It is impossible for *any* of you to disrespect me, because first I would have to respect you, which is going to be a very, very damned few of you that could garner that.

Likewise, I'd say there is narry a rat's chance in hell that there is more than a very few for whom I might have earned some shred of respect...

So...given that we are just a bunch of anonymous douchebags on the internet, seriously who amongst you s going around handing out what should be your hard-earned "respect" to various anonymous fuckbags, so that they can then disrespect you?

Again....this is the modern pussified American (global??) youth culture at play, whee any asshole that accidently get's himself shot in the head suddenly is classified as a "Hero", up to an including some fuckwad that abandoned his military post and arguably led to the subsequent deaths of 6 or more fellow soldiers who were looking for him...*this* asshole is a "hero"...

So I guess that a bunch of you go willy nilly handing out respect like it's a government check you don't need to worry about shouldn't surprise me in the least.

Sigh...

sooo.. you're saying I earned your respect?

just a smidge maybe? Even though I'm a brainwashed libtard?

I, too, think the vast powers of Ignore are sadly ignored.

If you don't like what someone says or the topic of a thread, then just ignore it. You don't need to get the flame on, hackles raised, or even bother with muting. Just move alone folks, nothing to see here. The internet is big; maybe, just maybe, there's something else somewhere to look at that is more amusing or fits your style a bit more.

And if you really, really, need to change someone's behaviour, then you're move likely to do it by having zero replies on the offending thread or comment than start a tit-for-tat pissing match.

"It is impossible for *any* of you to disrespect me, because first I would have to respect you"

Actually, shit-for-brains, there is absolutely no correlation as to whether you respect us and whether we can disrespect you. If we want to disrespect a juvenile, self centered drunk who wastes his company's and his family's time spewing garbage on an internet game forum, we have every right and opportunity to do so.

I don't post on the forum because I see mods picking fights with members and occasionally threatening bans and such. I don't even read the forums because I see such polarization. Seems like every other thread turns into a flame war. So I guess my answer is whatever moderation it takes to keep the forum at an adult level of maturity and not the MySpace crap I went through in middle school.

I think we should be able to mute moderators. If they want to contact us they can do it via e-mail.

@Theodosius - "I, too, think the vast powers of Ignore are sadly ignored." That's the problem with having the superpower of ignore, you may have it all your life and never know it.

Well, some of us don't have that power except for OPs. I can ignore threads I have no desire to read, but I have a hard time ignoring a poster *in* a thread I'm enjoying discussing, especially when they start using homophobic slurs and hurtful words. So I choose to selectively mute morons who call me names based on homophobic slurs or who call my trombone rusty and make fun of my and others service to our country.

YJ -- lol YES, you are one of the few that has earned my respect, odd as that may be, you chicken-little-the-sky-is-falling-(or is it burning up????)-horn-dog...

That's a fair point, Draug. Once you're invested in a conversation, it's hard to ignore that crap. And muting is better than escalating, especially if you want to continue enjoying the overall discussion.

I could just say that I just pass over the stuff that doesn't interest me and move on, but I haven't been personally attacked a lot here, yet.


@Maniac +1. I know a few people like that :)

Can mods mute regular posters?

We can, but it is highly discouraged.

However, posters *cannot* mute mods, which is why mods need to be held to a higher standard than regular posters, even when off duty. Cops can carry firearms into any place of business they like. The average joe can't. Cops are therefore held to a higher standard.

I agree.

Actually going to disagree with you there abge, I force all new mods to unmute anyone they had muted. You can't be an effective mod if you can end up missing potential cheating or urgent game issues.

Though I do not disagree with the rest of draugnar's points.

You can't be an effective admin, if you're a childish dipshit.

On the occasions I check these forums I notice they've sunk further and further into a mire compared to when I first joined here over four years ago. I frequent another website which I previously both administrated and moderated where the forums are just as vitriolic as here, and can say that slowly but surely the game has suffered due to the general negativity thrown at new players there.

I used to come here for sanctuary when the Mafia forums were particularly draining, yet now I log on here and see it's just as bad. I am not a proponent of strict moderation of forums, because that usually causes more problems than it solves. But there are lines of common decency and people who cross them should have their wings clipped. Temporary (but increasing for each offence) silences eventually leading to permanent mutings seems like a reasonable solution.

Maple and kkkkkkkrellin for SuperMod Status!!!!

I think the moderation should be only against spamming the forum or spamming a thread that is specific, like the SOW or tournaments threads.
If you see a thread you don´t like, just don´t enter it and if you see a message on a thread that you dislike just ignore it, why is it so difficult? You can´t expect that a free internet site will not have the usual bigots and trolls that are around, so just ignore them.
Who decide what is acceptable or not, this is an international and multicultural site, so it will be really hard to get to an agreement about what is acceptable or not, so let´s keep it this way and just avoid someone stealing threads or the whole forum.

I like the "illegal in most communities" idea, but it isn't practical because of places like here in the US versus Germany. It's illegal to have an actual Nazi discussion over there, but not here. It's illegal to profess Nazi views over there, but not here. Our speech is so free over here that many subjects we cam openly discuss and beliefs we can hold are illegal in many other countries.

What you said about Germany is wrong, pretty much everything about it actually.
privately you can spout all the racist crap you want.
Only if you use the media or politic rallies to address large numbers of peoples, trying to incite hate and violence, police can be called to stop it. But even then there are very very strict rules under which action can be taken. Pretty much nothing short of a threat of direct action gets stopped.
And as far as I know there are laws against hate crimes and lynch mobs in the US swell.

And really? Personally I am happy we have those rules. Some things don't need to be broadcasted, at least not more than once.

If it were like you said it would be pretty hard to explain why we have political parties like the NPD or the DVU which are indeed openly rassistic. Pretty much everything that differentiates them from Hitler and his NSDAP is that they only hint at getting tour, in one way or another, of everyone who is not a born and raised German in the nth generation.

@Party - I know for a fact that, at one time at least, you could not hold a Nazi rally in Germany. In America, the neo-Nazi party has open rallies all the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a

Known symbols that violate the law...

From that wikiu page:

Symbols known to fall under the law are:
the Swastika as a symbol of the Nazi Party, prohibited in all variants, including mirrored, inverted etc.

Post-genocide laws are typically very different than anything you've ever lived under, Draug. The powers that took over Germany after WWII took expansive measures to make sure none of what happened ever happened there again. The countries that have managed to recover have done the same thing. It's smart. So, yeah, there are some laws hanging over in Germany that are extreme by your standards, but Party is right in that, similarly to us, they'll only break up a rally if it gets extreme.

Yes, bi, I know. I've actually *been* there and know that it is a subject not talked about in public *at all*. My point is that laws vary from country to country depending on that country's past. The US was born out of tyranny from a distant power so has freedom of expression (be it speech, religion, press, whatever) as part of its foundation. Germany has the reverse history: internal tyranny that spread across Europe. So their laws are more about keeping the tyranny in check by never allowing it to return. Different nations, different needs, different laws. But party is simply wrong if he thinks you can just walk around Germany and hold Nazi rallies with Swastikas and all any ol' time you want.

German nazis have long since adopted other symbols to circumvent that law or even play with it. So yes, openly showing a classic swastika can get you in minor trouble. But, as I said, I am fine with that.

You can't hold Nazi rallies, but you can be fascist, which is what he is saying, as long as you don't make credible threats of violence. It's no different than our laws except that the part you brought up singles out a group that, by today's standards, would have had to circumvent their laws in order to operate.