Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Edi, there are no relevant threads regarding this. Just a sudden decision to ban Calahan for his sig (he put it up about two months ago) which was followed by Bat/man being banned.
Now you know as much as we do.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

this

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Okay, so that came right out of the blue for everyone. This thread also shed some light on the relevant things. Thanks.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

This is wrong, the rules have to be the same for everybody: Nobody can get a free pass to harass/abuse other posters just because of who he is. You might discuss the degree of the punishment, but not that there should be a punishment.

This is just a forum about a game of pixel soldiers, and getting banned is not a big deal: the owners have said themselves they have no problem with banned posters coming back under a new identity, if that means they behave properly from then onwards. All the hair pulling in this thread is out of place, getting banned is not the end of the world.

Also, you cannot justify insulting others just by saying that you also insult your buddies (let's be honest, there's a serious difference between friendly poking between peers and the abuse that gets thrown to the ones that are disliked by the hive mind). The mood in the Invision forums is like that of an old boys club: with insiders getting a free pass & outsiders being the target of the real abuse. It's as if you people were back in high school.

I happen to think that our community would be a better place if we all tried to show a minimum respect for each other, including those we do not like.

Young males have always got into fights for the silliest reasons, been there and done it myself, but they are expected to mature and learn sooner or later that their freedom, including their freedom of speech, ends up at that place where it collides with some other people's freedom. If they do not, they will be corrected by their elders or by those that hold the power in their society, as has been the case here.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Congratulations on both misunderstanding Fantomen's post and your misconception of the invision board. Yeah, it's quite the old boy's club, in order to get in you have to... not post complete crap? The people that get treated poorly on invision are the people who do questionable things on this one. If you start posting crap though you will get called on it.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Posted at the behest of Calahan;

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Is it really necessary to insult someone for being incorrect? Especially since being incorrect in this case refers to a game.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Mods
 

Yea he was always making personal attacks against me. So i finally had to put him on ignore. So I can definitely see why he was banned.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

This from the guy who has created a thread exclusively to make fun & take cheap shots at the posters of other forums. Pot, kettle, black. It's not fun being on the other side, right?

Take a step out of your shoes and think about how you can improve your attitude. It's not too late to change. It's called empathy.


And this is where you are, and have always been wrong. If you did this in RL you would get a black eye most often than not. As this is the internet, you only get a ban.

If someone makes a mistake, you are welcome to correct him/her, but not insult & belittle. You go too far.

Seriously, grow up. I'm sure there is an intelligent & kind guy behind all that posturing, you do unselfish stuff as admining games for newbies after all. But you are not a unique snowflake: the world doesn't evolve around your personal peeves & dislikes, you are the one who has to be flexible & adapt to living in society, and not everybody else adapt to your very particular ways.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Exactly. I'm starting to think that banning him was not a bad idea.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Cant we all just get along? There are two boards and they are both wonderful, marvelous, fantastic.
They get about the same amount of posting traffic.
They both serve a function.
They both have a user base who seems happy with it.
And, they are both, wonderful examples of what results from their policies.

People keep stating things about one or the other loudly as if they are arguing. I dont see a lot of error in anything that is being said about either board. The other side might not WORD it quite that way and make it sound like more of that boards advantage but that isnt really arguing is it?

There is no reason to try and get either one to operate like the other one. And no need to try and convince them that they should be unhappy with their forum. Everything has its pros and cons. So as long as (A) both boards allow guest viewing and (B) both boards allow the mention of the other board, then people will be able to find the one that fits their preferences. The end result will be decided by Internet Democracy at its finest (usage).

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

brxbrx, Wendigo, I'm not defending Calahan here, but;
The guy is always helpful but has a short fuse when people are wasting his times and posting BS. He usually gives you one chance before he starts to rant relentlessly, but I get where his frustration comes from.

Personally, I'd be happier if players like you brxbrx didn't bother to always try to answer any question, as from what I see you tend to give wrong answers more often than not. If and when you don't know the answer or are not sure, please don't answer because you feel the urge to answer and end up confusion people. Or if you do, advise people to take it with a grain of salt. Especially since you're a SP fan and anything which sound good in SP is usually crap for MP.
The only worse thing I find is when someone claims something very wrong about a certain game mechanic and won't accept the fact that he's wrong, even when explained or given proof, so he just goes on to spread more BS.
A lot of people, including me for example, have stopped trying to answer any newb question here entirely because is too damn frustrating to have to deal with all the **** that comes with providing a simple answer.

Ideally, I'd like here to be a sticky which directs newbs with questions to dom3mods, since no matter what you all might think, people there are much more helpful and straightforward. BS will be called on, and trolls will be marked as such.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Of course you put him on ignore, ghoul, you've put everyone who ever publicly disagreed with you ever on ignore. One cannot even tell you simply in polite terms that you're wrong without making your ignore list. So I don't think that being on it means much of anything, honestly.

Wendigo - there are rather some differences, such as a banned person being literally incapable of posting messages. There was recently a guy that came onto the other board just to argue with the invisions people. He never got banned for that :P So you're again arguing a non-point.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

How are you old chap? it's been over a decade since our first game together, back with the comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategy crew, and I see that you are still offering disinterested hosting services, same as then.

You have always been a genuinely good guy. I manage people for a living nowadays, and I guess that makes me much more unforgiving. If you let behaviour like this fester in a corporate environment, the end result is a dead company.

Your conciliatory tone is even more ironic considering how much you have been the target of Callaghan's puns. He should be doubly ashamed. Thrice, considering that you might likely have the age to be his grandfather.

Whatever, if you do not want to push the issue, neither will I. I dislike Callaghan the incarnation, but I have nothing against Callaghan the player: if he joins the forum under a new name & a new attitude, it's a clean record as far as I am concerned. He could call himself Callaghan_Reloaded for all I care, I doubt Shrapnel would care either.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Executor:
Callaghan is obviously a perfectionist type. i know the type well enough: my wife is the same, and we have been married for over 12 years.

Perfectionists at their best are a great asset to any organization/community, they are incredibly energetic and focused, so they get **** done.

At their worst, however, they are a handicap, they fixate so much on the mistakes of others that they become a source of trouble & conflict, alienating other members and preventing them from reaching their full potential.

It's easy to see how Callaghan has been both things for this comunity.

Rdonj: He has his friends, such as you, to vouch for him. He can re-join and speak for himself. He is far from defenseless. Who vouches for your targets in Invision? I bet anyone that shows to defend himself will rather suffer a piling on. That's exactly the way of old boys clubs, bullies & hive minds. Do not expect an applause if that's the way you choose to act.
Besides, your place->your rules. This is Shrapnel's place, guess who gets to write the rules here.
You are the one who is missing the point because of your coloured glasses, try to be more objective.

Really, the cards are on the table. Callaghan gets to choose whether he wants to be a valuable asset for the Dominions community or just a troublemaker.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Im 56, my sons are mid 30s. Hopefully not quite the age to be grandpa to those here but I guess it could squeeze thru. I still haunt sissy pigs. Ive been on Internet since before it was called Internet.

Exactly the key. Corporate environment. And its a corporate environment which supports a game. Being compared to a forum which is fan owned and fan operated.

Yeah I get flak for that. Ive been told to change (usually for a job) but by now they just have to accept that its me. Change is unlikely. All I did was move on to another job that wanted what I am. Less effort that way. And makes for a very diverse resume.

Now Im health retired so I care even less. :)

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Ive fought that battle online since before internet. "You know you cant really keep me out". And the official answer would never be "we dont care". But seriously, Ample gets booted off for being rude and then creates ex-Ample to sneak back in. He contributes to the posts and conversations but to not get caught he acts completely different than he did before.
Oh Ouch.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

So, the people carping most loudly about Calahan's banning and how he was such a bad person and always mean to them are the ones whose posts I long ago stopped reading (unless required for thread moderation purposes) on account of it being such a colossal waste of my time 99 times out of 100. How unsurprising.

Calahan may have been an abrasive poster under certain conditions, but given the number of times I had to moderate threads where he participated, it generally came down to the following sort of exchange:

Newbie: *asks question*
Poster X: *specious, incorrect answer*
Calahan: "No, that's not how it works, it's [correct answer]"
Newbie: "Thanks!"
Poster X: "But how can you be saying that because under the conditions of [entirely different situation] my answer..."
Calahan: "Your situation did not apply and even if it did [essay length correct explanation for that situation]"
Poster X: You still don't understand and you're clearly wrong! [holds forth, still on wrong track]
Calahan: *annoyed answer*
Poster X: *more Wall of Ignorance*
Calahan: *pulls out flamethrower*


Sometimes it took a longer time, sometimes it took a shorter while, but that was the general pattern on all those occasions. And when he was told to back down, Calahan did so.

Nobody appreciates having their time wasted and over time people who do waste someone else's time tend to start getting shorter and shorter slack for it until there is nothing at all and they get told to sod off from the get-go.

I'm also rather amused at the indignation toward Calahan for being such a bad person for sometimes being short with certain people or even *gasp* using rude language. Generally (not limited to this forum only) I see that behavior mostly from people who have absolutely no problem wasting massive amounts of people's time, repeating their already discredited arguments ad nauseam and then swooning and reaching for the smelling salts the second someone loses patience with them and calls them out on it. How dare that person be rude to them?! As if it wasn't rude to repeatedly ignore his arguments and waster his time and perhaps even insult him into the bargain, albeit less directly.

Now, which one of those behaviors is actually more offensive?


As another point I would like to bring up, I do not see it as very good sportsmanship to come out of the woodwork to bash a person who was banned without warning and is thus unable to even defend himself at this venue.

There are opinions both for and against the banning among the forum members, as we have seen here, though to me it seems very much that there are a great deal more of those against than those who approve of the events. But for the time being, it is a done deal. The only way it would change is if the Shrapnel administrators decide to reverse their decision through whatever rationale.

If those who agree and approve of the decision to ban Calahan wish to gloat about it, they are free to do so in private elsewhere, but I am not going to put up with it in this thread.

Now, if you like to discuss what types of approaches to debate and making arguments one should preferably use and other such things with the posters here, go for it.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

The catch here being of course that given past precedent for banning high octane contributors who may on occasion be troublesome, Calahan got the rawest deal for the least offenses that I have seen in six years, bar none: A summary ban without warning or public explanation.

Aside from including something (I don't know exactly what) about another poster in his sig, he hasn't done anything I haven't done at some point or another, though I did put some additional safeties (such as they are) on the flamethrower way back when I was made a moderator.

So it is not difficult to see why this caused such an uproar, because the question about the consistency of the enforcement of the rules and the basis on which it is done is, to those not privy to additional information, completely legitimate.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Mods
 

Good job on pulling that sentence completely out of its context. This exactly the kind <edited for language> Calahan called people out on, and exactly the reason many of the other best players with less perseverance have (partially) given up on trying to answer/help/give advice...

You can hardly open your mouth around these parts without some dumb schmuck (Or malevolent troll) ignoring what you said, arguing againt it pointlessly without a shred of evidence to back them up, pulling it out of context or otherwise <edited for language> over every effort to be helpful.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Which is exactly what the other forum is for
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods
I highly recommend that anyone playing MP games should at least visit it to see what is going on there. AND to their IRC channel. The benefits of such are obvious when you see them in action.

And those benefits are becoming more and more difficult to find here.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Mods
 

The rules are that if you launch personal attacks on people, and call them names all the time, you are going to be banned. That is what happened.

If you think that stuff should be allowed then you should hang out on the other forum, not here.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Hey, look at that! I don't even have to bother to type an answer to that, since somebody else already did. :D

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

So your argument is that because you *think* that the invision board is an old boy's club, you *expect* that someone who shows up to defend themselves will be voted off the island. Aside from the irony of saying something like that in this thread with some rather obvious piling on of calahan by a bunch of people who basically never post except when people are banned and the circular logic employed by your argument, the fact is that situations like this on the invisions board play out fairly similarly to how they do here, except that we don't ban people over there. And there are some people over on invision now who had a somewhat dubious reputation on the board at one point who have come over and been accepted now (after due process of an airing out of grievances). So, please stop making things up, kthanks :)

Edi: That was a hilariously accurate portrayal of Calahan, thanks for making me laugh.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Lets not pretend its the Land of Milk and Honey over there either..

I got:

"bad poster"
"s**t stirrer"
"troll" (numerous times)
"acting like a d**k"
"d**ksplash"
"nitpicky apologist"
"Shut up, Mr. momfreeek! You are not brought upon this world to get it!"

But there were some welcoming voices and yeah, they didn't ban me. Despite my faults, I think some of them are already coming round to the idea that I might not be a total tool ^^

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

It's telling that this thread has been the source of more posts in the last five days than the rest of the forum combined over probably the last three to four weeks.

Draw your own conclusions.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

I might be wrong, but it seems to me that almost all of the other forums are effectively museum pieces - not much if any posting ever. In fact, at a guess I'd say at least 80% of the forum posts happen in the Dom3 subforum.

Its going out on a limb, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that most of the income also comes from Dom3 now.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

They are support forums for games. Not quite the same as a forum like Dom3Mods is. The criteria for success is abit different. Most of the threads on Dom3 forums is about MP games. Sometimes a question pops up.

Other than game chatter, the Dom3 forum is slightly less than half of the posting traffic on the entire server. But it also gets 8 times as much reading as it does posting.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Thank you Edi, that was an excellent and well argued answer.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Posted at the request of Calahan.

@ Edi

I must say it's pretty unnerving how well you know my forum behaviour. Starts to make me wonder what else you know about me You might want to make note though that I prefer a minigun over a flamethrower, as I find it does more damage at a quicker rate (I recommend you check it out yourself). Although recently I've found the nuclear option to be very appealing, as the time savings you can make with it are just incredible!

Anyway, I thought you might want to know what my signature was which I seemingly got banned for. I'm not 100% sure if the following is word-for-word accurate, but it's around the 95% mark, and is certainly an accurate representation of what my signature was...


*CALAHAN'S FORMER SIG CONTENTS EDITED OUT*

(sorry to further disappoint my critics after Edi took the wind out of your sails, but no porns links were harmed in the making of my signature, contrary to some of the rumours I'm sure you'd all like to believe are true)


And that was it. No idea exactly what part of that signature got me banned, I'm guessing it was the word "stupid", but if so then it appers I effectively got banned for calling an Orange an Orange. I might have used "idiot" instead of "stupid", and in the context of "I can not take idiots like Bat-man...", but I don't see how that makes any real difference unless you are playing Scrabble.

I put that signature in place on, or soon after the 14th May, after finally giving up arguing with Bat-man in a thread on the main forum (and at the same point I firmly convinced myself that Bat-man was Chris-P, and so I also realised who I was pointlessly arguing with, and which therefore prompted me to stop arguing immediately due to significant prior experience). And I was banned (for this signature?) on either 1st or 2nd July (I noticed around noon GMT on 2nd July).

And apologies for the slight mis-spellings. They are there to get around a word fliter that's currently in place on dom3mods.


If the links don't work, which I suspect they won't as they never do when copied from a post (they get displayed in shortened form, and copied as such), then please use the following and add the letter "h" to the start of them. (to make "http" obviously). Most browers do this automatically when you paste the text into the address bar.

ttp://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=671089&postcount=189
ttp://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=671414&postcount=205
ttp://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods

Link to this post on dom3mods, in case it doesn't display properly on Shrapnal
ttp://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=835&view=findpost&p=22015865

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

The anti Calahan camp is right in one regard. The hive minded abuse of ghoul wasn't nice. In the end it became a bit of a running gag to make fun of ghouls style. The "your mom" joke of dom3mods.

People at dom3mods even acknowledged this. Calahan certainly wasn't the main heckler or the most verbose about it. Still, it wasn't a nice thing to do. (Sadly, I could not find a link).

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

This is my perspective. Calahan is consistently, over the years I know him, helping the community in many ways, like sharing knowledge, doing tests, balancing maps ( he did this once or a twice as a generous favor for games I hosted) & subbing.
He is given much more than, I'd say at least 90% of the forum members. You see, how many vets out there have the will, time or patience to correct disinformation spread to newbs?

If his sig. was over the top the mod should have talked to him about & ask him politely to moderate it.
Many forms of abusive behavior pass under the radar but that does not make them right or any less abusive. I'm talking about P/A, answering wrong answers w/o checking & w/o a simple "ÿes I was wrong" when called out, ditching games etc. Yet such are not banned. Instead a top contributor is out right banned when reported for his sig. (who actually reported violation of forum rules albeit not in a polite manner)

That's wrong. And the sooner it's acknowledged the better. He should be un-banned and if it were me who banned him I'd do two more things - apologize for the harsh & unjust measure and ask him to take it easy and try to moderate his responses. I'm sure he'll comply since he's basically a good guy and has good intentions. But at the very least he deserves a chance.

And Exec is absolutely right about:
"
A simple solution to this would have been to appoint several very active and appreciated members to supervise the forum they are active in, and leave those mods to handle internal matters regarding those forums. Help new members, organize new projects, intervene in situations like this where two members were pointlessly banned, etc. I'm sure many member would have been glad to help (people like Soy, WL, Frozen, Maer...) and those people would actually be able to promote harmony on the forums and help the company as well.
Is that really that hard to do? And yet imagine how much better this forum would be, how much more people would be here, how many more people would actively contribute and participate on the forums, and how many more people would actually buy this game?
"
Although it's not a trivial thing to ask of working, busy ppl I'm sure volunteers would be found.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Okay, listen up everyone!

I don't expect to be a very popular person after this post is through, but it's got to be made. Like it says in the reason for editing Executor's post and removing Calahan's sig contents out of there, this is about preventive damage control.

It was made known to me that posting the contents of the sig second hand, even if the intent was to inform me of what caused this ugly chain of events, is a violation of the terms and conditions of the forum. Fair enough, by reading the T&Cs, it is. So it got removed for that reason, in order to make sure that Executor does not find himself in hot water for no reason.

There is another thing that is relevant here, one which is not spelled out directly in the terms and conditions. However, it can be inferred/deduced from the terms and conditions, so please pay attention:

If and when a member is banned from the forums, it is done to remove them from the discussions for their perceived disruptive or otherwise negative influence, as judged by the forum moderators and/or administrators. The ban makes it clear that the person is no longer welcome and the inference is that they should no longer have a voice in the discussions here. This is not about Calahan specifically, it is the policy with regard to all banned members.

Therefore people should not be posting messages on behalf of banned members, because it can be seen as deliberately circumventing the ban by proxy. That would land the proxy poster in trouble.

If anyone wants to relay messages to anyone else from banned members, it should be done via PM. This way nobody gets in trouble and the message gets delivered. There is also the option to ask the intended recipient of the message to take a look at the message on another venue that is not on these forums, preferably via PM, which again avoids trouble for everyone concerned.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Now, all of that said, there are some other considerations that I wish to make clear, if they were not already so from my previous posts:


I personally agree that Calahan was a valued member of the community for exactly the reasons Wraithlord outlines above and what Executor and others have been saying since the beginning of the thread.

I also agree that the ideal situation would have been for a moderator, such as myself, to ask Calahan to remove or change the offending sig upon spotting it and perhaps issue a warning about such behavior in the future. The problem would have been solved and these events would not have happened.

However, due to the absence of both myself and llamabeast, the remaining active moderators, this did not happen and resolution of the issue was kicked directly to the forum administrators. They felt that Calahan was blatantly and intentionally in violation of the terms and conditions of the forum and out to stir trouble and therefore decided to ban him directly. The fact that offending sig was put up as early as May and stayed up as long as it did certainly did not alter their stance on the issue in Calahan's favor.

So the banishment is in all likelihood going to stick and that issue is not up for debate.


I also agree that it would be a good thing to have other active moderators, especially for the multiplayer subforum, which is the one that sees the most traffic. I and the administrators will certainly take this under advisement, but don't expect new moderators to be named tomorrow. After the recent events and the emotions running high on all sides, making rushed snap judgments not in anybody's interest.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Boy are they mad that they are being made to look silly. lets just censor the discussion down so we don't look any worse.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

You can hold the opinion that it is silly to edit out the sig contents from Executor's post, but you can't argue about the consistency of removing a negative statement that was removed from the sig of a member who also got banned for it.

The reason I edited it out is that Executor should not run the risk of being punished for relaying a message to me in good faith, especially since he (or anyone else for that matter) had never been made aware of the particulars explained in my the post where I laid the reasoning out. Removing part of that message accomplishes that purpose and now that the instructions about relaying messages from banned members are laid out, they should be followed. However, I did not feel that things posted before it was explicitly explained need to be removed.

I have discussed this incident with the administrators of the forum and I know exactly how it looks from both sides of it and I understand the why of it from both sides. I'm just trying to make damn sure this crap doesn't get any worse, so I would appreciate it if you refrained from pouring more gasoline on the flames.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Okay, but my question is why does Exec get a warning about that, but Calahan didnt get any warning to edit his signature? i'm sure if someone had asked him he would have changed it immediatly

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Edi - thank you for making the situation a bit more transparent, and looking out for us. I can't take offense to what you've done, but I'm finding myself increasingly frustrated with and intolerant of shrapnel's backwards policies. I don't really expect the outcome of this banning to be changed and never did. Because shrapnel has a thing for sticking to their guns. But it is very gratifying to hear someone more or less on the inside saying that shrapnel is wrong. Hopefully one day they too will recognize that.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Edi: I sometimes post irc logs that answer questions that get asked here. The people that answer the question are banned. Am I not allowed to do that?

(I leave the nicknames visible in the irc logs to provide proper attribution).

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

But - the forum administrators are here for the players, right?

And if a majority of the active playerbase thinks that it was a bad decision to ban somebody over something as petty as a forum signature, it is pretty clear that the forum administrators are doing a **** job of looking after the interests of the people actually using the forum.

And what is putting "fuel on the fire" is not people posting about it, it is some administrator being a donkey and refusing to go back and change an obviously crappy decision.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Soy: Being as the intent there is clearly helpful I think it's fine.

Everyone: Sorry about this. It's a bit of an awkward spot for Edi and I. I've been a busy unfortunately but thanks are owed to Edi for greatly improving the situation (whether or not it's obvious). In future I believe Shrapnel would like to get more moderators on board, and hopefully it will be possible to avoid direct action by Shrapnel staff if there are sufficient active moderators.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

This is all i want to know

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Thank you Edi for bringing sanity to this discussion, you're a great moderator.

I'll also take the opportunity to apologize for being overly aggressive to Gandalf in this thread, in hindsight that was uncalled for.

But the above declaration of censorship via proxy is some of the most disgusting things I've read here so far. So we can't include the relevant information when we discuss the issue? Consistent? Yeah, ****nels policy is super consistent in treating the community like ****, I'll give them that. (No offense to you Edi.)

If it's about preventing personal abuse wouldn't censoring ***********s name from the quote be enough for that?

Personally I will not censor myself, or adapt my posting to some vaguely repressive policy. Never have, never will. If I feel it appropriate to quote from banned members on dom3mods or Irc I will do so. And hopefully the thought police will be busy at the time, or have a rare outburst of common sense and see that neither me or anyone else are out to harm.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

You mean moderators or staff?

Fan-based forums are there for the players. To make them better players and weed out the crappy ones. They can become excellent players if they are willing to listen. We have an excellent forum for that and I highly recommend that anyone interested in becoming the best player they can to take a look at that forum.

An official support forum is more to support the game. Everyone who owns the game or wants to own it. They can play it all ways at all levels. Why would they care about crappy players? Maybe even crappy players would be desirable as long as they are happy playing the way they want since they might get their crappy player friends to want the game also.
Or worse yet, even solo players :)

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

It was nice to see transparency about the bans and thanks for that Edi, but it does not change my opinion about the bans: god what bull****.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

While we are talking about banned members, and in the interests of fairness, my understanding (based on chatting to him about it) is that bat/man aka chrisp created his new account because he was unable to log into the old one when he returned after being away for a long time, and despite repeated requests couldn't get the password reset etc.

Now, I can't personally validate this (and don't propose to defend it as this is not my battle - I just think it should be thrown into the mix in the interests of natural justice), but I have certainly had the same experience myself on other forums so its seems very plausible to me.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

I think Edi made this clear: Agree with the punishment or not, Calahan's sig seems to havecrossed an obvious forum policy, while Executors actions crossed a much less apparent policy. Therefore Edi, justly, edit the post and clarified the policy.

Please note, I am firmly in the Calahan camp but am just answering the question.

Sigil

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Executor did not get a warning issued against him! His message post just got edited to remove that part and then there was a public explanation of why it was done and an appeal for everyone not to do that in the future. As in, a more a detailed clarification about how the policy is going to be interpreted in the future, but no ex post facto enforcement of said interpretation to past posts (aside from removing the sig quote).

I believe I also explained how things turned out because the moderators were absent. Had I not been absent, I would have asked Calahan to remove the sig, just like llamabeast would have done had he been around. I never had any problems with Calahan when I had to ask him to do something or refrain from doing something, so I agree with you that it would probably have solved the issue.

However, the administrators had to make the decision they did on the information they had, which was not the same information that would have been at my and llamabeast's disposal.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

Thanks Edi. You have once again done the best you could with the mess you got handed, and you don't have to worry about your popularity taking a hit in my book, I think we all know the **** has indeed flowed downhill here.

Re: The Joys of Overzealous Moderators
 

So are there plans to draft in a few more moderators, to deal with this sort of thing before it escalates up the food chain and leads to outcomes like this?