Castin

Welcome to the site. Why the scales?

Liberty and Justice.

The less personal/unique/living-being your image is, the less likely you are to ever get banned. I noticed this with not just Zeichen and how recently she came the closest to going too far with a provocative playboy model as her avatar and then switching back to that Dali palace or whatever it is and becoming 'solid' in behaviour again but CONSISTENTLY I have noticed that members, including Castin, had a personality shift towards and after switching from and back to an impersonal image and an image of a living being. They become much more... Colourful and this entails risk of being banned. This is not a 100% solid correlation but it's definitely a significant indicator. Which Tyrone got banned? The one with the image, it's uncanny how consistent this relationship is even though it's definitely not been a 100% one.

Castin gets confirmed as a nominee for Most Liked

I may or may not post my thoughts on this.

"...blah bleh bleh ahurpa durpa"

I'm suing.

I am asking, how was it that Abraham couldn’t work out that a great nation would not spring from him as god had promised if he had murdered his only son.

1. Abraham did not notice any conflict between God's command and God's prior promise.
   
2. Abraham was aware of the conflict and perhaps questioned it, but said nothing.
   
3. Abraham believed God would still fulfill the promise, just without Isaac.
   
4. Abraham somehow knew Isaac's death was never a possibility and that God would intervene.
   
5. Abraham believed God had the power to even bring Isaac back to life once the test was over.
   
6. A combination of two or more of these.
   

The idea that how you treat the least matters the most is one I find pretty resonant.

You and millions of others. That is part of the reason 2,000 years later, we are still talking about it and atheist's still fume. It resonates with people who still have a conscience, a soul.

But on the subject of massacres inspiring massacres, do you think the shooter was aware that survivors of the Las Vegas shooting frequented that bar? 

It's really hard to tell. I wouldn't put it passed him to have known, but i don't know. Overall i'm pretty confident most these shooters either fantasize past shooters or watch them for encouragement / learning. This guy seems more of the just insane type that would have snapped and done it either way. plus, since he was a marine and probably a pretty good shot... i don't think he really needed to go learn what to do. I think this guy just snapped and went on a rampage. In the end of the day... who knows why crazy acts crazy.  

Agreed. I think one of the main problems with the prequels was that they coukdnt distinguish between presenting us with a flawed character and just giving us an unpleasant, whiney shit. Anakin should have been flawed but good underneath. Instead they just made him a dumb brat which took away some of the emotional payoff when he finally turns in ep 3.

We should take turns to act as sort of executive officer for the week but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs or by a two thirds majority in the case of more important issues.

They're entertaining as hell, but they can really get out of control. 

What do you mean by "out of control"? Why does it matter if that happens?

• It spills over into the rest of the forum, like, always. Anytime the two people involved in the flamewar cross paths in any setting, explosion.
  
• In extreme cases, it can inflame global controversies which divide the forum into warring cliques that toxify the atmosphere of the site. More stable personalities start saying "ugh, these clique wars have ruined the site" and leaving.
  
• When people get pushed to extremes of rage by an endless escalation of hostility, they are way more likely to break rules, start fires, and reject reason in general. Letting a flamewar get out of control is like passing out PCP to your users.
  
• Finally people will start getting banned that I really don't want to see banned -- you know the type. Fun as hell to be around, but a knack for getting into trouble, and when they get in a scrap they hold friggin' nothing back. So naturally one of the first to be booted as an agitator. If they fuck up bad enough or persistently enough they wind up permabanned, and now great, the site just got a bit less fun.
  

Where's the rule about getting rid of the disgusting feathered vermin that have infested our fair site?

What's bop?  Is nonsense all you can say?  You don't have an argument because it's not possible , I get that , but repeating yourself like a toddler is a waste of time. 

But when I told him so yesterday and offered some ideas for change, he approved them pretty much immediately. It's why I don't get the "bish never listens to feedback" complaint. When I made my suggestions I stuck to policy arguments without character attacks. That would be my advice.

No offense, but they weren't exactly groundbreaking changes. My experience in dealing with him thus far tells me that he's completely unwilling to substantially loosen up his moderation style. That being said, I've started talking to him privately, and he's given me some reason to hope that I'm mistaken. So I suppose we'll see where that goes.

So, I was obviously wrong. There isn't enough public support for replacing Bsh1 as moderator. However, this thread has clearly revealed public support for making moderation policy less strict overall. Perhaps I should have made the poll about that instead of making it about Bsh1.

LESS STRICT

• Tyrone
  
• Wylted
  
• Drafterman
  
• Imabench
  
• TheHammer
  
• 1Harderthanyouthink
  
• Thett3
  
• ResurgetExFavilla
  
• Smithereens
  
• Buddamoose
  

SAME / MORE STRICT 

• RationalMadman
  
• YeshuaBought
  
• Argent Tongue
  
• Mopac
  
• Swagnarok
  
• Castin
  
• Ramshutu
  
• Vaarka
  

This is a really good idea. I think it also might be a good idea to let all people see the thread title and maybe a short description by the moderator, but not the content, so that they know that a discussion exists and can ask to join it if they're interested. It would give people a chance to escape from the stifling moderation atmosphere that's currently settled over the site, and allow each user to self-sort into their own level of comfort. It will also let normal members get some moderation experience, and allow some criticism of moderation. For example, I recently wanted to discuss a controversial deleted thread, and linked an archived page of that thread so that another member could see what was actually deleted, and that post was itself deleted. It's kind of Orwellian that we can't even talk about content that was deleted without our posts being censored, and I can definitely see a private thread being devoted to documenting oversteps and trying to hold moderation accountable.