"The Way Forward" Previously Chris Webb/Greenman joke thread

I'm (mostly) with Knecht (as usual). I just don't bother reading too much if it doesn't interest me but I had assumed all of the folk bitching at each other were actually enjoying themselves.

The mods task is a thankless one, foreshore, but the ethos of the site is surely to interfere as little as possible. The upside to that is an easier time for the mods.   

Just ban me. It's easy. Just press the button. You can then have your little tree house where you can slag people off - people who don't post here - with no repurcussion.
Remember when every one was slagging of nikkkkkk so nikkkkkkkk registered? He then posted a bit and all the fannies who were slagging him off were being nice to him,
Just do that ban thing Frank - it's make sense as nobody voted you in to be a mod in the first place.

Frank Bullitt wrote:

Any suggestions for the mods or the warring factions are welcome. We need to do something to stop this endless cycle of crap because I think we have all had enough now.

I don't think the mods should be doing anything different from what they are already doing - splitting threads, setting up rumpus rooms for the children to play in, & having quiet words either in public or via pms. There aren't magic answers. It's the price to be paid for a more open site.

To be fair, it's easy to say just ignore it. That luxury is only available to us mere mortals. It's the mods who have to wade through all the crap. It's their job. That's one of the reasons I would suggest that two years is plenty long enough for any sane person to be a mod on here.

knecht wrote:

Frank Bullitt wrote:

Any suggestions for the mods or the warring factions are welcome. We need to do something to stop this endless cycle of crap because I think we have all had enough now.

I don't think the mods should be doing anything different from what they are already doing - splitting threads, setting up rumpus rooms for the children to play in, & having quiet words either in public or via pms. There aren't magic answers. It's the price to be paid for a more open site.

To be fair, it's easy to say just ignore it. That luxury is only available to us mere mortals. It's the mods who have to wade through all the crap. It's their job. That's one of the reasons I would suggest that two years is plenty long enough for any sane person to be a mod on here.

That's what mods do Knecht. We don't have a busy site to moderate at all, ATD is very good compared to many. Although I acknowledge that it would be better for them if they had even less.

This crap has been going on for ages, first it's Hairy and then it's Rickler, and then it's Rickler and then it's Hairy...and so it goes on. I suggest a newly darkened forum is created for only those involved and allow them to get on with it. It would be quite a laugh to watch!

hairy j wrote:

Just ban me. It's easy. Just press the button. You can then have your little tree house where you can slag people off - people who don't post here - with no repurcussion.
Remember when every one was slagging of nikkkkkk so nikkkkkkkk registered? He then posted a bit and all the fannies who were slagging him off were being nice to him,
Just do that ban thing Frank - it's make sense as nobody voted you in to be a mod in the first place.

Dick post.

But not something to be banned for.

GOB wrote:

This crap has been going on for ages, first it's Hairy and then it's Rickler, and then it's Rickler and then it's Hairy...and so it goes on. I suggest a newly darkened forum is created for only those involved and allow them to get on with it. It would be quite a laugh to watch!

Of course...  You're never involved at all are you?

The 'Shit stirrer supreme' except for Hairy himself.



And that "newly darkened forum" you suggest...  You'd know about them, is the new one going to be another replica of the one you and your pal Cerbs set up?


Yeah... Talk about things that are quite a laugh to watch!  That failure, and you and Cerbs whinging and whining about not being mods after trying to rig the ATD mod elections has to be one of ATD's all time funniest laughs.  

How's it go..?    "First it was Gob, and then it was Cerbs and then it was Cerbs and then it was Gob..  and so it went on..."
Well... Until you were both suspended for boring the pants off everyone. A bit like hairy really...

...and whatever happened to Cerbs?  Thinking about it, I don't suppose you'd know...  Feck...  You were quick to dump his arse when he lost favour weren't you?

OK.......... back to the ignore function for me. Others please be sparing in use of the 'quote' button.

It's the 'grown up' thing to do if you can't get on with eachother online.

Anyway, nice morning outside   

Pissing down here.

hairy j wrote:

Just ban me. It's easy. Just press the button. You can then have your little tree house where you can slag people off - people who don't post here - with no repurcussion.
Remember when every one was slagging of nikkkkkk so nikkkkkkkk registered? He then posted a bit and all the fannies who were slagging him off were being nice to him,
Just do that ban thing Frank - it's make sense as nobody voted you in to be a mod in the first place.

Not quite true as there was a vote in the Mod room.

Chemical Ali wrote:

hairy j wrote:

Just ban me. It's easy. Just press the button. You can then have your little tree house where you can slag people off - people who don't post here - with no repurcussion.
Remember when every one was slagging of nikkkkkk so nikkkkkkkk registered? He then posted a bit and all the fannies who were slagging him off were being nice to him,
Just do that ban thing Frank - it's make sense as nobody voted you in to be a mod in the first place.

Not quite true as there was a vote in the Mod room.

I think Hairy has got that one wrong. People were being polite to Nikkkkk because they didn't want to give him the excuse to flounce using the Webb tactics of "look how horrible they are", a bit like what Hairy is attempting to do now.

Pandering to the biggest troll on here all because Knecht has had his say on a day when he is feeling sorry for the biggest shit stirring troll this site has ever seen, like it, not. The trouble is with Hairy Knecht is that he feckin loves an argument, when he gets one he moans that he's being picked on, well feck him you reap what you sow. If this was a pub I would have knocked the fecker out several times, if you want to wind me up then fine but don't feckin moan when you get a reaction.
As for playgrounds? Childish, how feckin old are we?
In my opinion if you can't get on with everybody and what more you don't ever really seem happy here then why the feck do we have to put up with you? Wise up or do us all a favour and feck off.
And you are a prick Hairy so feck off.

Frank Bullitt wrote:

So does anyone have any idea how to resolve this situation? Even if things calm down today it will surely only be a matter of weeks or days before it kicks off again?

Is it a situation that requires anybody to do anything administratively at all?

There's a number of issues that converge here but at the heart lies the contradiction that free speech will nearly always upset somebody or another. If you are truly committed to free speech then the upset has to be lived with.

On the other hand we (nearly) all recognise restrictions to our free speech in many different ways whether they be legally defined (inciting racial hatred, libel, blasphemy etc) or rather less clear (generally moderating the usage of various swear words in various contexts and so on).

A perfect solution would be for people to simply take responsibility for their own posts and not to be deliberately and blatantly offensive in order to exact retribution for a wrong they perceive to have been done to them. This is by far the best way and it also means that the mods need do nothing at all because when they are compelled to do something a precedent will be set and consistency will be required which means an ever-tightening spiral of moderation is inevitable and I don't think anybody wants that.

So basically (I hate that word), we just let Hairy do what and say what he feels? And all we have to do is ignore him? Why, as Iggy say's, is ATD pandering to an individual who, come on, let's face it, has a reputation that goes before him.

We're treading on eggshells, and I'm not comfortable with it. There's free speech and there's downright shit stirring and trolling, and here, in this very discussion, Hairy's flouncing for us to ban him! Why Hairy? so you can bang on about being mistreated? unfairly banned, ganged upon by those nasty ATD mods?

It's ok just saying ignore, but shit that upsets other posters and fills my PM inbox with complaints, then as a mod, I'm duty bound to do something about it. So-far, with hairy, you PM him and warn him, but after a few weeks of playing nicely he's at it again.

If this is how people want ATD to work then fine, but it's not the job as a mod that I signed up for,and certainly not to pander to an individual who is literately taking the piss out of ATD, so, at next mod elections............I'm out.

Have an admin vote and take whatever action you deem necessary, should you achieve the necessary majority.

Warnings, a spell in the cooler, temporary bans, permanent bans , with explanations to the membership. Everything out in the open and above board . This tiresome situation that flares into abuse every so often follows a similar pattern and usually involves the same posters.

Take action if they/we don't stop. I 100% accept the decisions of the admin team.

Don't be rash.

The problem here, as I see it, is that at some point Hairy, possibly, feels he's been done a wrong un, presumably by Rickler. At the time nothing was done, H feels outraged and has responded in kind partly to get his own back and partly to make a point.

Rickler possibly, feels he's been done a wrong un, presumably by Hairy. At the time nothing was done, R feels outraged and has responded in kind partly to get his own back and partly to make a point.

Amongst all of this others, Iggy immediately springs to mind, haven't so much made a conscious decision to join in but, in one way or another have been drawn in.

Throughout it all those of us not directly involved with the rowing and the tit-for-tat have become very bored with it, in fact the main protagonists probably would prefer it not to be happening and are bored with it too, and, I assume the mods (who are probably as bored with it as anyone and as committed to free speech as anyone) will have received complaints in some form or another and so are pushed into a position where they feel that they have to do something.

But what can they do? They can advise, warn, move posts, close threads, suspend or permanently ban and most of those have been tried in some form or another. That's about it. And, as already stated, a precedent is set and even more fuel is poured onto the tit-for-tat bonfire. We reach a point where the only defence for wrong-doing is that "Jenkins did it first" (whether he actually did or not doesn't matter because nobody can remember who did it first any more).

And none of it will work because new accounts with new IDs will emerge, get sussed (or not) and so it continues.

The answer here does not lie with the mods at all but with those actually posting the posts irrespective of who started it in the first place (and "A" will say it is "B" and "B" will say it was "C" etc) or how badly sleighted they feel.

The only other approach would be the instant deletion of deliberately provocative posts but good luck with your efforts if you try that one because the line between deliberately provocative and fair comment is going to be impossible to define.

Should a mod resign because of any of this? No. Of course not. It's hardly their fault, is it?

It's not being 'rash' SFD. It has become an ongoing bitchfest and does nobody any credit. Pack it in / ignore eachother, or face the consequences.

Spot on there Frank with the fact that I have been drawn in. You are also right that I didn't want to be but there you go perhaps I should know better. Hairy recently started a four page thread of bitching and moaning and at the end he was asked very clearly by myself and I think Yea Man what his problem was exactly and more importantly what is the solution, he then went extremely quiet until this all blew up again.
I am asking Hairy to use this opportunity to state EXACTLY WHAT HIS PROBLEM IS AND WHAT HE SEES AS THE SOLUTION?
Maybe then we could move on from here.

Hairy is an antagonist and a pretty crap one at that because he fails to see where the line is as do a few others. But every forum of this 'type' needs one or two Hairy's or we risk the forum becoming a boring waste land of Internet geekism, just take a look at pasoti these days and you will see what happens when you start off down that path.

There have been times when Hairy's opinion has got my back up but more often than not I just glide past his comments because I can't take the guy seriously, the same can be said for Rickler and one or two others.

If you ban Hairy then you should be banning Rickler and if you ban Rickler you should then be banning me and a few others because we are all guilty of annoying the shit out of others on occasion. If you ban Hairy for wishing Rickler dead then you have to ban Rickler as well as should have been done in the first instance. I would suggest that has you banned such people for such things there would not be this dilemma now but the line has been marked.

I agree with everything that you say Gob but what winds me up is Hairy playing the victim - when he is just as bad as those who are doing unforgivable wrong against him- and true to form when a shitstorm blows up he disappears.
I would genuinely like to know what Hairys' beef is.

I miss Punchie.

My love affair with pasoti began to deteriorate because of how they treated individuals who went against the grain. Peggy springs to mind. Most importantly the piss-taking of Penz over there was pathetic. Their crimes? One's was she was a woman who dared not to know her place. The other's was he was "flamboyant" in his persistent & vociferous challenges. I thought "That's not right" and it contributing to the end of my trust in how pasoti was run. That's why I'm so-called "defending" hairy now. If a site doesn't allow mavericks, what's the point of "democratic" in the title? That's why I have jumped in on this one.

And, just for the record, I'm not actually defending hairy - like Peggy & Penz he is perfectly capable of standing his own ground. I don't like talking personalities but it seems relevant in this case - about a third of the time I think he's interesting & fun, about a third of the time his frequent attempts to provoke a reaction pisses me off, about a third of the time I rush past what he posts. That's roughly what I do with many on here. I suspect that's what many do with me. But it's not about hairy. I believe I'm actually defending this site and not wanting it to go down the pasoti mod route.

When I was a mod early on I came in for shed-loads of personal abuse from, in particular, two posters on here. I was told in the mod-room as well as via a number of PMs that I should do something about it. As it (mostly) didn't bother me I didn't do anything. I was wrong. I think what I didn't do directly contributed to the deterioration into abuse on here. I should have done something not for my sake but for the site's sake. That's one reason I think what the current mods are doing is so good. Their attempt to restore a bit more order is absolutely the right thing to do. I think they're a good team - all of them. There is none of them that I wouldn't vote for.

But that has to be even-handed. Just because you don't like someone that shouldn't mean that you focus on them alone. The constitution states "The moderators will all be expected to contribute to the day to day running of the forum and to moderate the boards calmly,fairly and without personal bias". He certainly makes the job harder for mods but that's part of the job. He certainly challenges posters and why not? As long as it is done within the "ATD ethos of free speech within the law and common decency". I don't see that hairy is breaking that. Pain in the neck maybe but that goes for various on here.

If anyone thinks that hairy is out to provoke them, I usually find that if someone is clearly out to provoke me that the best way of dealing with it is not to be provoked.

I agree with what GOB, Sir Frank & Tring say above.

Have edited the title of this thread as it's no longer about Webby.

See, I can leave Knecht to say my piece for me without having to bother my lazy arse to do anything except say...

"I agree"...boy, didn't that really piss me off on pasoti