I Miss Boem...

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Exile009 wrote:

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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.

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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.

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Exile009 wrote:

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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.

See, now this is a deflection. Make a bad point, have that calmly pointed out, immediately discard it and attack your opponent's beliefs. Anything to avoid keeping the domain of discussion on the reality of the case in question. This 90s forum debatebro culture of "attack, attack, always attack" is inane.

My statement was never "I believe in private privilege", as some term you get to define on my behalf. It's not inconsistent that I don't hold to an absolutist, unstated "anyone can do anything they like" position that you've imagined for me.

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Exile009 wrote:

I'm fairly confident the vast majority of probations here did not even follow a Report from anyone.

Given that only the moderators would have access to that information, it's not clear what you're basing that confidence on. But either way, how is it even relevant whether or not a user reported something? The moderators are the ones making moderation decisions, that's what they're there for.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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Exile009 wrote:

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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.

See, now this is a deflection. Make a bad point, have that calmly pointed out, immediately discard it and attack your opponent's beliefs. Anything to avoid keeping the domain of discussion on the reality of the case in question. This 90s forum debatebro culture of "attack, attack, always attack" is inane.

My statement was never "I believe in private privilege", as some term you get to define on my behalf. It's not inconsistent that I don't hold to an absolutist, unstated "anyone can do anything they like" position that you've imagined for me.

I didn't discard anything, nor did you point out anything. What I called private privilege is simply the argument you'd made earlier - that "there's nothing 'dictatorial' about people asserting control of their own spaces." And I pointed out two - among many - examples of how that kind of prerogative is hardly respected. You didn't come up with any counterargument to that, you simply carved out an exception for things you don't like - specific identity-based limitations - and then insisted it did still apply to this case cos these weren't based on those protected identities. In other words, you undercut your own argument but then insisted it wasn't undercutting cos you consider it an exception. By that logic, every position can be anything one wants since anything inconsistent with the position can be seen as exceptions.

It's sort of like the 1001 Commandments method - just make a "rule" (more like a whim in this case) for every situation one encounters and insist that you are indeed morally consistent cos every choice you make is its own rule. No fundamental philosophy, no logical extrapolation from a set of axioms - everything is a rule and/or an exception to pre-existing rules.

Besides, one can find examples of private privilege being curtailed for 'asserting control' based on behavior as well. Unionisation is common example - although not wholly established everywhere yet, it's already hard for a company to fire someone with the open reason being that they were trying to unionize (they typically just concoct some fake other reason to do it - for now - which itself shows how troublesome it is already). Hell what about firing someone for being honest aka whistleblowers? Or how about when identity and actions collide, such as wrt culturally imbued clothing or even body art? How much private privilege will companies be allowed to exercise over objections to stuff like that? I can go on, albeit this is already rubbing against the very CoC rule that likely got Boem canned in the first place.

Btw, you can find examples that curtail "asserting control of their own spaces" for homes as well, typically religious ones so I'll leave it for now.

Point being that 1) you arbitrarily carved out an exception for private privilege regarding identities while insisting it still applied to the things you don't like, and 2) even in that domain it isn't consistently respected.

In other words, the 1001 Commandments - just indulge whatever preferences you have and insist that's still a principled position by calling every one of them a 'rule'. Yeah of course you'll never be found hypocritical then...

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

"

Exile009 wrote:

I'm fairly confident the vast majority of probations here did not even follow a Report from anyone.

Given that only the moderators would have access to that information, it's not clear what you're basing that confidence on. But either way, how is it even relevant whether or not a user reported something? The moderators are the ones making moderation decisions, that's what they're there for.

Now you're deflecting. You based your position on people being dicks, for which if people are being probated without having antagonized anyone here means they were probated for, as I called it above, a victimless crime. And it's pretty easy to be confident of that hypothesis, since a lot of the probations here are for a 'crime' that few people would ever bother to report, namely bringing up politics or religion. If you insist on believing that people who have no reason to be upset themselves (as they weren't attacked in such cases so they have little reason to harbor any desire to punish said 'criminal') would diligently call on the mods to enforce that rule, that is just you being willfully difficult in order to avoid giving in. The moderators are indeed the ones making the moderating decisions, as suits their fancy - that's pretty much what I said already. You don't have a problem with that only cos you're quite happy to selectively apply private privilege as and when it suits you.

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Exile009 wrote:

I didn't discard anything, nor did you point out anything.

Uh, yes, I did. You "challenged" me to make a case for identity-based exclusion, as if I had advocated for such. I pointed out that that is an irrelevant argument because people on this forum are not banned for their identity. I get that you don't agree, but outright declaring that things weren't said is very silly.

Look, when I said there's nothing dictatorial about people controlling their own spaces, what I meant was "organisations having sets of rules and excluding people for their behaviour is not in itself a problem". I was talking about the basic situation of having and exercising that control, not all specific instances. Like if someone says "driving cars isn't a violent act", they may not mean to suggest that's true even if there happens to be a toddler in front of the car in a specific case.

So what I did not mean was "every decision made by an organisation is morally justified by their legal right to make it". I understand that that meaning may have come across anyway and so I apologise for a lack of clarity in my words.

But I was, and am, really just calling for a little bit of perspective. This talk about dictators and justice systems and companies firing unionising workers and the like is really giving this whole thing an air of significance it absolutely does not deserve.

A user got banned from a videogame forum for repeatedly breaking the rules in likely a whole bunch of different ways (not just being a dick to others, sure, but not just 'bringing up politics and religion' either). This is not an injustice, let alone some grand tragedy of the modern age. If a videogame company doesn't want particular topics broached on their community forum, well, that's not hurting anyone, it's not an attack on anyone's rights. As much as anyone might prefer that they be allowed to discuss those things here (I'd be among them!), it is nonetheless really not an unreasonably invasive or strenuous request, and the rules here are not remotely difficult to abide by. So I've little sympathy for anyone who knows the expectations of this one free website, chooses to regularly disregard them, and finds there are consequences for that. They haven't been harmed.

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Exile009 wrote:

Now you're deflecting. You based your position on people being dicks, for which if people are being probated without having antagonized anyone here means they were probated for, as I called it above, a victimless crime.

This "if" is doing a lot of work. Not being reported for antagonising people is not the same as not antagonising people; you can't conclude the latter from the former (even if you could prove the former in the first place). And following on from that, not antagonising people is not the same as not breaking the rules, or not making the community a worse/less welcoming place, etc etc.

I mean, it's certainly not the case that everything that doesn't get reported therefore represents a respectful and constructive contribution to the community. A forum can simultaneously be a complete cesspit and also not have any of its posts reported by members, just because those are the kinds of people who stayed. GGG probably doesn't want that though, since they want to attract new players.

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Exile009 wrote:

If you insist on believing that people who have no reason to be upset themselves (as they weren't attacked in such cases so they have little reason to harbor any desire to punish said 'criminal') would diligently call on the mods to enforce that rule, that is just you being willfully difficult in order to avoid giving in.

I do not believe that. I don't take a position on how many reports are coming in about particular things.

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Exile009 wrote:

The moderators are indeed the ones making the moderating decisions, as suits their fancy - that's pretty much what I said already. You don't have a problem with that only cos you're quite happy to selectively apply private privilege as and when it suits you.

Please practice your mindreading skills before deigning to tell me what I think. I don't have a problem with the moderators banning people who regularly break the rules because I don't think the community will be worse off for their absence.