Member Treatment - Are we being fair to the members of the community?

[Guest_1]

While I may be in the minority here, I disagree that it is unfair. All toxic behaviour straddles the line to begin with, and furthermore, should we really sacrifice 90% of the user bases happiness in place of some artificial "fairness"? ZD is a private company. If someone is lowering the quality of the website, do we need some specific rule? For some users, such as Ventus, JJ, SQ, Lexy, Gic, etc, they are so toxic that there was no reason to keep them on the site to begin with. Forum usership is a privilege, not a right.

The idea isn't that we need a specific rule to keep people on the site. The idea is that if a user breaks a rule, they will weed themselves out via the buildup of infractions for disregarding the rules we have in the first place. It's the natural process of elimination, if you will. Bans can be circumvented pretty easily if you know how. It isn't something that is going to keep a more tech-savvy member out that is determined to cause problems.

Actually, JJ was ultimately banned for a comment he said to me in the SB. Toxic users are exactly what I just said: line straddlers. JJ got more informal warnings than I could count. Eventually enough warnings adds up to "enough is enough, you have not warned nor will you ever".

Again, no one is disputing that in the end, JJ needed to be removed. I'm saying the manner in which it went about can be called into question. Do you remember what he said? Did what he say break the rules of the shoutbox at the time? No one is suggesting you unban him; at this point, what's done is done. I'm just saying that maybe you could've been a little emotionally charged at the time it occurred. Now, if a user does get banned after a certain amount of times, then other measures might be considered, but either way, bans should only be put in place as a last resort.

Regardless, the current rules are not very clear in certain areas, and they need to be cleared up so that we don't have situations like the recent thread derailment don't happen again.

Wouldn't that be better than potentially opening up a can of watermelons? Just add a rule and fix the problem — makes things more clear and consistent.

Spoiler: watermelons...

Exactly.

 

[DARK MASTER]

How about this?

If the punishment is progressive, sure.

 

[Jamie]

I do remember what he said. I was talking about my depression and how I was once (and sometimes still do) struggling with thoughts of suicide. And he made some remark about how oh its like pancake 2.0 or something. So yeah, I'd say he broke a rule.

 

[Guest_1]

I do remember what he said. I was talking about my depression and how I was once (and sometimes still do) struggling with thoughts of suicide. And he made some remark about how oh its like pancake 2.0 or something. So yeah, I'd say he broke a rule.

Looking at the current rules, I would say you have a point there. However, as you admit here, you were talking about something that was very personal to you. Not trying to be dismissive or anything, but it does seem like you also could've been a little emotionally charged there. In which case, the better thing to do, rather than handle the situation yourself since it is personal to you, would've been to let someone else step in and address the situation. This is comparing his actions to the current rules, however, as I don't think anyone has a copy of the rules as they were back when JJ was still active. Can you see how your actions there could be misconstrued as "bias"? Regardless, what's done is done.

In any case, let's not make this about JJ, or other people who no longer matter. At this point, we should be focusing on re-evaluating the rules and removing potential loopholes that can be abused, and have been abused in the past. The recent thread derailment shouldn't have been allowed to go on, so let's do something constructive and put something in place to prevent future incidents so we can all get back to discussing Zelda, video games, and the forum merger.

Thanks again for the responses, everybody.

 

[Jamie]

You are operating a bit on misinformation @Selenus. I actually talked to JJ after he said that and I forgave him. Later in the staff chat, another staff member brought it up and I said "I'm going to pull myself out of this for the most part, since the comment happened to me". Not that I didn't give my input at all, but very very little, and I made sure I wasn't the one who banned him iirc.

 

[Guest_1]

If I am misinformed, I apologize. It's great that you're being forthcoming about this, but regardless

let's not make this about JJ, or other people who no longer matter. At this point, we should be focusing on re-evaluating the rules and removing potential loopholes that can be abused, and have been abused in the past. The recent thread derailment shouldn't have been allowed to go on, so let's do something constructive and put something in place to prevent future incidents so we can all get back to discussing Zelda, video games, and the forum merger.

Thanks again for the responses, everybody.

JJ isn't around anymore. Neither is Axle, GIC, or even Ventus. Again, they don't matter. What's done is done.

What sorts of things should be in place with regards to the rules from now on? Looking at the rules, I see nothing in there about toxic behavior or thread derailment. Personally, I would consider adding an amendment to the spam rule to address thread derailment. The next question at this point to ask would be "how do we define toxic behavior"? We should be fair to everybody, but at the same time, we also want to close the loophole that currently exists regarding that.

 

[Jamie]

Toxic behaviour to me is being warned and not making an effort to improve. Toxic is when you do bad things and you just never stop, even if you're just straddling the line. It gets to a point where you destroy the community itself just on your own, which many users have done in the past.

 

[Garo]

Howdy.

There's this terrible cycle I have where I'll hear a neat bit of news about upcoming Zelda stuff - in this case all the amiibo functionality in Twilight Princess HD - and head over here to see some discussion about it. But by virtue of not having been here for a few weeks at the least, it feels like there's all this new stuff and it's a little overwhelming. So I twirl on down here to the community / forum news sections and start reading a bit to catch up. More often than not I wade into some kind of controversy. A few minutes pass, I remember why I haven't come here in a few weeks, and I leave the forum, without having read anything about the thing that brought me into it again.

So it feels like I always end up popping in and posting for the first time when there's a discussion like this, and that's almost always because I have a rare voice to add to this that most cannot. So I'm sorry for appearing to be the dramatic one who only shows up to sow strife and discord, but it's honestly a remnant of the psychological strain that being on staff here placed on my mind. That's a scar that I'm not sure I'll be able to disassociate, sadly. Anyway.

I can say that during my tenure as a mod, definitively:

1. I was never personally told not to discipline a member by a higher authority, and recall no instances in moderation chat where this happened.
2. I never consciously held off from disciplining a member because of that member's status or a personal friendship with them, though I do not deny that subconscious biases probably played into decisions I made, as I am human and profoundly imperfect in leadership positions especially.
3. I never knew any of my fellow moderators for the bulk of my tenure to unjustly overdiscipline a member based on any criteria, but certainly not based on personal feuds or vendettas (I cannot say this to be true of certain moderators promoted near the end of my tenure, but given that those promotions are what led me to resign my own position I believe that speaks for itself and in the interest of moving on I will not name them).
4. There are a few instances where we gave a user a lighter punishment, or perhaps failed to act entirely, based on our certain knowledge that that user's reaction would be disproportionately headache inducing for us, and probably lead to further chaos on the forum. This was not a single user, but rather a number of users over my tenure that we felt merited this treatment. It's one of my sincerest regrets as a moderator that we did not act on these users. That decision, however, was just a poorly made one rather than a malicious and calculated one.
5. I would never wish the position of moderator on anybody, because it is a thankless chore that is stress above all else, and leads to a seemingly inevitable hatred of yourself and the forum. I used to come here every single day. Once I finally got out of the nightmare that was being on staff, I hardly ever come here.

Edit to add: I've been here five years, and this was my 1000th post. How inauspicious.

 

[Nathanial Rumphol-Janc]

There is no questioning that. I would go as far as saying that it should have come sooner, but what's done is done. That chapter has long since come and gone.

The problem we have, then, is when we have a similar user straddling that line, but is also in a staff position. What should we do about those users? Should we continue to let them operate in a gray area and drive off potential users from the community with their toxic arguments? Should we let them continue to derail threads and spread resentment to the rest of the community, and therefore poison the well further? What is the fair course of action in that particular instance?

JJ, while an example of someone who was indeed a toxic member of the community, never held a staff position, and rightly so. While others saw him as a troublemaker, the thing we forget about reputations is that reputations are things of our own creation. Through his own behavior, he ultimately earned the reputation and the resentment he received from the rest of the community. Sure, it could be argued that at some points, there was a degree of bias from both staff and members regarding him, but that doesn't excuse his actions at all, nor should it excuse anyone else. This is especially true for those who are in staff positions.

Staff members of all kinds carry the reputation of the community on their shoulders. When they are allowed to engage in behavior that hurts the reputation of ZD and therefore its brand, then we have a problem. We should treat everybody fairly, but we also cannot allow members to operate in a gray area any longer. It's fine if a member wants to be a contrarian. No one is out to silence opinions or censor beliefs. It's when these opinions or beliefs cannot be expressed in a way that is conducive to a proper, productive discussion that we have problems.

I'd really like to leave the past in the past. Past staff, past issues, past problems... leave it all be. SHouldn't have bearing on the future. I will say however that discussion on expansion or should I say, clairification of the rules has come up and it seems like something the staff is open too. This may indeed help eliminate some of the toxic behavior. I don't think a position of someone (staff or otherwise) will be an issue. If say, Matt was temporarly banned and he quit and stopped working on the Wiki - it would be a blow to the Wiki, but everyone is replaceable. I hate thinking that way - but it's true. Anytime someone is volunteering their time to do stuff, when you're at the top you have to realize that volunteer may not be here doing this forever and you have to have the ability to replace them should that occur. But really, a temp ban of Matt in this situation shouldn't lead to him leaving the wiki. There is so little wiki crossover to the boards right now that these boards have very little to do with what he does - even as he wants to make it so. Currently it doesn't.

But this is just a hypothetical. Not saying anyone really needs to be banned at all. But certainly we can make certain behavior patterns easier to manage moving forward.

I think that banning someone for the sole reason that other people don't like their behavior is rather unfair and doesn't stop people from behaving in that way in the future. I think it would be much more productive and fair if we look at our rules and decide to change something in them about that behavior if said behavior is having a negative effect on the community. This way nobody gets banned without breaking any rules and the person gets a fair chance to change their behavior knowing what the consequences are, plus it would be set that anybody else that behaves that way in the future would know that their behavior would have consequences.

Indeed. You need to treat the cause, not the symptom. This is what rules are really for in the first place. They take lay out behavior patterns that are acceptable and unacceptable. People will always straddle the line, but if you move that line further and further away from truly toxic behavior, you're going to have far less issues.

I'm afraid that comes from people stubbornly refusing to even listen to a word I said in the first place. Very, very often I have to repeat a point because someone else repeats something else I had already refuted before several times, so I have to again. They just keep going on. And then, as usual, I'm singled out as the repetitive one. Even though I'm not really doing anything that extraordinary. It's only natural people try to repeat a point subconsciously to drive it home when it's obvious people never listened the FIRST TIME before it was repeated.

The thing is, repeating yourself is simply redundant. If they didn't listen the first time, they wont the 3rd, 8th, 21st time either because they either don't understand what you said, or they frankly don't care. Repeating yourself gets you nowhere. Just the hard truth.

Easier said than done. You can't forget a past that keeps chasing you and people won't leave it alone. You can't simple ignore slander when, before you respond, people are nodding their head along in agreement with the ridiculousness being spewed. Everyone ought to have the right to defend themselves when someone else is issuing personal attacks. Particularly when the staff chooses to not intervene, all while they go after me for a non-issue that wasn't even hurting anyone.

This time, I'm ignoring the rest not because of relevancy, but because what you outline here is all that is really worth me addressing. You claim you can't ignore slander. You can't ignore when people try to bad talk you. I get that. Here is the thing - you absolutely can. You don't think people bad talk me? That I haven't had users at ZI go out of their way to trash me? Heck, I've had people threaten to kill me - threaten to kill my children, and yes they knew my address and could naturally do something if they really wanted too. Of course they didn't, because that requires getting off the computer and to stop hiding behind it. A lot harder to carry out threats against people when you aren't willing to do anything but threaten.

The point I am making is that you DO CONTROL YOUR OWN RESPONSES AND BEHAVIOR. It is natural to want to defend yourself, but sometimes the best course of defense is to prove them wrong not by replying and disagreeing, but by simply not doing the behaviors they accuse you of. Often when you response (since I have been here), you've been confirming their concerns. A thread got locked specifically because of derailment you started. That's... not good. What I am getting at here is that you can never control what people say about you - but you do control how you act towards it. If I let people over the internet really get to me - I would have stopped doing what I do a decade ago (I'm almost at this for 20 years now). The best response is none at all - it's to almost ALWAYS stop trying to directly defend yourself and simply let your actions speak to that defense. Don't do what they say you do, and it's not a problem.

As an example, sometimes you have to consider that if what your doing seems to be upsetting so many - maybe do some self reflection. You may feel you've done no wrong, but you're only considering your side. Reality is - your actions, whether perceived correctly or not, made others feel uncomfortable with you. Why is that? What could you have done differently to chanage that viewpoint?

These are the things YOU control and no one else. The hardest thing to do is accept the fact that maybe when someone speaks bad about you, they have a point and something you cna learn from that beyond needlessly defending yourself. And Matt, as one guy who use to get caught up in this to another - defending yourself only ever makes you look worse. So stop doing it. It's not helping you. I stopped doing it ages ago. I'm done apologizing. I take what they say, I reflect, and I adjust moving forward and hope that my actions show that's not who I am anymore.

I had a bad reputation coming to these boards. No surprise, really. I earned it I suppose. But I am hoping my actions show different. I wont' defend myself, I'll simply show that's not who I am anymore.

 

[Emma]

This time, I'm ignoring the rest not because of relevancy, but because what you outline here is all that is really worth me addressing. You claim you can't ignore slander. You can't ignore when people try to bad talk you. I get that. Here is the thing - you absolutely can. You don't think people bad talk me? That I haven't had users at ZI go out of their way to trash me? Heck, I've had people threaten to kill me - threaten to kill my children, and yes they knew my address and could naturally do something if they really wanted too. Of course they didn't, because that requires getting off the computer and to stop hiding behind it. A lot harder to carry out threats against people when you aren't willing to do anything but threaten.

The point I am making is that you DO CONTROL YOUR OWN RESPONSES AND BEHAVIOR. It is natural to want to defend yourself, but sometimes the best course of defense is to prove them wrong not by replying and disagreeing, but by simply not doing the behaviors they accuse you of. Often when you response (since I have been here), you've been confirming their concerns. A thread got locked specifically because of derailment you started. That's... not good. What I am getting at here is that you can never control what people say about you - but you do control how you act towards it. If I let people over the internet really get to me - I would have stopped doing what I do a decade ago (I'm almost at this for 20 years now). The best response is none at all - it's to almost ALWAYS stop trying to directly defend yourself and simply let your actions speak to that defense. Don't do what they say you do, and it's not a problem.

As an example, sometimes you have to consider that if what your doing seems to be upsetting so many - maybe do some self reflection. You may feel you've done no wrong, but you're only considering your side. Reality is - your actions, whether perceived correctly or not, made others feel uncomfortable with you. Why is that? What could you have done differently to chanage that viewpoint?

These are the things YOU control and no one else. The hardest thing to do is accept the fact that maybe when someone speaks bad about you, they have a point and something you cna learn from that beyond needlessly defending yourself. And Matt, as one guy who use to get caught up in this to another - defending yourself only ever makes you look worse. So stop doing it. It's not helping you. I stopped doing it ages ago. I'm done apologizing. I take what they say, I reflect, and I adjust moving forward and hope that my actions show that's not who I am anymore.

I had a bad reputation coming to these boards. No surprise, really. I earned it I suppose. But I am hoping my actions show different. I wont' defend myself, I'll simply show that's not who I am anymore.

But you're missing something here. If this was just all entirely my own personal life, nothing else, no responsibilities, no commitments, nothing, then yes, I can, will, and do ignore what people say (barring situations with close friends which are different). I don't care what they think for exactly the same sort of reasons you outlined.

But what you're not getting is what happened here and what keeps happening here, to me, is not simple personal attacks. They have a very specific motive behind them that is not personal. I'm not being slandered simply because people don't like me. I'm being slandered all the time here because people are threatened by my ideas and they want to shut me up. That's the entire point of even doing it to me. And it's the reasoning for the timing behind the attacks against me. Ignoring it in this circumstance strengthens their position because people, who were already agreeing to it, have no reason to doubt the slander and start treating me badly because they think I am bad. That gets in the way of my responsibilities here, my duties, and what needs to get done. It's not just a simple purely personal case. This is professional. And ad hominem attacks meant to shut down ideas people don't like shouldn't be ignored. To do so will only encourage that behavior because it teaches people that all they got to do to shut down an idea or opinion they don't like is complain about someone. And then more people get hurt. That is something I cannot and will never do.

And it's really not so many. It's always a small group of people. Usually the same ones that like stirring up trouble, or that have previously supported ideas I had opposed. Others not related to this that nod in agreement only do so because it's natural to be inclined to believe something negative about people. That makes it more important to not tolerate it. Think of it like negotiating with terrorists. It's the same thing. Same exact thing. Terrorists want do what they do to ilicit an emotional response to manipulate their targets into doing something they want them to. For the people here, it's the same thing, they are using tactics meant to illicit an emotional response to try to get people to do something that fits their agenda. And in either case, if you negotiate with them, or give them any ground, you encourage more of it and you teach others that it is a viable tactic to get what they want.

 

[Nathanial Rumphol-Janc]

But you're missing something here. If this was just all entirely my own personal life, nothing else, no responsibilities, no commitments, nothing, then yes, I can, will, and do ignore what people say (barring situations with close friends which are different). I don't care what they think for exactly the same sort of reasons you outlined.

But what you're not getting is what happened here and what keeps happening here, to me, is not simple personal attacks. They have a very specific motive behind them that is not personal. I'm not being slandered simply because people don't like me. I'm being slandered all the time here because people are threatened by my ideas and they want to shut me up. That's the entire point of even doing it to me. And it's the reasoning for the timing behind the attacks against me. Ignoring it in this circumstance strengthens their position because people, who were already agreeing to it, have no reason to doubt the slander and start treating me badly because they think I am bad. That gets in the way of my responsibilities here, my duties, and what needs to get done. It's not just a simple purely personal case. This is professional.

As a question to you sincerely - is this a job to you? Are you paid? Is this your career? If the answer to any of that is "No" - than this isn't professional at all. This is a hobby - one you care greatly about - but nothing more. The big thing I keep seeing those that seemingly don't like you say is talk about your behavior - NOT your ideas. You are perceiving their dislike of you to be about something that they tehmselves aren't even talking about, and you're ignoring all the things they are.

There is a term for this that I can't seem to remember atm, but you're basically making a mountain of a molehill, except that mountain is almost entirely unrelated. Since I have been here, almost everything said against you has been about your actions - and in defending those actions - you have reconfirmed their initial complaints in the first place. It hasn't been about your ideas. Everyone has ideas - I have ideas for these boards and hey, most if not all of them are being shut down by you fine folks. That's totally fine, I'm okay with that because they are just that, ideas. They aren't law. I don't get personal if people disagree with me.

When people disagree with you Matt, I am seeing you take it to a whole new level, which then agitates them and makes them respond in kind. You're basically the catalyst in all of this because their complaints are on your behavior, not your ideas, and you keep ignoring that.

Again, you have this inability right now to self reflect on their side of things and you keep pushing it like they have this agenda against your ideas - rather, they disagree with you, and you can't seem to handle that. It sucks really.

I think you're generally a really good and passionate person, but your passion is getting in the way of logical thinking and the ability to self reflect and realize how your behaving - how you aren responding - is why this dislike exists. You HAVE to ignore it - the deeper you dive in, the worse you're going to look and it shows you haven't learned anything or matured in the manner to deal with it.

I take everything at ZI personal. I build that sucker out of almost nothing (the founding staff were great, but not a perfect fit long haul). When someone criticises the site, it feel slike a criticism of me. When someone disagrees with something an author did at our site, I take it personal because I approved of what said author did. Yet, I don't respond defending every which way things are done. I step back and consider why they think that way. Then I move forward and see if future work can adress it. I can't make people like my ideas. But that also means I shouldn't keep forcing them onto those same people either. If the ZI user base say, rejects daily debates, I shouldn't just keep forcing them to exist. (they aren't, but just an example of an idea I started at the site).

 

[Emma]

As a question to you sincerely - is this a job to you? Are you paid? Is this your career? If the answer to any of that is "No" - than this isn't professional at all. This is a hobby - one you care greatly about - but nothing more. The big thing I keep seeing those that seemingly don't like you say is talk about your behavior - NOT your ideas. You are perceiving their dislike of you to be about something that they tehmselves aren't even talking about, and you're ignoring all the things they are.

There is a term for this that I can't seem to remember atm, but you're basically making a mountain of a molehill, except that mountain is almost entirely unrelated. Since I have been here, almost everything said against you has been about your actions - and in defending those actions - you have reconfirmed their initial complaints in the first place. It hasn't been about your ideas. Everyone has ideas - I have ideas for these boards and hey, most if not all of them are being shut down by you fine folks. That's totally fine, I'm okay with that because they are just that, ideas. They aren't law. I don't get personal if people disagree with me.

When people disagree with you Matt, I am seeing you take it to a whole new level, which then agitates them and makes them respond in kind. You're basically the catalyst in all of this because their complaints are on your behavior, not your ideas, and you keep ignoring that.

Again, you have this inability right now to self reflect on their side of things and you keep pushing it like they have this agenda against your ideas - rather, they disagree with you, and you can't seem to handle that. It sucks really.

I think you're generally a really good and passionate person, but your passion is getting in the way of logical thinking and the ability to self reflect and realize how your behaving - how you aren responding - is why this dislike exists. You HAVE to ignore it - the deeper you dive in, the worse you're going to look and it shows you haven't learned anything or matured in the manner to deal with it.

I take everything at ZI personal. I build that sucker out of almost nothing (the founding staff were great, but not a perfect fit long haul). When someone criticises the site, it feel slike a criticism of me. When someone disagrees with something an author did at our site, I take it personal because I approved of what said author did. Yet, I don't respond defending every which way things are done. I step back and consider why they think that way. Then I move forward and see if future work can adress it. I can't make people like my ideas. But that also means I shouldn't keep forcing them onto those same people either. If the ZI user base say, rejects daily debates, I shouldn't just keep forcing them to exist. (they aren't, but just an example of an idea I started at the site).

You've got absolutely no idea what you're in for in trying to absorb this community into your own if you're assuming this is just a simple overreaction on my part. We've got a long, unsettling history of exactly this. Dismissing these kind of ad hominem attacks as irrelevant and condemning the reactions to them is only going to encourage people to attack more. If they don't like an idea, all they got to do is insult the person speaking it. Then there's no way out, with attitudes like what you're insisting on here, the target is in a no-win situation. If they stay silent and don't complain, their ideas get dismissed and they get treated very poorly and their personal interactions with other people are worsened. If they respond to the allegations, they get called a troublemaker and the same outcome as the previous case happens. By dismissing this as you have, you are weaponizing the ad hominem and giving people the license to use it. When people disagree, they should be explaining why they don't see things the same way and talk about the issue at hand. Instead there's usually some kind of character attack. What you're suggesting is that people ought to have no right to defend themselves and I can't accept that. That is only going to encourage this sort of behavior and a lot of people are going to get hurt. Look at what you said here, several times in your post you attacked my character, saying that there things wrong about me. Even if you really think that, it's not a positive contribution to this discussion and it doesn't actually address what I said. Those were more so observations that were better said in private rather than used to dismiss an argument I had. All this goes with what I said that people have way too much of a confirmation bias around here. They expect something bad out of someone, they treat them as such, then believe they've confirmed that when the person responds accordingly to that treatment. We cannot move forward if we keep encouraging this kind of thing.

Maybe in an ideal world your ideas could work. But we're not in an ideal world. People in our world often have malicious intent. People are often manipulative. And very often the authority punishes the innocent while supporting the aggressor. And regularly those that speak out against injustices, are told they need to stay silent. That's usually not the proper course of action. It only ever is if there is a life or risk of serious harm at stake, but that's not usually how this goes.

 

[Jirohnagi]

You've got absolutely no idea what you're in for in trying to absorb this community into your own if you're assuming this is just a simple overreaction on my part. We've got a long, unsettling history of exactly this. Dismissing these kind of ad hominem attacks as irrelevant and condemning the reactions to them is only going to encourage people to attack more. If they don't like an idea, all they got to do is insult the person speaking it. Then there's no way out, with attitudes like what you're insisting on here, the target is in a no-win situation. If they stay silent and don't complain, their ideas get dismissed and they get treated very poorly and their personal interactions with other people are worsened. If they respond to the allegations, they get called a troublemaker and the same outcome as the previous case happens. By dismissing this as you have, you are weaponizing the ad hominem and giving people the license to use it. When people disagree, they should be explaining why they don't see things the same way and talk about the issue at hand. Instead there's usually some kind of character attack. What you're suggesting is that people ought to have no right to defend themselves and I can't accept that. That is only going to encourage this sort of behavior and a lot of people are going to get hurt. Look at what you said here, several times in your post you attacked my character, saying that there things wrong about me. Even if you really think that, it's not a positive contribution to this discussion and it doesn't actually address what I said. Those were more so observations that were better said in private rather than used to dismiss an argument I had. All this goes with what I said that people have way too much of a confirmation bias around here. They expect something bad out of someone, they treat them as such, then believe they've confirmed that when the person responds accordingly to that treatment. We cannot move forward if we keep encouraging this kind of thing.

Maybe in an ideal world your ideas could work. But we're not in an ideal world. People in our world often have malicious intent. People are often manipulative. And very often the authority punishes the innocent while supporting the aggressor. And regularly those that speak out against injustices, are told they need to stay silent. That's usually not the proper course of action. It only ever is if there is a life or risk of serious harm at stake, but that's not usually how this goes.

Not to be brutal here but Matt in all honesty the stuff you keep spouting is about crap from the past that in all honesty doesn't matter anymore nor does anyone care to dredge it up constantly to belittle or demean you. The only issue I've ever seen with you is you escalate necessarily, yeah i won't say there haven't been people who've been out to get you, i don't know you well enough to say we are all out for your idea blood, we aren't. It's as simple as that, Let it go now before the merge instead of bring the baggage along for the ride. Like i said I've literally never seen anything like you've describe and i lurk a hell of a lot (again i can't say it's never happened cuz who knows).

Yeah there's issues here and most of them stem from dislike of one another but and this is a big almighty but, the forum merge is a new slate. If people can't handle that then i think they should deal with it regardless. Where is the sense in dredging it all up? You are ultimately only harming yourself and your own self esteem, which will in the end kill anything you do as you worry over what others think. Just hold a big dual finger up to the idiots and go your merry way.

 

[Emma]

Not to be brutal here but Matt in all honesty the stuff you keep spouting is about crap from the past that in all honesty doesn't matter anymore nor does anyone care to dredge it up constantly to belittle or demean you. The only issue I've ever seen with you is you escalate necessarily, yeah i won't say there haven't been people who've been out to get you, i don't know you well enough to say we are all out for your idea blood, we aren't. It's as simple as that, Let it go now before the merge instead of bring the baggage along for the ride. Like i said I've literally never seen anything like you've describe and i lurk a hell of a lot (again i can't say it's never happened cuz who knows).

Yeah there's issues here and most of them stem from dislike of one another but and this is a big almighty but, the forum merge is a new slate. If people can't handle that then i think they should deal with it regardless. Where is the sense in dredging it all up? You are ultimately only harming yourself and your own self esteem, which will in the end kill anything you do as you worry over what others think. Just hold a big dual finger up to the idiots and go your merry way.

Except I haven't been the one dredging it up. I got singled out from the start for talking too much about how I felt the wiki was important to the decisions we were making. When I protested I got called a troublemaker for my time. This is exactly the same sort of stuff that happened in that distant past so it's hardly that far behind us. And if we can't admit this kind of thing happened before and still happens now, we're just going to keep having the same problems come back again and again. It's turning out exactly how I said. It's impossible for a target of these things to defend themselves and come out with any self-respect. They get branded an enemy of the state no matter what and it's unfair and I don't think it's unreasonable to protest it. And I don't think constantly reiterating various ways of saying "shut up" is the proper way to deal with this. This is a thread about being fair to the community. If someone thinks they're being treated unfairly, that's a relevant issue and "shut up" is a highly inappropriate way of dealing with it. and I should say that every time this happened in the past, the people trying to silence the complaining rarely were looked fondly of after it was all over. Since that never works, can we just please try to be more mature about this and think of a better response than "stop complaining" please? It isn't helping.

 

[Nathanial Rumphol-Janc]

You've got absolutely no idea what you're in for in trying to absorb this community into your own if you're assuming this is just a simple overreaction on my part. We've got a long, unsettling history of exactly this. Dismissing these kind of ad hominem attacks as irrelevant and condemning the reactions to them is only going to encourage people to attack more. If they don't like an idea, all they got to do is insult the person speaking it. Then there's no way out, with attitudes like what you're insisting on here, the target is in a no-win situation. If they stay silent and don't complain, their ideas get dismissed and they get treated very poorly and their personal interactions with other people are worsened. If they respond to the allegations, they get called a troublemaker and the same outcome as the previous case happens. By dismissing this as you have, you are weaponizing the ad hominem and giving people the license to use it. When people disagree, they should be explaining why they don't see things the same way and talk about the issue at hand. Instead there's usually some kind of character attack. What you're suggesting is that people ought to have no right to defend themselves and I can't accept that. That is only going to encourage this sort of behavior and a lot of people are going to get hurt. Look at what you said here, several times in your post you attacked my character, saying that there things wrong about me. Even if you really think that, it's not a positive contribution to this discussion and it doesn't actually address what I said. Those were more so observations that were better said in private rather than used to dismiss an argument I had. All this goes with what I said that people have way too much of a confirmation bias around here. They expect something bad out of someone, they treat them as such, then believe they've confirmed that when the person responds accordingly to that treatment. We cannot move forward if we keep encouraging this kind of thing.

Maybe in an ideal world your ideas could work. But we're not in an ideal world. People in our world often have malicious intent. People are often manipulative. And very often the authority punishes the innocent while supporting the aggressor. And regularly those that speak out against injustices, are told they need to stay silent. That's usually not the proper course of action. It only ever is if there is a life or risk of serious harm at stake, but that's not usually how this goes.

Not much I can say, my points are just flying over your head at this point. Never said it was irrelevant. Never said don't defend yourself. It's the WAY you are doing it that I think is causing a problem. The approaches I suggest are defending it - it's defending it by proxy. You're just going about your day and not letting it get to you. Though, that doesn't make them irrelevant - you have to consider why they feel that way instead of defending like crazy. Sometimes, there is no defense. You're simply wrong and you have to accept that and learn from it. I haven't seen you able to admit you were wrong yet, even as you derailed a thread.

Much respect Matt. You do some fantastic work. But honestly, if what I am saying isn't sinking in, I can't do much to help you out. You ultimately control you. What you've been doing (and is apparent) for years hasn't been working. I am suggesting a different approach. You don't have to do it, but doing the same thing defending yourself and expecting differnt end results... didn't that once get called the definition of insanity? You're not insane, but you can't seem to recognize what you've been doing isn't working. That's on you.