Ok, thank you. I think part of the confusion comes from the fact that we've heard this will only be used on Skrain; that Skrain is banned; and that Skrain will still be allowed to post under this new scheme. It's also been said that his posts would become more entertaining through this measure, and that his posts would give him a chance to rehabilitate himself. If he's banned and discouragement at 11 will be used to keep him banned, none of that seems to apply.
@Packard: No idea where that all came from, but like I said, the thread moved quickly. I think there was some use of the name Skrain to mean the person behind several obnoxious identities, and some to mean a specific user account. So yeah, the original account labelled skrain is banned, his duels are banned (not sure about the most recent one), and the person behind all of them is discouraged, meaning there is very little he can actively do at Wordforge, even with a new account. But we might lessen the discouragement at some point, so I wouldn't say he's banned for good. One thing I'm certain about, there is absolutely nothing that could make his posts entertaining.
Take that, Tapatalk, you bastard! *ahem* The root cause was a misspelled table module in the Tapatalk add-on. It was probably someone who had to quickly bang out a quick patch or something, and didn't notice it. I wonder how many others who installed the Tapatalk update saw this problem! Anyway, all fixed now.
And the way you and other staff have responded to respected posters in this thread is hardly conducive to trust. Contradictory, deliberately incomplete information, calling Chup a troll, telling Packard to "kindly knock it off"...
You mean where people were accusing me of things that were untrue, or taking shots at me? I'm not allowed to respond? That isn't conducive to trust? Thank you for coming in after the fact to admonish me on my manners during that very heated discussion between all of us. I don't know what I'd do without your hindsight.
If this is how you gauge trust, then you must not trust a single soul on Wordforge, including yourself. Now, do you have a question about the software?
Lots. But they have already been asked, and not given very clear or convincing answers. So why bother? It is clear that the point of this thread was simply to tell us what you are going to do ("you" meaning the staff, not just you personally), not to explain it clearly. If Packard (one of the most brilliant minds on the board, and not at all inclined to trolling) and tafkats (another bright guy, who is not at all inclined to trolling) find your explanations unclear, then it's pretty obvious that nothing really satisfying will be forthcoming.
You guys keep repeating this like if you say it often enough someone might believe it. This is not a fucking troll...it is disappointment and outrage that this kind of shit is being done here at all. Every other owner considered this kind of punishment and walked away from it because it's nasty and unnecessary. A new IP, a new account and a cookie dump will get around it just like a ban. There is no special magic that tells discouragement when a fresh IP is a dual in hiding and when it's a new person. Scorp made a board in case everything blew all to hell so there would be someplace to go if necessary. It wasn't, so no one even knew about it except a couple people when they left. After they left. It wasn't a failure to launch, it wasn't needed. But it's good to see paranoia still rules the day here. I have made no BS accusations and I sure as fuck don't care about "rebellion". I care about the board and the membership and I think most of us would prefer this "Discouragement" "tool" was not used and plain bans paired with privlege removals are instead. Even if it means having to ban duals multiple times. It's straightforward and not likely to ever cause unfortunate errors. Oh, and if this is nothing like trolling that what parts of this is so funny and entertaining then?
I'm curious as to what parts are funny and entertaining, too. Maybe you can enlighten us about that Tamar?
I'm guessing that's a reference to post #6. Several people caught on that, but no one seemed to notice that it wasn't one of the staff that said it, and no staff member ever agreed to that sentiment. It was apparently just a tongue-in-cheek "aside" rather than a serious opinion. Somewhat along those lines, and in light of the repeated statement that the disapproval in this thread all stems from Tamar trying to troll the staff, it is worth noticing that 6 different non-staff posters had participated in the thread before Tamar did, several of whom clearly expressed reservations about this function. The first was Packard, actually. Sometimes in a long thread, it's useful to keep track of who said what, to avoid attributing things to people based on preconceived notions rather than on actual facts. That goes for both sides in this debate.
Well tafkats is on staff and she had already poisoned the well in the Shelter. Had she not already convinced him that this was a tool for trolling, and hadn't been stoking the same fire in this thread, I think the reservations expressed early on would have been much easier to explain. Instead we ended up with two parallel discussions, some talking about what the tool actually is and some about something it is not. This just confused and annoyed everyone. Well, everyone being the six posters unhappy/confused by the idea and the three of us trying to explain it.
Is Packard on staff as well? He is the one who first brought up the concerns in this thread, before either Tamar or tafkats had posted. If he isn't, how can his concerns, taken up by others, be the result of "Tamar poisoning the well" in the Shelter?
Oh my god, you are so desperate you are trying to turn me into some kind of brainwashing troll queen? How sad can this get? For fuck's sake...I can't understand how the staff can't see how elements of this "tool" are nasty and something we should have no need of inflicting on anyone. I am agog that none of you can see how the effects of this "tool" have the same results of traditional trolling of a victim. Of course you probably do and this is just a matter of trying to either shut me up or try and make me look so bad that no one will listen to me. Which again makes me wonder why so much investment in this software that there is a need to do that? Hey, even if a disappear forever today this isn't suddenly going to be a great idea. I don't know, gul. Perhaps you can ask John? Am I really crazy to have read that statement and got the idea that this "tool" essentially trolls the recipient?
The staff digging their feet in on a bad idea, and being snippy about it...where have I seen this before?
And trolling a troll is a bad thing because -? Oh, because it doesn't show up on the board so you can have your lulz. If staff want to go through this intermediate step instead of banning the sumbitch outright, that's their choice. It's extra amusing that you're the one making a BIG DEAL out of it.
I think it's a question of policy rather than technology. If you want to ban Skrain, ban him. If you want to discourage him, do that. Just be clear on a) who is being punished, b) for what, c) for how long, and d) what they need to do to be unpunished. People want clarity from staff in order to support/fight/be ambivalent about specific policies. Double-secret probation is not clear and deniable, and therefore not likely to be accepted by members.
Btw, @John, the delay upon pressing "reply" is still there. If we're absolutely sure it isn't connected with Discouragment, I guess it's something to look into at some point, since it's new as of last night and doesn't happen to me on other sites, but does happen to me on two different desktops, my tablet and my phone. (I can imagine at least two methods of identifying posters that could lead to such a delay, but I'll keep that speculation to myself lest I inadvertently trip over the secret being kept.)
Come on, guy, give them a break. After so many years of not being able to ban you, can you blame them for trying this new toy? "The Battle of the Giants: Packard vs. Discouragement! Live on Wordforge! Place your bets here!"
This. As for the reply issue, there could be a myriad number of reasons why that's happening to you, @Packard. I'll take a look and see if it's something on our end, though.
