That's great advice monte, and I mean this in the most earnest way possible: a lot of the people that come in to support moderators generally have no concept of the subtext of the disagreement. Gangster may not be one of those people and so I addressed him at length, but I certainly feel KDP is. What I mean by that is that some people come here and support the moderators (even when they are wrong, and they sometimes are) just because they are moderators. I hope you don't resort to arguing that the moderators are always right.

As far as this gray area nonsense you keep resorting to, and I don't mean that in a condescending way, I don't think this is in a gray area. I think each moderator applies his or her own code/guidelines to the bans they make and ultimately the collective body of moderators is seen to be inconsistent and at times even hypocritical. I got banned for calling someone who just had me ping bombed a 'nigger' and got banned for it - I hope you can appreciate the irony. This was a while back so I doubt trendz would have a problem attesting to this fact.

In this particular case, Sam may not have banned, indeed he may have let this sort of thing slide. But did he have ground to ban? He most certainly did, and I don't think we would argue about that. Other moderators have banned for less and their bans have stood, by virtue of these bans not being contested (by other moderators) they have set a precedent which the collective body of moderators can follow. Has Sam threatened to ban for a similar indiscretion? Yes, thrillho is a firsthand testimonial. He never went through with it, and I'm not a Sam almanac of bans so I can't tell you if he's actually gone through with banning people during heated exchanges like the one thrillho surely went through.

I am sure of this though, there is no gray unless you make it gray. Some moderators doing or acting as they please, while others do and act as they please does not make the entire spectrum of transgressions a "gray area" it means different rules apply depending on the moderator at hand. And as a member of the community, I hope you can see the frustration this would lend itself to. I hope if nothing else, this would cause the moderators to at least try to coalesce their guidelines and codes of banning into a comprehensive guideline. Perhaps Bone-Roller could help put it together, he already has a pretty decent base in the blogpost he made. I may not agree with everything in those guidelines (I actually don't agree with much of it) but I can accept the fact that they are the law of the land if all the other moderators can too.

eom

even though they disagree with him. however, when someone comes in and says that he supports sam, veta, you give him zero respect/appreciation and conclude that he is a member of the confederacy of loonies or whatever you called it.

Sorry I want to address this again. My attitude towards Gangster and KDP stems from the fact that they are themselves attacking me with their posts. They are attacking either my character, my cause or my credibility when they post. If someone simply chimed in and disagreed with me with a well reasoned argument (like DDDY in that avatar thread) I would be reticent and I would address their argument. So I would like to draw a distinction between greekboi coming in and saying, "yeah Sam is a hypocrite," and KDP coming in and saying "Veta is a douchebag, ignore him."

You can see where my warm demeanor might quickly change, right?

cmon dude, you know my backstory. ask fiero if i always agree with moderators, heh. (hint, hes not a moderator any more).

i think this is definitely a grey area though. in this case, if we want to be usa-centric, we can emulate our supreme court. and in controversial decisions, let the mods have a council and vote ban or no ban. and no question, there will be instances where the decision is 4-3. but whatever the decision is should be final. (we're too small of a community for a system of appeals imo). (much less a supreme court idea anyways).

if the entire mod community agrees on a decision, after hearing all the arguments one way and the other, then yes, i will respect their decision, even if i disagree with it.

i agree that kdp and gang both were attacking your character, probably moreso than your argument in this situation. but at some point, you have to ask yourself, why do so many people attack my character? i mean, in all these back-and-forth arguments, it seems most of them devolve into veta character assassinations.

you can conclude one of two things: 1) people just get pissed because they realize you are right, and they frustratingly decide to attack you. or 2) there's something you need to tweak in your character.

if you're open to tweaking your character (in my experience, it rarely happens for someone to have this level of self-awareness), then i would suggest that you come off a bit too arrogant, and you're not a good listener.

Hi Sophie

The reason we have a supreme court is for unforeseen situations for which the law has not dealt with yet, monte.

I don't feel that comparison is apt because frankly, most anything you can do has already been done and encountered by a moderator before.

What constitutes pornography in avatar should be pretty easy and a clear-cut issue, but different moderators have different rulings. This doesn't mean the issue is gray, it means there is no guideline for the moderators to cite or follow when judging the context of a possible infraction.

In the case of Sam's original statement, we can perhaps agree that this is the equivalent of just saying "faggot" in chat or just saying "nigger" in chat, at least right - if not more offensive? If it's the equivalent of just saying "faggot" after being screwed in a game... well then that's bannable by virtue of the fact that it has been banned before (even when said player was provoked). I'm not saying we should outlaw a bunch of a words, I'm suggesting maybe the moderators that do make these very stringent bans lighten up a bit... but I don't expect them to unless there is a guideline to which they must cite their bans or if the community at large does not have the ability to contest a ban.

Lastly, I'm sure you can agree that the circumstances of fiero being a mod, and the circumstances today - where a lot of regulars are becoming mods are different. You have admitted and even appealed to moderators that you would like the chance to be a moderator. Disagreeing with any moderator, or really doing anything to get on any moderator's bad side wouldn't exactly be privy to accomplishing that goal would it? If you said to me today, and truly meant it, that you did not want to be a moderator I wouldn't question your motives in that regard. But as it stands I think you're willing to sanction/justify any moderator action for the simple reason that you are smart and are willing to go a certain length to get what you want - in this case modship. I would take you for a fool if you didn't behave the way you did and still expected to become a moderator.

In all honesty, once I can go back to the gym I'm not going to be playing kdice or reading the forums nor will I care whether you suck ten dicks to finally become a moderator - its your prerogative. So you can relish in the fact that I'm only around here temporarily - and I don't think either of us will think about each other much when I'm gone.

Just read your second post. Admittedly I don't take criticism well monte, but I'm trying real hard here. You're not the first person to tell me that, you're not the first person to tell me that in the last 48 hours.

I'm level headed when I'm not under duress and yesterday I had just pulled an all-nighter. So I'll say this in as levelheaded a manner as possible, you may be right. At times I may come off as arrogant (a lot of the time maybe), but I wish you had the self-awareness to realize you do too. Or maybe you do and maybe you're working on it, certainly your last few posts haven't come off as arrogant, although slightly condescending. But I can excuse that because you're probably used to being the smartest guy in the room... I am probably am too and hence our occasional arrogance or condescending remarks.

Unfortunately, if I gave a clear and well-reasoned response to every asshole attacking me or my argument in this thread I'd probably wear myself out. So I will try to be more levelheaded, reasoned with you monte, so long as you do me the same courtesy but I can't promise I'll do the same for KDP or Gangster.

understood. it was just that i realized that me belittling you in my responses wouldnt accomplish jackshit. i usually ease up, whether in kdice pges or forums or real life. basically i value relationships is what it boils down to. hell, even if leek were to stop by, id still chat it up with him.

anyways.

yes, im interested in becoming a mod, and yes ive stated as much for the past year or so. but i disagree that that means im kissing current mods asses. ive disagreed with a fair proportion of their decisions, and publicly too (maybe you should re-read everything ive said in those threads). id estimate i still agree with them about 90% of the time, but thats been the case since when i wasnt interested in being a mod. frankly, overall, i think theyve done a good job (at least the ones that stuck around, not the loonies that we all like to make fun of.)

maybe its just that when ive disagreed with them, i express my discontent in a polite way, so it comes off as kissing ass. but really, thats the way ive been in forums since day one. the way ive been in chatbox since day one. and the way ive been in real life since my parents spanked me whenever i was impolite as a kid.

"What constitutes pornography in avatar should be pretty easy and a clear-cut issue"

Umm, no. I explained very clearly and succinctly in the other thread that that is definitively not the case. Please don't make me explain again. We had ended that conversation quite well and reasonably, and feel it should be left like that.

I can only be so reasonable for so long before I flip out and start whining ;)

My best comparison between monte and veta is this. The mods, in general, are right at least 80-90% of the time in the bans they make. Most of what we do/have done has been good and for the good of the game/community. Veta argues so much against the mods that it would appear he thinks we are WRONG 80-90% of the time. There is never any credit given by Veta, only criticism, wheras monte at least gives us due credit with criticism.

That being said, the fact that we only receive criticism and never credit makes NONE of the mods wish to have a civil discourse with you. You're like an ambulance chaser looking to cash in on someones misfortune. The barrage of criticism is constant, harsh, and noone is capable of changing your mind once you made a decision.

Now, this may be a false observation as you may think we do a decent job 80-90% of the time, but you don't act like it and you certainly don't ever sing praise along with your non-constructive criticism. That is your character flaw. You're always out to assassinate others if they don't see/do things exactly like you would or like you'd want them done.