Holy crap, Draug gone? Sorry to see such a prominent member go.

I am sorry to see him go as well, I liked him and hated him all at the same time.

It is the same thing with all the frequent posters, whether you like them or not. Putin, Draug, krellin, obi, and the like at least get ideas out, even if some have more foul mouths than others.

sorta of reinforces the need for actual rules we can all read, instead of just taking jmo's on-the-fly rationalizations as canonical.

So Krel is silenced and Draug is gone. Thats a 1 2 punch to the forum activity if id ever seen one. Support the mods though. Just thinking about what percentage of forum threads they were involved in.

Does this mean Draugnar's gone forever? Too bad, I enjoyed reading his posts (and earlier on in my time here when I engaged in discussion with him).

Also, I went and looked at Draugnar's most recent thread and I see no post indicating that he committed a DDoS attack on the site. I glean from other posts that this information was gathered from his various private messages. Do the mods have access to every private message sent? Is this information stored in a database? How often do mods go through private messages? In order to determine that Draugnar had indeed confessed to committing a DDoS attack, were the mods actively monitoring his PM activity or were they notified by the recipients of Draugnar's messages? (Am I allowed to ask that last question?)

On the notion of crystal clear standards of moderation, I don't think that we'll ever have them. Not that I don't think people will try, but I think they're impossible. There's no way that anyone could ever compile an exhaustive list of what's acceptable and what's not. We'll learn what the mods and owners are expecting by seeing other people get silenced and banned for various offences. It's trial and error really, and I fear that attempts to establish clear standards is at best quixotic.

As for Draugnar's banning, my reaction--aside from regret--is to shrug. I wouldn't have banned him if I were moderator, but I can see why they did it. At the end of the day, you can do what you want on your site. But here's my take anyway.

Posting porn isn't really anything to fear because we can't embed videos or pictures in the forum. At worst, we'd see a link to a porn site or imgur that would (or at least could) be taken down by a moderator. And come on, if you're on the Internet, you're going to run into boobies sooner or later.

I have a hard time believing that Draugnar would carry out any of the other threats to the site that he said he would because of the fact that he stated his intentions to other people. If I'm going to launch a DDoS attack, I wouldn't announce it to anyone. More likely is that he was expressing frustration and the feeling that the moderation team was acting directly against him. I think the problem with Draugnar wasn't that he was unwilling to abide by the rules, it was that he was unwilling to abide by *your* rules--that is to say, he felt that the rules were being created to limit his participation (1) in their creation and implementation, and (2) in the forum. He was upset over bo_sox's age not because he reviles teenagers but because he sees it as more evidence that he and his ilk are not welcome here anymore. By banning him, you confirm these fears to him, whether the ban is earned or not; you escalate the conflict.

Draugnar's actions and words don't prove to me that he is a person who hates this site or its community. It is not out of selfishness that he said what he said, but out of a genuine love for everything here. Maybe love is too strong a word, but I think it conveys the idea well enough. You don't post here daily if you hate this place. You don't fight against rule changes, you don't single out moderators, you don't send out private messages telling everyone all the things you want to do to the site. If you hate this place, you leave quickly, quietly, and permanently.

Banning him doesn't solve the issue in the slightest. You can't stop him from renting a botnet and taking down the site. You can't stop him from attempting an SQL injection. All you do is give him more reason to carry out his threats and more "proof" that he was right to see the actions of the moderation team as antagonistic.

My solution would have been to have a more patient member of the moderation team prove that his fears were being taken into consideration. What does that look like? Someone on the moderation team who agrees with his point of view, or at least someone who plainly expresses sympathy for his perspective. Meeting minutes or message transcripts that demonstrate that his views were at least discussed seriously. If you give him the feeling that he is participating in the process and is considered an important member of the community, he won't be inclined to lash out. Is it special treatment? I suppose so, but he is (was) a significant contributor to the forum, and that merits consideration.

On another note, who is Blankflag?

Very well spoken pangloss....

I went through the rules and nothing is listed about posting a silenced player's PM.

"I don't see it, Fasces. You all know who I am, you all have your preconceived notions about me, why would I think that eight blue squares in a cute pattern next to my name is going to change any of that?"
Go ban a couple of users and then we'll see where your at.
The 8 blue squares also means your representing the site, and many of the posts you will make on the forum will (or at least in my case was) on behalf of the mod/admin team.

Your more powerful then you were before Bo, even if you haven't realized it yet.

"@Fasces, I think we've established about 50 times that the Krellin's behavior wasn't just forum related."
Harrasing players in PM still counts as forum, as they still have liberty of muting him.

"Draug was given a final warning months ago, and knew any violations, such as posting for a silenced member, could end in a ban."
8 months ago, which is a long ass time on the internet, and as ssorenn mentioned Draug wasn't letting Krellin speak through him, it was more to prove a point.

It also speaks too the injustice of the issue. I copy and pasted a PM from krellin earlier today and I have yet to be punished at all.

"The fact that he was sending pm's that demonstrated he had every intention of attacking the site via SQL injection was icing on the cake and made it something we couldn't ignore."
As I said earlier, claiming to commit violence and committing violence are entirely different issues. If every threat on the internet was taking seriously the police would never have time to do actual police work. Its the same here, until you can prove Draug was behind the DDoS attacks, your banning someone for words not actions.

I don't think I have anything new to say that hasn't already been said in some form by others, but I want to speak my peace on this:

If the admin types are going to be enforcing rules, they simply need to let us know what they are. We can grouse about them and grumble against them if they don't put quite the exact-fine tip on things that we want, but if they tell us what the rules are and we break them, so be it.

It appears that this is what has happened in the discipline cases that have been seen in the last couple of weeks: warnings directly to the offending party, followed by wanton persistence, followed by judgment. It seems pretty straightforward and quite reasonable. (And yes, naive sillypants that I am, I actually believe the admin types when they say "here's how we handled it" and "here's a brief overview of why we did what we did" and "you don't know all the facts.")

Someone (zultar, I think? maybe jmo?) said they're in the process of updating the rules page, for which I heartily thank them. My suggestion for the future would be that, whenever they agree to create a new rule, it would be best for all concerned that the rules be posted (and, most preferably, publicized) BEFORE they are enforced. Even if this means putting up with trouble during the time it takes to get the rules updated, I think it would save a lot of complaints from the non-trouble-making members of the "independent community" who are nevertheless concerned about ensuring the rule of law on this site (I think primarily of semck, but Chaqa and Yellowjacket also come to mind). It won't save any complaints from the people who long to break whatever rules are put in place, but then nothing can save us from those.

I also hope that new and improved forms of adult self-restraint will evidence themselves more and more, so that the new rules need never be put to the test. But for those who decide they want to game the new rules once they're put in place, you deserve whatever you get.

Last of all, I want to thank the mods for being at least somewhat transparent about this. There are still some (many?) facts that are being kept from public view, but this site isn't some democracy where the users retain ultimate sovereignty and the admin staff are merely our "public servants." Oversight does not belong to us. Zultar and the mods don't run this place "by the consent of the governed." They have -- and zultar by definition of his status has the right to have -- the final say. The fact that they are as open to comments from the user base as they are is gratifying, and a very intelligent move, and I hope -- indeed, believe -- they will keep it up. Give and take among grown-ups is a good thing, and long may it continue from both sides.

I am not behind the scenes so idk how the moderators handled things, but I would hope they were responsible and tactical in their response. I personally see banning an aggressive and violent person only adds to their fire and puts the site at greater security risk. It goes without explanation that in this situation the moderators should have used reservation and patience with Draug. I understand that he needed reprimanding because threats can not be a metaphoric gun to the staffs head; but at no point in history has an iron fist and extreme punishment system thrived. The people revolt, the coup takes place, the regime falls. It may take a day or a decade but the iron fist has never succeeded. Nazi Germany fell with support of it's own citizens. the USSR was dismantled by the people. Every empire in history fell when the people stopped supporting the authority. SYnapse threatened to quit the site, he may be the only and the first to openly threaten but should the moderators get to carried away (which I am not suggesting is fully what happened here) the population of this site will fall. I also suggest that it is fully within reason to say that there are people on this site with the technical skills to open their own site. This is not an expression of any distaste for the staff; you have all been exceptional from day one to me. This is a warning to the staff that your actions make or break this site and I love being able to play diplomacy here and would hate to lose that because of staff decisions. If I could suggest something that may be something for you all to think about, when a player asks for a repeal to staff decisions could trusted players be given the opportunity to review the case without sensitive information such as names? People like YJ, THELEGION, and ssorenn all spend hours on this site and the forum and could and should be trusted to help with those decisions. let people apply for this "jury duty" and using those applicants select a juror for every case. That would help us with "self moderation" ; as well give the players who don't trust the staff a way to involve themselves in the judical system of this site.

anyone got a tl;dr on all this? Draugnar and krellin, while sure long term players, seemed like such terribly shallow, spammy, white-noise posters. Why exactly the uproar over losing nothing of value?

"I was mostly asking to find out if the admins went through the messages because they suspected that Draugnar was saying these things or if they were informed."
My guess as to what happened is that because they were planning on silencing/banning Draug for spamming, they decided to attempt to gather as much evidence as possible on Draug so that, if necessary, they'd ban him, and when checking through his PMs they found the DDoS attack claim.

This isn't so much of a conspiracy theory as a, its solid police work (at least here in Canada, when the police arrest a criminal, they charge him with as many crimes as possible, knowing full well not all crimes will stick, but to increase the chances of him getting at least some jail time.), I could be wrong and it may have been reported, but I don't think it was.

@Chairman, I don't have a tl;dr but the loss is forum activity. Someone's got to stir the pot, right? I've also had and seen some OK discussions with them, so it wasn't all bad.

@Fasces, thanks.

I never did understand how Draug could be such an effective negotiator in-game, and so . . . undiplomatic in the forum.

http://kwiksurveys.com/s.asp?sid=9jvf8rzur00is8u396297
WebDip Census sponsored survey on the recent issues revolving around the Krellin and Draug cases.

Does this need to be posted in multiple places? I mean, I filled it out and all, but is it THAT big of a deal?

Ok so it's been long enough now so I'd better start the 'Drag Draugnar back' campaign.
I think the forum has been helping him with his problems without having to resort to seriously strong medication, we know from time to time he has a little relapse and has to be calmed ..... for any people who like to chant USA, USA this man was a patriot, he served the greatest nation on Earth by blowing his own trumpet, I heard he could also rustle up a mean omelette.
Is this what is has come to here, youngsters showing no respect for washed up veterans who have served their time and are now no longer needed, if he had died blowing that bugle they would have given his wife a medal for bravery, instead you ungrateful kids running this site have sentenced him to homelessness, alcoholism, a broken marriage, probably some jail time for beating up transgender types who come on to him when he is sleeping in the gutter.
I think he is suffering PTSD and he has been managing it by putting you bunch of lily-livered-libtard-lefties in your place.
Is this how you treat your war heroes ..... if so then shame on you.
USA - U Suck Ass
Bring back Batman & Robin (Draugnar & Krellin) and their arch-Nemesis the Riddler (MapleLeaf)

Sorry outside smoker. I put it on the two threads related to the topic so that if people were only on one thread they'd still see it. Trying to get maximum To fill it out so that I can post better data when all is said and done. I won't post again. Please do recommend it to others though so we can have more data.

Someone needs to do the anti-Jmo post now to bring things back to normal so here goes.
If the Mods get any more sanctimonious they will have to start a religious cult. JMO will of course be the leader, they will all live in the same house and only he will be able to visit the lady disciples after dark, which will result in lots of Jmos being reared and released into society, then internet forum moderation will be done properly for generations to come because the Jmo gene will be out there ..... you may think this sounds implausible but it has happened before.
The 10 commandments would be replaced by Webdip Rules, the Disciples will all be Admins but there will one slightly dodgy one mentioning no names (<cough> ... bosox....<cough>) who reports Jmo to the authorities who will then turn up to the oversized trailer and start playing Justin Bieber songs to try and force a surrender.
In a last ditch attempt to save himself Jmo will contact the Illuminati and threaten to pull the Webdip plug if the police,fire service, army, navy, airforce, home guard, Jehovahs witnesses, trick or treaters ..... don't back off.
Next thing you'll know it will be Bruce Springsteen songs as everyone retreats and all is forgiven and everyone will live happily ever after ..... the End.

@Byron
Fair enough. I shouldn't have just assumed "multiple."

That's cool. I understand, I appreciate you filling it out. Hopefully by tommorow evening I can post a report about the survey.

Commander you are like a 'natural born leader' ...... can't you have a higher rank than Commander, I think you are doing yourself down.

Only new Draug from one game and gotta say i kinda enjoyed his quirky eccentrics. Shame to see him go.

Draug will be pleased to know he has got the support of the villageidiot

Guys, law is just an artificial construct to help us get to justice. If the mods see a threat then they need to act on it. Or am I being too security-conscious? You see my point.

@nigeebaby - I don't know if I should take that as a compliment or sarcasm. But I'll elaborate on the point that I don't see myself as a leader as much as I do a volunteer. I volunteer my time to the webdip census. I volunteer my energy to army ROTC. I volunteer to do things and that may make me out to look like a leader but all I truly am is a volunteer.

But Mujus, isn't justice just an artificial construct to help us get power?

Commander - in my eyes you are the hard cheese in this prison wing now all of the tough guys have been kicked out. If I need protection I'll slip you a packet of fags and a couple of bars of soap (nudge nudge wink wink)