webdiplomacy.net

Well, silencing someone for being critical of the site strikes me as hypersensitive and authoritarian. I'm not surprised if Condescension considered it unjustified.

It doesn't particularly matter if he considered it unjustified. The bottom line is that he attempted to circumvent his silence by creating another account, and even after he did that he was given a number of opportunities to apologize and be respectful with us without being banned. He did not. Hell, if he had been respectful with us, we probably would have considered his cooldown silence effective and unsilenced him. He would be back here talking right now. No matter how he feels, this is his fault. Every time things escalated from critical to abusive to silenced to banned, he could have taken a better approach. Trying to sympathize with him is fairly useless.

Having empathy is never useless.

Empathy is not sympathy.

You're right there. I wouldn't dare to sympathise with someone who was declared an unperson for speaking against the regime.

-Deleted-

Ok. At least it's good to know that basically any topic can start a flame war.

Just my two cents, as someone who only comes here to play the game and never really bothers with the forum:

Y'all have done a perfectly fine job. Keep up the good work!

Look everyone, the person who doesn't use the forum thinks the new forum isn't absolutely abominable. That surely puts paid to all the complaints about it - hell, it probably even makes up for the fact that the site staff have shown themselves to be megalomaniacal control freaks who ban people on the flimsiest of justifications just so they don't have to listen to anyone who doesn't want to kowtow.

CroakandDagger wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:58 pm

Look everyone, the person who doesn't use the forum thinks the new forum isn't absolutely abominable. That surely puts paid to all the complaints about it - hell, it probably even makes up for the fact that the site staff have shown themselves to be megalomaniacal control freaks who ban people on the flimsiest of justifications just so they don't have to listen to anyone who doesn't want to kowtow.

This is why the internet sucks.

I'm sorry you had to hear someone express a viewpoint that you don't 100% agree with. Maybe you can get the staff to ban me.

Condescension wasn't banned for disagreeing with the site owners or the mod team. You'll note that you're doing that and you're still here. He was silenced for being vitriolic and hurling personal insults, which is against the rules regardless of whom those insults target. He then created a new account, which I don't think anyone here would argue is or should be allowed. If you'd like to argue that his vitriol should be allowed, you're free to do so, but that doesn't change his multiaccounting, and our stance on that is very unlikely to change at this point. This site should be a welcoming place for everyone.

As for the forum, your concerns are understandable. I personally don't like the look and feel of "traditional" fora like this one either, but I do very much appreciate the benefits that categorization has brought, as well as the behind-the-scenes improvements that allow us to keep the site running so that we can all play diplomacy. This is a site run by volunteers with sadly limited resources. If the forum is something you'd like to see changed, anyone is more than welcome to help us out. If you don't have the capacity to help, but have specific concerns whose improvement you think might be feasible, feel free to suggest them. If you'd prefer to simply rant about how you miss the old forum, you're also perfectly within your rights to do so, provided you continue to follow the site rules and understand that it might make some people like you less.

Condescension wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 17, 2018 11:19 pm

I took a single UX course and that was enough to tell me that this forum is a travesty in literally every single way.

I took a single psychology course and that was enough to tell me you're probably projecting severe self-esteem issues.

Making a new account in order to cheat in games of diplomacy by playing two nations should absolutely not be allowed.

Making a new forum account to protest an unjust silence does not strike me as something that should be a permabannable offence. Personally I have chosen not to do it in the past and make my complaints about such things known via emails to the administration, but my concern is for the apparent tyranny.

If police start beating on someone in the street for telling them that their new uniforms look like garbage, and then shoot them to death when they fight back because they were "resisting arrest," is that justifiable?

Anybody who knows much about me will know that I harboured no particular love for Condescension. They often lived up to their name, I didn't much care for their politics and they betrayed an explicit promise to me in a non-anon game when their profile stated outright that that was something that they never did. But if I did not speak out against the unpleasant circumstances of their ban I would be a hypocrite - because it's not just people I agree with that I feel should be allowed to speak their mind.

CroakandDagger wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:36 am

Making a new forum account to protest an unjust silence does not strike me as something that should be a permabannable offence. ...

If police start beating on someone in the street for telling them that their new uniforms look like garbage, and then shoot them to death when they fight back because they were "resisting arrest," is that justifiable?

That escalated quickly.

I'm going to have to agree with CroakandDagger here. Sure, you can say Condescension was being vitriolic, but if we're talking about throwing profanity around and generally being an ass, zultar and his team were clearly doing it first ("feel fucking free to leave" - always a graceful response to criticism)

And frankly, the apparent fanboying of just about everyone else doesn't help matters either.

I think a hard line against mult-accounting makes sense. Multi-accounting undermines the integrity of the site and the community of players. And if they give people a pass on making a second account for one small thing, you open up a can of worms for having second accounts for all sorts of things. And then people can't/won't trust the games they're in, because they know that there are a lot of backup accounts out there that could be used to cheat.

“Ooh the tyranny”

Listen, if you’re looking for a democracy, get off the internet. I’m not saying this to be a dick, or even saying it should be a democracy, I’m just saying there are 0 laws that require the admins of this site to be fair, or even reasonable. The fact that they are those things in every case I’ve ever seen just acts in their favour.

In this situation they did the best they could do, and when they got tired of rules being broken, they removed the rule breaker. Can’t say fairer than that, these people are volunteers for god sake.

Yes, starting an argument with somebody, silencing them so they can't talk back and then banning them when they try to get around your cheap abuse of power certainly stikes me as "fair and reasonable."

I kinda like seeing alt-right Croak defend Condescension. This is refreshing