Ssorenn is correct. You all tall mute button then some pet player cries "I'm being harassed!" (probably bo_sux48_dicks) and you just silence someone? Bullshit. Tell the pansy ass bitch to use the mute button.

This is probably the last time I'm going to engage you on this matter, Draugnar, because you're terribly misinformed as to what's going on and refusing to take your own advice from earlier in the thread.

1. mapleleaf IS silenced. He's in the third week of a 3-month silence for, among other things, harassment of other users. Remember your own advice in this same thread to ask simple questions before making assumptions? Try following it.
2. krellin DOES have specifics -- between me and zultar we've had to speak to him about four separate incidents in the past two weeks, and as soon as I gave any kind of specifics about the most recent incident that directly led to his silencing, he stopped replying to me and, apparently, started messaging you.

You've clearly got an axe to grind and aren't even pretending to be level-headed or objective about this situation, so I'm not going to waste my time on this anymore.

It's not a banning, it's a temporary (albeit lengthy) silence. How about just owning up to the fact that you're completely talking out of your ass again?

Does Mapleleaf get time off for good behaviour like they do with most other prison sentences?

It was my impression mapleleaf was silenced for the continued use of general hate speech. The attack of one directly to another can be corrected by the mute button. This is bullshit PE and Zul.

Krellin, Draugnar & Mapleleaf - Mod Team 2015 - who wants to bet me?

What is the independent community? Is this like third world countries joining the Non-Aligned Movement? If you're not a mod/admin, and you're not in the independent community, what is left?

This site, and particularly this forum, is such a ridiculous time-suck for mods. I'm constantly surprised that we don't have even more mod turnover than we already do, and that we haven't quickly exhausted the available pool of reasonable candidates. People treat the site/forum like it's a real-world state government with constitutionally-mandated accountability. The only reason people want bright line rules on sanctionable offenses is so that they can pick apart every disciplinary action, burning even more volunteer time by the mods.

It's obviously not "just" Draugnar who feels that moderation has swung too far the other way. However, at the same time it's not everyone who feels that way. I, for one, feel like present moderation is just fine.

The only users who have an issue with the modding are the ones who have had issues with the mods, which thus far is like four or five people. There are over 1200 users currently playing an active game. 1195 of them are either fine with the modding or don't care about the modding or the forum.

The fact of the matter is that the forum is a MASSIVE time suck for mods. Spending an inordinate amount of time mediating petty arguments and reminding users about basic things like "not threatening other users" or "not posting personal information about other users", items that would get you banned from 99% of any internet forums, takes away from our ability to do our jobs; namely, finding cheaters and running games of Diplomacy.

BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.

2nd, while you make some going points, I need to clarify one thing.

_If_ krellin chose to put his real address on a google street view map and share with the webdip community, then no one "outed" him or gave any personal information that he did not voluntarily share with the forum community.

Your ruling parallels the Eurotrashian high court's ruling that news papers can print articles about someone, but if a search engine points people to said article, they have committed a crime.

"...and, apparently, started messaging you."

Correction for those following, Draugnar reached out to krellin not the other way around. Mea culpa

BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.BRING BACK KRELLIN. BRING BACK KRELLIN.

@ Draug

Be reasonable. It'll never get back anyone, citing Krellin. Krellin really earned lashes. Leave 'im now.

dirge, you make a fair point; however, knowing krellin in the limited capacity that I do, I know he is not the type of person to make his personal address available to anybody on this site. Plus, since the map itself was a side project of Geofram's several years ago and is not maintained by site staff nor officially linked anywhere on the site except on a few profiles and forum posts as applicable, its technically not an official part of webDiplomacy. Since krellin did not make his personal address known to site users, and since posting real life information about site users is something we generally frown upon, especially since the user in question was not allowed to respond, we chose to silence the thread. PE is correct that krellin's silence was made public at the time of the silence, and although I do acknowledge that it would be easy to miss if you were not participating in that thread, that is no excuse for posting what could be construed as someone else's personal information on the forum.

If you wish to discuss it further, dirge, I recommend sending an email to [email protected] so that jmo and zultar also have an opportunity to respond.

I have no wish to argue it. I shouldn't have made a joke about his lawn, regardless of whether he was silenced. I just wanted to make sure that your comments do not mislead people into thinking I had shared personal information that had not previously been made public by the individual.

And, I would add, not all of us spend our entire waking lives here reading every thread, so I am sure I'm not the only one who was unaware of his silencing, but it is a minor point.

I sometimes wonder if every internet community is actually the same people, merely going by different usernames. There's no way to 'overthrow' moderators. Their opinions ARE worth more than users. For community harmony, users in most communities are usually listened to, but they don't have to be. If the admins/owners agree with the mods, there's nothing you can do about it. So perhaps calmly trying to talk to said owners would be a better route if you disagree with a decision, eh?

After all, if the forum is such a time-sink, they could just get rid of it.

I appreciate you understanding our point of view dirge. I'm sure it won't be an issue again.

Their opinions ARE worth more than users.

Till users go away.

Feel free to go away as soon as you like, ssorenn.

Oh, Jamieteedick, I'll be around just for you, you little bitchstain. Stop trying to lick to Mods asses. Your tongue is brown enough

@jamiet, did I ruffle your tutu.

That's disgusting.

Since my name has for some reason come up in this thread despite my having absolutely no role in moderating the forum right now, I'll just say two things:

First of all, whoever came up with the idea that I was harassed by krellin is wrong; despite the usual dispute on the forums, krellin and I rarely exchange anything but simple small-talk in PM and I see him as an acquaintance. As far as I can remember, he's never said anything to me that I can't handle hearing (nor has anyone else on this site, for that matter).

Secondly, there is hardly any moderation on this forum. There's more than there was before, yes, but considering every other online community I've been a part of, this is still the most "free" site (in terms of both free speech and free gameplay and forum participation, which is important) I've ever been on. The moderators agreed before I came around to lock threads which called out a specific user - is that really so unreasonable? They've silenced people for death threats, both obvious and implied - is that so unreasonable either? There's even an appeals process for people so that people that do stupid things (like me) can still hang out, play and chat, and whatnot. Mapleleaf was silenced for some of the most vile hate speech and harshest harassment of other people that I've ever encountered, and I live 20 miles from one of the nation's only remaining KKK hotbeds. None of this is unreasonable, considering there are other sites that take it so far as to ban you from speaking if your politics don't line up with theirs or if you post the URL to another site because they don't trust that people are smart enough to avoid viruses when trolling around the internet. We're nowhere close to that.

Take a second and appreciate an online community where we encourage face-to-face meet ups, host regular tournaments in the game we all love to play, and talk about anything to everything with some small limits - all for free. No one's required to pay anything, and some people here have come to appreciate the site so much that they keep it alive by donating. That's incredible to me.

Currently silenced users

Maplelead
Krellin
Draugnar

Have I missed anyone?

Well thx for that Bo. Congrats(I think on your modship) but the game we all love and the forum are two different things. Doesn't seem that anyone has issues with the game side of this, and to the mods credit, they get after the cheaters and the multis right away.
While I agree with some censorship to the forum, based on generalizations of hate speech, silencing people for having it out verbally with another user is wrong...the other user has the option to mute. If I want to call someone out directly, and not for religious or political beliefs, but just because I think they are the scum of the earth, I should be allowed to....
Unless there are posted site rules that say I can't antagonize someone, why can't I,or krelin or draug, or anyone else who wants to.

hear hear, Bo.

There you go bringing reason and sense to webdip again . . . foreign concepts around here.

ssorenn, there were about 10 reasons Krellin was silenced. One of them harassment, one of them ignoring a site owners request to tone down his behavior, another being invading the privacy of another member, another posting a cheating accusation on the forum and in pm over a dozen times (which would get any member on the forum a silence). All of this was done after he had just gotten off a shorter silence. There was FAR more to his case then you seem to assume, and that is the problem, people making assumptions about things they do not understand. Stay tuned for a post that will address this more.

"Just saying when a lighthearted thread about the correlation between lawn care and politics gets locked, it's gone too far. I think my forum time will be wrapping up soon cause this is gonna kill all discussion."
This isn't the first time Draug has claimed he'll be permanently leaving the forum, and it certainly wont be the last

also how long was Krelling silenced for?