Starfleet Jedi

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Other than that, again, I reiterate my will to know why this exchange is not deemed worth Spacebattles.com while Thanatos is a moderator over there, and "just" a (fresh?) member over SDN.

There's a rule against it there. "The affairs of other boards do not concern us."

l33telboi wrote:

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Other than that, again, I reiterate my will to know why this exchange is not deemed worth Spacebattles.com while Thanatos is a moderator over there, and "just" a (fresh?) member over SDN.

There's a rule against it there. "The affairs of other boards do not concern us."

Trouble here is that it's a kind of "international" affair, or more precisely interboard... or even better, it is irrelevant of who belongs to what.
Especially since it's a mail exchange, which somehow could completely circumbent a rule that is board centric.

Now, I can see where this fails as well, as JMS not being a member of SBC as far as I know clearly puts a barrier there.

But do SBC requires Einstein to register at SBC to use his equations? Does Sublette needs to register to SBC so we can cite the nuclear weapon FAQ?
There is a catch there, of course, as the question is if a board is concerned.

Globally, I find SBC's stringent rule actually privating the place from the efficiency of a good debate, merely by forbidding outside sources from the moment a board is related in a way or another.
I believe this has more to do to keep members at SBC than rather caring about the quality of the debates, especially when you consider the flood of failing versus debates, non sciece fiction versus, the gallons of insults, the high level of trolling and how certain topics can't even be properly discussed anymore, as they're literally banned. And they wonder why the versus board is not as active as before. You don't need to look far. Some factors are just that obvious.
Basically, with their isolationist rule, they loose all the advantages of a freer speech and ability to talk at SBC about former "work" if we can call it like that, while only keeping the bad stuff.

Just an example. You cannot quote a long and detailed analysis, either from here, SDN or ASVS. Are you supposed to redo it again? That's literally absurd, and no one proceeds like that. At best, the claims are verified, but most of the times, new investigation expands upon the material that's being cited. From there, sides form, some say they agree with the proposed analysis, others disagree and say why, a debate gets rolling and that's it.

SBC's rule is most disapointing and has been cutting out some interesting debating opportunities, just because they want to be deaf to what others have already said on other boards.
That is highly ridiculous.

Look at SDN or SFJN. When a link to another discussion, on another board, is posted, do members suddenly register en masse and start posting in that other board?
Not at all. People stay at SDN and SFJN, and comment from there.

What I've seen working, to some extent, is literally quoting the whole piece. You eventually put the link, of course, but the material has to be readable at SBC without having to click on the link.
Considering this, posting the outcome of JMS and Than's exchange would fit with that precedent.

Thanatos wrote: Mr Oragahn has just recently been banned for starting precisely that, actually.

My intent was certainly not to generate a flamewar of any sort. But let's recall what exactly happened.

The post has been deleted, and I don't remember the details precisely, but I remember it followed a claim by Painrack about how other supposedly impartial, not even pro-wars people (which would otherwise warrant them the warsie label), had seen the light and agreed with the ICS figures.
White Rabbit and Captain Hat were cited, and someone else.
Which amused me. Although I didn't say much about CH, all the arguments I've seen from this member were nothing short of pure warsie fanwank, regurgating all the stuff from Saxton to Wong and the rest.

That attempt was nothing more than an appeal to pseudo-authority which held no particular constructive value.
I mocked the idea of pointing out these guys as reliable people by saying they were warsies, therefore the least to pick if anyone wanted an unbiased opinion on the ICS.
White Rabbit came in, him and Painrack reminded me that WR wasn't a warsie, that he opposed the ICS for a long time (though I did a search on the board and there wasn't as much proof to find than I'd have thought following such a claim), and things heated a tad up and that's it.

From there, I made the unfortunate reference to another board, SDN, by pointing out Painrack was pulling out an Alyeska, as how despite his background, White Rabbit was suddenly quick to admit the validity of ICS' figures.
I also pointed out how he participated to SDN's wiki thread, notably the part where suggestions were made about how to reformulate and reorganize the whole section that serves as a vitriol tank towards the SFJN members.

Yes, that is against the rule.
But it's true nonetheless, and pretty much served to shoot down that ridiculous appeal to authority Painrack attempted to pull on me while he was running short of actual arguments.

Next time, I'll just be satisfied pointing out the ludicrous appeal to authority and ignore it.

Now you may consider how the rule, with its lack of flexibility, closes opportunities of debate and continuation upon previous sources from other places.
I understand the issue it had to solve by being enforced, but I'd really want people to think about it beyond what you bring as direct symptoms.

One will notice that SBC certainly does not need dealing with foreign affairs to see threads serve as places of insults and flaming.
Were moderators more strict on the insults and less on the foreign sources, the quality and content of debates would gain a lot.
I'd go as far as saying that it's a whole deal of hypocrisy, precisely because by putting in red letters that flaming is forbidden in the tech subforum, you thereby make the announcement that it's tolerated in the overall VS debate forum.

Which brings us to this awkward situation where a rigid rule has been put into place to forbid flaming, while flaming is openly tolerated as per the indications and the way they're moderated, as anyone can see.
It is necessary to emphasize the origin of the problem. The issue doesn't lie on the presence of flaming, but why it began.

Ultimately, in regards to this thread, I'd have much less issues if you, as a moderator of SBC, could confirm if one is allowed to quote a whole post from another forum, if it was constructive, and not served as flamebait, but instead was a perfect start to favour a constructive discussion and well argumented comments.

But it's true nonetheless, and pretty much served to shoot down that ridiculous appeal to authority Painrack attempted to pull on me while he was running short of actual arguments.

Says the guy who responded to any argument with "Its wank, anyone who disagrees is an evil warsie, can't hear you! Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah!" and declared everyone else a wanker. That was the tip of your flaming everyone in sight. You're lucky we let you off easy.

Then you have the balls to say that we need to enforce the no flaming rule? We did: your ass got banned.

Ultimately, in regards to this thread, I'd have much less issues if you, as a moderator of SBC, could confirm if one is allowed to quote a whole post from another forum, if it was constructive, and not served as flamebait, but instead was a perfect start to favour a constructive discussion and well argumented comments.

Your allowed to say that you got an idea from another forum, but linking or reposting something from another forum is against a long standing rule as it creates an "Us Vs Them" scenario.

And this is all off topic: The thread is about setting up the debate, not about anything else.

Thanatos wrote:

But it's true nonetheless, and pretty much served to shoot down that ridiculous appeal to authority Painrack attempted to pull on me while he was running short of actual arguments.

Says the guy who responded to any argument with "Its wank, anyone who disagrees is an evil warsie, can't hear you! Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah!" and declared everyone else a wanker. That was the tip of your flaming everyone in sight. You're lucky we let you off easy.

This is just your erroneous perception of what happened actually.
I used arguments, I used references, which is absolutely necessary when you wish to make a point against the ICS and its derived figures, but you're free to use those strawmen and live in denial all you want.

Then you have the balls to say that we need to enforce the no flaming rule? We did: your ass got banned.

Yes, among a many which weekly crawl around the versus forum. Again, I don't think the problem is about the flames, but about the reasons behind them. I understand why I was banned, but I point out this also limits the scope of arguments in a forum which has lost a lot of steam.

Ultimately, in regards to this thread, I'd have much less issues if you, as a moderator of SBC, could confirm if one is allowed to quote a whole post from another forum, if it was constructive, and not served as flamebait, but instead was a perfect start to favour a constructive discussion and well argumented comments.

Your allowed to say that you got an idea from another forum, but linking or reposting something from another forum is against a long standing rule as it creates an "Us Vs Them" scenario.

And this is all off topic: The thread is about setting up the debate, not about anything else.

Then a PM should work, dontcha think?

Thanatos wrote:

But it's true nonetheless, and pretty much served to shoot down that ridiculous appeal to authority Painrack attempted to pull on me while he was running short of actual arguments.

Says the guy who responded to any argument with "Its wank, anyone who disagrees is an evil warsie, can't hear you! Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah!" and declared everyone else a wanker. That was the tip of your flaming everyone in sight. You're lucky we let you off easy.

This is just your erroneous perception of what happened actually.
I used arguments, I used references, which is absolutely necessary when you wish to make a point against the ICS and its derived figures, but you're free to use those strawmen and live in denial all you want.

Then you have the balls to say that we need to enforce the no flaming rule? We did: your ass got banned.

Yes, among a many which weekly crawl around the versus forum. Again, I don't think the problem is about the flames, but about the reasons behind them. I understand why I was banned, but I point out this also limits the scope of arguments in a forum which has lost a lot of steam.

Ultimately, in regards to this thread, I'd have much less issues if you, as a moderator of SBC, could confirm if one is allowed to quote a whole post from another forum, if it was constructive, and not served as flamebait, but instead was a perfect start to favour a constructive discussion and well argumented comments.

Your allowed to say that you got an idea from another forum, but linking or reposting something from another forum is against a long standing rule as it creates an "Us Vs Them" scenario.

And this is all off topic: The thread is about setting up the debate, not about anything else.

Then a PM should work, dontcha think?

This is just your erroneous perception of what happened actually.

You literally called everyone who disagreed with you a "warsie wanker" or agent of SDN and then insulted people at every turn.

I used arguments, I used references, which is absolutely necessary when you wish to make a point against the ICS and its derived figures

Yes and you'll note that I never said anything about any burden of proof issues.

Thanatos wrote:SB.com has a much higher lower limit on Flaming. We're not so tight assed that we feel that we need to project a false, smug aura of politeness and ban all insults. Just ask Ripmax, if you had a dollar for every time he was called an idiot, you could pay for bandwidth to the end of time.

When you only enforce a rule occasionally, it tends to generate the appearance of inconsistency and bias - and it tends to be inconsistent and biased, even if you don't intend for it to be so.

Were I a wagering man, I would wager that I should be able to search the SB forum and find flaming left unaddressed by moderators that are worse than flamewars that are addressed.

What is the point of a flaming rule that is only enforced occasionally?

What is the point of an OSB rule that is based on limiting flames, when most flames escape moderation? For that matter, is the OSB even consistently enforced?

Most germane to the point: Is it really other sites' business when Thanatos is a SB.com moderator and the debate will be published already in multiple public places, rather than a single discussion board?

Whether the debate is posted there directly by Thanatos, quoted by interested others wholesale with or without linking to SDN or SFJ, or whether I publicize the debate directly on my website or wiki (which are not discussion boards), is not particularly important to me.

Thanatos wrote:

This is just your erroneous perception of what happened actually.

You literally called everyone who disagreed with you a "warsie wanker" or agent of SDN and then insulted people at every turn.

All I recall is pointing out the wank that permeates through the absurd figures from the ICS and related logics, and used the term warsies to laugh at Painrack's absurd appeal to authority.

I suppose you have evidence that I'm currently lying about what happened, right?

I used arguments, I used references, which is absolutely necessary when you wish to make a point against the ICS and its derived figures

Yes and you'll note that I never said anything about any burden of proof issues.

Bullshit. Next time, avoid pretending I responded to any argument with "Its wank, anyone who disagrees is an evil warsie, can't hear you! Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah!" and declared everyone else a wanker, because that's just lies.
I'm just quoting you.
See, next time maybe you'd like to tone down your flame baiting.

EDIT: Besides, your priceless antics at SDN are really getting downright pathetic:

They don't really need one. Mr Oragahn keeps complaining that I don't give him a free ride on whatever shit he thinks he should be able to do. Apparently he thinks that rules should only apply to "wanking warsies" and any attempt to regulate his behavior is part of a global Warsue conspiracy.

Don't tell anyone this, but it goes straight to the top: Bush has just signed into law a bill that forbids any criticism of the ICS. Trekkies are being rounded up worldwide and thrown into reeducation centers as we speak. The final victory begins!

It just confirms all the good I think of you. I see it's also typical of the lies and smelly sniping stuff some people at SDN like to be entertained with.
Good for them. I'm glad you found your place.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:It just confirms all the good I think of you. I see it's also typical of the lies and smelly sniping stuff some people at SDN like to be entertained with. Good for them. I'm glad you found your place.

Mr. Oragahn, I don't think that's a helpful thing to say. For what it's worth, I believe Thanatos seems to have so far been a better moderator for the SB VS debate section than Cpl_Facehugger and Skyzeta have been.

Now, I will say that linking to SDN does not seem to result in thread lock as often as linking to SFJ, and it is my perception that pro-ICS partisans tend to get free passes on behavior more often than anti-ICS partisans.

Jedi Master Spock wrote:

Mr. Oragahn wrote:It just confirms all the good I think of you. I see it's also typical of the lies and smelly sniping stuff some people at SDN like to be entertained with. Good for them. I'm glad you found your place.

Mr. Oragahn, I don't think that's a helpful thing to say. For what it's worth, I believe Thanatos seems to have so far been a better moderator for the SB VS debate section than Cpl_Facehugger and Skyzeta have been.

True, his moderating is actually sufficient, notably in comparison to Face's, but it's also amusing to notice the chiasm between his role as a flame moderator and enforcer of rules on SBC, and the radically opposite behaviour he displays at SDN. That's just a pinch of hypocrisy for you.

Now, I can't say much about the moderating of Skyzeta, I'm not behind every mod's butt to put a rating on their decisions.
However, we did have cases of moderating of late which has been unfair, which members pointed out.

It's gone a long way since the times SBC was considered a bastion of Trek or so.
Now the versus board is guarded by, at least, pro-wars people, if not people with clear affiliations with SDN and/or borrow the usual set of arguments.

This does NOT mean mods are doing it on purpose. It is just that unwittingly, a bias for a given side will, one way or another, always find a way to influence a judgement. I do not believe one can be totally unbiased.

As for the ability to keep flaming low, we can easily see in this thread how it's quite a total failure, even after I reported Kyo's agressive posts twice.
I quite lost patience with the guy, but that's a thread that's nearly 700 posts long. :)

On the topic of "the affairs of other boards do not concern us", the problem is rather simple. If you quote a whole piece of analysis which is totally detached of a board's culture or affairs, it should work, simply because in theory it could have been posted anywhere.
However, providing material for interboard flaming is reprehensible, so the ban I experienced made sense.
However, you won't be able to deny that it also made sense to draw a bit of history about the background of some people since they were presented as examples we should look at, based on their opinions and behaviours towards certains arguments or groups. My faulty post has been purely and simply erased, so I make my case here, just to get it clear for all.

Still, as I said earlier on, the trouble comes from how the rule rejects even constructive referencing.
Links to outside sources are prohibited from the moment they point to boards, never mind if what is brought from the other board could have come from anywhere, even a website with no discussion board whatsoever.