I HEREBY STEP DOWN FOR NOW

[Res Ipsa]

For context: I came very close to stepping down yesterday over what I saw as very ugly comments directed towards Shades. It was just what Atlanticmike has been trying to do since the beginning. And, given the fact that I don't have a decades long relationship with people on this board, I have no doubt that there are forum members here who would throw me under the bus in heartbeat if they don't get exactly what they want. Why in the world would any sane person voluntarily put themselves in that position.

The only thing keeping me on the team right now is that Shades entrusted his baby to me. And I'll be damned if I'll betray that trust. So, I'm going to work with canpakes and xeno as a team to do what we think is best for the board. Right now, my general philosophy is to move toward Shades's Libertarian utopia and not away from it. That means adjusting enforcement and rules to take the place of the commitment to Libertarian values that form the necessary foundation of a free speech forum.

In law, we have a saying: hard cases make bad law. There's a corollary: any law named after someone is probably a bad law. Laws passed in hurry to address a single problem always suffer from the law of unintended consequences. The one thing about being a clone of Shades that I am not willing to drop is to approach problems dispassionately and with an aim to solve the problem without creating two new problems. So, if you're out for blood, you're probably not going to be happy with some of my recommendations. I will do the best to use my meager talents and limited good judgment to act in ways that I think are best for the good of the board.

If you have suggestions concerning rule enforcement or rule changes, please post them to the Rules and Moderators thread so that we don't miss any suggestions.

Thanks.

[msnobody]

Why do you have such ill intent, AtlanticMike?

A couple of days ago the Professor confirmed what I’ve been saying all along, that this board is an ECHO CHAMBER. Universal rule #1 states this board is for all opinions but that’s not true. Just go read the Professors post in the past few days.

Again, why do you have such ill intent?

[Marcus]

…I just fear equating different ideas and disagreement to trolling to be problematic. Someone shouldn't be banned for having an opposing viewpoint.

This is where a solid definition of trolling would be really helpful. The current most common definition is that a “troll” posts not to communicate, whether in agreement or disagreement, but rather with the deliberate intent to disrupt the communication process. There is no reference in the trolling definition to different ideas, only to the concept of a deliberate intent to disrupt. Moderators have to look across multiple posts to assess this, which is what trolls in the past counted on. If they could sneak a single post past a mod as borderline acceptable, they could continue to disrupt overall, without any single post giving them away. They could also point to single posts as being apparently acceptable, to fight accusations of trolling. Looking at overall intent is much harder, in my opinion, but it needs to be done.

(RI, i can copy this to the rules thread if you’ve already moved stuff.)
ETA: copied to rules thread.

[Atlanticmike]

You guys say that about every conservative poster. Just go check out what you guys say about Ajax18. No. You let multiple posters strong arm Dr. Shades into giving up his power. And when he came on and asked for just ten days, you failed, failed at the one job you have on the board and you didn’t back him up. As a moderator you should’ve came on here and backed him up. You should be ashamed of yourself. You and Canpakes both should be totally ashamed of yourselves for not backing Shades up. After he asked for ten days you let jersey girl melt down on the board and guilt trip Shades. None of you cared enough to calm down and think about him. Your actions along with your progressive butt buddies were more despicable than anything I have ever done on here.

I think you need to take Res' advice and engage the ideas/claims. I'm sure you have something to say if you raised the level a little bit and avoid incessantly posting the "progressives are dumb" threads. At least put them in one thread so others can talk about different subjects if they don't want to engage with your memes.

I’ve read numerous of your older post here in Spirit Paradise and it seems like you became tired of conversing with posters here in this forum. Is that true? it seems like Doc Cam got under your skin and you decided to stop posting here.

[Res Ipsa]

I have moved posts containing suggestions for the mod team to the Rules and Moderators thread so that we don't overlook any. Please post any suggestions there.

[Dr Exiled]

I think you need to take Res' advice and engage the ideas/claims. I'm sure you have something to say if you raised the level a little bit and avoid incessantly posting the "progressives are dumb" threads. At least put them in one thread so others can talk about different subjects if they don't want to engage with your memes.

I’ve read numerous of your older post here in Spirit Paradise and it seems like you became tired of conversing with posters here in this forum. Is that true? it seems like Doc Cam got under your skin and you decided to stop posting here.

Yep. I gave up on trying to convince the majority here of my views on russiagate. I always thought it was a political invention, but, we never had all the facts and so I gave up, knowing that perhaps the future would reveal more. Back then, disagreeing with that political narrative was akin to supporting Trump and Russia. Personally, I think Trump is a narcissist and a braggart, but that didn't matter. My personal opinion is that we are governed by a cabal of rich people and that the two parties create non-issues for us to fight about so we won't make reforms to stop the kleptocracy. Anyway, I realized that this isn't my board. It belongs to the community and the community has a particular ethos they follow generally. I think in your case, you should pick you spots and not try to convert the people here. Ask questions instead of making conclusory, inflammatory statements. The majority have their political views and if you disagree, be judicious and respectful, or don't engage.

[Kukulkan]

I don't know you Dr Shades like other do here who have been longer but I admire you for your ability to know when to do the right thing. Good leadership is not only knowing when to take the lead, but also to know when to delegate leadership when the situation calls for it. I know it must be hard to do so, as this forum means a lot to you. But I think you will find that it was the right move. People like AM are bad faith actors. They cannot and will not engage in meaningful discussion. Their purpose is to divide and instigate. I know that the changes in how the board may run might not align with your hopes for it, but I think this is a stark wakeup call in some ways. I think this realization we are all having must have been what it felt like for the first civilizations when they had to install their first laws. Everything was going peachy until Joe over here started to cause trouble. People were probably upset that there were new laws to govern them. But laws are there to govern the bad, not the good. Unfortunately we are bound by the lowest of us sometimes.

Anyways, this is mostly a ramble but as someone who has been hesitant to post here for the past couple of months because of all of the drama, it feels good to see that there might be some semblance of order here.

[Kishkumen]

Yep. I gave up on trying to convince the majority here of my views on russiagate. I always thought it was a political invention, but, we never had all the facts and so I gave up, knowing that perhaps the future would reveal more. Back then, disagreeing with that political narrative was akin to supporting Trump and Russia. Personally, I think Trump is a narcissist and a braggart, but that didn't matter. My personal opinion is that we are governed by a cabal of rich people and that the two parties create non-issues for us to fight about so we won't make reforms to stop the kleptocracy. Anyway, I realized that this isn't my board. It belongs to the community and the community has a particular ethos they follow generally. I think in your case, you should pick you spots and not try to convert the people here. Ask questions instead of making conclusory, inflammatory statements. The majority have their political views and if you disagree, be judicious and respectful, or don't engage.

Gee, let's have a thread about that.

[Alas]

For context: I came very close to stepping down yesterday over what I saw as very ugly comments directed towards Shades. It was just what Atlanticmike has been trying to do since the beginning. And, given the fact that I don't have a decades long relationship with people on this board, I have no doubt that there are forum members here who would throw me under the bus in heartbeat if they don't get exactly what they want. Why in the world would any sane person voluntarily put themselves in that position.

The only thing keeping me on the team right now is that Shades entrusted his baby to me. And I'll be damned if I'll betray that trust. So, I'm going to work with canpakes and xeno as a team to do what we think is best for the board. Right now, my general philosophy is to move toward Shades's Libertarian utopia and not away from it. That means adjusting enforcement and rules to take the place of the commitment to Libertarian values that form the necessary foundation of a free speech forum.

In law, we have a saying: hard cases make bad law. There's a corollary: any law named after someone is probably a bad law. Laws passed in hurry to address a single problem always suffer from the law of unintended consequences. The one thing about being a clone of Shades that I am not willing to drop is to approach problems dispassionately and with an aim to solve the problem without creating two new problems. So, if you're out for blood, you're probably not going to be happy with some of my recommendations. I will do the best to use my meager talents and limited good judgment to act in ways that I think are best for the good of the board.

If you have suggestions concerning rule enforcement or rule changes, please post them to the Rules and Moderators thread so that we don't miss any suggestions.

Thanks.

This is wise. Make sure all rules can apply to everyone and define very clearly what behavior is will get people banned. It needs to be specific, spelled out behavior. Such as “posts an inflammatory or controversial topic then just insults anyone who responds to the topic.” “Repeatedly uses personal attacks rather than engaging the subject matter.” See, I know of a couple of posters who do that. And for things like “sexism” have policy of second chances because honestly sometimes people don’t realize.

Do not just ban people because everybody hates them or let it look like you did. In fact do not ban AM or any others now. Just set the rules and let them violate the rules, then ban them

[Kishkumen]

What makes obvious trolling of this kind so terribly idiosyncratic that we are helpless in the face of it?

Honestly, we are not. Just put the guy on a holiday, as has been done multiple times in the past.