[Phantom Hoover]

my complaint is: is the word 'cunnilingus' so obscene that it needs to be edited out of posts?

Um, no?  When did this occur?  EDIT:  six years ago?!?!  Okay, look, if someone has a grievance older than my daughter (who is 6), in the words of her favorite song:  let it go, let it gooo...  Yes, I realize Lorric did it first but come on man.

AFAIK the only words that would ever be removed [recently, anyway] would be bigoted epithets (racist/homophobic language, generally speaking).  If someone doesn't want to see 'naughty' words, they can turn on their own language filter.  We might have something to say about it if someone starts writing up graphic sex act fanfiction or using HLP as their test ground for graphic erotica, but otherwise...

...Seth, do not make me regret answering this question.

When we say that this response is far too lenient on Goober (btw Karajorma I don't care whether he's banned but he should not still be an admin after this) the response is "well, people deserve second chances". When we point out that this is just the most outrageous instance of a pattern of behaviour stretching back years you scold us for dredging up past grudges. Let's look at some more examples of Goober using his admin position to throw his weight around, against community consensus:

Five years ago, a thread was made about the hilariously interminable edit war over a harmless pun in the Aeolus wiki page. Literally everyone involved except Goober felt it was a harmless joke which could stay, but he abused his moderator powers to lock the thread and declare that his opinion was the only one that mattered. The subsequent history of that page is convoluted but the upshot is that a couple of weeks ago Goober locked the page again to keep the joke out, against the clear consensus of the community. This also means that useful housekeeping edits can't be made on that page either, something that directly burned Matth's efforts to keep the wiki in shape at one point.

Three years ago, the scumbag who had already eulogised Carrie Fisher by bemoaning her "saggy tits and old vagina" made a weird, inane thread about an ancient Greek philosopher. I responded by citing a well-known obscene Latin poem, including a paraphrase of its content, to make the point that just because something is classical doesn't mean it's wise. Goober edited out my post entirely, banned me from GenDisc on the spot, and scolded me for being rude to the guy. This, again, was after every normal member of the forum had been shocked and appalled by the OP responding to the death of a beloved celebrity with bizarre, obscene misogyny, something Goober clearly felt was a less severe infraction than quoting Catullus.

Goober has been pulling this kind of **** for many, many years; he never apologised, backed down or admitted any error of judgement when he thought he could get away with enforcing his preferences on the site in the past, and this total non-apology makes it clear that he hasn't changed in the least bit. As Joshua says: what's your Plan B, when he's failed to live up to his side of your bargain?

[Lorric]

This is Goober's second chance because he and the rest of the staff have never faced consequences after abusing their powers. If Goober's chickens are to all come home to roost, then everyone's chickens must come home to roost.

And while that would be rather cathartic, I don't think it needs to be done. The fact that power abuse can now be held to account might be enough to stop it happening, it's happened in the past because there was nothing to stop it. What seems to have changed is the presence of Axem and MP-Ryan on the staff. It was these two that have been the face of the staff to us the most on this incident.

MP-Ryan seems confident the consequences of breaching the agreement for Goober would be swift and serious, and I trust him. He doesn't have the power as a GM to do anything to Goober himself, but he must have seen enough on the internals to feel confident of that. To lay his reputation on the line like that by giving his word on the matter.

[Aesaar]

Phantom_Hoover: Yeah, we're on, like, a 6th chance at this point, but the rest of the admin staff apparently still stand behind Goober.  Not doing so would disrupt the status quo, you see.

And Goober's apology is the thinnest ****.  Very Trumpian though.

"I didn't threaten legal action, I just said that I could sue and demanded retractions!  How could anyone view that as a threat?"

From where I'm sitting, the only thing Goober is actually sorry about is that he got called out by enough people.  He quite clearly still feels like the injured party.

This is Goober's second chance because he and the rest of the staff have never faced consequences after abusing their powers. If Goober's chickens are to all come home to roost, then everyone's chickens must come home to roost.

Oh my god, will you ****ing shut up about this bull****.  No one cares about your personal grudges.

[Nightmare]

my complaint is: is the word 'cunnilingus' so obscene that it needs to be edited out of posts?

Um, no?  When did this occur?  EDIT:  six years ago?!?!  Okay, look, if someone has a grievance older than my daughter (who is 6), in the words of her favorite song:  let it go, let it gooo...  Yes, I realize Lorric did it first but come on man.

2014 must have been one hell of a year. That's the 3rd one now.

[Grizzly]

In this thread: The issue with making people's unhappiness a measure of success.

[BlackDove]

My official response:

There are quite a lot of people with passionate opinions here.  I'm one of them.  As such, I found a false accusation of white supremacy to be extremely offensive.  For the record, I am not a white supremacist, and I disavow white supremacy.

And to clarify, I do not intend to bring legal action against anyone.  A description that something "is grounds for legal action" is not the same as a threat to actually take that action.

I do agree that the splitting and removing the thread was a violation of the principle of not moderating a dispute in which you are a party.  For that I apologize.  As I said in the internal board, I made two mistakes here: I misinterpreted an invitation to make a post as an invitation to take moderator action, and I did not double check before going ahead and doing it.

As MP-Ryan said, I have given my word that I will abide by the agreement we all reached.

Wow.

Not only are you not sorry for what you did, you do not seem to know exactly what it is that you did wrong in the first place.

Interesting.

[mjn.mixael]

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

[Sandwich]

There has absolutely been a theme in this process of non-administrator, non-moderator users being treated as second class citizens. The people who were wronged by Goober, who were threatened with legal action and then censored by him against site policy, were told to shut up and sit tight while the people whose opinions mattered decided what to do behind closed doors, and we've now been handed down a verdict that we got no say in whatsoever which takes almost comical pains to avoid judgement or consequence for the person directly and solely responsible for this incident. When the little users act up we get told we're in violation of such and such a rule and slapped with a ban and a snarky comment. When an admin tramples all over basic rules of how this site is supposedly administered and slinging legal threats, the admins produce something that reads like an air crash investigation, assiduously avoiding actually blaming anyone in favour of neutral suggestions of systematic change.

EDIT: It has been suggested that I delete this post since it falls to properly communicate the point I was trying to make, and which I communicated better in my 2nd post from this one. Fair enough. However, in the interest of not rewriting history or confusing people, I'm hesitant to remove it entirely. Instead, I hope this edit sufficiently communicates that you should refer to this post to understand what I tried to communicate in this one. Sorry for the confusion!

You seem to have forgotten one core issue here.

You ARE "second-class" citizens, in the strictest sense: HLP is not a democracy. It's a benevolent dictatorship, and you don't get to vote about who's in charge around here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nobody's forcing you to stay here if you don't agree with the decisions coming from the conglomerate that is El Presidente here. Benevolent dictatorship.

Personally, I'd rather you didn't go... regardless of any disagreements I may have with you about various things. After all, when all's said and done, we're here for FreeSpace. All the rest of this is optional, community-related fluff.


Moving on...

A major part of the problem people have with the decision the admins and moderators benevolent dictators arrived at is that said decision was arrived at "behind closed doors". That's just something you'll have to live with. You can believe us when we say that it was not arrived at lightly.

FWIW, the same thing happens in (all) governments. Classified information is presented to those in positions of power, information the public cannot be made aware of for various reasons. Those people in positions of power then have to make decisions based on all the information they have. Those decisions, if heavily informed by said classified information, can look odd, illogical, or even downright dumb to the people "in the dark". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (I love that kaomoji)

...what we are dealing with here is abuse of power by an admin threatening legal action against members...

Wrong (but I understand the confusion). Anyone is "free" to threaten legal action against anyone else, on or off the forum. Doing so has nothing to do with an abuse of admin power. The latter only happened when he deleted the thread.

There is no reason whatsoever for that thread to remain deleted long after every other admin has acknowledged that its deletion was totally illegitimate.

Yes, there is. While you all have been focusing on one side of the wrongdoings here, you've been utterly ignoring that there is still another side: accusing someone of being a white nationalist is a personal attack, which we do not tolerate here. So now the admins & moderators benevolent dictators who weren't participatory in the original thread need to go through and edit it as we collectively see fit before restoring it.

[General Battuta]

Tongue but whole

[mjn.mixael]

benevolent dictators

Please sir, while you've come down for your high castle, may I have some more porridge? I'm lowly and poor and only dream of having a position as high and mighty as yours where I don't have to worry about such things.

[Mongoose]

I categorically reject Sandwich's tone, and I daresay the majority of the rest of the staff does too.  We're here to serve the site and its members, not lord a position of power over anyone else.  That's just bull****.

[Sandwich]

Nobody's lording anything over anybody. But HLP was never a democracy. Nobody in the adminship was elected by popular vote of anyone but other admins. Nevertheless, we take a benevolent view on our positions of leadership as much as we can. Like it or not, that's how the site has been run for 20 years. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[perihelion]

The person doing the lording is, for what ought to be obvious reasons, not in a particularly good position to judge whether or not they are lording.

What you are saying is effectively, "Shut up and deal with it. You have no say other than to leave."  Piss on that.

[Sandwich]

The person doing the lording is, for what ought to be obvious reasons, not in a particularly good position to judge whether or not they are lording.

What you are saying is effectively, "Shut up and deal with it. You have no say other than to leave."  Piss on that.

No, you're quite free to continue voicing your opinions on this and any other matter. I'm just pointing out that taking a stance of "We demand that such-and-such happen" does not necessarily mean that you will get what you demand.

In a democracy, the people have the actual, factual power to vote out those in positions of leadership. Cold, hard numbers (the votes). No deliberations—the people speak, and it happens.

On HLP, that doesn't exist. Instead, it is run as benevolently as possible by admins and moderators who—when push comes to shove—decide (sometimes unilaterally, sometimes as a conglomerate) on actions to take. We do our best to take into account the desires of the community at large when making those decisions. Our goal is to "bring modders together", and provide them (you all) with whatever tools and advantages we can so that your artistic dream creation can be realized. Everything beyond that is essentially "fluff", if you get what I mean.

So, as a conglomerate group of admins and moderators, we arrived at the decision that has been presented in this thread. You are more than welcome to continue voicing your thoughts and opinions about the topic and the decision and whatever else comes to mind, because we're not "lording" anything over you.

I'm sorry for perhaps presenting it in a way that bothered you—that was not my intent. I just want to explain why you shouldn't necessarily expect a different outcome on account of all the opinions being voiced. Hope that helps you understand where I was coming from.

[DefCynodont119]

So basically it's:

Bringing modders together unless an admin makes bizarre legal threats then those modders are free to leave.^TM

[Nightmare]

Bringing modders together unless an admin makes bizarre legal threats then those modders are free to leave.^TM

I still don't see the point why some fire from the PolDisc dumpster should burn down HLP.

[MP-Ryan]

Jesus Christ Sandwich, way to read the room.  You may seriously want to consider deleting this post of yours entirely because your second attempt was much better.

While you are correct that HLP is not run by popular vote, the vast majority of the staff have operated - at least as long as I've been among them - in a manner that tries to make this place better for everyone and doesn't cram our individual views down everyone else's throat.  To describe that as a benevolent dictatorship is just absurd - HLP's community can always vote with their feet (as can staff members, as I shouldn't have to remind you) and this place hasn't been run as a "leave if you don't like it" community in a long time.  People's opinions *do* matter, and their feedback is what makes our decisions better in the long run.  The purpose of allowing that feedback to continue in this thread is for Goober to understand the damage he has done (and hopefully take at least some steps toward making amends) and the rest of us to understand and account for the very real concerns of the community to guide future decision-making.

[JSRNerdo]

After all, when all's said and done, we're here for FreeSpace. All the rest of this is optional, community-related fluff.

This is the opposite of how you create a welcoming environment for freespace modding, where any and all freespace modders are welcome to participate and indulge in their hobby of playing a dead 20 year old video game that sold so badly it killed an entire genre. You are telling a community of FREDders, modellers, artists, writers, and so much more that you do not care at all what they think, that they're free to leave, and that nothing will be done and no apologies given for threatening other users with a lawsuit and deleting an entire thread after being called out on it.

You ARE "second-class" citizens, in the strictest sense: HLP is not a democracy. It's a benevolent dictatorship, and you don't get to vote about who's in charge around here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Keep calling valuable contributors who have developed so many campaigns and so many engine fixes and improvements for this game we all love and know second-class citizens and see what happens.

[Axem]

After all, when all's said and done, we're here for FreeSpace. All the rest of this is optional, community-related fluff.

This is the opposite of how you create a welcoming environment for freespace modding, where any and all freespace modders are welcome to participate and indulge in their hobby of playing a dead 20 year old video game that sold so badly it killed an entire genre. You are telling a community of FREDders, modellers, artists, writers, and so much more that you do not care at all what they think, that they're free to leave, and that nothing will be done and no apologies given for threatening other users with a lawsuit and deleting an entire thread after being called out on it.

You ARE "second-class" citizens, in the strictest sense: HLP is not a democracy. It's a benevolent dictatorship, and you don't get to vote about who's in charge around here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Keep calling valuable contributors who have developed so many campaigns and so many engine fixes and improvements for this game we all love and know second-class citizens and see what happens.

I am only jealous because I did not get to make this post.

I didn't sign on to become an admin here to boss people around or denigrate others. I joined because I wanted to help HLP, make it a better place for its users and give the resources they need to make amazing inspirational mods. To a lot of people, this place is bigger than just FreeSpace. It's a community they continually keep in touch with. There's lots of people who don't play Freespace anymore and they still come by because they have internet friends they like hearing from.

[Sandwich]

Jesus Christ Sandwich, way to read the room.  You may seriously want to consider deleting this post of yours entirely because your second attempt was much better.

Fair enough, but deleting it entirely will be confusing for people arriving late to the discussion. How about an edit for clarification?

After all, when all's said and done, we're here for FreeSpace. All the rest of this is optional, community-related fluff.

You are telling a community of FREDders, modellers, artists, writers, and so much more that you do not care at all what they think, that they're free to leave, and that nothing will be done and no apologies given for threatening other users with a lawsuit and deleting an entire thread after being called out on it.

While my first post should have been worded better, you're either misreading it, or intentionally misrepresenting what I said for dramatic purposes.

Don't put words in my mouth, please.

You ARE "second-class" citizens, in the strictest sense: HLP is not a democracy. It's a benevolent dictatorship, and you don't get to vote about who's in charge around here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Keep calling valuable contributors who have developed so many campaigns and so many engine fixes and improvements for this game we all love and know second-class citizens and see what happens.

Second-class purely in the sense that there is no democratic voting system here where you get to elect who is an admin. I should have thought it obvious that that's what I meant by the colon character in my sentence.

From any and all other perspectives, especially with regard to how much everybody's work and contributions are highly valued, there are no second-class citizens here... only outstanding ones.

I would have hoped this was obvious, but the internet at large seems to be ready and eager to be offended more and more these days, and unfortunately HLP is not immune. Nevertheless, we must deal with ever-changing reality or get left in the dust, so I will try to communicate as clearly as I can going forwards.