Why can't we be friends?

The administrators of both societies are currently discussing a reunification. I'm not directly involved in the process, so don't axe me any questions. All of the information we have so far is available in this thread. The discussions appear to be going well, but nothing is final.

Anyway, I'm wondering how people here feel about this possibility. Are most of you even aware of the other site? If not, imagine something similar to this but with fewer cube earth jokes and less traffic but greater user retention.  Parsifal and Pizza have both proven to be excellent administrators, and I think a combination of skills from both sides of the schism would lead to a society greater than either of the two we have now.

Does it really matter what anyone left on this site thinks? Seems Wilmore or Daniel could have kicked off the conversation here... but they've neglected this forum for a really long time so I shouldn't be surprised they didn't. I will opinionate anyway! 

Daniel will do what he does. 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). 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. I fully support adding Parsifal as a tech admin.

I really love this website (obviously, I stayed) so as long as the new overlords aren't overmoderating dickbags, I'm alright with whatever happens. It's not like I actually have any say in the matter.

INTERNET, SRS BSNS.

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.

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.

From my experience the quality of moderation and admin is pretty high over there. There are some seeming nemesis relationships that are given latitude (Bishop-Gary Green or (Gulliver-FES), but there is not the same lawlessness that can glare up here. The other site is also much more responsive in both loading times and addressing technical issues. It will be nice having all the usual suspects together again.

Maybe the merge will scare sceptimatic away. Also, I hope Thork doesn't have an aneurism. I had no idea he hated John Davis so much! Thork is crabbier than Crabby Jim.

Maybe the merge will scare sceptimatic away. Also, I hope Thork doesn't have an aneurism. I had no idea he hated John Davis so much! Thork is crabbier than Crabby Jim.

Thork became apoplectic after John undid Thork's moving of the reptile person conspiracy thread. Pissing contests were had, John wields more clout, Thork was defrocked and now has a galactic sized hate on. Get your popcorn ready, season 2 is about to begin!

I vaguely remember the reptile conspiracy thread and the kerfuffle that followed.

I read a post by pp over there that being able to use the word "nigger" is a sticking point. What do you think about that?

Terrible idea. Will complain.

I vaguely remember the reptile conspiracy thread and the kerfuffle that followed.

I read a post by pp over there that being able to use the word "nigger"

The controversy.

is a sticking point. What do you think about that?

It's foolish to place special emphasis on one word. Ban profanity if you wish, ban racism, but the aversion to that particular word always struck me as mere liberal, white guilt [/Ann Coulter]

It's not really about advocating the right to dance about chanting "nigger," but putting an end to the bans that have resulted from the rule.  Too many people who meant no harm and didn't offend anyone have been pointlessly banned already.  There's no reason for that to continue.

I may be wrong, but Thork and JD have been butting heads since the beginning of time. 

Are Parsifal and pizzaplanted pretending to be good just so they can trick Daniel into handing over the forum? They is evil.

I just read that Daniel is in favor of the merge and did post over there.  Since he is working with PP behind the scenes to approve the merge details, I believe we should support a plan that he approves/supports. 

Great, the little kids will be back.  At least school is starting soon.

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.

I may not know what fully happened, but that wasn't the point. Like I know that somehow you were blamed for draining all the site's bandwidth, after Parsifal was blamed (since it was his server or some shit) and then something about a friend or roommate was actually the culprit.. BUT yeah, that wasn't the point. The point was that something like that did happen, and you took the blame for it, and Daniel has been rather against the idea of you or Parsifal having any control of the forum... but I don't actually hold that against you, I just understood why Daniel might. If you've been able to convince him that you are trustworthy now, then good. I hope you really are acting in the best interest of the forum.

I agree about the racism stuff. I really don't want to see a bunch of racist shit on the forum, it is embarrassing imo, but banning people for saying silly stuff that isn't meant to be racist is dumb. The rules on this forum are terrible. I remember when Jack edited the rules almost every day for a long time. More and more rules do not make a site better. I also agree about the strictness of moderation. Over zealous moderation kills discussion, it kills the fun, it sucks donkey balls.

Also -- "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." -- (sorry, too lazy to do the real quote thingy) This isn't a rule on this forum, that I am aware of. Or it's not a new rule, is there an old rule against advertizing other sites? Maybe there is, I'm not going to read all those fucking rules again, lol.  Anyway, there hasn't been a new rule put in place since the schism banning the mention of the other FES.

I don't actually hold that against you, I just understood why Daniel might. If you've been able to convince him that you are trustworthy now, then good.

I'm glad . Yeah, it seems that we've put our differences aside, which is probably for the best.

Also -- "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." -- (sorry, too lazy to do the real quote thingy) This isn't a rule on this forum, that I am aware of. Or it's not a new rule, is there an old rule against advertizing other sites? Maybe there is, I'm not going to read all those fucking rules again, lol.  Anyway, there hasn't been a new rule put in place since the schism banning the mention of the other FES.

It's not a rule, it's something that JD said shortly after the schism, in a fairly serious tone. That's why it's problematic. With the way things work right now, it's difficult to establish whether he'd ban someone or not. Maybe no one's been banned yet, but it could happen. That kind of ambiguity is just unnecessary.

Oh, well maybe he was telling Tom Bishop to stop spamming threads in the upper forums with links to the other site? He was doing that, without adding any content relevant to the thread. I don't know, I didn't see the post.

I wonder what JD thinks about all of this. He's hardly ever around anymore.

I wonder what JD thinks about all of this. He's hardly ever around anymore.

I can only speculate, but shortly after the schism Sean made a thread here asking to change administrators, and while that obviously didn't go too well, JD did say that he'd be happy to appoint new admins if he knew someone that's both competent and trustworthy, but that there are no such people here. So I'm guessing he thinks we're either incompetent or untrustworthy. Hopefully if we do reunite we'll be able to prove ourselves.

Perhaps he was reacting in the heat of the moment, or felt he was under attack. People were kinda mean to him sometimes.

There have been lots of little feuds on this forum over the years, and sometimes it's hard for people to move on and forgive each other for the mean things that have been said. I am even guilty of that, like I felt for the longest time that quite a few of you would rather I just go away.

Great, the little kids will be back.  At least school is starting soon.

We missed you most of all, sokarul.

Quote from: sokarul on August 03, 2014, 03:12:39 PM

Great, the little kids will be back.  At least school is starting soon.

We missed you most of all, sokarul.

Occasionally I sneak back here just to take a peek at his new posts.

It's not really about advocating the right to dance about chanting "nigger," but putting an end to the bans that have resulted from the rule.  Too many people who meant no harm and didn't offend anyone have been pointlessly banned already.  There's no reason for that to continue.

I think I remember someone getting banned for simply quoting a post in which the N word was mentioned.  Was it you? 

Anyway, I think banning for a word is ridiculous.  Ban someone for the way they said it, not the word. 

If this forum is merged with the other one, will all the posts, post counts and other things also merge? It will be one forum, and not two? Also, will Daniel still be paying the bills?

If this forum is merged with the other one, will all the posts, post counts and other things also merge?

From what I understand, that's the general idea.

It will be one forum, and not two? Also, will Daniel still be paying the bills?

I would imagine that those are some of the details that are still being worked out.

Is it really that hard not to use the N word in any context? This is Daniel's website so it is his rules. Other websites have their own rules.

It may not be Daniel's website anymore after the merge. I wish he'd come on this website and talk to us about it, but I won't hold my breath!

Not wanting to sound too much like Thork or Tom Bishop, but with Daniel being away for so long at a time, sometimes it gets to hard to gauge his commitment to FES and this site.

I think he is committed to the society, just not so much to the site.  He has done interviews as a direct response to the society being used as the butt of a joke.  That alone seems to indicate he still cares about the society.

I only joined FES in 2007, but in all that time he has never really been involved with the site. There have been little spurts of activity now and then, but mostly he just pays the bills and stays away. I always thought that was kind of a good thing, EXCEPT when he chose terrible moderators and let them shit all over the members.