So, do I have a point or not? Make up your "mind".

See mapleleaf this is what you get for being the lowest form of troll on the site for 7 some years. Even if you actually are trying to make a point here no one will ever believe you because you've been the single biggest jerk on the site throughout it's history. So you can whine and moan about people ignoring you all you want, but this is the reward you've reaped for yourself.

jmo, it's not a matter of people believing whether or not he's trying to make a point. It's a matter of people not tolerating somebody who cheers the death of children and validating it as point-making.

Hey jmo, what are YOU doing, posting here?

Don't you have any five month old cheating investigations to bring to their speedy conclusion? Games need to get unpaused, and nobody needs to hear from your lazy incompetent SLOW ass, so get back to work.

@PE ... krellin toned it down for pretty much everyone except Putin (and I'm not going to get in the middle of those two) awhile ago. Yeah, he's an irritating prick still, but mapleleaf's posts are far worse. Mapleleaf's posts aren't just offensive, they're harassment and they're almost always things that he couldn't get away with saying if he weren't behind a computer screen, so much so that it's surprising that he can hold a civil conversation.

Bottom line, if zultar runs the show now, is that mapleleaf needs silenced whenever his "YAY AMERICANS DIED" threads come up. Krellin doesn't get anywhere near that.

"but most of you call for krellin to get sanctioned, either publicly on the forum or in complaints to the mods"

Cool...you mean the mods get emails calling for my behading from the oh-so-tolerant Libtards? Oh...wait...I'm thinking of Old-School, Big-Tent Liberals...before they went all Nazi-Thought-Police ont he nation. Sigh....they used to be fun to play with....lol

This means I'm doing my job successfully...

@mapleleaf, congratulations, you just insulted every mod who's ever helped the site. Since I've closed the most cases in the shortest time of any mod, clearly you're calling all the others far worse then me.

You should be glad though, the same mandate from Kestas and Zultar that allows you to post garbage also requires we give all members at least 3 days to reply to emails. Longer if they haven't checked the site in that time.

"We will try to reply to you quickly, but be patient: investigations can take quite some time. If a week or two after we still haven't got back to you then feel free to follow it up."

After taking a lengthy amount of time to discuss things over with mapleleaf over PM, I'm going to make this clear to mapleleaf:

Kestas and I want this site to be open but not open for everything. I am going to do what I think is best for the site. I am going to err on the side of more freedom of speech, not less, but there are limits to what will be acceptable. If you want to make a point, then please do it in a civil manner. "Satire" in the form of laughing at kids' deaths or other such tragedies is not acceptable. Continual harassing and berating of other members, mods and site owners is not acceptable.

Mapleleaf, if you cannot abide by being civil and tone done your "satire," rhetoric, and name calling, you will be silenced for 3 months the next time and 12 months after that.

Thank you for understanding.

Zultar - threatening to silence Maple makes no sense. We all know we can mute him, ignore him or heaven forbid not respond to him.

The second amendment can handle criticism in better ways than trying to restrict the first amendment. Yes I'm aware maple isn't an American, but I'm sure my American cousins don't want to restrict anyone's freedom of speech as they defend their right to own guns.

The amount of stupid in the above post is astounding.

PS is calling someone the 'lowest form of troll' and the 'biggest jerk in the history of the site' berating someone?

Are you saying you would like to restrict maples freedom of expression Bo?

Yes, very very much.

Maple isn't american, he doesn't get his free speech rights.

Canada has similar free speech rights to the US, but that isn't the point. The point is that this website has absolutely nothing to do with the US Constitution or any other set of national laws around the world and it's ridiculous to try to protect mapleleaf or anyone else under something like that.

Whilst I can see why many members find his post repulsive, I just don't see that silencing him or banning him serves any purpose. I would like to think that people with extreme views can be challenged by reasoned debate and sometimes they may see the error of their ways. If someone posted on here that they were going to kill children/ old people / ethic minorities / soldiers etc I would sooner try and dissuade them from their course rather than just ask the mods to ban them. Failing that I could alert authorities or if I thought they were just trolling and winding me up I can mute them. Silencing people serves no purpose as far as I can see, but I'm willing to be persuaded if you can actually show me a real benefit of silencing someone.

"PS is calling someone the 'lowest form of troll' and the 'biggest jerk in the history of the site' berating someone? "

It depends on what the purpose of the person you are berating is. To maple, those labels are no doubt an honor. To me, on any given day, they would be too...just sayin...

If I offend the stupid, then I'm probably doing something right...

By the way, what my dear old pal maniac is trying to say above is that all you people with your feigned outrage at our obvious-rants of maplefag…well, you are all big boys and girls (or so you claim when you express your certain opinions on everything you know nothing about…) so BEING big boys and girls, you have a special power within you…a SUPER power if you will…called “IGNORE”. You don’t even have to use that big bad mute button. You don’t HAVE to respond to trollerly (though we trolls LOVE it when you do..) You can simply ignore. IGNORE. And, unfed, trolls usually die, unless we are in a particularly spirited mood… So…grow the fuck up, all you wanna-be big boys and girls…

Maniac, the benefit to silencing someone is that someone new to the site doesn't come onto the forum and see 400 of his replies in a thread about school shootings expressing apparent joy at murder. The mute function is for you to use on whomever you like regardless of the rules.

"reasoned debate"

maniac, please do show me examples of Maple's exemplary reasoned debate that doesn't include crossing the line?

I personally don't give a shit and enjoy some good laughs, OR shakes of the head that get me all hot in a non-horny way.

I'm just saying that allowing extremely offensive comments on a website that has a decent community is probably not a good idea. It detracts (in my opinion) the value of this website.

"that has a decent community is probably not a good idea"

Ha! Show me a website with a decent community. I contest this assertion taht such a thing exists...

• FineRedAss came here the other day, expressed his noob outrage that someone wasn’t banned…i.e. he’s a “good guy” from “good communities”…and 5 minutes later was flinging his monkey poo and doing his monkey dance. Good communities are a myth and only exist through artificial constraints.

This one does, krellin. Mapleleaf could make himself a part of that if he does what zultar asked.

This one does what? Have good people? Yes, it does. It also has a lot of shit...which I'm sure many of you would include me in that category...but that's OK, because I would include many of you in it as well for various reasons.

The thing is, one man's shit is another man's treasure...i.e. we all have a little dung beetle in us...and kestas, in his wisdom, recognizes this (I think), which is why all the shit/treasure has been allowed.

RE: free speech, I hope that my well-earned reputation as a rather ardent proponent of individual freedom will give me some credibility on the matter...

"The second amendment can handle criticism in better ways than trying to restrict the first amendment. Yes I'm aware maple isn't an American, but I'm sure my American cousins don't want to restrict anyone's freedom of speech as they defend their right to own guns."

This is a privately-owned site. It's not a Constitutional restriction on someone's freedom of speech to tell them not to say something when they're on your property. And think about the implications of what you're saying -- why would someone not have a right to tell another person, using their property, not to say vile, hateful things while on it? If I went to your house and started insulting you and your family, Maniac, surely you would throw me out, wouldn't you?

Obviously, excessive application of the right to silence is a bad unto its own. That's why most online communities suck. Most moderation staffs have no concept of proportionality and are fundamentally insecure in their own authority, a tendency that seems to be pervasive in most law/rule enforcement positions.

It should be exceedingly obvious, by the fact that mapleleaf has been here for six and a half years -- longer than anyone currently on the staff, iirc -- that the webdip mod team is neither now, nor ever has, had this same issue. As a community, webdip has perhaps the strongest tradition in free speech of a website of its size on the Internet. Only places like 4chan manage to be as open about what's allowed as we are while still maintaining a large user base (and obviously much larger than ours). As a member I'm proud of that ethos and as a moderator I've done my best to err on the side of preserving it where I can. To date I've silenced precisely one thread, a live games ad (which is strictly disallowed), and I posted the ad in the live games thread to ensure that the idea being expressed in that thread was still preserved and not curtailed.

Am I just fucking invisible here *waves hands*...fuckers.

re: silencing mapleleaf. I think I've made myself more than clear about my stance on his behavior, and on the hypocritical handwaving a lot of people have done.

"Mapleleaf, if you cannot abide by being civil and tone done your "satire," rhetoric, and name calling, you will be silenced for 3 months the next time and 12 months after that."

As another member here and as a moderator, I have reservations about this, zultar. I'll save the moderator side of it for private discussion, but speaking as a member: mapleleaf has been a valuable contributor to the gunboat scene on webdiplomacy. As repulsive and virulent as his political postings are, he's organized gunboat tournaments before, and he HAS contributed to other discussions without them. He absolutely should tone it down and I would support shorter term silences for individual infractions, but I fear a long-term forum ban (which a silence amounts to, if we're stripping it down to its core) wouldn't be fair. If he refuses to curtail it at all it may be a necessary sacrifice, but I'm hesitant about supporting it.

The sentiment is on the money though. mapleleaf's rhetoric is unacceptable and needs to be toned down through whatever necessary means. I guess I just hope this means is unnecessary, because that's steep, and it's compartmentalizing.

That last bit is important in general, for everyone, by the way. We have a terrible habit on webdiplomacy of compartmentalizing people into their worst facet on the forums. For years I got semi-written off in discussions because I trolled the place sometimes. Putin gets routinely run out of threads or dragged into fights on threads because people chase him into threads to harass him about his politics, even though the subject matter has nothing to do with politics. I for one have had plenty a pleasant discussion with him about sports; it's an uncommon common ground, but one I really appreciate. krellin is an absolute joy to play mafia with, and you can tell when he talks about his adopted pets or his family that there's a caring heart underneath his trollish, nasty political veneer. I haven't had the same opportunity with mapleleaf, but I know from his involvement with the gunboat scene that there's a facet removed from his political postings. I think we as a community need to do a better job of treating everyone with respect, regardless of how vile their politics might seem to you. We're adults, we can do better than this and we should.

And finally, krellin said something that's pretty insightful, I think, and I want to highlight it and give some expounding on that.

"Good communities are a myth and only exist through artificial constraints."

This is more or less correct, in my view. And it's not just online communities. For whatever reason, people just cannot get along with others who are sufficiently different from them. We see it in politics, we see it in interpersonal relationships, it's a characteristic that's pervasive in all societies, virtual or real. In our little society here, we've made it thus far with an anything-goes ethos. Most other communities achieve unity, peace and civility through force instead of through self-moderation. That's a route we COULD go on -- but I think it would fundamentally change this place and NOT for the better.

So you want an "artificial constraint" that has the potential to cure this place of its virulent baggage without losing its identity as a treasure trove of open discussion? Simple. Take it upon yourselves to call people out for being assholes and tell them to knock it off. It's more work on all of us, but it's the key to making this place what we want it to be. We've talked about "self-moderation" as an ethos for years, but let's be frank, it's been a fucking joke, and it's because we've all let it become one by refusing to take up the mantle of responsibility that comes with that. Call each other out on our shit -- respectfully, as always, but firmly and unapologetically. We're capable of this, so let's do it.