The inevitable questions that come from the Castle banning...

You know you need a semi-plausible reason before you ban those you dislike.

It's been obvious to me for a while that gul would like nothing more than to turn this place into TBBS 2.0 if he thought he could get away with it. The problem is, this place isn't packed with sycophants nor is it politically one sided.

IOW, people will question bans.

Using the lame BS TBBS uses to justify bans isn't going to fly here.

This is wilfully obtuse.
He was flooding an inordinate number of threads with what amounted to spam, causing the board to be measurably less active.

Aye.

And if wishes were wings, those poor pigs could fly.

It takes more than that, actually. You may have misunderstood my meaning in this post, as it was evidently vague. I was pointing out that his banning had nothing to do with my personal feelings toward him, else he would have been banned much sooner. Or maybe you did get that. Regardless, it takes more than one semi-plausible reason. Half the board could be banned in any given month if that were the standard. It takes a cascade of semi or completely plausible reasons. Years and years of giving us a reason is what earned John Castle his ban.

If we banned for one or two questionable incidents, the staff would be pretty busy.

So we're banning people now because they are hitting the bad Crystal Meth now? Or was there actual threatening against the board or posters involved? Can't find anything but his 'experiment' BS. For the record: I think he's more entertaining than annoying, in a car crash kind of way. His whole persona is just one shrill scream for attention. Look at me!!! LOOK AT MEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Is that ban worthy?

Who are these mystery posters who stayed away be cause of Castle, but didn't have the balls to say so?

There's no indication that anyone "stayed away". The statistic is that the board was less active overall - that is, the people who are here posted less. And that was likely not because of any conscious decision regarding Castle, but a byproduct of there being fewer threads worth posting in, seeing as he shit so many of them up.
The data was posted in a shelter thread.

Let's pretend that were true.
The people that feed into his shtick "shit up the thread", as much as him if not moreso, and everyone knows it.

And you, Chup, and a couple other 'tards following him around the board throwing shit at him was perfectly all right.

I mostly ignored him until the last week or two.

Sure you did.

Bullshit. If that was the case, garamet and Dayton would be banned, too. Go on, just admit that you and the other cowardly shitstains behind this ban made up any old excuse you could come up with and that the bullshit "social experiment" was something you just grabbed onto because you were annoyed at him for "shitting up a thread." Meanwhile you ignore everyone else that participated in that particular thread derailment or any of the others involving Castle.

You guys really suck at coming up with reasons to ban someone that makes sense outside of your echo chamber. I'm looking forward to seeing that shit when it gets released in the Shelter, unless you're too chickenshit to release it, that is.

LOL...you think that stuff is discussed in the Shelter....AHAHAHA

First rule of a forum management cabal. Discuss nothing important on the "management" forum. Always discuss things in mediums that aren't subject to audit by those not in charge. That includes the forum staff.

Some posters accept and understand the reason, some don't. That is how it will always be. There is a reason why the first rule is vague and subjective. Aurora wrote it that way, and subsequent owners have kept it in place, because there are going to be people who defy categorization. Make a thousand clear rules, and somebody will find a way to do something that only violates rule 1,001. It's the judgment of board ownership that rule 1 applies to Castle, that his persona and behavior aren't welcome. Considering the huge range of behaviors we do tolerate, I think so much moaning about this one particular decision is a bit misplaced. There's no end to behaviors at Wordforge that would get somebody the boot elsewhere. That's how most of us want it. That's how it is. Once in a while, there will be something that we decide not to tolerate, and because this is Wordforge, people will complain.

Anyway, have fun with that as long as it works for you. I've got a busy week ahead, so my time here is going to be spent on more interesting topics.

The only people who "accept and understand" the lame ass reason you banned Castle are the people who frankly are just as responsible for the thread derailments involving him as he was. The same people who are currently gloating over him being gone and talking shit about his life outside of this board. The number of which you can count on one hand, basically. And if you applied the rational you used to ban Castle, would also be banned, frankly But you're a bunch of fucking cowards so you can't even admit that to yourselves. It's pretty damn telling that the person whose argument you latched on to as an excuse to give Castle the boot is one of the people arguing against his ban and telling you that your rational for doing so is bullshit.


And Shooter, frankly I've lost some respect for you over your involvement in this. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself.

Srs bsns?

Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.

That has pretty much applied to every board drama in the history of WF, ever.

I'm not gonna rehash what's already been said, but I'm gonna say this ban on assholes being assholes in the Red Room is stupid and smacks of the the bullshit Tamar and Company put gul through with DW-gate.

#Annarchive

"DW-gate"?

Back during the board meltdown of 2007 that saw a good chunk of the board being banned, there was a poster at TK by the name of DW that was leaking info about the shelter there. The staff thought it was gul, let Storm rile up the board into thinking it was him and pretty much had the attitude of "Fuck it, gul is a shit stirring troll anyway, so he had it coming."

Yanno, the usual Elwood regime shit.

That reminds me, where did @Zombie go?

Edit: there was a Shelter thread, but I can't find it right now.

I don't remember much, if any, of that, but then I wasn't online much back in 2007.

http://wordforge.net/index.php?thre...sy-3-step-program-to-restore-the-peace.49438/

So is this why Gul was gone for a while? I always thought he'd just taken some time off.

My take on the banning Castle thing.

1) He was banned back in August for threatening to take down the board, and I believe he hinted that he had caused another board to go under or at least have issues staying around. He was banned because he was saying that would happen here as well. After being banned for several months, @gul let him back. But with some conditions. One of them being that he would no longer engage in the type of behavior that led up to his threatening the board. That type of behavior, whether it being fabricated as an experiment or not, was repeated. This led to his current ban.

Dayton was also banned for a week for threatening, or implying that he could have the board taken down or at the very least he could have portions of it erased. He too was banned for threats against the board.

2) Castle's postings that led to his current ban did not threaten the board or anyone on here (unless I missed something). But instead the ban was issued because he was a nuisance to deal with. There have been other members that were nuisances as well. But were not banned, but still left after some amount of time since they could not keep up their behavior for long.

3) If Castle's behavior only extended to the Red Room, then he wasn't actually violating the spirit of the Red Room. However he did post in response to or reply to certain members in lengthy and at times rambling posts. If he didn't carry this over to other rooms then was he really violating the spirit of the Red Room, and by extension the board?

4) Castle apparently said that his behavior was a social experiment. If so, was the response an emotional one? Or was it because he seen as a troll, intending to start trouble?

I would rather see Rule 1 banees restricted to only posting outside the Red Room.

Wouldn't the other way around be better?

Actually, I never knew anything about that shelter thread. I left because I was bored with the place, came back for the 2008 election, then left again. That said, interesting reading in that link. I do remember the CM revelations, of course, though I don't recall being active at Troll Kingdom during that time period.