You certainly could.

This post isn't about shaming YJ for acting like a dick (which I could have supported). This post is about appealing to the mods because you think your thread is more important than the others on here. You want to be treated differently.

If this discussion was about an entire overhaul of the Forum rules, that would be something worth discussing. You guys just want to change the rules when it's convenient for you. It's pathetic.

I have said I don't think mod intervention is necessary or desirable. I don't think special treatment is required.

Mujus certainly thinks the Mods should intervene.

If your argument is that some people are dicks, then I absolutely agree with you. But there isn't much you can do besides ignoring them. Luckily, that's very easy to do thanks to the Mute button.

I think that the mods should intervene by muting YellowJacket. What he posted wasn't acceptable in any thread.

I am an atheist btw

I can only speak for myself, not for Mujus.

Muting is useful, but not enough. If people are going to learn mature behaviors, there has to be some response.

@SY

By that standard, half of the regular Forum posters would be muted by the mods.

Here's the deal, Orathaic--Your posts against the Bible and against Christianity, and YJ's previous posts on that topic, are absolutely appropriate for the Daily Bible Reading thread because they debate the main issue itself--God and the Bible. So are the discussions we have had on homophobia in the Bible, animal cruelty in the Bible, atheism and the Bible... because those posts are on-topic. But by analogy, and to use your own reference, the Advertise Live Games Here thread would be a very inappropriate place to post either a Bible reading or a graphic description of a sexual encounter of any sort because posting that kind of blatant attack on the thread would be ruining the experience for the readers. Please don't read anything else into my request.

"By that standard, half of the regular Forum posters would be muted by the mods."

Agreed, let's start making some progress on this. Krellin, Yellowjacket to start

Abge, you are mistaken in what you say and believe about me: "This post is about appealing to the mods because you think your thread is more important than the others on here. You want to be treated differently." I used the example of the Advertise Your Live Games Here thread as an example.

The Lives Game thread is a special case because it prevents the thread from being cluttered by spam for live games.

There are no content threads that are safe from hijacking. Maybe you don't think that's good, and that's an OK position to have. But, you can't ask the mods to prevent hijacking in your thread alone.

Sorry, that first sentence was unclear.

The Live Game thread prevents the Forum from being cluttered by ads for live games. No one is preventing other people from creating other threads about Christianity. In fact, there are several on the front page right now.

Please also see Dipplayer's very cogent explanation of the issue: "Yonni, it has nothing to do with the nature of the pornography. It could have been gay, straight, or whatever. It was not the place, and it was only done to provoke and to interfere. If someone posted something of the sort in a thread about Diplomacy tactics, or in a thread about sports, or in a thread about philosophy, others would find it tasteless and offensive. But throw it at the religious people, and all of a sudden it is a brilliant satire? Seriously?"

@mujus, yes i think we are agreed. Some people will be trolls, and intentionally spread hate. I do not approve, but i also don't want mods hurting discussion by wasting time moderating the edge cases - those being the times it becomes hard to tell if some behaviour is inappropriate, if you have some solid rule for mods to follow then everyone will learn not to break it, but they will still bend it as far as they can; and that will just make far more work to distinguish when they have crossed the line.

And that is assuming that A) we can come up with a good, solid rule and B) the mods can enforce it consistantly across all threads (so people will learn) C) the mods are just and benevolant.

In the best cases, we make a lot of work for the mods, in the worst we make a lot of people upset about unfair moderation and damage freedom of speech.

So we have self-moderation - allowing everyone do the work of telling off trolls for wasting our time. Allowing us, as a community, to agree 'unspoken rules' or gentlemen's agreements. Which anyone can break and only have the strenght of their supporter's words. (so what the community supports is clearly visible from these words)

(sorry if my anti-christian rant was off-topic, this thread should be about how our communit moderates things)

@Mujus

No shit it was done to provoke and interfere. That's YJ's entire M.O. So what? People hijack threads all the time.

Are you arguing for a complete overhaul of the Forum Rules, or do you just want an exception made for your thread?

"The Lives Game thread is a special case because it prevents the thread from being cluttered by spam for live games.

There are no content threads that are safe from hijacking. Maybe you don't think that's good, and that's an OK position to have. But, you can't ask the mods to prevent hijacking in your thread alone."

That's not true abge, previous mods asked Mujus to restrain his postings to one specific thread since the daily thread creation was cluttering up the forum. He was kind enough to do so, so his thread in fact does fall under the same category as the live game thread since he doesn't have the option of making a new thread should his become derailed.

"Muting is useful, but not enough. If people are going to learn mature behaviors, there has to be some response."

Fortunately, most people on the site (and even more importantly, the people who dedicate their time to run the site) don't agree with this. This I what allows the bible reading thread to exist. Even though many people find it quite offensive - possibly even more so because the homophobia etc. is in earnest and clearly not trolling - the thread continues to exist because of the mute button and because of the leniency of the site.

As Abg alluded to, changing to rules to moderate YJ and orher trolls probably wouldn't lead to a positive ending for your thread.

To answer the question though, no, material is almost never removed from the forum, and is a power exclusive to Kestas.

"He was kind enough to do so, so his thread in fact does fall under the same category as the live game thread since he doesn't have the option of making a new thread should his become derailed."

So does that mean blankflag has the same moderator privileges in his daily thread? The fact that a player has been asked to limit his or her posts to a certain thread does not give them full creative authority over what is posted in that thread, especially when the limit was imposed as more of a punishment than a favor.

The Live Games thread actually does have an unspoken agreement regarding postings, and generally any trolling or unrelated postings are ignored and forgotten fairly quickly. That thread provides a community benefit and nobody wants it to be hijacked. I can't say the same for the DBR thread. What entitles Mujus to special treatment in his thread alone?

@jmo

Could you elaborate on that some more? It seems to me you're implying that people can spam the Forum until they're granted some special thread of their own.

I think abge posted that solely for me.

@2ndWhiteLine,

Easy answer, Mujus was told his posts aren't allowed on a daily basis. So we either give him a thread to post in that we ignore, or we take away the restriction that doesn't allow him to post a new thread for each daily post. If he wanted all he'd have to do is have a few other regular posters in that thread alternate posting the daily thread and none of them would be spamming the forum, and you'd be muting a thread a day. Take your pick.

Blankflag didn't agree to the condition and continued spamming the forum over and over, hence his silence.

Who actually made this deal with Mujus?

It was my understanding that Mujus made an agreement with the Community, most of whom have upheld their end of the bargain, not with the Mods.

jmo, that doesn't address why he gets special privileges in his own thread. Why should his thread be a special case when he was limited to a single thread as a punishment?

Free blankflag!!!

Jmo, actually I was not told that. At your request and that of others, I voluntarily restrict my postings to one thread on a daily basis, but have and will continue to on occasion post another thread on a related topic.

My mistake abge, you're correct. I thought it was a moderator made deal, but it was with the community. Though you on at least one occasion asked people to remove themselves from his thread when harassing him because he agreed to the communities proposal.

"@Nigee

Or, better yet, you could just remove yourself from this thread. Mujus was very considerate reducing his discussion to 1 thread as was requested. There's really no need for you to demand what is said here."

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=865553&page-thread=1#threadPager

@Mujus, my suggestion would be to simply make a new thread every time someone attempts to derail yours. My guess is those attempts would stop quickly. Just try to avoid making enough to be considered spam.

@SYnapse, blankflag's month mute was up months ago.

It is national 'Pick on Nigee week' ??

@jmo

Politely asking, no more. : )

"...but have and will continue to on occasion post another thread on a related topic."
And you have and will read about any kind of comments in those private threads of your's without asking for anyone to be deleted.
Or you can just cut your daily crap advertising.It's up to you.