I Miss Boem...

"

Exile009 wrote:

Except he wasn't calling for favoritism. On the contrary, the change proposed by many here is very much consistent and applicable to all. Also, this isn't a court of law - not even close. That presumes there are societal structures in place to lend it legitimacy and accountability. The position of private online fora and their admins is more comparable to a feudal fiefdom than a modern court. Hell, even your words make that clear - where exactly is the "jury" here? And what's the distinction between the judges and the law enforcers (presumably referring to the police)? No, online fora like this are run by people who're empowered as judge, jury and executioner. There's a reason the actual justice system you're comparing this to isn't like that.

Also how do you know there's no favoritism shown the other way i.e. vendettas?

You are advocating removing perma probation or perma ban as a punishment for people breaking the rules. I disagree. Perma probation and Perma ban are permissible and consistent with the rules.

"

Lastly, what is the purpose of this forum? You call them "hardened criminals", which sounds like demonizing to me. What did they do wrong? If it was antagonism against other forum members, there's a Report button for that. Yet I'm fairly confident the majority of probations aren't a result of anyone being reported (yet another difference from the actual justice system - there's no need for a complaint to filed by any victims), but due to the mods themselves stepping in of their own volition. And a lot of the infarctions are for 'crimes' that a lot of people here may not object to in the first place. In other words, they're like the so-called 'victimless crimes' in the real world - and there's a reason why such 'crimes' are always controversial...

An analogy of forum rule breakers as criminals. Demonizing them, probably. I don't think speech crimes are victimless crimes. Speeches that has influences has positive and negative effects. In political philosophy, certain speeches are deem hurtful but necessary and form the backbone of certain democracy and free speech philosophy. Not everyone agree to them. If these 'crimes' are always controversial, punishing these rule breakers severely wouldn't be anything unusual or surprising. Not everyone share that viewpoint of unrestricted and unimpeded speeches and People disagree more often than they agree.

You didn't really address most of what I said in my first paragraph, just repeated your disagreement and left it at that. Ah well...

"

awesome999 wrote:

"

Lastly, what is the purpose of this forum? You call them "hardened criminals", which sounds like demonizing to me. What did they do wrong? If it was antagonism against other forum members, there's a Report button for that. Yet I'm fairly confident the majority of probations aren't a result of anyone being reported (yet another difference from the actual justice system - there's no need for a complaint to filed by any victims), but due to the mods themselves stepping in of their own volition. And a lot of the infarctions are for 'crimes' that a lot of people here may not object to in the first place. In other words, they're like the so-called 'victimless crimes' in the real world - and there's a reason why such 'crimes' are always controversial...

An analogy of forum rule breakers as criminals. Demonizing them, probably. I don't think speech crimes are victimless crimes. Speeches that has influences has positive and negative effects. In political philosophy, certain speeches are deem hurtful but necessary and form the backbone of certain democracy and free speech philosophy. Not everyone agree to them. If these 'crimes' are always controversial, punishing these rule breakers severely wouldn't be anything unusual or surprising. Not everyone share that viewpoint of unrestricted and unimpeded speeches and People disagree more often than they agree.

ALL crimes here are speech crimes. GGG don't probate for RMT, they ban. When I say 'victimless crimes', I'm not referring merely to speech crimes in general, but the speech 'crimes' as punished here - which notably are NOT punishable outside this forum. I already acknowledged 'hurtful' speech when I mentioned the Report button that you can see right there beside every post on this forum. So what you're attacking is a strawman. No, even if you think hurtful speech shouldn't be allowed, that does not justify the mod regime here. That doesn't explain why people get probated for mentioning politics or religion - something for which there's NO disagreement, it is entirely legal and permitted in the real world (you brought up the real world analogies, I'm just continuing them by showing you how wrongheaded they are). The only reason that's a 'crime' is because GGG says so. That's why I said online fora are more feudal fiefdoms - if you want to bring up courts here, then let me remind you that courts uphold laws passed by legislatures composed of people's representatives (or even in some cases the people themselves). The metaphor just breaks down entirely - there is no similarity between the carefully constructed checks and balances of the real world justice system and the fast and flippant mechanisms used in online fora like this.

So the philosophy behind speech crimes is irrelevant here. Even if one were to accept that hurtful speech ought to be curtailed, it STILL doesn't justify how things are done on both this and other private fora. There has always been a mechanism for curtailing hurtful speech here - it's sitting right there under your name next to every post you and others make. The reason why so many ppl here are "hardened criminals" isn't because of their speech victims, but due to the third party people who're allowed to act as judge, jury & executioner.

Also, since you support permanent probation, let me remind you that there aren't any life imprisonments for speech crimes. Indeed most of the time speech crimes don't even face imprisonment at all, and certainly whatever sanction is dealt to those offenders tends to be of a temporary nature.

If you insist on bringing in real world metaphors, I can break them down with an even deeper dive into those very same metaphors. Because here's the hard truth - we don't govern the real world the way we do online fora, the latter are typically FAR more dictatorial.

"

Exile009 wrote:

If you insist on bringing in real world metaphors, I can break them down with an even deeper dive into those very same metaphors. Because here's the hard truth - we don't govern the real world the way we do online fora, the latter are typically FAR more dictatorial.

People do get perm ban for lesser things on other forums. People do get throw in prison for speech crimes in real world, maybe not in your country. How you envision the world to be isn't how it is, it is diverse and different.

Legal and permitted doesn't mean everyone agree to it. Law are enacted by politicians or the majority votes. Controversial because there are always People who would disagree.

Perma probation isn't akin to life imprisonments. Perm probation can be circumvented if they really want to. It isn't as bad as you are portraiting it to be. It is beneficial for those who don't have any self restraint. If someone continue to repeatedly violate the rules, it show probation has little or no effect to curtail wrongful behaviours. If they continue rule breaking, Perma ban or probation is the obvious next step. If you think GGG would care about spending time and effort to deal with problematic and troublesome people, they don't. They are already too much hassle.

Corporations are dictatorial. This is a website run by a corporation. The internet is envision as something free and accessible, except the internet and the network is owned by corporation and cost them money. "Free" on the condition if you are the product.

Permaprobation CANNOT be circumvented.

Not if you want anyone to recognise you and frankly the only people who'd want to dodge probation very much care about that.

Ban, on the other hand, is strictly about shutting down one account. You are free to make another one with GGG's blessing.

As for favouritism...uh...I think were I the type to like it I would have support ed a different company. One that more clewrly operates like a normal business rather than one that until the steamer pandering absolutely treated people very equally regardless of circumstance.

Also I left the term "troll" quite open ended for a reason. It is a broad term but I like to think of it as someone who antagonises for the sake of it and cannot substantiate their stance when pressed. Again, the people we know in here who have been permanently probated were not trolls in that light. They were integral members of this community. We fought. We agreed. We spent time in the naughty corner. That's pretty typical of any online community in the long run.

So I reject notions of favouritism but do accept that "troll" is too loose a term.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

Permaprobation CANNOT be circumvented.

Not if you want anyone to recognise you and frankly the only people who'd want to dodge probation very much care about that.

That is still dodging probation even when nobody know who you are.

"

Also I left the term "troll" quite open ended for a reason. It is a broad term but I like to think of it as someone who antagonises for the sake of it and cannot substantiate their stance when pressed. Again, the people we know in here who have been permanently probated were not trolls in that light. They were integral members of this community. We fought. We agreed. We spent time in the naughty corner. That's pretty typical of any online community in the long run.

So I reject notions of favouritism but do accept that "troll" is too loose a term.

Heavier penalties on subsequent convictions when found guilty of committing offences is a common application of the law. If they were integral members of the community, they should be held to higher standards.

Where people complain the Forums are too strict, the mods are too lenient with them, so soft and hesitant. Both arbitrary and poorly enforced. Not upholding their own rules make them the mockery of their own moral authority. Weak and ineffectual.

Just to contextualise, I'm fairly sure I had a hand in the "doubling probation time per offense" practise.

I just figured that after the duration got to a certain point there'd be a bit more of a meaningful reckoning than simply "well a year is basically forever, bye chump".

And sure, there is still some dodging but I see no point in dodging a probation as someone else entirely. You can't interact with anyone because you will get made. I suppose it'd work if the need to post were not intrinsically tied to the desire to be read...some completely detached addiction to the mere act of submitting posts...but in my many years online, I never once encountered someone who did that. It is always about being seen and being known. It is about the basic message of Cheers.

But I grant that some long lost forum user, someone everyone thinks has been permaprobated, might be still around posting as essentially someone else. And absolutely no one knows.

It is possible. Just really fucking unlikely; one thing all permaprobates have in common is very strong online personalities, voices that stood out one way or another. In a way, that is WHY they are permaprobated. In that light, I stand by my sentiment that permaprobation cannot be effectively dodged or circumvented.

"

Exile009 wrote:

here's the hard truth - we don't govern the real world the way we do online fora, the latter are typically FAR more dictatorial.

That's not a "hard truth", it's a triviality. It's entirely appropriate that we don't govern criminal activity (I'm being more specific, because this is all the real world) by the same rules a company might use to run their community website.

Firstly because the consequences are so vastly different. You say things like "there isn't life imprisonment for speech crimes", and regardless of whether that's actually true, we should remind ourselves that there is no life imprisonment for poor behaviour on the Path of Exile forums either. The absolute worst that can happen is that you might, as in the case this thread refers to, lose the ability to post on that forum. Which is a pretty minor adjustment to anyone's life.

And second because there's nothing 'dictatorial' about people asserting control of their own spaces. You go to a store, or a swimming pool, or a pub, and piss off the staff and other customers, and you might be asked not to return. That's okay. That's their right; you have the freedom to take those actions, but they have the freedom to react accordingly. You can always go to another pub, another store; you're welcome to go start your own Path of Exile forum and run it however you like. This is one website about one videogame, it's not a country or a justice system or even a major media platform.

"

GusTheCrocodile wrote:

And second because there's nothing 'dictatorial' about people asserting control of their own spaces.

In that case, I challenge you to make the case for laws that undermine the right of said stores to deny service to certain types of customers based on certain kinds of identities. Or a business to refuse to hire certain kinds of people. And so on. It is, after all, their own space. So surely they can do what they wish with them, right?...

Of course, you could just maintain consistency by disavowing such interference. But I suspect you won't do that, indeed I suspect you support a lot of it. I also suspect you're going to refuse to answer this by calling it a distraction.

In general, I find it telling that people often support private privilege when it serves their agenda, and then curb said privileges when that does likewise.

"

Exile009 wrote:

"

GusTheCrocodile wrote:

And second because there's nothing 'dictatorial' about people asserting control of their own spaces.

In that case, I challenge you to make the case for laws that undermine the right of said stores to deny service to certain types of customers based on certain kinds of identities. Or a business to refuse to hire certain kinds of people. And so on. It is, after all, their own space. So surely they can do what they wish with them, right?...

Of course, you could just maintain consistency by disavowing such interference. But I suspect you won't do that, indeed I suspect you support a lot of it. I also suspect you're going to refuse to answer this by calling it a distraction.

Not a distraction, just an invalid comparison. Being a dick is not an identity, it's a set of actions.

"

GusTheCrocodile wrote:

Not a distraction, just an invalid comparison. Being a dick is not an identity, it's a set of actions.

Heh, so you admit you don't really believe in private privilege then. As soon as you can worm your way into an exception that serves your preferences, it's ditched without a second thought. It only matter when it serves your agenda.

Also, this forum doesn't simply probate people for being dicks, as explained above. I'm fairly confident the vast majority of probations here did not even follow a Report from anyone. And a decent chunk of them wouldn't even have involved any dickish behavior, just a victimless crime as mentioned above.