Mike1984

OK, so, as some people might have noticed, I am not happy with the mods.

The root cause, ultimately, is the warning I got a few days back. In itself, that wouldn't be that much of a worry. It's a warning, it'll be gone in a couple of weeks, and I need to get two more before I get any real sanctions. But, the reasoning behind it is far more disturbing, as is the response I have got (or, rather, not got) from the mods.

The reasoning given is that they're now "cracking down" on flaming. Which, to me, is just stupid, as well as poorly-implemented. It seems to me like they have a list of words, and if you use them as an insult, you get a warning. The intent doesn't matter, the context doesn't matter, whether or not the person in question actually was acting like an asshole doesn't seem to matter either. On the other hand, passive-aggressive crap of the sort that a large proportion of the forum use all the time to wind me and others up is considered just fine, despite being far more damaging overall. I've said several things over the last few days which I consider far more worthy of a warning than the thing I actually got warned for (and, no, that doesn't mean I think I deserve a warning for them or will accept one, before the mods use it as an excuse to punish me further), but because I was careful to not stick in a random swear-word, I got away with it without any reprecussions.

The whole idea is just dumb, and is not making the forum any better. All it's doing is turning the occasional angry explosion followed by people making-up into a long-running fight of passive-aggressiveness where the winner is the one who finally goads the other into using that all-important swear word.

It just seems to me like the concept of judging each case on its merits and based on the situation has gone, to be replaced by a slavish devotion to the letter of the rules. Worse still, the mods seem to have decided that following the rules is now more important than actually resolving conflicts and, judging by their response to my angry PMs and to everything else I said, they also seem to think that maintaining their authority is more important than dealing with complaints.

But, even worse still is the response I've got from the mods. Or, rather, the total fucking lack of a response. The only person to even bother to talk to me, aside from a curt message from Beam which basically stated "we've decided on this, good day" is Hymn, and his attitude was basically "tough shit, it's not my job to deal with this sort of thing, so just suck it up".

Actually, yes it is your fucking job. Your job is to deal with conflicts on the forum, not to hand out arbitrary warnings for situations which could be easily resolved and then, when you get complaints, turn around to the complainer and say "well, tough shit, I'm in charge, so just go swivel on it". Although, at least Hymn has the guts to try to talk to me, other than the rest of the mods who decided on this retarded, totally unnecessary and outright counter-productive new "zero tolerance" policy that you seem to be going for for no apparent reason and who are too spineless to even bother to explain theirselves. Or, hell, even tell anyone that they'd taken this approach.

It's got to the point now that it's essentially a case of whoever is the most oversensitive person on the forum will win an argument, by virtue of getting the mods to come in and deal with things that half of the forum don't even see as "flames", and certainly not worth a warning. Hell, I didn't even bother to report the post Trevelyan got warned for, because I considered it as a perfectly acceptable response, if a bit nasty. So, now, I'm torn between reporting essentially everything just in case the mods decide it's worthy of a warning, which would just be acknowedging the fact that the system is broken and hoping the people I don't like fall foul of it before I do, or just giving up on reporting entirely and hope someone else will deal with the problem, which doesn't seem likely to work, judging by the fact that no-one else reported Trevelyan's post and the mods didn't notice it despite one of them being the thread creator. And, worse, it seems like "excessive" reporting also gets you warned, according to Lantz anyway (and I don't buy the accusations of lying that Hymn threw at him, either, even if I can't rule out the possibility of him just being mistaken).

Altima isn't perfect, he makes mistakes, hell he's made plenty of decisions I disagreed with (some unrelated to me, and which I eventually convinced him to overturn), but at least he talks to people. The new mods seem to take the attitude that I'm not worth discussing things with, that they make the decisions and if I don't like them, it's tough shit. They act like they have a fucking divine right to run the forum and they don't care about me or anyone else, as long as their precious "rules" are sacrosant.

Even when Hymn PM'd me and tried to "discuss" the warning, his approach seemed to be more about exhonerating himself from blame than actually dealing with the issue. He acted as if the decision hadn't already been made when it quite patently had. He claimed he didn't want to make the warning (which may be true) and that he just wanted any reason he could find not to give it (which was quite patently a lie, because I gave plenty of reasons why not, and if he was truly just looking for an excuse not to give it he would have accepted them), but the fact that the mods had already discussed it and decided a warning was justified proves that, barring something extreme, he was never going to overturn it.

I like being given a say, but I do not appreciate the mods acting as if they're giving me a say when in reality they've already made the decision and virtually nothing will change it. If that's the way it is, at least have the guts to man up and admit it, rather than acting like you're willing to listen to my opinion. Sure, the way I reacted to his PM was bad, but his way of approaching me was just smug and deceitful, trying to wriggle his way out of taking any flak for the decision (even if it truly wasn't his decision) rather than either taking resposibilty or else handing it off to someone else who would.