sticking to the bounds that you have set.

I get your point, I was just pointing out that given the context, offering to mod only things that you care deeply about doesn’t lend itself to the argument that you’re only interested in a fairer system that sticks to forum rules.

I agree with Luciom that Victor has responded to instruction from mods. I also think there are a lot of posters who are worse when it comes to not justifying their opinion, not engaging a response or any other manner of bad argumentation. Insults are also incredibly common, both towards posters and groups of people being discussed. It’s hard for me to see how Victor is particularly bad or being given special privilege. Admittedly, I haven’t participated in the Ukraine discussion for a while so maybe things are different there. I could name a handful of posters who I could level the same arguments against (I won’t) who I don’t see getting moderated any differently than Victor. In terms of bullying I also don’t think anyone receives more personal attacks than Victor.

I agree with others that I’d like to see you put him on ignore and continue to post the same good content that you do.