[Discussion/Announcement] NSG's "Wing" Megathreads

[Nouveau Quebecois]

All for deleting General Discussion and Fifth Dimension? NS Mods would be down since it'll cut their job duties by half.

You know, I have been reading through your comments in this thread here, and I have come to one unmistakable conclusion. You don't like moderation. That's all fine and dandy, but just keep in mind you did agree to the terms of service when you created your nation. If you don't like those terms anymore, you are free to leave and not return to the site. I would put large sums of money on a bet that there isn't anyone twisting your arm and forcing you to log in. If I were you I would consider myself extremely fortunate that the hammer of doom hasn't come crashing down on you for some your "opinions" in this here discussion, So why don't you do us all a huge favor and dial it back about 30 or 40 notches?

I don't like something. I have the choice of leaving it or trying to fix it. I'm choosing the latter. Don't worry about me, the Mods will let me know if I'm breaching the ToS.

[Salandriagado]

They're hardly fair and just, this sites rules are a meme. Actual trolling is freely allowed (see certain users lasting for years and years on General whilst contributing nothing more than low effort snark and bait, which any sensible ruleset and mod team would axe quickly) but light jabs between people who are friendly with one another leads to warns and bans.

There's also the issue of moderation seemingly skewing very old and normally not having an understanding of internet culture which leads to all sorts of hilariously ignorant rulings.

Hi! If there are players that you have concerns about, please consider reporting them for their behavior along with a few examples of their pattern of trolling so we have something to go off. It's best if you do so in a specific thread for them.

Thanks!

There's only so many times you can literally just ignore the report thread entirely before people give up on that one.

[Atlacatl Batallion]

While your "solution" is ineffective at best, my way of dealing with it is to not just become part of what this website has become.

Again, I am not getting paid to be here, so I see no reason exposing my personal security should be such a huge deal for you. What I was saying was, since this is going unresolved, a lot of us left under that reason, that there's really no recourse available for people who get harassed by players on this website on other sites over issues stemming from forum participation on this website.

If you want to play commando with doxxing and counterdoxxing, you guys go ahead. But this is part of the reason why I did leave, security concerns around my privacy. I have a life to live, and I am not about to get it ruined just because of some disagreement with some nobody on a website that frankly, end of the day, is just entertainment.

You keep talking about how you left because it was unsafe, and yet you are still here.

Also, you're the only one that seems to want to play commando.

No, I don't want to play commando.

Nothing personal, but you should understand there are ways to keep oneself safe besides posting here. Also, not only that, but the fact is, there's very little you all want to do about the problems plaguing NS, and I doubt this little problem of everyone's favorite threads going unresolved is going to have any sort of resolution, if this is the tone of the conversation when someone brings up a more serious issue than some thread being locked.

[Shazbotdom]

Ok bro literally do what you want I really don't care about your personal situation and I'm sure that sentiment is echoed by other people here.

The point is though, NS Mods can't and should not help you.

Then NS mods should expect more people to leave, because they're not helping you either.

If you can't see that a serious issue such as literally ruining people's lives should be addressed by the community, then why do you think your plight to open up a thread is a more serious concern to them?

I don't understand why you believe that NS Moderators should do something about Doxxing when it happens offsite? Like literally, what the actual fuck?

Report it to the Police, or to the Discord Website Admins/Moderators. Here, this is how to report it if it's happening on DIscord and the Server Admins/Mods won't do anything about it.


Now can we finally end this ridiculous train of thought?

[Esternial]

Jesus Christ, I go on holiday for one week...

I'm trying to understand what the effects of this is beyond requiring some re-adjustment of the wing thread participants.

Rather than posting everything in a single thread, you'd now have to make a new thread for new topics. Frankly, I'd imagine it lowers the threshold for newcomers to jump in. A large megathread can seem like a drag to get into.

It's less convenient, but how is this such a monumental event?

The problem I see with it, especially in terms of creating a good discussion that's easier for new people to enter, is that if threads are further limited in political scope (the authoritarian left thread etc) then it risks creating even more of an echo chamber.

That's even worse, yeah.

It's a bit of a drag, but I imagine the idea is to spawn new threads for each individual topic that is usually just brought up organically in the "wing" threads. Wouldn't that make it a bit more "accessible" for those not interested in politics in general, but do care about one of the topics in specific? Then if any new topics come up, a new thread is spawned for that one.

Basically how it was pre-megathreads.

I get the annoyance because that's far less convenient to do.

[Nouveau Quebecois]

You keep talking about how you left because it was unsafe, and yet you are still here.

Also, you're the only one that seems to want to play commando.

No, I don't want to play commando.

Nothing personal, but you should understand there are ways to keep oneself safe besides posting here. Also, not only that, but the fact is, there's very little you all want to do about the problems plaguing NS, and I doubt this little problem of everyone's favorite threads going unresolved is going to have any sort of resolution, if this is the tone of the conversation when someone brings up a more serious issue than some thread being locked.

Why are you still talking about your safety? NS Mods are not responsible for your safety unless it's specifically occuring on-site.

[Questarian New Yorkshire]

In addition, it has bred problematic cliques that have become insulated from rules enforcement due to an unfortunate combination of thread participants refusing to report (and even actively discouraging reporting of) rulebreaking conduct and thread outsiders being disinclined to dig into it to locate and report it. Moderation lacks the time and the manpower to babysit such threads personally, and thread regulars have proven repeatedly that they either can not or will not regulate themselves.

I almost never address NS moderation directly and I'm not frankly expecting a reply.

I'm not upset or annoyed. This was clearly coming. This is also not an argument for restoring the threads. I know that ship has sailed.

RWDT (I admit that XXI was a bit spammy) and to a lesser extent LWDT served the purpose of people being able to post ideas or thoughts and receive feedback on them. Doing so in this format provided several advantages that your General forum did not:

• Over time players became a known quantity and regulars did not feel the need to waste time replying to people who were bad faith, not persuadable, stupid, or who otherwise brought the conversation down. This isn't intentional. This is just how it worked there. You will notice that my series of spam-tier posts in the last one made a couple of people contribute good quality posts about history. I'm not saying I did it on purpose. There's just something about my character that makes people want to prove me wrong. Is it bad for the site? I'm not the only one. I'm not even special or unique. The combination of RWDTs personalities caused this activity, not something fundamental to NSG. You won't see it repeated.
• It concentrated this type of activity in two threads. Both RWDT and LWDT contained some of the best quality debate and discussion available in this forum. Hands down. It also contained a shit-tonne of spam, banter, and OK, we broke some rules. But those things were tied intrinsically to the nature of having a regular core of people available in one place with "a culture" to the name of that place. As they say on youtube, "goals that did not repeat." You can't expect people to only post high quality effort-content. Especially not with the current world situation.
• These threads attracted both people in the description (rightists posted on LWDT, leftists on RWDT) and of course some people are changing their minds and so on and have esoteric opinions. These threads never constituted an echo chamber because the regular members enjoyed the debate they could have there with people on the other side of the fence without being echo-chambered or ganged up on. That happens in the rest of the threads on your forum. People who don't follow the majority opinion on NationStates get treated like outsiders and you allow it because you can't see when people are being baited and because loads of bait techniques aren't illegal. To gain access to this section of the forum where you could debate and discuss in good faith without being ganged upon or attacked required only to show minimal evidence of in-group participation ie banter like once or twice a month.

There was a lot of "spam content" as you might call it, but of course there was. RWDT was just formalist in its spam content. When people spammed everyone else knew it and it was treated as such by other users. We had a clear difference between "ok youre just spamming" and "right that's a serious topic to reply to." Rest of your forum doesn't have that. I can post a thread saying "What do you think about abortion?" with two paragraphs explaining why I think it's X or Y and I can get 100 one-line or two-lines replies, many of which will be very baity and sarcastic and many of which will be utterly devoid of content. You don't consider this spam. But you consider what we did as being problematic. That's unfortunate for the website.

The Wing Threads contained that atmosphere inside themselves. You know that. For all the bans I received posting with Questers, its eventual deletion (I was deleted for posting "reeee" and then a serious comment about whether you can organise a workplace horizontally), and all the bans I've received on this account have come from inside megathreads, 90% RWDT and 10% UKPOL. Others are the same. Most of the activity you banned or warned us for comes from inside the thread committed against other thread members: as much as you think we're a problematic clique, we kept it in the family for the most part and I think most members wouldn't have kicked a fuss if someone went to another thread, flamed and got banned.

On the other hand you have dozens of members who shut others down with "debate tactics", bait underneath the border, poor faith or directly contrarian attacks which do not constitute debate and which fundamentally have the quality of spam and bait but which are technically legal. That's the sad thing. For our thread had a lot of problems (nobody hold up their hands and say they're innocent) we kept our rulebreaking to ourselves, we had good faith, good quality, extensive debates and discussions on real things on a whole range of things. It's sad that you think that this activity is verboten but the activity I wrote about at the start of this paragraph is welcome.

NationStates has always been such a tease. It's the third world country with vast oil reserves that wastes them and then wonders why its poor.

[SD_Film Artists]

Despite their flaws, I think they were beneficial overall. Players did not need to create new threads just do discuss another left-wing or right-wing idea.

I agree. I wasn't very active in either of them but I can see their value. Also as a centrist it's nice to dip into those threads to explore the political horizons rather than creating an entirely new thread.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

The problem I see with it, especially in terms of creating a good discussion that's easier for new people to enter, is that if threads are further limited in political scope (the authoritarian left thread etc) then it risks creating even more of an echo chamber.

That's even worse, yeah.

It's a bit of a drag, but I imagine the idea is to spawn new threads for each individual topic that is usually just brought up organically in the "wing" threads. Wouldn't that make it a bit more "accessible" for those not interested in politics in general, but do care about one of the topics in specific? Then if any new topics come up, a new thread is spawned for that one.

Basically how it was pre-megathreads.

I get the annoyance because that's far less convenient to do.

I guess you have a point.

I've been pretty anti-megathread for years, and I honestly wish the trend towards creating so many had never occurred, however these threads do have their own communities now and that's kind of been ruined. We'll be seing a lot more discussion move to discord now.

[Nouveau Quebecois]

Why didn't the Mods ask the community what they thought about this decision before making it?

[WayNeacTia]

Then I suppose in your view it is okay if I doxx the doxxers, correct?

No, cause that's illegal. I would inform the police.

Would you please quote from the Canadian Criminal Code, U.S. Federal Code, or even state law for me where "Doxxing" is a criminal offence?

Why didn't the Mods ask the community what they thought about this decision before making it?

They are not in any way required to explain their decisions. It is privately owned website, not a publicly traded entity. Also will you please learn to use the edit button, instead of double and triple posting please?

[Greater vakolicci haven]

Why didn't the Mods ask the community what they thought about this decision before making it?

Because if this thread is anything to go by, they'd get the wrong answer.

[Nouveau Quebecois]

No, cause that's illegal. I would inform the police.

Would you please quote from the Canadian Criminal Code, U.S. Federal Code, or even state law for me where "Doxxing" is a criminal offence?

https://lmgtfy.com/?q=is+doxxing+illegal&pp=1

[Atlacatl Batallion]

No, I don't want to play commando.

Nothing personal, but you should understand there are ways to keep oneself safe besides posting here. Also, not only that, but the fact is, there's very little you all want to do about the problems plaguing NS, and I doubt this little problem of everyone's favorite threads going unresolved is going to have any sort of resolution, if this is the tone of the conversation when someone brings up a more serious issue than some thread being locked.

Why are you still talking about your safety? NS Mods are not responsible for your safety unless it's specifically occuring on-site.

Because apparently, I have to.

Also, no, I have not been doxxed yet, I have not been harassed yet, but that's because I was smart enough to quit while I was ahead and just come here sporadically to call out the mods on everything they've been doing wrong, this being a part of it.

But it's not just this, it's the whimsical consistency, lack of actual moderation (as Salandriagado said, mods ignore report threads often), seeming favoritism of players for the most whimsical of reasons (there are players here who would have been DOS'd under different circumstances), and just a general lack of giving a fuck about a job they volunteered to do.

At this point the role of moderator is nothing but a shiny pretty people want just to be able to say they got it. There's no real teeth behind it.

[Songha]

Why didn't the Mods ask the community what they thought about this decision before making it?

Because they don't care.

[Nouveau Quebecois]

Why are you still talking about your safety? NS Mods are not responsible for your safety unless it's specifically occuring on-site.

Because apparently, I have to.

Also, no, I have not been doxxed yet, I have not been harassed yet, but that's because I was smart enough to quit while I was ahead and just come here sporadically to call out the mods on everything they've been doing wrong, this being a part of it.

But it's not just this, it's the whimsical consistency, lack of actual moderation (as Salandriagado said, mods ignore report threads often), seeming favoritism of players for the most whimsical of reasons (there are players here who would have been DOS'd under different circumstances), and just a general lack of giving a fuck about a job they volunteered to do.

At this point the role of moderator is nothing but a shiny pretty people want just to be able to say they got it. There's no real teeth behind it.

nobody asked if you had been doxxed yet specifically because nobody cares.

the teeth behind the moderator badge is to moderate this site. Not that site, not your personal life, it's to moderate this site.

[Shazbotdom]

Why are you still talking about your safety? NS Mods are not responsible for your safety unless it's specifically occuring on-site.

Because apparently, I have to.

Also, no, I have not been doxxed yet, I have not been harassed yet, but that's because I was smart enough to quit while I was ahead and just come here sporadically to call out the mods on everything they've been doing wrong, this being a part of it.

But it's not just this, it's the whimsical consistency, lack of actual moderation (as Salandriagado said, mods ignore report threads often), seeming favoritism of players for the most whimsical of reasons (there are players here who would have been DOS'd under different circumstances), and just a general lack of giving a fuck about a job they volunteered to do.

At this point the role of moderator is nothing but a shiny pretty people want just to be able to say they got it. There's no real teeth behind it.

*COUGH COUGH*

Then NS mods should expect more people to leave, because they're not helping you either.

If you can't see that a serious issue such as literally ruining people's lives should be addressed by the community, then why do you think your plight to open up a thread is a more serious concern to them?

I don't understand why you believe that NS Moderators should do something about Doxxing when it happens offsite? Like literally, what the actual fuck?

Report it to the Police, or to the Discord Website Admins/Moderators. Here, this is how to report it if it's happening on DIscord and the Server Admins/Mods won't do anything about it.


Now can we finally end this ridiculous train of thought?

[Mostrov]

Once again, the topic is the megathread closures and requests for review of other megathreads. It is not for loaded questions about unrelated cases, hence the continued removal of posts as bad faith.

Tbh if RWDT and LWDT are gone the MAGAthread should be removed too. It's little more than a chat thread for liberals/progressives that occasionally posts something Trump did at this point.

I think many of the megathreads should be closed by this criterion, the quality of discussion is mostly poor and very cliquey. The Feminist Discussion thread, the UK Discussion thread (as it was for most of the last year at least) stand out as obvious things to be culled. The Christian discussion thread is mainly just Catholics and should be either renamed or shut too.

RWDT and LWDT had the only good discussion on the site, generally avoiding rampant circle-jerk or partisan (and always fucking American) shit-slinging like the other megathreads.

All this tells me is that non-American political discussion isn't welcome.

This is really important, as the creation of the megathreads was initially around the matter of American politics and abortion. Beforehand they simply dominated the board; the problem is more the cross-posting. I thought the RWDT did a very good job of sanitizing this because it was about political views more generally.

Pick a subject -- something that you might have posted as a sub-topic within RWDT -- and give it a try.

Classics and Reception studies are too specific for a thread. I mostly want to talk about books I have read in relation to history and politics, which was something we did well in the RWDT, and Arts and Fiction is moribund in that respect.

Then we had people say not to report rule breaking behavior in the threads, finally pushing this issue over the edge. Self monitoring was not working.

The reason for this was because there were posters who were specifically targeting the RWDT to report any right-leaning poster, and something that happens broadly across NSG. There needs to be some sort of punishment for this beyond frivolous reporting, because the frivolous reporting offence is very specific.

To give one example, the definition of trolling is “posted with the sole intent to anger” or similar, which does not work because you can’t tell intent by a forum post.

Flaming, trolling and flamebaiting are far too open to interpretation and is almost arbitrary in its application, I feel the rulings are often impartial and based on antagonistic relationships with moderation. Notably the last is seldom used when it really ought be applied to statements that deliberately try to straddle the line with the intent of making people mad.

Hi! If there are players that you have concerns about, please consider reporting them for their behavior along with a few examples of their pattern of trolling so we have something to go off. It's best if you do so in a specific thread for them.

Thanks!

Does it not? Because I've never seen someone reported for their pattern of low-key trolling, since their trolling is generally not reported. So, how about you toss one over to me and let's give it a shot? You might be wrong about their pattern but if you're that upset about it, do you have anything to lose by giving me the chance to actually look into it?

I have tried:

Furthermore, as much as I dislike being potentially invective and specific, this thread has raised my concerns with a specific player - in this case Gauthier.

Reporting something for which they themselves have eerily similar posts does very much suggest that if we are to grant one as illegal then so must the other, and it tells much of a player that they are performing the same behaviour which they believe worthy of being reported:

---

Right-wingers do seem to have a fascination with cuckoldry.

Ranting anti-Semitism, check.
A fetish for the term "cuck," check.

O hai Anglo-California.

Or a curious example of omission alongside a seemingly spurious remark in moderation, in light of posts on the very first page:

oops.

There was also a previous exchange that should probably be scrutinised as well, which I felt to be astonishing that it went unpunished at the time and was the ultimate cause for writing this report, when the player has sanctioned around this specific point:

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=28952296#p28952296
https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=28952530#p28952530
https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=28952534#p28952534
https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=28952548#p28952548
https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=28952553#p28952553
https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=28952567#p28952567
etc.

These exchanges, and reports, are often between concerning the same set of posters, who in return dislike Gauthier and often report them back; I think now we are seeing this tactic becoming more prevalent.

I would be very curious to know if the above is not breaking any rules when it follows a clear pattern of being highly abrasive, personal and with seemingly no other purpose than to aggrieve the other party. Surely these are the sort of things that rules are in place to prevent?

Moreover when the same poster goes into the almost every topic where there is any mention whatsoever of Islam and makes the same comments over¹ and over² again³, which can be summarised as above, while hiding behind the veneer of sarcasm, and then reporting any perceived violations⁴, of those they are arguing against while continuing to debate against them.

Moreover, this is the same behaviour that they have been doing since 2011 when they were stated to be "on thin ice".
See:
1. search.php?keywords=nod&terms=all&author=gauthier&fid[]=20&sc=1&sf=all&sr=posts&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
2. http://forum.nationstates.net/search.ph ... uthier&fid[]=20&sc=1&sf=msgonly&sr=topics&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
3. http://forum.nationstates.net/search.ph ... uthier&fid[]=20&sc=1&sf=all&sr=topics&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
4. http://forum.nationstates.net/search.ph ... uthier&fid[]=16&sc=1&sf=all&sr=posts&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
n.b The above links were supposed to be embedded but I was incapable of doing so and the forums BBCode doesn't like the forums own urls.


I write this after reading thread upon thread to find the same occurrence from the same poster. This is not an isolated observation as even a casual look through this very forum is in of itself telling:
search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keywords=gauthier&fid[]=16&ch=-1&start=50

At the very least this must be construed as dancing along the line of legality to the point of absurdity.

&

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=414580&hilit=Vassenor
https://forum.nationstates.net/search.php?keywords=Post+contributes&terms=all&author=Vassenor&fid%5B%5D=16&sc=1&sf=firstpost&sr=topics&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
https://forum.nationstates.net/search.php?keywords=&terms=all&author=Vassenor&fid%5B%5D=16&sc=1&sf=firstpost&sr=topics&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

But the moderation response was that specific offenses are required rather than patterns of behaviour.

There seems to be a common misconception floating around:

Whether or not the target of an offense is "cool with it" is not and never has been an excuse for violating the rules. A trolling or flaming does not cease to be trolling or flaming according to whether or not the target in question "doesn't feel like it is" or personally considers it "banter."

This is, in essence, much of what we discovered and became concerned with when it comes to these threads: The prevailing idea that the rules somehow stop applying to certain individuals merely because they or others have declared so. This is not the case. You do not cease to be held to the same posting standards as everyone else simply because you are among friends who agree with your posting principles. You do not get to invent a new set of rules for yourself, your friends, or your thread.

Interestingly, I had a moderator comment on a ruling with that very point:

It's very matter-of-fact about it, but I'm not seeing an intent to rile GVH up, and nor has he taken it that way.

Intent is important, but it is not the sole deciding factor on rulings.

People talk openly about sex here as well, except under the thin veil of PG-13.

That you can't even see it when it is staring you right in the face is troubling.

I've seen it go unpunished for extremely blatant examples more than once (this was on the first page of a thread):

Obviously it's discriminating against whites... They see how even white women prefer BBC.

---

I'm not too broken up about this, since I barely participated in either thread.

And I've never seen you make an actually informative post.

[Nouveau Quebecois]

Once again, the topic is the megathread closures and requests for review of other megathreads. It is not for loaded questions about unrelated cases, hence the continued removal of posts as bad faith.

Tbh if RWDT and LWDT are gone the MAGAthread should be removed too. It's little more than a chat thread for liberals/progressives that occasionally posts something Trump did at this point.

I think many of the megathreads should be closed by this criterion, the quality of discussion is mostly poor and very cliquey. The Feminist Discussion thread, the UK Discussion thread (as it was for most of the last year at least) stand out as obvious things to be culled. The Christian discussion thread is mainly just Catholics and should be either renamed or shut too.

RWDT and LWDT had the only good discussion on the site, generally avoiding rampant circle-jerk or partisan (and always fucking American) shit-slinging like the other megathreads.

All this tells me is that non-American political discussion isn't welcome.

This is really important, as the creation of the megathreads was initially around the matter of American politics and abortion. Beforehand they simply dominated the board; the problem is more the cross-posting. I thought the RWDT did a very good job of sanitizing this because it was about political views more generally.

Pick a subject -- something that you might have posted as a sub-topic within RWDT -- and give it a try.

Classics and Reception studies are too specific for a thread. I mostly want to talk about books I have read in relation to history and politics, which was something we did well in the RWDT, and Arts and Fiction is moribund in that respect.

Then we had people say not to report rule breaking behavior in the threads, finally pushing this issue over the edge. Self monitoring was not working.

The reason for this was because there were posters who were specifically targeting the RWDT to report any right-leaning poster, and something that happens broadly across NSG. There needs to be some sort of punishment for this beyond frivolous reporting, because the frivolous reporting offence is very specific.

To give one example, the definition of trolling is “posted with the sole intent to anger” or similar, which does not work because you can’t tell intent by a forum post.

Flaming, trolling and flamebaiting are far too open to interpretation and is almost arbitrary in its application, I feel the rulings are often impartial and based on antagonistic relationships with moderation. Notably the last is seldom used when it really ought be applied to statements that deliberately try to straddle the line with the intent of making people mad.

Hi! If there are players that you have concerns about, please consider reporting them for their behavior along with a few examples of their pattern of trolling so we have something to go off. It's best if you do so in a specific thread for them.

Thanks!

Does it not? Because I've never seen someone reported for their pattern of low-key trolling, since their trolling is generally not reported. So, how about you toss one over to me and let's give it a shot? You might be wrong about their pattern but if you're that upset about it, do you have anything to lose by giving me the chance to actually look into it?

I have tried:

Furthermore, as much as I dislike being potentially invective and specific, this thread has raised my concerns with a specific player - in this case Gauthier.

Reporting something for which they themselves have eerily similar posts does very much suggest that if we are to grant one as illegal then so must the other, and it tells much of a player that they are performing the same behaviour which they believe worthy of being reported:

---

Or a curious example of omission alongside a seemingly spurious remark in moderation, in light of posts on the very first page:


There was also a previous exchange that should probably be scrutinised as well, which I felt to be astonishing that it went unpunished at the time and was the ultimate cause for writing this report, when the player has sanctioned around this specific point:

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=28952296#p28952296
https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=28952530#p28952530
https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=28952534#p28952534
https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=28952548#p28952548
https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=28952553#p28952553
https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=28952567#p28952567
etc.

These exchanges, and reports, are often between concerning the same set of posters, who in return dislike Gauthier and often report them back; I think now we are seeing this tactic becoming more prevalent.

I would be very curious to know if the above is not breaking any rules when it follows a clear pattern of being highly abrasive, personal and with seemingly no other purpose than to aggrieve the other party. Surely these are the sort of things that rules are in place to prevent?

Moreover when the same poster goes into the almost every topic where there is any mention whatsoever of Islam and makes the same comments over¹ and over² again³, which can be summarised as above, while hiding behind the veneer of sarcasm, and then reporting any perceived violations⁴, of those they are arguing against while continuing to debate against them.

Moreover, this is the same behaviour that they have been doing since 2011 when they were stated to be "on thin ice".
See:
1. search.php?keywords=nod&terms=all&author=gauthier&fid[]=20&sc=1&sf=all&sr=posts&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
2. http://forum.nationstates.net/search.ph ... uthier&fid[]=20&sc=1&sf=msgonly&sr=topics&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
3. http://forum.nationstates.net/search.ph ... uthier&fid[]=20&sc=1&sf=all&sr=topics&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
4. http://forum.nationstates.net/search.ph ... uthier&fid[]=16&sc=1&sf=all&sr=posts&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
n.b The above links were supposed to be embedded but I was incapable of doing so and the forums BBCode doesn't like the forums own urls.


I write this after reading thread upon thread to find the same occurrence from the same poster. This is not an isolated observation as even a casual look through this very forum is in of itself telling:
search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keywords=gauthier&fid[]=16&ch=-1&start=50

At the very least this must be construed as dancing along the line of legality to the point of absurdity.

&

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=414580&hilit=Vassenor
https://forum.nationstates.net/search.php?keywords=Post+contributes&terms=all&author=Vassenor&fid%5B%5D=16&sc=1&sf=firstpost&sr=topics&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
https://forum.nationstates.net/search.php?keywords=&terms=all&author=Vassenor&fid%5B%5D=16&sc=1&sf=firstpost&sr=topics&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

But the moderation response was that specific offenses are required rather than patterns of behaviour.

There seems to be a common misconception floating around:

Whether or not the target of an offense is "cool with it" is not and never has been an excuse for violating the rules. A trolling or flaming does not cease to be trolling or flaming according to whether or not the target in question "doesn't feel like it is" or personally considers it "banter."

This is, in essence, much of what we discovered and became concerned with when it comes to these threads: The prevailing idea that the rules somehow stop applying to certain individuals merely because they or others have declared so. This is not the case. You do not cease to be held to the same posting standards as everyone else simply because you are among friends who agree with your posting principles. You do not get to invent a new set of rules for yourself, your friends, or your thread.

Interestingly, I had a moderator comment on a ruling with that very point:

It's very matter-of-fact about it, but I'm not seeing an intent to rile GVH up, and nor has he taken it that way.

Intent is important, but it is not the sole deciding factor on rulings.

People talk openly about sex here as well, except under the thin veil of PG-13.

That you can't even see it when it is staring you right in the face is troubling.

I've seen it go unpunished for extremely blatant examples more than once (this was on the first page of a thread):

Obviously it's discriminating against whites... They see how even white women prefer BBC.

---

I'm not too broken up about this, since I barely participated in either thread.

And I've never seen you make an actually informative post.

facts

[Aclion]

We'll be seing a lot more discussion move to discord now.

This. If you thought these cliques were hard to moderate before, whoo boy.

[Esternial]

The discussion on off-site doxxing is a threadjack and should end here.

Jesus Christ, I go on holiday for one week...

I'm trying to understand what the effects of this is beyond requiring some re-adjustment of the wing thread participants.

Rather than posting everything in a single thread, you'd now have to make a new thread for new topics. Frankly, I'd imagine it lowers the threshold for newcomers to jump in. A large megathread can seem like a drag to get into.

It's less convenient, but how is this such a monumental event?

It's true that having an array of individual threads instead of a megathread would probably make it easier for newcomers to involve themselves, but by the same token it would make it more difficult to maintain the cohesiveness of the community that the "wing threads" had given rise to. This might have been a fair argument around the time that those threads were first created- I made similar complaints myself IIRC- but after all this time a community has grown out of those threads which quite understandably doesn't want to be killed off. Besides that, individual threads devoted to particular topics would not allow for the sort of wide-ranging and meandering conversations that went on in the RWDT and LWDT.

Given current changes, I would recommend gathering in a region if that's possible.

Having said that, I know that might not be what you want - since you may already be part of a different community gameside - or for some insane reason, actually play the game ;)

I think as Great vakolicci haven said, communities will instead flock to Discord.

It does make me wonder if the same reasoning wouldn't apply to chat threads? I know TET is frequented by some Mods, but in theory those threads are a liable for the same issues as megathreads, no?

[Atlacatl Batallion]

Because apparently, I have to.

Also, no, I have not been doxxed yet, I have not been harassed yet, but that's because I was smart enough to quit while I was ahead and just come here sporadically to call out the mods on everything they've been doing wrong, this being a part of it.

But it's not just this, it's the whimsical consistency, lack of actual moderation (as Salandriagado said, mods ignore report threads often), seeming favoritism of players for the most whimsical of reasons (there are players here who would have been DOS'd under different circumstances), and just a general lack of giving a fuck about a job they volunteered to do.

At this point the role of moderator is nothing but a shiny pretty people want just to be able to say they got it. There's no real teeth behind it.

nobody asked if you had been doxxed yet specifically because nobody cares.

the teeth behind the moderator badge is to moderate this site. Not that site, not your personal life, it's to moderate this site.

And yet, things users seem to do on this website can be used by others to potentially harass and destroy said users' lives with zero repercussions on this website

Hmm...

[Nouveau Quebecois]

The discussion on off-site doxxing is a threadjack and should end here.

It's true that having an array of individual threads instead of a megathread would probably make it easier for newcomers to involve themselves, but by the same token it would make it more difficult to maintain the cohesiveness of the community that the "wing threads" had given rise to. This might have been a fair argument around the time that those threads were first created- I made similar complaints myself IIRC- but after all this time a community has grown out of those threads which quite understandably doesn't want to be killed off. Besides that, individual threads devoted to particular topics would not allow for the sort of wide-ranging and meandering conversations that went on in the RWDT and LWDT.

Given current changes, I would recommend gathering in a region if that's possible.

Having said that, I know that might not be what you want - since you may already be part of a different community gameside - or for some insane reason, actually play the game

I think as Great vakolicci haven said, communities will instead flock to Discord.

It does make me wonder if the same reasoning wouldn't apply to chat threads? I know TET is frequented by some Mods, but in theory those threads are a liable for the same issues as megathreads, no?

It's nice that you're being constructive and providing solutions to the problem given but I don't think that will change the fact that a lot of people are pissed off that we have to search for solutions like the ones you've given because of Moderator incompetence.

[Nouveau Quebecois]

nobody asked if you had been doxxed yet specifically because nobody cares.

the teeth behind the moderator badge is to moderate this site. Not that site, not your personal life, it's to moderate this site.

And yet, things users seem to do on this website can be used by others to potentially harass and destroy said users' lives with zero repercussions on this website

Hmm...

No buddy that can't happen because the Mods don't allow such life-ruining on this website. Whatever is happening to you is happening off-site.

[The Marlborough]

The discussion on off-site doxxing is a threadjack and should end here.

It's true that having an array of individual threads instead of a megathread would probably make it easier for newcomers to involve themselves, but by the same token it would make it more difficult to maintain the cohesiveness of the community that the "wing threads" had given rise to. This might have been a fair argument around the time that those threads were first created- I made similar complaints myself IIRC- but after all this time a community has grown out of those threads which quite understandably doesn't want to be killed off. Besides that, individual threads devoted to particular topics would not allow for the sort of wide-ranging and meandering conversations that went on in the RWDT and LWDT.

Given current changes, I would recommend gathering in a region if that's possible.

Having said that, I know that might not be what you want - since you may already be part of a different community gameside - or for some insane reason, actually play the game

I think as Great vakolicci haven said, communities will instead flock to Discord.

It does make me wonder if the same reasoning wouldn't apply to chat threads? I know TET is frequented by some Mods, but in theory those threads are a liable for the same issues as megathreads, no?

I can't speak for the LWDT but for the RWDT there is a hesitance for going on gameside.