[Flipside]

Oh what a surprise, NGT called in Battuta....again, and no-one read the actual post...again.

You know what.. **** This Forum.

[General Battuta]

Please be civil. Nobody called in anybody, and I'm making a general point here. You don't need to take it personally.

[Flipside]

Apologies Battuta, it's not you personally, it's just I've been treated like absolute **** tonight.

Let's do a quick run-down of events then :

1) I post a comment in response to Phantom Hoovers opinion of Minecraft stating they 'must be doing something right' to have as active a fanbase as they do.
2) Hoover suggests that I'm the kind of person who would leap to the defence of games he personally doesn't like - shock horror.
3) It is stated that saying Mojang was doing something right was a 'petty insult'
4) I defend myself, I've been in enough SotS threads to know where it was going.
5) NGTM-1R Reports my thread, you know, that person who is so good at dealing with comments in a polite and well mannered form, claiming that my defence of myself was in breach of Forum rules.
6) That complaint alone would have been ok, what irked me is that he added a tail to it saying nothing would probably happen because I was 'Admin', basically an attempt to use blackmail by saying 'If you don't do what I want, I'll assume it's descrimination'.

When a forum gets the point where members are using blackmail to attack another member (I'm not an Admin, I'm not even a GM, it's just my badge hadn't been removed, I haven't moderated anything for several months), and criticising them for defending themselves against a totally unfounded accusation, it's in bigger trouble than it knows.

Anyway, that's my piece. I can't operate in here any more, not for a while at least, good luck with your stuff

[NGTM-1R]

Look, I don't know what your issue with me is and I don't much care, but you should probably know that exposing/pretending to expose report comments is a bad plan to get people to use the report function, which is according to the administration underused yet vital to the functioning of the forum and they want to encourage it.

In other words, you've at best decided to make things harder for everyone you're leaving behind to run this place by deciding to air your dirty laundry. That's kind of a dick move, Flip, and kind of petty of you. I liked you. Hell, I still like you when you're not lashing out. But talking about stuff that's been reported, in public, is not going to do any good for anyone.

And acting like it's blackmail is...kind of amusing, it's more of a statement that "I'm pissing into the wind here but I want to to go on-record that this isn't acceptable".

[Flipside]

I made it public because I am sick and tired of the Merry-Go-Round of bull**** that exists in General Discussion. There IS no conspiracy, Moderators are members with the power to lock threads, we have no plans for hostile take-overs or world domination or subjucation of Forum members. Yes, we make mistakes like everyone else, and those mistakes should be recified, but I'm sick and tired of people claiming Moderators are priviliged in some way.

I'm tired of constant confrontationalism and attack that is the standard procedure for this forum, I'm tired of having to constantly spend half my life simply pointing out that that moment you move from Discussion to Argument, the whole idea becomes pointless. I'm tired of having spent 5 years trying to simply get human beings to treat human beings with a little more emptathy, it feels like an exericise in pointlessness.

Basically, I'm tired, not just sleepy tired, but bone tired of constantly trying to get a group of people who have similar interests to actually see each other a comrades, rather than combatants.

Edit : Apologies to the OP for dragging this here, feel free to split out to keep things on topic.

[TrashMan]

Apologies Battuta, it's not you personally, it's just I've been treated like absolute **** tonight.

Welcome to my world.
I feel for you bro.

[Flipside]

2) Hoover suggests that I'm the kind of person who would leap to the defence of games he personally doesn't like - shock horror.

The CoD comparison has been brought up a few time, so: the point of that was that CoD has a pile of widely-acknowledged and heavily-criticised design flaws, but it is still incredibly popular. That was mostly a reply of frustration, since I'd just posted a reasonably detailed post on a topic I'm fairly interested in discussing, which is why I went back and edited in an addendum to that post.

You know what, it's not simply about that. The fact of the matter is that there are certain people on this forum who are happy to, and who I even used to enjoy, pull me up when I make an over-broad generalization that needs clarification. Ironically, one of those people is NGTM1-R. If I had made an over-arching set of comments about Minecraft like that, there are members in here that would have more than happily pulled me up on it and pointed out the differences of opinion. Heck Battua even did it over my definition of 'good', it is par for the course here.

However, when I pull someone up for making an over-arching statement, there seems to be a different set of rules because I perceived as 'Admin'. It's one thing when a member feels a genuine grievance against a ruling and is angry at Admin, it's a whole other story when an assumption of corruption is added as a natural appendum to a complaint just because it is there.

[Goober5000]

Okay, I think everybody should take a deep breath.  No, there's no conspiracy.  I think NGTM-1R was worried about a double-standard being applied in Flipside's favor, but I can assure people that we are actively trying to avoid any sort of double standard.  Any moderation actions are taken with regards to the people involved, not what positions they hold.

By the same token, the contents of the "Report posts" messages are implicitly confidential, so we don't publish those.  I think Flipside made a forgivable mistake because he has been understandably frustrated with events over the past several months.

It looks like this whole thing arose because multiple people reacted defensively to statements that were made innocently, and then it escalated from there.  So I've separated out the Minecraft thread, the Total Annihilation thread, and the reaction thread.  The discussion has been mostly productive so far, so let's try to keep it that way, and do so in a civil and charitable manner.

[Flipside]

No.

My final word on the matter is this. If NGT had been reported for making precisely the same comment as me, it would have been fobbed off as him being his usual 'likeable, abrasive and blunt' self. When, however, I get reported for it, it's a different set of rules apparently.

I've seen people defending NGT's comments enough in the past to see the double standard that is being applied here, and I'm tired of it.

This is my last post. I'm done here.

[Spoon]

Bye 

[General Battuta]

I've reported NGT for being unnecessarily rude on several occasions, and you should have access to those reports.

[Phantom Hoover]

And NGTM got moderated along with me when we had that spat a while back. I also take issue with the way you're representing me in this: I did not at any point say Minecraft was bad, and nor did I make any 'broad generalisations' about it, and I'm kind of pissed off that you still don't seem to have read what I said instead of what you wanted to argue with.

[TrashMan]

My final word on the matter is this. If NGT had been reported for making precisely the same comment as me, it would have been fobbed off as him being his usual 'likeable, abrasive and blunt' self. When, however, I get reported for it, it's a different set of rules apparently.

I've seen people defending NGT's comments enough in the past to see the double standard that is being applied here, and I'm tired of it.

Well, people build a mental image of someone and filter all actions trough that image.
Two different persons can do the exact same thing and will be viewed differently.
That's life for you.
Unfortunatley, little can be done to change a (inaccurate) image once it's established.

[headdie]

yes and no.

you are right in saying nothing can be done in the immediate future to change that but by spending a little while avoiding confrontation and carefully constructing your posts with that in mind over time that image can be changed.

what you have to get over is that someone has at some point presumably misunderstood something you said and put your ego away long enough to accept that perhaps you were either solely in the wrong or an equal party in being wrong as your post was obviously constructed in a way where it could be miss interpreted. 

Also, while I talk about ego it is worth pointing out that if several people have an issue with your posting style or the type of things you post about, though your content or style might be legitimate, reason for it causing a problem is most likely because what you say and/or how you say it is genuinely offensive, in which case what needs to happen is that you accept there is no big brother plot, no conspiracy and that what you post just plain and simply makes you out to be an arrogant ass.

[Black Wolf]

Yeah, you know what? This should have been locked when it was split. I think we can end this nasty little chapter right about here.