[Report] Flamebait in Ukraine thread?

[Gravlen]

I'm wondering how far one can go in expressing dissatisfaction with a post before it crosses a line... Would this cross into flamebaiting, or is this an acceptable "attack on the post"?

I've underlined the four specific parts I'm wondering about, and I've removed a picture to make it easier to look at the post.

BTW, United Marxist Nations, since you were supportive of some things because it strengthened the Communists, did you notice the clever way Russia made sure the Communists lost their place in Crimean politics? Simply reduce the number of deputies in the Council of Crimea from 100 to 75, and suddenly getting around 7 % of the votes gives your party zero seats instead of the five they got back in 2010.

In Crimea, only Putins United Russia and Zhirinovskys Liberal Democratic Party of Russia now hold any power. And the runner-up says:

Russian ultranationalist lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky claims regional elections in five Russian constituencies, including Moscow, were rigged.


http://www.rferl.org/content/election-z ... 85528.html

That comment was brought to my attention by a communist poster, not UMN. Whomever wrote that utter piece of garbage, please don't reveal yourself, because the sheer stupidity of that claim is quite phenomenal. It demonstrates complete cluelessness about Crimea's electoral system. Don't just make up bullshit. For instance: "did you notice the clever way Russia made sure the Communists lost their place in Crimean politics? Simply reduce the number of deputies in the Council of Crimea from 100 to 75, and suddenly getting around 7 % of the votes gives your party zero seats instead of the five they got back in 2010."

That makes no sense. 7% of 75 still gives you seats, specifically 5 seats, unless Putin also controls the laws of math. Furthermore, if all 100 were elected by a party vote, then 7% would give you 7 seats, not 5. I doubt that one would need to spend much time to figure out that 7 percent of 100 is 7.

Thus it's not hard to realize that not all of Crimea's deputies are elected by the Party List. The Legislative Election in Crimea was split into two electoral branches, 50/50, for the purposes of election! 50 + 50 = 100. The first 50 were elected on a "first past the post system" in each of Crimea's 25 regions. 25*2 = 50. That's where the first 50 came from. The second 50 came from overall Crimean Election. This information was copy-pasted on Wikidorkia, the Russian version, which is actually much more informative than the English version in quite a few ways, including talking about Crimea.

The results:

Party of Regions (Konstantinov,) - 80 seats, out of which 48 came from single mandate districts
Commies - 5 seats, none from single mandate districts
Q-R - 5 seats, none from single mandate districts
Soyuz - 5 seats, 2 from single mandate districts
Russian Unity - 3 seats, none from single mandate districts
Ukraine Stronk - 2 seats, none from single mandate districts

Soyuz, Russian Unity and PoR formed an alliance. Ukraine Stronk merged into PoR in 2012: http://www.kyivpost.com/content/politic ... 24603.html Thus, Konstantinov's Coalition won all of the single mandate seats. All 50 of them. They have reduced these 50 seats to 25 seats, thus negating 25 politicians from their own party, now known as United Russia. Apparently, according to whomever wrote that completely moronic post removing 25 UR politicians = ensuring that commies don't get any votes. Oh dear. Logic is needed.

As for why the Commies didn't make it, why not look at the actual press release: http://www.cis-emo.net/ru/news/vybory-v ... tvitelnymi

Как оказалось, партия «Единая Россия» получила 25 мандатов по одномандатным округам и 45 по республиканскому избирательному округу. ЛДПР получила 5 мандатов по республиканскому округу. Всего на выборах приняли участие «53,61% от общего числа зарегистрированных избирателей».

United Russia won 25 single regional mandates, (down from 50, because they reduced their very own politicians,) and 45 out of 50 mandates through the Crimean Party List. LDPR received the other 5 mandates. That's because, http://www.cis-emo.net/ru/news/edinaya- ... ovet-kryma, "Единая Россия" набирает 70,7% голосов на состоявшихся в воскресенье выборах депутатов парламента Крыма по партийным спискам, в госсовет проходит также ЛДПР с результатом 8,38%, свидетельствуют данные, внесенные в ГАС "Выборы" по итогам обработки 214 тысяч бюллетеней, передает Интерфакс. Ход обработки бюллетеней отображается на официальном сайте избирательной комиссии Крыма. КПРФ набирает 4,34%, партия "Родина" - 3,05%, результаты остальных партий не превышают 2%.

Also: Выборы проходят по смешанной системе, жители республики избирают 50 депутатов по партийным спискам и еще 25 по одномандатным округам.

UR - 71%, LDPR - 8%, CPRF - 4%, others were at 3% or below. Why did CPRF do so poorly? Because as soon as Crimea joined the Russian Federation, UR and LDPR began to campaign, whereas Zyuganov missed the opportunity and United Russia integrated a good chunk of CPRF's platform into their own. Crimea's UR is to the left of the Moscow's UR. Source about CPRF's missed opportunity: http://oncrimea.ru/ru/static/politic-pa ... -2014.html

Who's CPRF's rep in Crimea? Exactly. The reason that CPRF lost in Crimea isn't because UR kicked out 25 of their reps to have less politicians, as is incorrectly alleged in that idiotic post. It's because Zyuganov failed to seize the opportunity and go past the 7% barrier, which the CPRF managed to accomplish in every previous Crimean Elections.

[Dread Lady Nathicana]

Addressed.

[Galloism]

I disagree with this decision and request a review.

The poster in question clearly kept his hands inside the "insult the post"-coaster, but because you did not like his tone, you warned him. He never once referred to the poster in any way, focusing on the alleged stupidity of the content of the post (as far as I can see, anyway).


If repeatedly harping on a bad post or series of posts is now actionable, I submit that every one of your warnings where you tell us that our posts are childish and immature and all that are actionable, as it consists of a repeated harping of supposed posting immaturity which clearly only appear to be attacking the post but are really attacking the maturity of the posters by proxy.

[Dread Lady Nathicana]

It was the manner in which it was done, not simply the tone. Repeated haranguing, deliberately leaving off who the quote was from when I easily found it in thread so as to further harass ... seemed a clear enough effort to attack the poster by means of the post, not in any way addressing the post's validity in those lines. Had those been left out, or not been so over-the-top vehement in their delivery at least, I wouldn't have given it a second thought and ruled it unactionable.

Tossing up the second opinion flag for an uninvolved mod to review.

[Galloism]

It was the manner in which it was done, not simply the tone. Repeated haranguing,

Repeated haranguing of the bad portions of a post is what is done. You do it yourself.

deliberately leaving off who the quote was from when I easily found it in thread so as to further harass ...

This statement makes absolutely no sense. Harassing someone by not stating their identity? What? If anything, withholding identity is something you do when you're trying to spare somebody.

seemed a clear enough effort to attack the poster by means of the post, not in any way addressing the post's validity in those lines.

I'm no expert on the situation at hand, but on its face, it appears he attacked it point by point and explained how it was wrong (from his point of view).

Had those been left out, or not been so over-the-top vehement in their delivery at least, I wouldn't have given it a second thought and ruled it unactionable.

Half the posts on NSG are over the top vehement. It's the nature of a debate forum with passionate posters.

Tossing up the second opinion flag for an uninvolved mod to review.

Thank you.

[Shofercia]

Addressed.

I fully support Gallo's points. The attack was geared on the post, which claimed that by removing 25 of their very own politicians, United Russia is harassing the Communist Party in Ukraine. I had the quote, without the poster, delivered to me on IRC. I was asked to respond. As thus I had no idea who made that quote. I could've, very easily, done a search by typing in parts of that quote into the search bar, finding out who made that quote, and placing said poster's name in the quotes, but I didn't do that. I've called claims idiotic before, because some claims, such as claims that whites are superior to blacks or that by limiting the number of your very own politicians you're hurting another party, are idiotic. And I think that we should be harsh on those claims so that people stop posting this nonsense, and we can end up with a much more productive debate, especially in a thread where that's desperately needed. And that's always been the case on NSG.

In spite of that, Gravlen, the reporter, (a bit hard to ignore him when he repeatedly reports me in moderation, even after I placed him on ignore and he kept on baiting me to respond,) claims that this is flamebaiting: as is incorrectly alleged in that idiotic post

Also this: Oh dear. Logic is needed.

I've already addressed the first part. As to the second part, calling a post illogical on NSG is nothing new. If a post lacks logic, we can call it illogical. When I said "logic is needed", I meant "logic is needed in that post", since the only thing that I was talking about, was that post. I can just as easily talk about the other two highlights, but an attack on the post, is just that: an attack on the post. Especially when the poster's name is not quoted.

I will also add that it seems that Gravlen has been reporting me in moderation repeatedly, and he was quite unhappy each time that I didn't get a warning. Out of the past 4 threads in Moderation reported against me, 2 belong to Gravlen. This is his third attempt to get me into trouble. Links to his other two attempts:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=276893
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=287538

I ask that the mods not let Gravlen's grudge against me be used to undermine one of NSG's best tools to fight against idiotic posts. Furthermore, how can it be an attack on the post when the poster can simply come out and say, "yeah, I was drunk/high/whatever when I made that post, sorry about that" and be done with it? We all make stupid posts from time to time, it's part of being human. Calling posts idiotic, while leaving out the posters' names, simply ensures a higher quality of debate.

[Shofercia]

Dear Moderators,

I would like an update on this. I've never heard of this "flamebaiting by proxy" before, and it originally looked nothing more than Gravlen's third attempt to get me warned, even though I've been having him on ignore for quite a while, ironically in part as a result of his continued reporting to moderation. It sounded like something made up, but then Nathi claimed that it's actually actionable. Gravlen provided four examples

Whomever wrote that utter piece of garbage, please don't reveal yourself, because the sheer stupidity of that claim is quite phenomenal. It demonstrates complete cluelessness about Crimea's electoral system. Don't just make up bullshit.

according to whomever wrote that completely moronic post

Oh dear. Logic is needed.

as is incorrectly alleged in that idiotic post

The third example is just never been actionable before, because anyone who's ever read at least one of the "Give me one logical reason to believe/not believe in XYZ" threads would know that posts were called illogical numerous times, and this was acceptable. Is that no longer acceptable?

As to the fourth example, I'm not exactly sure as to why Gravlen highlighted the as is incorrectly alleged part, because if you're going to call that a "baiting by proxy", then you might as well hand out warning to everyone on NSG. I'm also unsure why the part Don't just make up bullshit, was highlighted, unless Gravlen was just throwing everything up there, hoping that something sticks. I understand that the standard moderation response would be "use logic and common sense", but, as was highlighted by Gallo:

deliberately leaving off who the quote was from when I easily found it in thread so as to further harass ...

This statement makes absolutely no sense. Harassing someone by not stating their identity? What? If anything, withholding identity is something you do when you're trying to spare somebody.

that part makes do sense to me either, so I'm unsure how to use common sense if my interpretation is completely divergent from the moderator's who made the ruling. If I am to be warned for this, fine, but please explain to me exactly what I'm being warned for, because if I'm calling an incorrect allegation, an incorrect allegation, there's absolutely nothing flaimy about that, irrespective of the amount of times this is reported to moderation, so if minor things like that become actionable, I might as well stop posting and I wouldn't be surprised if half of NSG stops or gets an increase in their warning levels as well. Are we no longer allowed to call a moronic post, a moronic post, is said post is objectively stupid? Are we no longer allowed to call a clueless claim, completely clueless, if we can factually prove that?

[Galloism]

I think I've been pretty patient mods - waiting 7 days to bring this back up.

Are we going to have a ruling on this? Attacking the post too much is now flamebaiting?

[Mallorea and Riva]

First thing is first: we don't have to accept third party requests for reviews. In this case I'll take a look.

I agree with Nathi's ruling. There is attacking the post and then there is taking it to another level, which I think Nathi explained quite well.

[Shofercia]

First thing is first: we don't have to accept third party requests for reviews. In this case I'll take a look.

I agree with Nathi's ruling. There is attacking the post and then there is taking it to another level, which I think Nathi explained quite well.

So you only looked at third party requests? In case you missed it, I am the party that was reported, I fully agreed with Gallo's quotes, and made some of my own; considering that you claim that you only looked at third party requests, I'm going to send this up for a further appeal, one that will hopefully respond to all of the issues that were raised.

[Mallorea and Riva]

First thing is first: we don't have to accept third party requests for reviews. In this case I'll take a look.

I agree with Nathi's ruling. There is attacking the post and then there is taking it to another level, which I think Nathi explained quite well.

So you only looked at third party requests? In case you missed it, I am the party that was reported, I fully agreed with Gallo's quotes, and made some of my own; considering that you claim that you only looked at third party requests, I'm going to send this up for a further appeal, one that will hopefully respond to all of the issues that were raised.

No I saw your posts, and was simply pointing out that we don't have to honor third party requests which this initially was. Granted looking back I probably didn't phrase it very well.

[Galloism]

First thing is first: we don't have to accept third party requests for reviews. In this case I'll take a look.

I agree with Nathi's ruling. There is attacking the post and then there is taking it to another level, which I think Nathi explained quite well.

No offense, but this ruling is utter bullshit and flies in the face of everything mods have repeated, ad nauseum, for years - about attacking the post. Attack the post vehemently if you will, but not the poster.

He complied with the mantra that has been repeated ad nauseum forever.


Nathi's statement that "deliberately leaving off who the quote was from when I easily found it in thread so as to further harass" makes about as much sense as "throwing bags of your money out of a hot air balloon so as to have more saved up for retirement". It was the most nonsensical thing I've heard a mod say on NSG for... well, it's been a while anyway. The fact that you "agree" with it just puzzles me, like maybe I've gone insane and maybe I've forgotten how to read, or maybe some weird code is in play that I don't understand.


If this is truly the ruling, if it really is, then I'll have some posts to report, as I put earlier. I just want to be very sure this is the bag of worms you want to open up.

[Shofercia]

First thing is first: we don't have to accept third party requests for reviews. In this case I'll take a look.

I agree with Nathi's ruling. There is attacking the post and then there is taking it to another level, which I think Nathi explained quite well.

No offense, but this ruling is utter bullshit and flies in the face of everything mods have repeated, ad nauseum, for years - about attacking the post. Attack the post vehemently if you will, but not the poster.

He complied with the mantra that has been repeated ad nauseum forever.


Nathi's statement that "deliberately leaving off who the quote was from when I easily found it in thread so as to further harass" makes about as much sense as "throwing bags of your money out of a hot air balloon so as to have more saved up for retirement". It was the most nonsensical thing I've heard a mod say on NSG for... well, it's been a while anyway. The fact that you "agree" with it just puzzles me, like maybe I've gone insane and maybe I've forgotten how to read, or maybe some weird code is in play that I don't understand.


If this is truly the ruling, if it really is, then I'll have some posts to report, as I put earlier. I just want to be very sure this is the bag of worms you want to open up.

Again, in order to avoid the "third party" comment that mods could make, I fully support what Gallo said. If you guys want, I, the warned party, not a third party, could copy paste this into my post, verbatim.

[Mallorea and Riva]

No offense, but this ruling is utter bullshit and flies in the face of everything mods have repeated, ad nauseum, for years - about attacking the post. Attack the post vehemently if you will, but not the poster.

He complied with the mantra that has been repeated ad nauseum forever.


Nathi's statement that "deliberately leaving off who the quote was from when I easily found it in thread so as to further harass" makes about as much sense as "throwing bags of your money out of a hot air balloon so as to have more saved up for retirement". It was the most nonsensical thing I've heard a mod say on NSG for... well, it's been a while anyway. The fact that you "agree" with it just puzzles me, like maybe I've gone insane and maybe I've forgotten how to read, or maybe some weird code is in play that I don't understand.


If this is truly the ruling, if it really is, then I'll have some posts to report, as I put earlier. I just want to be very sure this is the bag of worms you want to open up.

Again, in order to avoid the "third party" comment that mods could make, I fully support what Gallo said. If you guys want, I, the warned party, not a third party, could copy paste this into my post, verbatim.

Just to clarify are you requesting a final appeal?

[Shofercia]

Again, in order to avoid the "third party" comment that mods could make, I fully support what Gallo said. If you guys want, I, the warned party, not a third party, could copy paste this into my post, verbatim.

Just to clarify are you requesting a final appeal?

Yes I am, and I'm requesting clear guidelines as to what this ruling, one that overturns a decade of NSG precedence, allows and doesn't allow. Before we had a bright line rule, attack the post, not the poster. Now you're changing it with a single ruling, throwing it all out the window. As thus, there should be crystal clear guidelines, as to what's allowed and what isn't.

[The Archregimancy]

I am raising the final appeal request for internal moderation discussion; my noting as much doesn't commit the moderation team to a final course of action, it's a mere statement of fact.

[Shofercia]

I am raising the final appeal request for internal moderation discussion; my noting as much doesn't commit the moderation team to a final course of action, it's a mere statement of fact.

Thank you

[Galloism]

I am raising the final appeal request for internal moderation discussion; my noting as much doesn't commit the moderation team to a final course of action, it's a mere statement of fact.

Just wanted to bring this back. It's been a week since you started the internal moderation discussion.

I'm just kind of wondering if you've yet decided that we're not Orcs.

[The Archregimancy]

I am raising the final appeal request for internal moderation discussion; my noting as much doesn't commit the moderation team to a final course of action, it's a mere statement of fact.

Just wanted to bring this back. It's been a week since you started the internal moderation discussion.

I'm just kind of wondering if you've yet decided that we're not Orcs.

I am personally embarrassed by the delay.

A decision has in fact been reached, and I have been trying to gently prod the relevant mods into announcing the result of the review of the final appeal.

[Euroslavia]

This has been decided on the individual specifics of this one case, particularly noting the long history of animosity between Shofercia and Gravlen which appears to move this into flamebaiting/trolling territory rather than being a robust attack on an individual argument, and therefore shouldn't be remotely taken as a universal precedent applicable to the forums as a whole.

In short, the appeal has been denied.

Deeply sorry for the delay, I take full responsibility for it taking this long. I'm in school and work full time, so any chance I get to check the website, generally stays brief. I should've taken the initiative to post this right as a decision had been made, but once again, I was distracted by my three medical classes.


General note: This is a problem that needs to be fixed up, with falling behind on making decisions on complicated issues.

[Shofercia]

This has been decided on the individual specifics of this one case, particularly noting the long history of animosity between Shofercia and Gravlen which appears to move this into flamebaiting/trolling territory rather than being a robust attack on an individual argument, and therefore shouldn't be remotely taken as a universal precedent applicable to the forums as a whole.

In short, the appeal has been denied.

Deeply sorry for the delay, I take full responsibility for it taking this long. I'm in school and work full time, so any chance I get to check the website, generally stays brief. I should've taken the initiative to post this right as a decision had been made, but once again, I was distracted by my three medical classes.


General note: This is a problem that needs to be fixed up, with falling behind on making decisions on complicated issues.

So now it's the history of animosity, which, according to Euroslavia, still exists. I disagree, since animosity is by definition a strong feeling, and I have no strong feelings toward Gravlen. I have practically no feelings towards him at all, and the only reason I say practically, is because humans have at least some degree of feelings towards other humans, and only the Sith deal in absolutes, whereas I RPed as a Jedi Knight. To prove that there are no feelings of animosity, below are all of my posts containing the name Gravlen since May 8th, excluding the ones in this thread. BTW, it's interesting how he didn't say that it was his post being attacked in his original OP. If he did, perhaps Nathi would've used the animosity claim and I would've easily rebutted it, as I'm doing right now. This is why it's rather unfair that you've never brought up the history of animosity before, thus not letting me demonstrate that said history of animosity ended in May, when I completely gave up addressing anything that Gravlen had to say, unless it was posted in moderation: viewtopic.php?p=20010616#p20010616

Since then, there's been a single post, here it is: viewtopic.php?p=21026868#p21026868

Gravlen's on my ignore list and yet insists on responding. He's there because of this: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=287538 and this: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=286958 I'm just saying that, in case people are wondering why I'm not responding to him.

Anyways, I'm pointing out how to end the conflict...

On May 8th, I made a decision that he wasn't worth my time. The only post that I thought I made in response to something he said, was a post telling other NSGers that he's on my ignore list, as per Archie's suggestion earlier, on March 16th:

3. I have no problems debating you, and that's why I haven't placed you on ignore.

Bad idea.

I suggest both of you take a deep breath and stop replying to each other for a couple of months.

This is getting as tiresome for me as it's no doubt getting for both of you.

In spite of that evidence, I apparently have animosity, which hid itself for 5 months and then surfaced out of the blue. Or, it could be that:

The attack was geared on the post, which claimed that by removing 25 of their very own politicians, United Russia is harassing the Communist Party in Ukraine. I had the quote, without the poster, delivered to me on IRC. I was asked to respond. As thus I had no idea who made that quote...