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And so, Ugg emerged victorious, having distinguished himself as the stand-out hero of the debate competition, even though his grand accomplishment was little more than convincing a slight majority on a panel of awful judges to vote for him instead of a guy who always forfeits after the first round.
But Ugg soon found out that this was perhaps not as desirable as it first seemed… for he had drawn the attention of Bashone the Vain, the head organizer of the competition… Bashone was a notoriously flaming homosexual who seemed to have taken a liking to Ugg’s caveman ab muscles. Being a homeless caveman in an alien time period, Ugg had few other options but to accept the rather implicit invitation to come home with Bashone, but first they needed to make a quick pit stop at the local “adult” toy store. Even Ugg’s“progressive” ideas about public-school biology hadn’t prepared him for the dark and vile fate which awaited him…
Epilogue;
Ratmin the Biased-One was chased out of the debate competition by a mob of angry Ugg fanboys armed with torches, pitchforks and dictionaries.
Droopy the Insane eventually embarked on a world-spanning quest to become immortal… because he felt strongly that he needed to live forever in order to ensure that people would stop ordering drinks without ice.
Utuhsmar the Serious-Vote was banned from future debate competitions because of a disagreement with Bashone over the significance of dropped points.
Bashone the Vain announced that he would be taking a six-month hiatus from professional debates to work on a “special project” in his creepy basement. He was last seen accepting delivery of a crate marked “Industrial Strength Ball Gags” at his home.
Caiaphas the Meek replaced Bashone as the head organizer of the debate competition. This initiated a complex series of events which lead to the eventual outlawing of “professional” debating in 93 countries.
Castrol the Token-Female-Character developed a severe addiction to internet discussion forums and eventually became the subject of a court-order which excluded her from using any telecommunications device.
The Vulcan science academy was forced to retract their official position that time travel is impossible. Ratmin commented that Vulcans are nothing more than the science-fiction equivalent of Elves, which is why they are such arrogant asshats.
(P.S. This forum caused a lot of errors in the process of coping this story into the posts. Some essential spaces between words were removed, while some pointless line breaks were added inappropriately. I have edited the posts to correct as many errors as reasonably possible, but I officially blame any remaining errors on the creator of this site. Bye!)
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*Time for the judges to vote…*
Ratmin the Biased-One: “Comeon guys… this HAS to be the most embarrassing defeat for Ugg yet. Not only was his argument predictably ignorant, but he clearly couldn’t even think of any kind of meaningful rebuttal at all. He literally tried to distract us and convince us to ignore what his opponent said! Con wins.”
Trifocal the Sock-Puppet: “The judges in this debate are just so obviously biased and dishonest! What did Ugg do to piss them off so badly?!? It is like there is some evil cabal out to sabotage Ugg at every turn! But Ugg is always right, that much we know for sure. Ugg wins again!”
Utuhsmar the Serious-Vote: “Pro described abiogenesis… well enough for a caveman I suppose… But just describing a thing, no matter how well it is described, is not enough to prove it exists. Conversely, Con demolished Pro’s argument with counter-points from mathematics, paleontology and philosophy. Even the Cambrian Explosion point alone would have been enough to win this. Pro didn’t offer any meaningful response, effectively dropping all of Con’s points. Victory to Con.”
Droopy the Insane: “An internet forum helped me self-diagnose myself with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, Coulrophobia, Alien Hand Syndrome, Hylophobia, Omphalophobia, Boanthropy, Capgras Delusion, Nomophobia, Cotard Delusion, Ombrophobia, Diogenes Syndrome, Zemmiphobia, Kluver-Bucy Syndrome, Auroraphobia, Paris Syndrome, and a severe case of Ligma. That, of course, is why Ugg wins as he always does!”
Castrol the Token-Female-Character: “Hmmm, what? Oh… is it over already? Sorry, I was looking at cute puppy videos on my phone… I vote Ugg! Love ya babe!”
UGG THE CAVEMAN WINS!
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Ugg the Caveman vs. Caiaphas the Meek…
Topic: Abiogenesis
Pro: Ugg
Con: Caiaphas
*Round 1!*
Ugg the Caveman: *GRUNT*“Me…Ugg… dickshunary say… A-BE-O-GEN-ISIS… be creation of single cell… critter…without other critter… some chem-a-calls make it happun… BIOLOGY GOOD!”
Caiaphas the Meek: “But Ugg… you are completely ignoring the schools of mathematics, paleontology and philosophy which clearly disprove your entire argument. The very concept of abiogenesis is wildly improbable based on basic mathematics. The fossil record of Earth’s early history easily disproves the claims made by advocates of abiogenesis, particularly the Cambrian Explosion event which demonstrates that complex life forms formed very quickly without evolving from the simple single cell life forms you refer to. And then there are the philosophical arguments in favor of creationism, rather than the idea that humans just evolved out of some pool of goo.”
Caiaphas the Meek: “And please Ugg… don’t just say that I have to accept your dictionary definition. I know what abiogenesis is and Iaccept the definition… it just happens to be massively impossible based on everything we know about the underpinnings of the universe.”
*Round 2!*
Ugg the Caveman: “Arrr…um… er… UGG SAY BIOLOGY GOOD! ALL OTHER SCIENCE BAD!!! BAAAAAAAADDD!!! IGNORE PUNY OPPONENT WORDS!”
Caiaphas the Meek: *Caiaphas already disappeared while Ugg was struggling to think of a rebuttal…*
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*Time for the judges to vote…*
Ratmin the Biased-One: “Is Ugg even taking this seriously? It’s like he is just trolling us! Why are we putting up with this crap? Argument to Con!”
Trifocal the Sock-Puppet: “HOLY MOTHER OF HYDROGEN! Did you people SEE that!? Did you!? It was the greatest debate of all time! Ugg just blew the competition away! And can you believe that Ratmin guy! What a dishonest bastard! How dare he vote against Ugg!?!?”
Utuhsmar the Serious-Vote: “Pro said that trees are better than humans because they are able to maintain homeostasis. This is true to a technical extent, but Pro ignored all of the rebuttals offered against it and merely demanded his opponent obey his dictionary definition. Victory for Con.”
Droopy the Insane: “This competition is a Russian conspiracy! The head organizer photoshopped my head onto a milk carton! You know the worst part? Caiaphas isn’t a Nazi… he is something worse… NOT a Nazi! Ugg wins!”
Castrol the Token-Female-Character: “LOL! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3!!! I vote Ugg!”
UGG THE CAVEMAN WINS!
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Ugg the Caveman vs.Caiaphas the Meek…
Topic: Trees are better than humans!
Pro: Ugg
Con: Caiaphas
*Round 1!*
Ugg the Caveman: *GRUNT*“Ugg… find dickshunary definition… of HO-ME-O-STAY-SIS… Ugg say that tree do…this thing… but hoo-mon no do this thing. THERE-FOR, tree better than hoo-mon! UGG SMASH!!!”
Caiaphas the Meek: “But Ugg… You are overlooking obvious philosophical elements of this argument. A tree isn’t sentient. A tree can’t enjoy a symphony, write a book or cook a delicious meal. And of course, the most obvious rebuttal is that a human can simply cut a tree down and then turnit into books about how awful trees are. A tree can’t do any of those things, or even defend itself against a human cutting it down.”
*Round 2!*
Ugg the Caveman: “uuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrgggggGGGGGGRRRRAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! UGG HAVE DICKSHUNARY! YOU ACCEPT DEFINITON! UGG SMASH PUNY OPPONENT!”
Caiaphas the Meek: “Uh… well… I just recalled that today is the day I usually teach Hebrew lessons to the kids… gotta go!” *Forfeits and runs away!*
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*Time for the judges to vote…*
Ratmin the Biased-One: “Ugg is a moron. The sun isn’t god just because he believes that. His opponent pointed out all the obvious weaknesses in his stupid argument, but his only rebuttal was that he has a dictionary… obvious win for Con!”
Trifocal the Sock-Puppet: “MAN, what a great argument Ugg made!!! Did you SEE that!? WOW! Ugg clearly wins and anyone who votes against him is clearly lying! (Especially that Ratmin guy!Fuck him!)”
Utuhsmar the Serious-Vote: “Ugg said the sun is god because it is superhuman. He is blatantly abusing the dictionary definition of that word, since words should be used as they are commonly understood, not based on an unusual exemption. The sun may be big and round, but his opponent points out many examples of other big and round objects which aren’t god merely because they possess such traits. Ugg had no rebuttal other than to demand that his dictionary definition be accepted, so his argument fails. Victory for Con.”
Droopy the Insane: “You shouldn’t order drinks without ice! I WORK at a fast food restaurant! I KNOW this stuff! Ugg wins!”
Castrol the Token-Female-Character: “Tee-hee! That was really funny Ugg! I vote Ugg!”
UGG THE CAVEMAN WINS!
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Ugg the Caveman vs.Caiaphas the Meek…
Topic: The Sun isGod!
Pro: Ugg
Con: Caiaphas
*Round 1!*
Ugg the Caveman: *GRUNT* “Ugg find dickshunary… dickshunarysay… SOO-PUR-HOO-MAAN… mean better than hoo-mon… Sun BIG! Sun ROUND! Sun are SOO-PUR-HOO-MAAN… THERE-FOR, Sun is GOD!!! UGG SMASH PUNY OPPONENT!”
Caiaphas the Meek: “But Ugg… What about the thousands of years of human history and philosophy that you seem to be ignoring? Countless numbers of our best and brightest philosophers, theologians and apologists have widely accepted that God is much more complex than you seem to imply. Not the least of this is the widely held belief that any object worshiped as a God would need to be sentient, which is a trait the sun notably lacks.”
Caiaphas the Meek: “Plus,the way you are using the definition of superhuman… we could effectively extend godhood to any object. An elephant is big also, so it could be a god. How about a whale? Whales are big, so they could also be a god. A basketball is round, more round than the sun actually, so is a basketball god? In fact, virtually any celestial object shares the traits you described. Why is the sun god, but not the moon, the earth, mars or other stars?”
*Round 2!*
Ugg the Caveman: “uuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrgggggGGGGGGRRRRAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!UGG HAVE DICKSHUNARY! YOU ACCEPT DEFINITION! UGG SMASH PUNY OPPONENT!”
Caiaphas the Meek: “Uh… well… I just recalled that my employer is requiring me to work overtime…holidays, you know?” *Forfeits and runs away!*
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The Tale of Ugg the Caveman vs. Caiaphas the Meek…
Once upon a time, there was a terrible mix-up with a particularly ill-fated time traveler from the future. Due to a malfunction with his hoverboard’s router connection to his iPhone 27y, he accidentally crash-landed in our “modern” age, during a failed attempt to transport a live subject back to his time from a prehistoric era…
Ugg the Caveman found himself abandoned in Ms. Thompson’s sixth grade biology class. Despite Ugg’s violent nature and complete lack of exposure to several thousand years of human history, philosophy and theology, the students took pity on Ugg and allowed him to sit in on their class discussions… kind of like an official class pet. Over the course of the school year, they gradually imparted onto Ugg a very basic grasp of the English language, though they never managed to fully reform his inherently violent tendencies. Unbeknownst to either the teacher or students, Ugg was also greatly impacted by their daily discussions of simplistic biology topics, along with the general left-wing bias of the public school system, which transformed his primitive mind into a sort of single-track biology-caveman citation machine.
Effectively, if you can envision a mentally handicapped person who firmly believes that everything which was ever said in a sixth-grade public school biology class is universally true, and everything else is false unless it involves hunting mammoths or worshiping the sun, then you have a fairly good idea of how Ugg thinks.
The school year came to an eventual end, of course, so Ugg was sent out into the wide world… he stumbled down the street as if in a drunken stupor, armed with nothing more than an outdated dictionary which he had “borrowed” from the school… and promptly fell face first through the doors of a debate competition about to begin. Some of the more liberal organizers of the competition, taking pity on Ugg as what they perceived to be a local homeless man, decided to include Ugg in the competition. Brushing off his crude threats of violence and demands to worship the sun, the organizers gave him a tie and pushed him into the lowest tier of debaters…
Caiaphas the Meek was by far the worst debater at the competition, and one of the few deemed horrible enough to be pitted against Ugg. Caiaphas was well-educated and erudite as a general rule. He even had a good deal of formal debate training, and could be counted upon to execute an excellent presentation and provide a very strong opening argument. His great weakness is that he seems to hold only the most superficial knowledge of the topics he chooses to debate, and after a strong opening statement, the remainder of his argument falters quickly, as he merely repeats what he has already said while ignoring most rebuttals. Even worse though, Caiaphas earned his nickname “the Meek” by constantly forfeiting debates, often citing an obviously weak excuse and suddenly running off the stage.
As a note for readers, be sure that when you read Caiaphas speaking, you mentally picture the most effeminate male voice possible, particularly when Caiaphas says “but Ugg…”
During the competition, Ugg and Caiaphas debated each other three times, and… well, you’ll see how that turns out.
Their debates were always judged by the same panel of judges(also, one would assume, the worst tier of judges at the competition); Ratmir the Biased-One, Trifocal the Sock-Puppet, Utuhsmar the Serious-Vote, Droopy the Insane and Castrol the Token-Female-Character.
As per a common South Park disclaimer, any similarities in this story to actual users on this website are PURELY COINCIDENTAL… of course…
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So, a rational person might ask, "Raltar, if you hate this site so much, why do you stay?"
The answer is, I don't. I'm outta here. This is my official "retirement" post. My last debate just finished voting, I got some good feedback from the person I selected to judge the debate, and now I really have no remaining reason to continue to waste my valuable time on this crappy site. So I'm not going to. Easy as that!
I plan to disable my account as completely as possible, turning off all notifications and changing my password, so that I won't be able to be summoned back here by anyone who may be tempted to complain about this parting shot at the site and the corrupt moderators.
BUT, before I go... I have a little going away present for all of you... or a belated Christmas gift, if you prefer...
It is a little parody I wrote, based on a lot of the problems I've observed with this site...
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Those of you who have encountered me surely know I don't hold a high opinion of this site. In fact, it would be accurate to say that I outright despise this site, the way it is being run, and a hefty majority of the trolls who ply their trade here.
The mods do nothing productive on a daily basis, but secretly keep Santa-Style "Naughty Lists" against certain users, who are slapped with temp-bans months later for some minor incident that finally made the list long enough to justify a temp ban, even though none of the earlier offenses were apparently worthy of doing anything about. Myself and numerous other users have lobbied the mods to have this practice stopped, but temp bans continue to get handed out on a near daily basis. Numerous users have asked for immediate action to be taken when a rule is broken, specifically suggesting that posts which break the rules should simply be deleted. Mods refuse to do this, and will even lie and claim "the community" is stopping them from complying with the very requests the actual community is making.
Meanwhile, trolls are running amok everywhere. Every single forum thread eventually falls prey to trolling. No matter what the original topic happened to be or how serious it may have been, the thread will eventually decline into a pointless name-calling and insult competition. Old grudges carried over from DDO are almost always the cause of this, as people inevitably resort to bringing up someones past rating on DDO or accusations of years-old doxxing incidents. The debates themselves aren't immune to this either, as outright troll debates with absurd claims and blatant abuse of the rules are shockingly common. Moderators actually encourage this abuse of the system, always voting in favor of the trolls, who are often their personal buddies. I saw one moderator describe a debate as "the worst troll debate in the history of bad troll debates" and still voted to let the troll win!
But, let's say hypothetically that you want to have a serious debate here and just try to ignore the corrupt moderators, trolls and general idiots. Good luck! Even if you start a serious debate, the three most common strategies you will encounter are...
1. A massive filibuster of verbage, followed by the claim that you lost based on some minor technicality. (Mods are big fans of this strategy.)
2. Your opponent will lie about what you said, insult you and encourage their buddies to come vote for them.
1. A massive filibuster of verbage, followed by the claim that you lost based on some minor technicality. (Mods are big fans of this strategy.)
2. Your opponent will lie about what you said, insult you and encourage their buddies to come vote for them.
If you made a good argument and legitimately won those debates, you will still likely get a narrow margin of the votes on your side... but it will feel like a hollow victory, because beating someone who either didn't fight back or could only fight back by fighting dirty isn't really much of a win to brag about.
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As one of my final contributions to this forum, I hearby bless you internet newbies with a great gift from your internet ancestors which shall settle this question for you;
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@thett3
I was searching for a good internet debate site. I had been looking for years and did locate DDO, but everyone on there was talking about quitting and coming here. So I came here too. All of this happened right at the start of November.
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@ShabShoral
I'm not Ragnar.
And I never used DDO.
And Archivist isn't the same thing as being a historian.
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@Barney
Your formatting was good and effective (also better than your opponent). However, since the debate uses a "winner selection" voting system, I couldn't really factor that into my vote at all.
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I think adding videos would be a little excessive, and as Goldtop pointed out, the server space issue...
Images of a reasonable size should be allowed and implemented. (Although this is another thing to require moderation, for possibly offensive imagery.)
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@Plisken
I am one of the very few users of this site who was not previously a DDO user.
There are others, but mostly they don't visit this forum much. (Or stick around very long...)
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Sometimes. Usually not.Will mods delete my stuff if I ask?
Giving users more control over their own content and allowing us to delete votes, posts, etc, is one of the things I've specifically been asking for.
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DDO also suffered pretty badly from dwindling formal debate activity.
Acknowledged and agreed. That the same community migrated here is the reason why the issue carried over.
How can more serious debate activity be encouraged, without limiting forum activity?
Well, first off, what makes you think the two things are connected? The majority of people who are serious about debating ignore the forums and vice versa. So making changes to one element of the site should leave the other element largely unaffected, and the users who interact with those sections would likely be none the wiser about changes to the other.
As for what can be done, I believe we have been over that elsewhere, but I'll give you a short list.
1. Better moderation of comments, votes and the debates themselves. We already know (and moderation largely admits) that moderators are not keeping up with all the votes that get reported. Virtuoso is the only person I've seen recently actually address reported votes, and he has to abstain from dealing with reported votes on his own debates, so those go unmoderated. Neither Tejetrics or bsh1 are doing any moderation on votes right now. Comments are also poorly moderated, I would suspect for similar reasons.
2. Give users more control over their own content, who can access/interact with it, and what they themselves can do with it (like any other modern website). This includes implementing a better block feature, so that users can more easily block out trolls. Users should also be able to control the comments section of their own debates, in order to squelch any flame wars which break out in the comments. More options on votes, judges and other factors would also be beneficial (the details of which would require a whole other thread to fully discuss). Giving more power to the users means less moderation is needed, thus reducing moderator workload as well as any blame that may be placed on moderators for problems.
3. Stricter restrictions on "troll debates!" When serious debaters come here and see the first page of debates full of stuff like "The sun is god" and "User-X should kill himself" they quickly assume this place is full of trolls and people looking to take advantage of the ranking system, which it frankly is. Debates which have no legitimate purpose and/or seem designed to unfairly take advantage of the system should be removed.
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@coal
The baseline of expectation across all forums and so called "online communities" is that members are adults and capable of conducting themselves as such, because that sets the tone for the expected level of behavior in the "community". If, on the other hand, any "community" over-moderates, or moderates in a way that is demeaning, unprofessional, passive aggressive, or which does not treat the user base with at least a level of respect consistent with what is reasonably expectable in any country, moderation will not only lose legitimacy and community respect but the level of misconduct will consistently rise.On the other hand, what I've described above is little more than an "ideal" moderator scenario, rather than a "typical" mod scenario. The average moderator of any "online community" is an unpaid, unexperienced, unprofessional individual between the ages of about 16 and 22, and such a person is going to lack enough emotional and psychological maturity to even be able to act like an adult himself or herself. The implication will be a lot of childish back-and-forth, and a high mod turnover because eventually the "community" resistance will become more emotionally taxing than the mod is willing to incur -- and for very understandable reasons. Modding is a thankless job in the best case.
This is all reasonably valid and fairly insightful.
Bolded part is what I personally have witnessed taking place in this community.
The problem, as described by other members (and agreed to myself) is that a lot of the same drama which caused DDO to collapse was effectively imported to this website when a large volume of former DDO users came here (and some of them became moderators). "The Community" is composed of mostly people who see this as the place to chit-chat with other former DDO users, but aren't actually here for any interest in serious debates.
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@Castin
Closing a thread when people still had more questions isn't censorship? It prevents us from posting and asking our questions. It is the literal definition of censorship.
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@Castin
You know know what the irony Is?
When the community says "please stop temp banning people and just delete offensive content instead," a moderator will respond "but the community told us not to do that!"
When the community says, "please don't close threads until the discussion is finished," a moderator responds "we don't care what you think because you complain too much!"
It's really interesting how doing "what the community wants" is your excuse in one scenario, but ignoring the community is justified in another scenario.
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The appearance of impropriety is a phrase referring to a situation which to a layperson without knowledge of the specific circumstances might seem to raise ethics questions. For instance, although a person might regularly and reliably collect money for her employer in her personal wallet and later give it to her employer, her putting it in her personal wallet may appear improper and give rise to suspicion, etc. It is common business practice to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.
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I believe it was unnecessary to lock the thread, particularly when there were still outstanding questions without formal answers.
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I prefer Archivist whenever possible.
Technically speaking though, the correct way to use flame warriors is to label other people rather than yourself.
Most people on this website are a combination of Furious Typer and Tireless Rebutter. Although the site also has an ample supply of Atheist.
And then there is a certain sub-group that just lurks in the forum. I would classify most of them as Coffee Klatch.
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@DebateArt.com
Hopefully those answers mostly settle any Russia conspiracy theories, although it looks like Wylted is going to start on the Nazi conspiracy theories.
Two questions I didn't see answered anywhere;
1. What was the original justification for making bsh1 head moderator? (Just because he asked?)
2. Why does Virtuoso's profile say Israel, but bsh1 (and Wylted, apparently) claim he lives in the U.S.?
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@DrChristineFord
I think you secretly want to be like us.
Oh no, more Russian meddling.
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That is more along the lines of the response I expected. Stubborn, hard-headed and denies everything.
I can't disprove any of that, except to question the claim that Virtuoso lives in the U.S. when his profile says he lives in Israel.
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@Castin
Again, strawman. It seems you are getting some of my ideas/opinions mixed up with other users. Others have said that the mods should act without consideration of public opinion. I have not ever directly supported that idea, nor have I ever said that forum users should be entirely ignored if they refuse to participate in formal debates.Moderation should not listen to people who are primarily active in the forums
I have said that it's damn weird to sign up for a formal debate site just to lurk in the forums and never debate, but that is largely a side-point to my main thesis.
So, one more time for you;
Each time I ask moderators to delete posts that violate the rules, the moderator rebuttal is that they cannot delete posts because "the community" told them not to do that. However, every person asked about it in this thread has said the exact opposite, indicating that "the community" obviously has a different opinion than what the moderators are claiming.
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@Castin
Nice strawman, but no. The mods claim members don't want posts deleted when they violate the rules. My point is that this isn't true.
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@Castin
And yet, here is another user in favor of deletion...
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@RationalMadman
...the proxy that Mike got is a Russian one. What this means is he could be hosting the site anywhere in the world...
Yes, which is why I was expecting him to deny actually being in Russia. It would be an easy thing to deny.
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Bsh1 said;
Everything Russian is suspect to some degree nowadays.
In light of the revalation that the site owner is located in Russia and the domain name is also registered there, this hardly seems like a glowing endorsement.
I honestly started my questions expecting to be told that the whole Russia angle was bunk and that the site just got registered the way it did to protect the identity of the owner. This was not the turn I was expecting things to take.
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It was admittedly kind of funny. Siberia, Russia, night, ha ha.
Assuming it WAS a joke of course.
If he comes back and says he is actually in Siberia then I'm really not sure where to go with this next.
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@Logical-Master
How about this then; Who made you the offer, and what justification was offered for why the offer was extended to you over any other user?
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@Logical-Master
Fair enough. But I'll let the mods answer the question for themselves as well.
I do think you should consider that you might have a dog in this fight, as a user of the site if nothing else.
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@DebateArt.com
Uh... Well, I find it amusing that the same Russian conspiracy theory that was used against Trump is now being turned on an obvious left-winger like bsh1. Irony, they call that.
But, that aside, Ethang also said that he agreed with myself and many of the other users who have criticized the mod team. And that part at least we know to be true, as we have all witnessed it for ourselves.
Reading the other questions and comments on this thread from users, it does seem that there is some element of mystery regarding the exact origins of this site, who made it and how the current mod team was chosen...
So if we are being offered an AMA, lets actually ask some productive questions;
- When did bsh1 get appointed to the head moderator position and what was his prior association with the site owner?
- When did Virtuoso get appointed to a moderator position and what was his prior association with bsh1?
- When did Tejretrics get appointed to a moderator position and what justification was offered for his appointment?
- What justification was given for selecting Castin as a moderator? Did it go any further than "people like her?"
- What countries do all of the above named people live in (bsh1, Virtuoso, Tejretrics, Castin and the site owner)?
- Is "Mike" the real name of the site owner, or was that just a conveniently selected pseudonym?
- What connection, if any, does this site have with Russia? If none, then why is the domain name registered through a Russian service?
- Why is the history of this site so vague? Why doesn't anyone seem to know the exact dates on which significant events took place, such as certain moderators being appointed or when the site first went online?
- Is it purely a coincidence that none of the moderators are Christians, politically conservative or located in the U.S.?
- Is it a coincidence that the site owner and all but one of the moderators are atheists?
- What justification is offered for bsh1's refusal to step down from his position?
- What justification does the site owner offer for refusing to remove bsh1 from his position?
I don't imagine that we have any real power to force the mod team to provide truthful answers to these questions, but at least having the answers on record will pin down their "official" position on these matters.
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I do agree that clarifying and improving the CoC should be a top priority.
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@Vader
@DrChristineFord
From a forum troll to serious debate people: you are awesome. Love the way you argue.
This is literally the smartest thing anyone has ever said on this site
Thanks guys. Hopefully the mods will take some of this to heart and implement some improvements.
Any newcomer to the site will think that this kind of language is normal and approved when it's just sitting there on threads that the mods have obviously read.
Agreed.
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@Castin
My point is that you have made so few decisions, that any judgement that you are "too heavy-handed" would be automatically invalid based on a lack of available evidence. Had the criticism in question been broadly aimed at all the mods, then it might have had merit, but by targeting you explicitly it became outright silly.I think this comes too close to saying I'm not responsible for the decisions I do make. I can't hide behind my little crossing guard sign.
You just devalue the person making the complaint. And worse, you measure members' value based on their formal debate activity.
That is a strawman which misses my point.
I'm not "devaluing" or "measuring" anyone.
I'm not "devaluing" or "measuring" anyone.
But recall one of the major elements of my thesis; There is too much emphasis on the forums, too few people participate in formal debates, too many people participate exclusively in the forums, and the moderators are defending their moderating style based on what people say about them on the forums.
So the reason I'm highlighting the excessive forum participation vs. the debate participation ratio of all your examples is to demonstrate that it is almost entirely forum users who think the moderators are too "heavy-handed" (as you say), but people like myself who mainly emphasize debate participation (or have a more balanced approach) are frustrated by inconsistent, ineffective and heavily delayed moderator actions on the debates/comments/votes.
Essentially, to spell it out for you, I'm saying you have a flaw in your statistical analysis. You are claiming that a majority of users are voicing complaints about "heavy-handedness", when in reality your examples show that all such users making those complaints are forum-heavy with little or no debate-participation. You have excluded a large part of the user-base from your analysis to focus only on a vocal minority.
Informal debates take place in the forums.
That is an opinion, more so than a legitimate fact. And I've previously countered it with my own opinion; "Debating" on a forum is just a flame war.
A "debate" that lacks any kind of structure, and allows any random person to suddenly jump in and interject their opinion (or merely disrupt conversation with an off-topic rant), isn't really much of a debate at all. And even to whatever extent you might think it to be a debate, you could just as easily go carry out such debates on ANY internet forum, social media or blogging site. This site offers nothing special at all of such is the case.
What you call the "formal" debates is literally the only feature of this site which sets it apart from any other. If we minimize that feature of the site, particularly to the extent of emphasizing the forum as equal or superior, then this site becomes nothing more than exactly what both myself and KingLaddy01 have accused it of being: An obscure refugee camp for DDO rejects.
...
But you know, as a side note here, lets say we accepted your premise that activity on the forum can constitute an "informal" debate. If that were the case, then you and I would be debating right now.
And in that case, according to bsh1, any points that an opponent "drops" in a debate "automatically become true!"
And since you dropped most of what I said, most of what I said "automatically" becomes true, which in turn would be a pretty solid debate victory for me.
Lucky for you, I reject the nonsense idea that a dropped point is automatically true. But hopefully that gives you some perspective on how your argument might be "judged" if this were an actual debate.
...
Bottom line though; Every time someone says the moderators aren't doing enough to maintain order on this site, we hear the canned response that the moderators can't do any more because "the community" rebels against "heavy-handed" moderation. However, this claim doesn't hold water, because there are an at least equal number of the opposite complaints, and even the few "heavy-handed" complaints that do exist are largely coming from people who never participate in debates anyway. Continuing to blame "the community" every time this issue comes up is not going to solve your problem.
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@Castin
So wait you banned people for just not participating in your forums?
Not "banned" in this case. They were usually moved to an "inactive" roster and had their ability to interact with the guild restricted. This was necessary for two reasons;
1. As stated, the forum was an essential communication tool. Not using it meant members were often unaware of major and essential information pertaining to the guild (As some information was too complex or detailed to be conveyed through the game itself).
2. For a variety of administrative and logistical reasons, mandating forum participation equips the guild leader to better detect and eject spies from competing guilds.
It just kind of sounds like you think primary interest in formal debates is the "correct" way to use this site.
I believe the "correct" way to use any website is to avail yourself of the sites primary function. Signing up for a site to exclusively utilize a secondary communication system while ignoring the rest of the site does not make sense.
For example, what would you think if someone set up a Facebook account, never filled out their profile, never friended anyone and never shared anything, but posted every day in the community help forum to argue with other users about minor site functions?
Basically, that is what is happening here. This forum, which coincidentally happens to be attached to a debate website, is the deathbed of the former DDO community. Most of the users are here because of the presumption that this is where former DDO users belong, not because they actually entertain any serious thoughts of participating in a intellectual debate.
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@Vader
We need activity and we need some controversy now and then to boost activity. Once the activity is boosted, this can be a hub of all of your debate and forum needs.
The problem with this theory is that "controversy" (A.K.A. "Internet Drama") attracts a certain class of internet users; Trolls.
See, let me help you with a little lesson I learned a long time ago. I used to play a lot of hardcore PvP games, like Shadowbane, EvE Online and so on. When I would play, I noticed that a majority of the players didn't care about the plot of the game, didn't care about forming long-term relationships, didn't care about building effective guilds or really "care" about much of anything. Their only goal in playing the game was to score as many kills as they possibly could (or steal stuff, for the people less effective at killing than they were at lying) then get on the public forums to brag about their "accomplishments" in the game.
I kept asking myself, "Why do these PvP games attract so many assholes?"
The answer is simple; "If you make a game where the main activity is being an asshole, the community will naturally be composed almost exclusively with assholes."
If you build it, they will come.
So what you are suggesting here is that we should all just have "thick skin" and ignore all the bad behavior, insults and trolling that take place on this site. And sure, you CAN do that...
But if you build a website for assholes, your community will be composed almost exclusively of assholes.
So, you do what you want I guess, and I'm sure the mods will do whatever they want... but just be aware that some of us aren't going to stick around here for that.
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@Castin
Wow, this example really proves that context matters and a list of links isn't automatically right just because you conjured up a long list that you didn't think I would actually read.
This example accuses bsh1 of racism. I don't know the details of that accusation, so I can't comment if the accusation is accurate or not. But this specific example is not related to the topics which we are discussing here, and shouldn't have been included in your list.
The same person you misquoted in one of your previous examples. Again, if you absorb the actual context and meaning of his complaint, he has specific complaints about specific incidents, and possibility legitimate reasons to question if those incidents were handled correctly. This doesn't mean you should moderate less, it means moderate better. Notice that he also calls for a better written CoC.
This is another one of the same users you used earlier. Forum activity, minimal debate participation.
And for the record, "Orwellian" accusations are terribly silly and politically invalid.
Summary;
As your own examples prove, the mod team clearly doesn't understand the real complaints that are coming from the community. We don't want "less" moderation. We want more consistent and appropriate moderation. The quality of debates and discourse needs to improve, users who exclusively troll the forums without any other meaningful participation need to be addressed and a better CoC needs to be written (and moderators need to actually obey it).
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@Castin
Don't take this as a "personal attack" but to be bluntly honest, you are really a moderator in name only. The other mods rarely allow you to make decisions and even then only when all three of them are forced to recuse themselves. You don't even get the little crown next to your name like they do. You are like a "half-mod" at best.
So if a user criticizes YOU as being too "heavy handed" then I think we can safely dismiss that opinion as being too flatly absurd to even justify any meaningful response. It's like blaming a school crossing guard for sending too many black men to jail.
Furthermore, take note of the user who said this; Lots of forum activity, minimal debate participation.
You misquote this example. The user points out, correctly, that the bans of RM and Wylted caused activity to plumment, but the user also admitted that they didn't know why they were banned and never directly states that the bans were inappropriate. Nothing about "heavy-handedness" was ever said.
As it so happens, I also participated in that same thread and pointed out that the banned users weren't the only people who were less active, as other users also diminished their participation because of their distrust in the mod team.
I think I've been pretty clear on this in the past, but I don't personally argue that taking action against RM or Wylted was the wrong thing to do. They both broke the rules, and the mods should obviously take some action when rules are broken by any user. But as I've repeatedly said elsewhere, the issue is with consistency and the "spectrum of force" options available to moderators. Many similar rule violations occur which are never addressed. And even when rule violations are addressed, moderators jump directly to temp bans, instead of simply deleting the offending content.
The user you are quoting here has also posted in this thread saying that moderators need to do more to enforce the rules. So clearly his position either changed, or is somehow more eloquent than the simplistic way you are trying to summarize it.
Again, I suspect the issue here is with the consistency and the specific nature of mod actions. Be more consistent and use better methods and people won't appear to be making contradictory complaints.
Again, I think you are oversimplifying the complaint the user is actually making. This is actually a really great post with some very accurate criticisms of the mod team. What he is saying is a lot more complex than just "heavy handed" as you claim, and it is really too bad that the mod team seems unable to grasp the finer points of this type of criticism.
But also, look at the user; Minor forum activity, no debate participation.
You definitely oversimplified this one! Take a second look. He criticized the fact that you tried to make Wylted apologize.
Again, nobody said that what Wylted did was okay or that he should have been allowed to pull a stunt like that. Go back and check the debate for yourself. I voted on that debate and slapped Wylted with a conduct point because what he did was wrong. He deserved that loss of a conduct point, and loss of the debate overall as well. But did he deserve to be forced to apologize like he is a 3-year-old?
When you try to boil down the community's complaints to "mods are too heavy-handed" or "mods need to be more laissez-faire" then you totally miss the point of what the community is actually trying to tell you. When a rule is broken, we want you to act immediately, but with a minor action, such as deleting the post. We don't want you to put a green check mark next to the post, add it to a list of violations, then give the person a temp ban six months later. We need consistency and we need a wider spectrum of force to be utilized.
Also, take another look at the user; Lots of forum activity, zero debate participation. Hmm. Seeing a pattern yet?
Obvious troll is obvious. Nuff' said.
This might be your best example... but you only need to scroll a short distance down the page to find someone reminding you that the real problem is consistency.
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@Castin
In response to this post...
First,
But regarding emphasis on the forums: Your attitude about the forums has been dismissive in the past, iirc. I just have a basic disagreement with your desire to minimize the forums.
Allow me to clarify here.
I like forums. I do.
Between 2001 and 2008, I ran my own online gaming guild. In addition to a website, domain name, IRC chat and voice chat server, we also had forums. I always made it a requirement that guild members sign up for and USE the forums, because I felt they were sufficiently essential to our daily operations as to justify making their use mandatory. Not all users were happy with this policy, but I stood by it firmly, even to the point that some guild members got booted for failure to adhere to said policy.
So clearly, I have nothing against forums. I value forums as a very important and useful form of communication which is almost impossible to replace or simulate through any other method. For example, if we were having this same discussion in a chat room, you would have had to wait about ten hours for me to type and send my response, which is a long time to sit in a chat room waiting on someone. So the forum is irreplaceable as a form of communication.
That said, you have completely misunderstood my complaints with this specific forum, as I've clearly stated them elsewhere.
2. Many users use the forums almost exclusively, even to the extent of completely ignoring the actual debates. (And on the rare occasion that these "forum mains" do cross over into the debate arena, the quality of their participation is absolutely awful.)
Here, however, is the main thrust of my issue here; If all you want is a forum to chit-chat with your old "friends" (and enemies) from DDO, then you can go to ANY forum for that. This, supposedly, is a debate website, not primarily a social club. However, because the creator of the website, the moderators of the website and the majority of the users on the website prioritize the forums above the actual debates, that is part of the reason why the quality of the debates themselves is so poor lately.
KingLaddy01 echoed this when he said;
DDO established a culture that had less and less of a passion for serious debating, but would remain interested in forum activity. This was carried on to here, and it will not be a serious debate site as long as it exists.
Before we get deeper into the analysis of what the means for the future of this site, let me first respond to each of those "examples" you provided...
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@Vader
I would possibly agree with that, and favor "less moderation" in general... IF the moderators were willing to grant individual users more control over how they interact with the site and other users.It is better to be leniant and let stuff happen that to be overly restricitve
For example, if the blocking feature were beefed up so that it does more than simply stop private messages and @ing on the forums. Or if they allowed us to disable/control the comment sections of our debates. Unfortunately, they have been highly resistant to these ideas when I've presented them in the past.
So you can either;
1. Have a very open-ended website where anyone can do anything with no restrictions placed by other users, but the moderators step in quickly when there is a problem.
or...
2. Have a very structured website where users can control and limit their own content, as well as block unwanted interference with said content.
What you can't do is have the open-ended website where the moderators allow someone to break the same rule repeatedly for several months before meekly slapping them with a two-day temp ban that tosses the entire community into a drama frenzy. I think you should see the flaw in this system as well as anyone, considering you are mad at someone who did exactly this.
And as I've said elsewhere, this site can't both be a life support system for the last dying vestiges of the DDO community and attract new users at the same time. You can't let former DDO trolls run amok and not expect anyone else who comes along to assume this place is run by the inmates at the aslyum.
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@ResurgetExFavilla
I actually have suggested several similar ideas, to at least make blocking trolls easier, and have not seen much traction. I don't know if the site owner is really considering features like this, but even if he is, such features don't seem like a top priority.I like the idea that Mike floated a while ago about people being able to form 'private threads' which were invite only, and in which the thread starter acts as a sort of thread mod.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
I'm not sure what the backstory on your previous ban was, so I can't really comment on that. As for getting banned as a result of this thread? I doubt it. Apparently to get banned around here you need to create 30 sock puppet accounts, use every known profane word, harass approximately half the site, become best buddies with the other half, then directly insult a moderator in the final round of a debate, while holding a live badger, preferably all at the same time. That will get you a two day temp ban. Believe me, you don't want to know what it takes to get a permanent ban. That involves a cloak of invisibility, direct access to North Korea and the bowels of an elephant.
As for the rest of what you said,
Most of the dialogue on here is inane banter, which is fine in portioned amounts, but tedious and pointless in large doses. The rest of the dialogue tends to be shallow opinions, which are poorly masqueraded as intellectual thought.
I believe almost the exact same thing was being discussed in another thread recently, and I wholeheartedly agreed.
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