*Sigh* Another case of biased moderation when SW is involved

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Mr. Oragahn
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Re: *Sigh* Another case of biased moderation when SW is involved

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Aug 19, 2009 4:47 pm

I was skimming some old SFJN threads while looking for specific numbers, when I happened to read one which would be of interest, in regards to the latest moderation hiatus at SBC, highlighted in this thread.
I found this relatively interesting, and proving that CPLF's antics are nothing new.

Titled SB.com: Bringing up the ICS is trolling?, it called Cpl_Facehugger in another curious case of moderation against a member named DarkTempest, who happened to dispute the ICS consensus back in 2007.

At that time, I didn't bother reading the thread wherein DT had been called for (subtle) trolling, nor did JMS' thread contain a link.
But I found it. The thread in question is this one:
Honorverse Vs Star Wars.

CPLF's remark gave me the impression that DT had been trolling in the thread for several posts. So I went to look for the former pages and see what was going on.
CPLF had been posting since page 1. In other words, he was active in the thread.
Unsurprisingly, there was nothing there safe CPLF "seeing things".

Obviously, considering the ridiculous nature of the ICS claims, some members, like R_Bull, couldn't help joking, which of course in this anal retentive milieu, was taken as trolling.
Still, R_Bull's remark was all but a insignificant part of his long post.
In all seriousness, the accusation of trolling here was most laughable, and if we have to think of DarkTempest's alleged trolling, then consider this:

Apocalypse's post was nothing more than a rehash of the typical 3 blue giants fallacy, which I addressed a while back on this forum.

CPLF passing off Athega's radiations as special just because Lando had custom solid-shields built, was silly.
It was rather obvious, without resorting to star exotism, that these custom shields were built because of Lando's business took place in very hostile conditions, due to the planet's close distance to the star for prolonged periods, a distance so short that Nkllon's surface, at least the exposed side, was covered with lava pools, searing rock and violent volcanoes.
It also damaged the hulls of warships.
Nkllon contained copious amounts of metals used for starship construction.
A large percentage of the exposed surface was covered with lava.
It's not like the shieldships were eternal. After each trip, a shieldship had to be repaired. So with the special cooling system, there was just that much heat it could handle.
Heir to the Empire wrote: "Ah-no, sir." A year ago, too, he would have found a strange unreality in conversing about less than urgent matters while in the middle of a combat situation. "At least not in anything like the numbers you want. I think the Athega system's still our best bet. Or it will be if we can find a way around the problems of the sunlight intensity there."

"The problems will be minimal," Thrawn said with easy confidence. "If the jump is done with sufficient accuracy, the Judicator will be in direct sunlight for only a few minutes each way. Its hull can certainly handle that much. We'll simply need to take a few days first to shield the viewports and remove external sensors and communications equipment."
Heir to the Empire wrote: "Escort?" Leia asked cautiously. "Why an escort?"

"That's what you get for going off and doing politics stuff when Lando drops by the Palace for a visit," Han admonished her, still craning his neck. There it was . . . "Nkllon's a superhot planet-way too close to its sun for any normal ship to get to without getting part of its hull peeled off. Hence-" he waved Leia's attention to the right "-the escort."
Heir to the Empire wrote: She peered out of the cockpit at the edge of the planetary mass they were speeding toward. "Incredible. Do you realize you can actually see part of the solar corona from here?"

"Yeah, well, don't ask me to take you out for a closer look," Han told her. "Those shieldships aren't just for show, you know-the sunlight out there is strong enough to fry every sensor we have in a few seconds and take the Falcon's hull off a couple of minutes later."
Is that kind of heat that damages hulls inconsistent? When we look at the higher canon, ROTS's Invisible Hand landing and the hull burning without being initially hit nor seen damaged before the fall, not really.
Not to say that the book itself made no mention of the star being exotic in any way.

Let's remember that the mole miners used plasma torches to cut through the rock, and were capable by the same book of cutting through the armor of warships. Although the plasma would obviously be very capable and well in excess of what is necessary to cut through the minerals on Nkllon's surface, they would obviously not use even terajoule and terawatt level plasma against the surface of a planet. That's so ridiculous.

All in all, all of DT's posts from there were nothing that could be considered trolling. They were argumented, perhaps a bit short, but not flame baits, just honest calls for consideration of all sources.
He stopped posting slightly before the thread's mid, and posted two more messages, absolutely threatless and nothing to foam about.
However, it proved to be too much for CPLF to handle:

DarkTempest' latest post.
DarkTempest wrote:Undortunatly he would be unable to respond due to suspected trolling. However, Those are at least two instances undercutting the rather inane figures for star wars ships. Even the seven nebula one only gives a 30,000 degree all around figure for shield strenght, rough estimate on my part.

As such while we cannot argue further due to mod intervention, there is no evidence supporting what you think is happening in two of those instances. The agatha sun is almost certainly hotter than usual, but figures were posted on this. These incidents may in fact be outliers, but I haven't read anything that directly contradicts it in movies or eu. Presumably, only scaling from the death star and delta base zero support other figures. As such your evidence is not inherently better than ours.
CPLF's latest post before thread closure.
Cpl_Facehugger wrote:
DarkTempest wrote:Undortunatly he would be unable to respond due to suspected trolling.
He hasn't been banned yet. That was the whole point of giving him an opportunity to clean up his act. Though I am thinking I should have banned you. Alas I focused on the obvious troll and missed the subtle one.
As such while we cannot argue further due to mod intervention, there is no evidence supporting what you think is happening in two of those instances. The agatha sun is almost certainly hotter than usual, but figures were posted on this. These incidents may in fact be outliers, but I haven't read anything that directly contradicts it in movies or eu. Presumably, only scaling from the death star and delta base zero support other figures. As such your evidence is not inherently better than ours.
And Slave Ship. And the comic where three ISDs plow into the Executor at relativistic speeds. And the ICS themselves. And... Well, you get the picture. The point is that your two examples are outnumbered by just about every other example of ISD shielding and firepower around, as I said. Nevermind that your two examples are older than the ICS to begin with, and that the ICS sources are 'closer' to the movies and thus take precedence as per the Sansweet (or was that Cerasi?) quote.

Furthermore, the ICS is not really the subject of this thread, and I've had enough of your constant snipes in direct opposition to VS rules.

This thread has run its course. OP, if you'd like to remake it, go ahead.
It appears that Styxx wasn't lucky enough to dodge the Sword of Ban though. You're invited to check Styxx's posts and make your mind on their value.

Globally, this mirrors rather very well the continued mentality displayed by CPLF and his habit of curbing dissenting opinion, not through the grace of a properly argumented and documented case, but by abuse of modding powers.

Although now, two years later, he more or less retracted from an deliberate aggressive defense of the ICS, it's rather obvious that the moderation standards have not changed at all.



Also, while I tried to find that thread, I happened to cruise over an older one, still from 2007, called Clones in Hogwarts. Funny premise, perhaps original.
The same DarkTempest posted in it more actively, yet remained perfectly civil.

By the very end of page 2 (according to my thread layout options, I tend to favour longer and fewer pages), DT mentions the time altering devices that could be used by wizards, the time turners. For having seen the Harry Potter movie, one of a few that is, it is clear that in dire times, such devices seem to allowed for cautious use, but they're still very dangerous.
Nevertheless, the fact that they were kept around instead of shattered is telling, and supporting the last resort option, although one could question why the big wizards didn't use it themselves... probably some stricter rules or a question of balance which forced Dumbledore to let Potter use it instead in a non-official mission, sort of.
What warranted the intervention of Thanatos in the thread was the lack of a quotation from the fifth book proving the destruction of the time turners. The chronology of posts is as follows: DarkTempest, Aratech, Thanatos. One post that refers to the fifth book and a mod jumps in? Not much patience, huh.
No, wait. That's actually silly and dishonest.
Which of course completely spooked DT.

It's not like countless warsies have referred to ICS numbers without giving any quotation (I happen to have an example from the same period, from the same thread right down there).
It was a rather quiet debate really, nothing warranting the mod intrusion. Although DT's points were not exactly sound most of the time about these devices, they were addressed correctly and calmly, and even DT admitted the issues regarding their use.

That kind of atmosphere pretty much paints the global canvas from that period regarding Star Wars and SBC moderation of the versus forum.
In principles, it has not changed much, unfortunately, and is one of the reasons I also came here, to be free from the mental fixes of fanboys granted the ability to ban at will.


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Oh, btw, I couldn't resist addressing this post:
General Schatten wrote:
DarkTempest wrote:The movies clearly contradict your thousands of gees regardless of what the inertial compensator does. Were talking hundreds if that.
Atmosphere to space in less than a minute, hangar to trench in under a minute, described as faster than X-Wings which flew to the other side of a gas giant in under five minutes, then there's the tech guides that put it at 4,100 G's.
Other than the fact that this post is really from the Clones in Hogwarts thread, let's verify those claims:

The two first two ones don't support thousands of gees. Surface to orbit under a minute, going by Star Wars' general orbital shots, say 2000 km in 50 seconds, requires a bit more than 160 g. The second one is well below that, even if you pick the longest covered arc from hangar to the trench's most distant point, say a distance of 100~120 km.

As for the gas giant, it doesn't include the Death Star's own movement regarding the base, nor the fact that we have a good number of accelerations such as the Millenium Falcon and other smaller ships racing out of the Death Star II, or Luke departing from the same battle station in a case of life or death, and none hint at even hundreds of gees of acceleration. It also completely ignores the remark about orbiting at max velocity, although quite bizarre of a statement, unless relevant to some limit regarding planet anchoring with repulsors or some such. Anyway, the idea was that the Death Star was moving fast around Yavin, and was closing in.
The fighters take off before the speakers in the war room report that the Death Star, approaching, will be ready to fire in 15 minutes.
That while the Imperials placed their station as such as that it would be ready to fire in 30 minutes.
Leia was convinced that the Death Star tracked them to Yavin 4, so the whole Rebel contingent there was getting prep'd and ready for battle.
By the time the X-wings approached the Death Star, we even see that a mere camera spin of 180°, first showing Yavin 4, then Yavin in the background on the fighters' starboard side, then shows the Death Star, at a good offset distance from the gas giant. Clearly the battle station wasn't that far from having a good shot at the green moon.
There's obviously the problem highlighted by RSA.
The beginning of a rationalization has always been that the Death Star adopted a counter-clockwise orbit around Yavin while Yavin 4 followed a clockwise orbit. This would of course mean the Death Star wasn't capable of closing the distance fast enough against the moon's natural orbit.
It also poses the question as to which route the Rebels picked when they took off, while the Death Star begun its operation.

The latest reference from Schatten is nothing more than a vague appeal to the ICS... without a quote.



The overall conclusion is that you're warned about what to expect if you engage perhaps too deeply into a debate involving Star Wars' technicalities.

EDIT: Errata in this post. I cited Kyosanim instead of Point45, who did it, again. Kyosanim actually was a rabbid Trekkie. I mean, if you think Mith gets borderline unbearable when he starts to cite TDiC and else like standards, you obviously didn't go fencing with Kyo.

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