Trolling and flaming in the Green Room

You know what the upside to it is, though? It's the combination of the mouse's ergonomics and being able to press down with all three/four fingers on the mouse surface to click, instead of with just the index finger. There's no describing or explaining how much more comfortable that is; you'd just have to try it. Or not, it's not a life-changing deal.

I will not use a computer without a mouse that has both left and right buttons and a scroll wheel. And I'm a Mac person. Love the hardware, love the OS, hate the mice.

Nope, you're not. My hands always brush the touchpads on laptops, which causes me no end of frustration. I've got a trackball plugged into my laptop. I don't care how weird it looks, it makes it useable for me. I think Lenovo still makes laptops with the eraser thingies, but I don't know for sure.

I split my time between the Magic mouse and the trackpad. The only time I even prefer the mouse is for certain games, and even then there's not a lot of gaming to be done on a Mini.

If I should get a PC again, though, serious gaming will demand a serious mouse.

Tell me how you, or anyone else who wants to do that, can, and how it relates to Sokar being "protected".

What would you have us do? Ban multiple smilies in rep comments? How many is crossing over the line? And would three big smilies equal several smaller ones? Tell us how you would do it.

Exactly.

Large images will get you in trouble.

Smilies....again we should ban smilies from rep?

If it causes a board issue it will be an immediate vacation. Apparently, he wants to risk that just to post a string of oreos, which frankly have done nothing to stop Liet either.

I think that's kind of a stupid risk to take for so little reward, but hey.

I doubt a string of oreos will break the board. It is, after all, the same image, just displayed a bunch of times. It's not like the computer is downloading 20 oreos, and chances are, the smilie itself is in the cache.

At least it's not the same as when Anna used to bomb people's usercps with 20 : tbbs : smilies.

I thought that was the precedent, but then Lanzman threatened to ban me if I kept starting threads about a particular celebrity whose antics I find amusing/horrifying. Apparently it was "trolling another member with their personal information," even though I never mentioned any member by name.

It's a matter of disrupting UserCP functionality. If the spammed s don't stretch the table so that functionality is blocked, hidden, or otherwise broken, and the line of smilies doesn't cause issues with horizontally stretching the browser frame (some browsers have problems with extremely wide pages), I don't care.

Edit: I've checked. It doesn't break anything.

I find it very hard to care then.

Don't forget that Aquehonga got told to knock it off when he did his brand of rep smileys. There is precedent, even if Aque's was a special brand of annoying.

I believe, at the time he was using large ones as well.

Plus, he was a pretty new poster and all he was doing was hurling smilies...not what I'd call much in the way of participation.

He has been much better since he's come back...it is appreciated.

This thread is like watching bullies take candy from a baby. Retarded bullies. Taking candy from a retarded baby.

So posting an avatar with the initials of a member is 'trolling with personal information', whereas posting a picture of the member, even photoshopping it on a disgusting body, is not.

The staff here is SO FULL OF SHIT it isn't funny.

I've deleted any personal information I've posted here, such as amusing pictures from my life, because I can't trust the staff to act like grown ups.

Demi don't buy into the 14th Doctor shit. We've been through this before with him. He's not the "innocent" and Lanzman isn't "the man who is a big meanie" that he likes to pretend about.

He's played the "first name of a poster embedded in multiple thread titles" game more than once.

This isn't an issue with Lanz.

Its an issue with widely divergent enforcement of the rules based on a) who is in charge and b) who the target of the trolling is. It means I can't share a funny pic of my kid in the green room, because based on this precedent trolling of any images there is A OK.

Hell, shit like this is the reason the board exists. The owner of Big Blue got tired of running it, and turned it over to a person that was most invested in it. That person turned out to be a poor judge of character and let the power cause her to make tons of silly mistakes.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure as hell rhymes.

I fail to understand why so many on this board don't understand the rule even though it has been around for a long time.

The rule has always been that "anything" posted on this board by you the poster is fair game for everyone else except if that "anything" was posted by you in the Blue Room. Stuff on the internet but not posted on Wordforge is also off limits for others to use.

If you are stupid and post said picture of kid in the Green Room it would be like waving a red flag in front of bull. In other words you're going to get the horns and deservedly so!

People on this board have been able to troll you with what you post in all rooms except the Blue Room for a long time.

There is no precedent.

I think some people are confusing three separate issues here. Let me try to clear this up.

Issue One: Pics in the Green Room

Okay on issue one John Castle posted pics of a guy in the Green Room. Even claimed the pics were not him. Just the fact he posted the pics made them fair game for EVERYONE on this board to use his argument about ownership pretty much being invalid on every front.

No "privacy" applies here because the poster, John Castle, himself posted the pics in the Green Room.

(which is why posting a pic of your daughter in any room not called Blue Room would be the height of stupidity.....)

Issue Two: Using those pics to troll

Even though those pics are now able to be used for trolling John Castle we do as a board have a no trolling policy in all rooms except the Red Room and any thread marked as a Red Room thread (in the Blue Room).

Clearly John Castle was being trolled with the photos of him in those avatars.

However that leads us to the last issue which caused the problem.....

Issue Three: The pics may not be him.

According to John Castle those pics were not him. They only became him when Gul and El Chup started using them in avatars.

If they aren't pics of him then how can he be trolled? The answer is that he can't.

Given his past actions of continually lying how does the staff know what is the truth? They don't. So Tamar makes a call: The pics are not John Castle and therefore not trolling until John Castle proves it. Realistically the only way he can prove it is to deal with Lanzman and get Lanzman to over ride Tamar's decision.

If John Castle had been someone like Evenflow would the result have been different? Yes.

Why? Because Evenflow has credibility on this board. It's not likely that he is lying nor does he have a history of lying, spamming, trolling, or being an general all around pain in the ass. The odds are that Tamar would have come down on his side and told Gul and El Chup that while trolling with the pic would be legal in the Red Room (or Red Room icon threads in the Blue Room) they are trolling outside the Red Room and therefore they can not use the pictures for avatars.

There is no new precedent. The rules are being followed. Tamar had to make a judgment call. It sucks for John Castle but past actions do indeed play a part in how others make decisions about you.

I'd also add that Evenflow would never be trolled in such a manner for two reasons. First, he's not a fucko and therefore not a target, second, he would laugh it off, rendering any attempted troll a failure.

That's bullshit.

All he has to do is post a pic of himself with the words 'My user ID on Wordforge is John Castle.'

What's really at issue here is John Castle trolled Tamar with HER pics on another site, and she's looking for an excuse to get back at him. Seemed to work pretty well. The problem of course is the fact that people see through the BS, and there's unintended consequences. Throwing it to Lanz when we know he isn't going to be back for a month or so is more BS - its just a way to let the trolling continue without having to take responsibility for it.

After all, Tamar is changing forums around and was give the power to run the place as she sees fit. Clearly that includes making a judgement call such as this. She's just spouting more BS.

If there is a pic being used of you to troll you across the board its not only a violation, its THE violation explicitly stated in the rules as the #1 tenant of WF - not trolling outside the Red Room.

Of course, that's just rules lawyering as well.

The fact is, this isn't the HARD ASS INTERNET WARRIORS site any more. That was always lame as shit any way.

This is a community, one where many of the users know each other through other avenues.

Do you want to be friends or not?

Because if the answer is I can't be friends with the people I've been talking to for the last decade on this site, there isn't any fucking point to it.

This talk of new users is a phantom - most new users are duals, and while we ocassionally get someone who comes in and contributes, mostly its the same old folks with the same old shit.

But I've got no use for the internet warriorz.

Yes, I've deleted my pic in the green room that was made explicitly for the 'community' aspect of WF.

The Blue Room was always about blogs. It should be reclassified as a community area, and threads such as the pic thread should be moved there.

Of course John Castle said those pictures were not him.

And he's not a trustworthy poster.

Perhaps he would photoshop a picture.

I guess he could post a video. That would work.

But as I said above in several other posts: John Castle dug the hole and then jumped in it.

He has no credibility at this point. Not like you have......

Sure is. Finest in the quadrant.....

Seems like you're spazzing here......

Where did you get the impression that you can't be friends with people here?

It's just you've got to be safe about it. Talk to your friends with pictures of your daughter in the Blue Room or over Private Messages. Don't do it in any other room.

Because there are people on this board who aren't your friend.....

Green Room description:

"Come and relax in a forum for sports, fun and light conversation. Leave your worries at the door!"

Blue Room description:

"Share your life with the community! Forget the blog, enter the Blue Room!"

I don't think you understand the concept.

The pic thread shouldn't be moved to the Blue Room area. If you want to post pics of your daughter (and seriously why the hell would you do something stupid like that?) do it in a Blue Room thread that you started.

Hell you could start a new pic thread in the Blue Room: "Post your private pics here"

Doubt you'd get many takers....

The Green Room picture thread is just fine where it is. People shouldn't be posting pictures of family members in said thread unless they really don't care....

As evidenced by Ron Paul who contacted Lanz by email Lanzman could easily be reached by John Castle if Jon wanted to.

Now what would Lanz do? I don't know.

But let's not act like Lanzman took a cruise around the world or something. He's just taking a break from this place.

And I think you haven't been paying attention to the fact people have been sharing the personal lives with each other in the Green Room. Go look at the Picture thread and get back to me - there's pics of Forbin's family, Frontline's family, Gul's family, Kreig's family, Chaos Descending's family, the hot chick ShootER is stalking (LOL), Volpone at work, Shakes and what may be her kid, EzriTorres kid, Bicenden, Anc, Foil's brother and friends, Garamet, SpaceTurkey, Bailey, and a few more.

There's the BADASS WF that exists in your mind, and then there's the one that exists now.

No, I don't think all those people are idiots, nor do I believe that they should have to put up with people photoshopping their images into various shitty avatars.

And no one would have put up with that if it happened, except the fact that the person it happened to is disliked, and now there's a precedent for allowing it.

You are arguing for arguing sake, and it is making you look silly.

If that's the case then why exactly is Tamar waiting for Lanz to get back to make a ruling?

Oh right, she's using it as an excuse because she wants Vizionrazor trolled because she's still pissed of that he did it to her on SD.net.

What's your point?

Those people posted those pics. If some ass uses those pics then they've no business complaining.

Odds are however that those pics won't be used because those posters aren't assholes who piss off a lot of other people.

I don't think WF is badass. I'm just not a huge cry baby like you.

And the bulk of them will never have to put up with it because they aren't bastards who drive others into doing these things.

There is no new precedent.

One has always been able to take pics out of the Green Room and troll with them in the Red Room. In this case two posters used them as avatars because the poster of the picture said the picture wasn't him.

Why do you think you never see pics from Zombie in the Green Room?

That sort of example is exactly why I think having specific personal information rules is a bad idea.

If I was writing the rules, it would be something like this:

Much of the issue here is that we have attempted to define rules too strictly, and that just invites trolls to try and test the limits, then cite precedent and play internet lawyer. Then staff are stuck in a no win situation. Either allow behavior that is technically within the long established rules but extremely distasteful, or act against it and provoke a massive backlash from people who will cry favouritism and start the internet lawyer precedent game.

That's a good rule.

I know a lot of people don't like the "rules lawyer" stuff but no matter what you do it's going to happen. And lot's of people who decry the "rules lawyer" thing play it just as much as anyone else.

Even with what you posted you'd still have lots of situations that crop up along with the usual charges of favoritism.

The only way to prevent it is to turn Wordforge into the type of board no one wants which is a board where you are just banned. No warnings, no nothing. You just disappear. Not even a chance to dispute what is happening to you.