Hey, how's it going? I figured I'd come around and say hi.
Several things I'd like to address, mainly from SCG since I don't have much of an opportunity to talk to her on theflatearthsociety.org:
It's not like I actually have any say in the matter.
I'm a bit worried about acting outside of my remit here, but if you have any concerns about the reunification, feel free to raise them in our threads on theflatearthsociety.org. We're really trying to be democratic and transparent about this, and as a long-standing regular, your views should matter. I can't guarantee we'll follow your suggestions (for example, we had to dismiss a lot Thork said because he went against what basically everyone else said), but the more opinions we hear, the more likely we are to do the right thing.
as long as the new overlords aren't overmoderating dickbags
Both Parsifal and I believe that we should err towards
undermoderation in most cases. Most importantly, we respond to feedback. We've shaped our moderation style in a way that satisfies our community (and it seems we've succeeded). I
think you'd like the way we run things, but if it turns out that the post-reunification community has different priorities than theflatearthsociety.org, we'll work towards adjusting things again.
It's a little hard to believe Daniel is willing to allow pp to be an admin after all the bullshit that has happened over the years, but I have always thought Parsifal got railroaded by Hara.
You don't fully know what happened there. Call me a liar, call me a scoundrel, but you
really don't. In either case, conflicts happen sometimes, and dwelling on them
forever isn't the best way to go about things. That's why we're trying to look past our differences and are instead focusing on the good sides.
Try not to harp on about it. I'm not that bad of a guy.
Don't worry, Alexandyr. I don't think anyone has been bammed for mentioning the other FES, even when they were spamming links to it.
I read a post by pp over there that being able to use the word "nigger" is a sticking point.
I should clarify. I think that banning people for using
a word is
crazy. I wouldn't support making blatantly racist remarks (at least outside of CN), but banning people for saying something like "n***a plz" in CN is just impossible for me to comprehend. Maybe it's a cultural difference, I really don't know.
In any case, my statement should have been more general. It is my view that if we have a set of rules, we should stick by it and not make exceptions or allow loose interpretations unless they're really necessary. If we have a "no racism and hate speech" rule as worded here, then we should treat all hate speech equally. This forum never did that - "n***er" is, by and large, the only word disallowed, and it results (or at least resulted - admittedly I haven't been around lately) in immediate bans. The way I see it, unless the person in question was actually attacking someone because of their ethnicity, a post that doesn't introduce much content but frivolously uses the word could be moved to CN or AR. If it was actually an attack, it should be dealt with as a personal attack.
The big point here is that rules need to be coherent (what's written down in the rules is what you can expect), consistent (two similar offences should be met with a similar reaction regardless of who made it, towards whom it was made, and which specific racial slur they used) and properly executed (that is, unless there's a genuine emergency, we should first set a rule and only execute it then. Moderators' discretion should be kept to a minimum). I do not think we can justify banning a word. But similarly, telling the users that advertising a site is now banned and then not enforcing it creates a view that the rules don't have to be followed. That's why I oppose frivolously introducing rules, or threatening to execute rules that aren't already in place.
Finally:
According to the PM pizzaplanet posted, he's just going to bring all the mods/admins over from that site and keep it as is, which is the laziest way to do it. I think Parsifal would be a good addition to the admin team, but don't know about the rest (tbh, i don't know who the other mods are over there).
Our current mod team is Blanko, Roundy, Supertails, jroa, Gayer. Since we already have a bunch of mods who are also mods here, I don't really know who else we could add to the mix. Full disclosure: We haven't discussed the exact mod roster yet. Daniel said he'd be ok with just carrying our mod team post-reunification, but perhaps better solutions exist. The only way we can really know is if The People™ tell us.
Seriously though, if you have any suggestions for us, feel free to dump them in
our S&C thread. Don't be shy. I also try to keep that thread updated to let people know how things are going.
Are Parsifal and pizzaplanted pretending to be good just so they can trick Daniel into handing over the forum? They is evil.
How do you like my new cult-of-personality Supreme Overlord avatar? I'm going to replace the forum theme with that picture and demand daily tribute from everyone here.