[Mobius]

Good luck even trying to group 1,700 so-called active members and hearing their opinion on the matter. Secondly, even if somebody created an account in February 2003, posted one-liners 5 times and became inactive in December 2004, by the mechanisms I posted above, should get the chance to voice his opinion on the matter in case he decides to come back in October 2020. That'd make the effort of implementing a "general election" or "consensus verification" on HLP extremely difficult.

We should be fine with people having roles. Watching the admins as they make decisions on forum regulations is by no means a way to admit that we're too dumb to make said decisions. It's part of their role. There are circumstances IRL where we make decisions that affect other people, due to the roles that we have in many endeavors.

[Colonol Dekker]

I'm inclined to agree with the E.  Go with the majority of ACTIVE people.  Heck I missed out on the thread so feel a bit out of place commenting but that's /English_sensibility so I doubt Billy Bob from 2002 is going to mind if the guys affected at the time carry out a decision making process in his absence.   

[Sandwich]

Guys you had ****ing three weeks to discuss this internally.

Yes, but we realize that that was internal, out of view of the public. There's definitely room for a public discussion as well (as long as it remains civil).

I also more in general question the notion of saying someone holds far-right views is offensive when that person has frequently espoused  them. I realize you're not actually on these forums anymore Sandwich, but there's been quite a few accusations of "Trump Derangement Syndrome" thrown about without any moderator action, why would suddenly the classification of one's political beliefs be cause for moderator action? Accusations of far-left political views have, similarily, gone unremarked upon.

I would hope that as a community of (most likely) smarter-than-average people, we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak. I would hope that we don't espouse the view that political support for one candidate or another doesn't mean that the supporter agrees with 100% of what that candidate says and does. I don't think we view national-level support in that way ("I support my country in general, but gosh-darn they screwed the pooch in this situation!"), so why political candidates?

I support a limited subset of what Trump has done or says he will do, and a limited subset of what Biden says he will do.

Does that mean I support 100% of what Trump says, does, stands for, or is accused of supporting? No.

Does that mean I support 100% of what Biden says, does, stands for, or is accused of supporting? No.

So when a person has stated general political support in one direction is accused of supporting the extreme racist views held by other people who support that same candidate, in what world does that mean that that one person must be a supporter of the views of those other racist people?  That's an insane connection to make, and even more insane to outright accuse someone of it, openly and repeatedly.

Without seeing the context of those other instances you mention, I would simply say that there's a significant difference between being accused of having "Trump Derangement Syndrome" vs being accused of supporting white supremacy.


Additionally, each person (obviously) chooses to react differently to the same situations. Take the famous McDonald's Hot Coffee legal case. I'm pretty sure statistically that at least one other person had McDonald's hot coffee spill on them and burn them before Stella Liebeck did. Apparently, they didn't choose to sue. Stella did. Were they right or wrong in their choice to not sue? Was Stella right or wrong in her choice to sue? Well, it's not a matter of right or wrong; they were decisions based upon personal choice.

Similarly, other people have, as you pointed out, been accused on this forum of various things before. In Goober's case, he chose to not let it slide. it doesn't make that specific choice (the "not letting it slide" choice, not the "delete the thread" choice) right or wrong. It's completely up to personal choice.

Look at it another way. Decades ago, people "put up with" a lot more stuff than they tend to do now. Mild (or not) racism, anti-LGBTQ sentiment, offensive jokes... a lot of what was glossed-over back then is instead brought to the forefront now. Society is working at not letting the things that deeply bother others "just slide". So why doesn't Goober's insistence that he not be lumped in with white supremacy deserve the same attention?

[Grizzly]

None of your big-wall-of-text-that-says-surprisingly-little adresses that Goober hasn't espoused support for a political candidate one way or the other, but for specific policies that are percieved as far right. At what point may we call a spade a spade?

Goober choosing "not to let it slide" undercuts the times he himself has accused people of being mentally deranged without repercussion - simply becuase he, as an admin, can not be taken to account for those. The previous situation was one where Goober was able to belittle and troll whenever and whoever he liked, only to commit the worst moderation mishap this forum has ever seen when someone branded him a supporter of Trump (and as a logical conclusion, a supporter of the politics Trump enacts).

[Rhymes]

I also take issue with Sandwich's attempt to justify Goober's legal threats (because they were legal threats) by comparing it to the Liebeck case. Stella Liebeck didn't just sue McDonalds because she had hot coffee spilled on her. Stella Liebeck sued McDonalds because she, a 79-year-old-woman, got third degree burns all over her goddamn pelvic region.

You are using an old woman being gravely injured to justify someone responding to getting called something mean with legal threats.

**** off, you ghoul.

[JSRNerdo]

What are you talking about? What does any of what you have just posted have to do with Goober's ability to administrate a forum dedicated to modding a 20 year old video game that sold so badly it killed an entire genre?

A political discussion happened, fine, if you're not going to delete political discussion then at least contain it to the proverbial dumpster. This has nothing to do with political discussion. This has everything to do with Goober deleting an entire thread because he didn't like being called out on demanding people remove posts because they were, to him, legally slander (which I take as both a legal threat and a terrible legal threat with no basis in reality), and then refusing to apologize.

[Grizzly]

So decoupling myself from Sandwhich a moment, what I'm seeing here is simply that the HLP's administration has no view of what actually has gone wrong and as such has no mechanisms to prevent such a thing from ever happening again.

[Sandwich]

None of your big-wall-of-text-that-says-surprisingly-little...

Since people kept on misunderstanding what I was writing in the worst possible ways, I've taken to being as precise as possible in my posts. That's how you get a large amount of text that doesn't cover a ton of ground; I'm having to repeat and reiterate my statements multiple times so people can hopefully not misunderstand them.

In vain, apparently, since that entire "wall-of-text" was in response to your quoted paragraph above it, and nothing else. I was responding to the statement that false accusations against people have happened before without the same outcome. That's it.

I also take issue with Sandwich's attempt to justify Goober's legal threats (because they were legal threats) by comparing it to the Liebeck case. Stella Liebeck didn't just sue McDonalds because she had hot coffee spilled on her. Stella Liebeck sued McDonalds because she, a 79-year-old-woman, got third degree burns all over her goddamn pelvic region.

You are using an old woman being gravely injured to justify someone responding to getting called something mean with legal threats.

**** off, you ghoul.

You're misunderstanding what I was getting at%u2014perhaps I need to write a bigger wall.

The parallel I was drawing was that different people have different responses to similar situations: other people have been badly burnt by a hot drink before without taking it to court (a presumption I'm making, but almost a statistical certainty); Stella chose differently and took it to court.

Similarly to that difference, other people have been falsely accused of something before without demanding it be retracted; Goob chose differently and demanded it be retracted.

Nowhere was I making a direct comparison between Goob and Mrs Liebeck, as you presumed I did. I was comparing other people that had been burnt to Stella, and other people that had been falsely accused to Goob.

Different people react differently to similar situations. Goob reacted differently than other people accused falsely. Stella reacted differently than other people badly burnt.

I was responding to the question posed by -Joshua-: "why would suddenly the classification of one's political beliefs be cause for moderator action?" That's it.

Nice sign-off.

So decoupling myself from Sandwhich a moment, what I'm seeing here is simply that the HLP's administration has no view of what actually has gone wrong and as such has no mechanisms to prevent such a thing from ever happening again.

If you could only see the thread in the Global Moderator Corner section, you might think differently.

[Grizzly]

Then please act according to what was said to that thread rather then having some more bickering on here with your fellow admins and GMs. Everything you've said here has simply been more fuel for the fire, and undermines the faith in HLP's administration. Not only can't it get its own members to apologize for wrongdoings, it can't even provide a consistent, coherent or uniform response to issues.

[Sandwich]

Then please act according to what was said to that thread rather then having some more bickering on here with your fellow admins and GMs. Everything you've said here has simply been more fuel for the fire, and undermines the faith in HLP's administration. Not only can't it get its own members to apologize for wrongdoings, it can't even provide a consistent, coherent or uniform response to issues.

You say that as if you know what the contents of that thread were, when obviously you don't (through no fault of your own, but don't act as if you do know). Let me summarize:

Failings and mistakes ALL around. NOT just Goober, and NOT just mjn.mixael or The E or Aesaar or whoever. Yet without my voice in this thread, the chances are slim that anyone would be reminded that there were TWO sides to this issue, both of which have justifiable grievances. There are two sides to every coin.

[mjn.mixael]

I would hope that as a community of (most likely) smarter-than-average people, we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak. I would hope that we don't espouse the view that political support for one candidate or another doesn't mean that the supporter agrees with 100% of what that candidate says and does. I don't think we view national-level support in that way ("I support my country in general, but gosh-darn they screwed the pooch in this situation!"), so why political candidates?

EDIT: *SNIP* Political stuff is political.

I'm specifically saying that there absolutely is a wrong side to this. Using both siderism to defend bigotry is a bad call.

[Grizzly]

Not only can't it get its own members to apologize for wrongdoings, it can't even provide a consistent, coherent or uniform response to issues.

Failings and mistakes ALL around. NOT just Goober, and NOT just mjn.mixael or The E or Aesaar or whoever. Yet without my voice in this thread, the chances are slim that anyone would be reminded that there were TWO sides to this issue, both of which have justifiable grievances. There are two sides to every coin.

I refer you to the title of the thread and the OP.

[Zacam]

To be clear: While some may think "benevolent dictatorship" is all well and fine ...

Whoever came up with that is dense.

This is a community. It has a focus and a purpose and a goal.

And that Community? is. pissed.

No amount of "too bad" is going to result in anything but an empty husk being left behind.

And I'm not willing to see this place, and all the work that it's seen, simply shrivel up and die because of some obstinancy by the heavily outnumbered few.

And if you WANT it to be a dictatorship? Then realize you're outnumbered on all fronts on this.

People are still waiting a meaningful apology.

[karajorma]

This is probably getting political enough that it goes outside the scope of this thread... But here was my thought process since you seem to misunderstand.

If you supported Hitler, you supported Nazism. The. End. Whether you knew what you were doing was wrong and would lead to genocide doesn't matter. You have to live with the choices you made. History is written and you played a part in it.

Trump is provably corrupt, provably racist, provably fascist, and barely a small hop away from provably white supremacist. Policy arguments Do. Not. Make it ok to condone such a dangerous man with delusions of staying in power longer than allowed. The man is barely a hop away from provably trying to rig the election. If this were any other country G.W. Bush would have sent in the damn army to preserve democracy already.

So... If you support an aspiring white supremacist authoritarian dictator, guess what that makes you? The argument was never about policy. It's about how incredibly dangerous it is to support this man.

And instead of arguing the point or debating the facts... Goober went straight for the legal option and then when that didn't get him what he wanted, he deleted the (already locked) thread just so he could get his way.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kkk-insists-theyre-not-white-supremacists/

PELHAM, N.C. - In today%u2019s racially charged environment, there%u2019s a label that even the KKK disavows: white supremacy.

Standing on a muddy dirt road in the dead of night near the North Carolina-Virginia border, masked Ku Klux Klan members claimed Donald Trump%u2019s election as president proves whites are taking back America from blacks, immigrants, Jews and other groups they describe as criminals and freeloaders. America was founded by and for whites, they say, and only whites can run a peaceful, productive society.

But still, the KKK members insisted in an interview with The Associated Press, they%u2019re not white supremacists, a label that is gaining traction in the country since Mr. Trump won with the public backing of the Klan, neo-Nazis and other white racists.

Now let's say someone on this board was outed themselves as a member of the KKK. Would anyone here honestly give a **** about their claims that the KKK is not a white supremacist organisation? Would we give users who called them white supremacists warnings and bans simply because they felt that the KKK is not a white supremacist organisation in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is? Would we allow any admin or moderator to tell users that they must retract their comment on the basis that it is defamatory?

I don't think we would. So let's not argue that both sides did something wrong. This is not an issue where both sides are equally wrong. Had Goober attempted to refute Mjn's assertions that he supports a white supremacist we wouldn't be here.

What matters here is Goober's abuse of his power. What matters is that Goober promised to make an apology for that abuse of power and whether the community are willing to accept that apology. Any deal that was hammered out on the internal was contingent on the fact that Goober was required to post an apology capable of acceptance from a majority of the community.

[MP-Ryan]

All of you, kill the politics side tangent. That goes doubly for you, Sandwich. You know better and your continual attempts to justify the hole you started digging have simple widened it into a mine. The issue at hand is that a person with Administrator in their title abused their moderation powers egregiously and there are consequences in place. Some members of the community (a large number in fact) have made it clear they don't think those measures are sufficient.

This, right here, is a great example of when it's time to shut up and listen to the community. The active majority have made it clear that Goober's very thin apology is insufficient. They - and I - would very much like to know how Goober intends to actually make amends for his severe lapse in judgement and abuse of his position.

[karajorma]

Any deal that was hammered out on the internal was contingent on the fact that Goober was required to post an apology capable of acceptance from a majority of the community.

Gonna separate this line from the rest of my post since it was the important one.

[Colonol Dekker]

I support that statement.  An apology being made and it being accepted are two different things. 

A major factor in acceptance is the perceived sincerity. 

I didn't read much, and I'm being wholly impartial, make of that what you will.   

[Phantom Hoover]

This, right here, is a great example of when it's time to shut up and listen to the community. The active majority have made it clear that Goober's very thin apology is insufficient. They - and I - would very much like to know how Goober intends to actually make amends for his severe lapse in judgement and abuse of his position.

I have to ask, at what stage do the rest of site staff stop giving Goober the initiative? He never admitted he'd made a real mistake when he told us all to repent for the end is nigh and it turned out to be nighn't; how many weeks of this process is it going to take to conclude that he's also not going to make a sincere admission of error and an apology in this case either?

[mjn.mixael]

I've been at odds with him for a decade. The man is incapable of actual remorse or empathy. Relationships are transactional.

[karajorma]

Well at the very least let the man see the last developments on this thread.