@Chaqa, yeah I think everyone knows where you stand on the issue. You have repeated the same spiel over and over and over. We get it. Here is the nice thing for me though: it's my and Kestas's site, and we will do what we think is best for the site along with the help of the mods. It's a gaming site with a forum attached. It's not a forum site with Diplomacy attached. We will continue to devote our energy to make the site better, to add things to make the game better, and to sponsor games where people can play and enjoy Diplomacy. And if we need to shut the whole forum down, people will still come and play Diplomacy.

@Shadow, as I have said above, I don't think I would have interpreted what YJ and Thucy said in the same way he does and I hope that he sees by now neither of them meant it as a threat. It would be great if the three of them could just civilly apologize or explain to each other and move on.

Did you read the thread? Mujus was arguing a very shaky stance, and YJ equates this to "I do Mujus a favor by not shooting him in the face every day" line. He was clearly, and unarguably, mocking Mujus belief there. That doesn't seem to be crossing the line.

Then Thucy drops the "I say we kill him" line. Now, on first reading, I took it to be directed at YJ, not Mujus, until I read a bit more about the argument. And then I remembered Thucy has been using that line. So it seemed pretty dull and not intended as a threat.

Just my $0.02

" It's a gaming site with a forum attached. It's not a forum site with Diplomacy attached. We will continue to devote our energy to make the site better, to add things to make the game better, and to sponsor games where people can play and enjoy Diplomacy."

See, this is where we agree zultar. And my response to this would be to not really worry about the forum, and leave it be. You chose to intervene. Two different approaches. Is either right or wrong? I don't know. I just don't like the choice that was made.

Maybe the site needs a 'term of service agreement' even though it's free, just so you know people agree to behave a certain way when they sign up.

I know, way too much work, but it's pretty standard these days. Brrr... I feel the chilling effect now.

Yeah, and I have thoroughly explained why ignoring about the forum doesn't work and other mods have also explained and concurred. There is plenty of evidence for it and you continually ignored them and say the same thing over and over, that you don't like it. We get it. I think everybody understands at this point that there is a highly likely chance when you say something on the forum it's that you don't like it.

As I have said, the debate is whether the rules were misapplied to YJ and Thucy. Your spiel is to conflate how many threads were locked, how many members agree with you, and how you don't like the "new" forum.

"But if someone were to accuse me of being a necrophiliac or say they were gonna kill my relatives and fuck the corpses, that crosses the line into insulting or abusive behavior and cannot be condoned."

Quite obviously I agree. But what is the relevance? I just can't see the point of this example here. Explain to me how this example serves as a reference when we are talking about Mujus being offended/insulted/abused by a trivial comment made by YJ/Thucy.

If someone actually made a death threat. If someone actually threatened to kill your relatives and fuck their corpses - there would be no debate about the course of action to take - ban them and report them to the police as well.
That is not what happened here. I humbly request you to stop using utterly irrelevant examples.

I would argue that the debate about whether the rules were misapplied involves the rules themselves, but that's neither here nor there.

Plenty of evidence is a bit subjective too. There's not been many hard stats given, just a lot of words. I guess that's the nature of it, but don't act like a case study has been written.

Anyway, as always fun to argue and back to the game.

zultar: "It's my and Kestas's site, and we will do what we think is best for the site along with the help of the mods."

Fair enough, I appreciate the honesty.

There's no way I'm writing anything in this forum again. I'm a gunboater, after all. I'll be playing games only, until the owners or the mods decide to kick me out for whatever reason.

@Shadow: You used the term "offensive" which I have never used. A post can be offensive on its own merits and not be insulting or abusive. The whole "death threat" thing takes commentary to a whole different level of personal accusation or intimidation. That's the key IMO and why I felt it necessary to illustrate the difference.

And to clarify, be as offensive as you want to be. But don't be abusive or insulting. The personal nature of such comments is where things get complicated.

@Zmaj, most of our members actually don't participate in the forum much. My hope is that we will be able to add some game features soon once we iron out a few things. Next month, we will also do a seasonal live game fest.
And please don't worry about getting banned as we have only banned less than a handful of people for non-cheating reasons despite how conflated some members make that out to be or the number of threads we have locked.

THIS GUY

It's just SYnapse and Draugnar, right? And SYnapse was banned more for threatening the site, I believe.

They both were. A couple of other players have been banned for forum violations and all but one is at this point unbanned as far as I know.

There's also Fasces, but that's another can of worms.

That one was entirely justified under internal mod policy, but yes, that is another situation.

Just wanted to add this. When the forum mod policy was discussed just over a year ago, we were told that it would be applied in extreme examples. JMO said this in threadID=1067858 "moderator judgement is applied, we're not going to warn someone for saying [1] "I want to kick your face in for how bad you played", but if someone is posting something like [2] "I'm going to hunt you down and rape your family" they need to chill the hell out anyways. If you want to be allowed to make ACTUAL death threats or ACTUAL threats against a members family then there's something seriously wrong, and the mod team should be involved." My emphasis added.

Now do we think what Thucy said was closer to statement [1] or statement [2]? If I recall correctly one of the fears at the time of changing mod policy was that it would be the thin end of the wedge and applied illiberally.

Just wanted to add this. Way too much worry about mod action/inaction here. The internet is full of uncensored places ... you are not being deprived of either posting or reading ANYthing. It really is OK if this board does not contain any death threats, and it is way beyond fruitless to argue about whether the mods are or are not properly applying some standard that was never intended as a precedent in the first place.

Of course, by my same standards you should feel free to ignore me and continue to whine to your heart's content. How is it working out for you?

"And if we need to shut the whole forum down, people will still come and play Diplomacy."

Not me.

I mean what I think the disconnect is here is that a lot of people care about the webdiplomacy community as an intellectual community, a place to exchange ideas. People came here for years for that reason. I came here for years for this reason. The fact that the moderators do not appear to value this aspect of the website and think it can be gotten rid of or stultified to the point of no return is causing consternation from some people.

Maybe those people's opinions don't matter so long as the raw data shows 'new membership is up' but it'd be nice if this point could be recognized as having some validity and not dismissed out of hand.

There are plenty of intellectual communities that operate under rules equal to or greater moderation. Anyone who's actually using their intellect, here often considered just posting the latest politically incendiary news article, should be fine.

Has anyone ever been silenced for their opinion? Usually, people disagree and the conversation just devolves into meaningless personal attacks. It's when people start spewing stupid statements that aren't relevant to the topic at hand that punishment is issued. That's not censorship, if anything its promoting an intellectual community.

Silence = Death

i say we kill him

"Has anyone ever been silenced for their opinion?"

Depends what you mean by opinion. If you mean political opinion, no. If you mean opinion about webdiplomacy, yes.

"There are plenty of intellectual communities that operate under rules equal to or greater moderation."

The issue isn't moderation. The issue is the moderators view the forum as a swamp that needs to be drained, a fully expendable nuisance. This has more or less been the theme of every post of theirs. Others view the forum as a highly treasured asset. Unfortunately however the latter's opinions on the matter are not given any serious consideration. We apparently all signed up, back in the summer, to have a moderation team that is openly hostile to the forum as a concept. Not just a moderation team that wants to restrain it from devolving into nonsense. If it was only the latter then we wouldn't keep having these issues.

We are being presented a false choice between no moderation and the type being used now. I think this choice should be rejected. Most people agree reasonable moderation is welcome. But the moderation team is pretty open about their view that the forum doesn't matter to them.

"But the moderation team is pretty open about their view that the forum doesn't matter to them."

This is just a bullshit lie. We volunteer so much of our time to moderate the games as well as the forum as it is also a part of our site. We spend time to make sure that the forum is open to a vast number of people and make it enjoyable, but yeah, go ahead and attack us and the effort that we put into the site and the forum.

That refrain is wearing a little thin. I wasn't questioning your work ethic, but it's getting tiring being told about it every time a controversy pops up.

I say you do not care about the forum because in virtually every post on these issues you are happy to remind us that the game is primary, the forum secondary. You usually follow that up by saying that if the forum disappeared, people would still flock to this website. The vibrancy of the forum is not a concern, so long as people are playing diplomacy and new members are signing up. We are told this over and over again. There are plenty of other places to go, supposedly, love-it-or-leave it. Etc, etc, etc. People have raised concerns about how moderation has been handled, how it has intimidated people into discussing much of anything, and the pernicious effects of these heavy handed policies, and these concerns are dismissed out of hand. Anybody who complains is treated like a problem child, whose opinion does not matter, because this is *yours and Kestas* site. Which is the only relevant fact.

If you valued all the members of this website, and not just members who fit your preferred mould of playing diplomacy but never posting on the forum, perhaps people would dare not criticize the moderation team, who I suppose demand immunity from criticism because they work to maintain the site.

But if you have contempt for a segment of the community, don't be surprised when that contempt is returned.