Trolling and flaming in the Green Room

Exactly. That's the thing people often neglect to realize when insisting that the staff need to sort out a situation. We don't have a userbase big enough that we can be heavy handed enough to stop people doing borderline things without it possibly destroying the board.

So are they idiots that should have never posted their pics or should they have no expectation that those pics will be used against them? You aren't exactly showing a constant POV here Zombie.

What you think of me is the least of my concerns.

WF needs to be a community first and a place where you can be the bestest troll ever second.

Rules that exist to protect the privacy of the members that want to enjoy it as a community are the best way for it to survive.

Right.

Because the bitch deserved it, did you see the dress she was wearing?

People target others all the time here for the most trivial of reasons. Like they think they are too 'liberal' or 'conservative.' Fucking RINOs. LOL.

The poster did say it was him. That alone should have stopped it. Whether he claimed it was prior or not was a clever bit of trolling, but also just an excuse. Gul knows it was him, that's why he did it.

It goes back to rule #1.

If there is a question whether or not it was a pic of that member, then it shouldn't have been allowed to be trolled with.

And as I stated earlier, it would have been pretty easy to determine if it was a pic of that member if the staff was actually interested in that.

I always thought it was your probable appalling lack of personal hygiene, but I have no actual information to base that speculation on.

Which is why you hand out warnings and not go straight to the permaban.

Rules lawyers will always exist, and having no rules to speak of just makes it worse because its the same instinct to bitch about the staff. The rules are there to protect the staff as much as they are the membership.

This one was a pretty common sense rule though. You can't troll outside the red room.

Look at Lanz's application - initials were banned because the intent was obviously to troll.

Tell me Gul, El Chup and Liet weren't obviously intended to troll. You'll be lying out your ass if you do.

An excuse was found to allow them to do it because the poster is not liked.

Tell me that us banning Gul, El Chup, and Liet would have resolved the situation and not started a much larger shitfest.

Like it or not (and I don't like it) with the way the rules currently are, people have found how to play them like a fine instrument. That's why I think they should be reduced to more of a judgement call so that situations like this can be more easily stopped.

We might be idiots, more likely we just aren't paranoid. Pictures of my kids are all over the place, I see no particular reason to expect harm from this any more than I expect harm from them playing in a public park.

Well, no, I don't know it's him. But that's beside the point. What actual harm is done by the avatars in question? Imagine a bar where we all hang out, and I have a picture of John Castle that I put on the dart board. People enjoy throwing darts at the picture. Maybe I scribble some offensive comment across the picture. That's equivalent. Where is the harm? The fact is, John Castle made a stink about it not because he felt harmed, but because he saw a chance to make a stink. Bigger picture, the controversy created some genuine reflection about the issue of privacy, something that is probably good for the entire board.

I guess I'm not seeing this as a linear solution - the only two options weren't to ban or not to ban.

Give them a way out to save face, in this case the silly 'it isn't really him' POV, and give them a friendly. If they continue after the friendly, give them a warning. If they continue past that, they deserve a short vacation. If it goes on when they come back, then they need to go play somewhere else.

Its not hard.

This WAS a judgement call.

There was just more going on than a desire to implement the rules to the best usage of the community.

That's why it is a problem and still being talked about.

I too was once as innocent as you.

Lots of the time when these situations start people involved have had pm's from one staff member or another asking them to stop in a friendly non-official way.

Occasionally that works, most of the time not.

As soon as warnings start, so does drama. If there is a perception that the warning was undeserved based on the rules then more people start doing the thing that earned the warning, while others publicly start debating why it wasn't justified.

While all this is going on, all it is doing is drawing more and more attention to something we were trying to stop, that is the widespread use of someones information.

edit: basically what I'm saying is that I agree with you, but that doesn't work with how the rules are setup now. The mindset about them needs to be changed.

I'm not the one that called you an idiot. I pointed out you should have a reasonable expectation of not using pics of your kids to troll you, even if they were posted in the Green Room.

As a community, people would go apeshit if that happened. However, right now, its not against the rules. And I think that should change.

That's a different question than is it a smart idea to post pics of your family on the internet, btw, one that's specific to this community and what its rules should be.

No, its exactly the point. You intentionally trolled him based on the fact that you knew it would upset him. It upset him tremendously to the point he had a nervous breakdown on Facebook.

Mental illness, always fun to poke around with that, isn't it?

Sure, where's the harm in taunting the strange kid, or making fun of the gay kid. Surely no bad has ever come of that!


Not everyone is as balanced as you and the people you surround yourself with.

Maybe it was all a troll by VR. If so, he trolled you better than you trolled him.

But I don't think so, I think he lost his shit because he's got some other issues going on.

I don't believe his 'its all a master troll' schtick. You've stated you don't either.

And because the staff botched this one, there is a major privacy issue going on.

But you know what, I don't think your 'I iz a master troll' schtick has legs either. I think you were trying to fuck with a guy you don't like, not trying to address a bigger issue.

Because you could have addressed that easily.

And you kept doing it until people started telling you you were the problem. Then you wisely backed off.

So excuse me if I don't quite buy the fact this was all just a well intentioned jibe to get the staff to look at their privacy rules.

You went too far, the staff didn't act appropriately, now we have TEH DRAMAZ.

Everyone will certainly remember the shitstorm of 2012, but not as the kindly actions of a concerned poster over the well being of the board.

I'd like to know more about this chick I'm supposed to be stalking.


Is she at least hot? :ohplease:

Nervous breakdown?

No.

Looked more like a known troll who didn't like that things weren't going his way throwing a tantrum.

Condescending much? LOL.

I modded TNZ a decade ago Bailey. The real SkinofEvil, Daystrom, scores of other trolls. Hell, I got myself banned from Troll Kingdom just to prove to them that their line 'we don't ban anyone' was full of shit.

I am fairly aware of how these things work.

Did that happen this time?

Its part of the process.

Sure. Part of the job.

And if the rules were implemented correctly, they protect the staff, because the majority of people agree and the ones that are bitching about the rules are guys that are just trolling in a different form.

If they weren't, those guys don't get ignored, and it becomes a larger problem.

Can't use that excuse here. It is exactly what DIDN'T happen - the avatars were never ruled as a violation.

Sorry, I like you and respect you but I disagree on this instance.

What should have happened didn't, and it had nothing to do with what you posted here.

LOL, sorry, it was Forbin doing the stalking. You just responded to one of his pics, teasing him about it. My mistake.

FORBIN is the stalker.

I'm well aware of TNZ, and I'm sure you remember how Wordforge initially came about because a large number of posters left over a perceived inconsistency in the moderation there.

Oh, so its my fault is it?

Funny that me and Alphaman left too.

The problem at Trekbbs was Lisa.

I left there as a statement of principle. Same with Alpha.

The Avatars were the same issue as modifying a sig with a troll, which had long been established as against the rules because it showed up in places other than the Red Room.

This was yet another case of the simple rules here not being enforced.

You guys botched it. Clear as day.

I don't see him saying you're at fault in what happened at TNZ.

Nah, I did it because the staff explicitly said it was okay to do. The chronology is WAB, then Chup, then Face, then me. I didn't join until the ruling came down from on high. I was surprised by the ruling, but decided to exploit it because I don't believe it caused harm but also to shine a spotlight on it. There's no master trolling, just taking advantage of a situation. Isn't it better that we get this out in the open if so many people disagree with the decision?

If I'm mistaken I apologize. Clarification would be appreciated.

And there could have been much deliberation going on about this issue that I'm not aware of.

But as far as I know, a) no one from the staff asked the three individuals with avatars to remove b) no friendlies were issued, c) no warnings were issued, and d) no one was banned.

A problematic outcome IMO, and the appearance of made worse by the acknowledgement that such things had been done to Tamar by JC/VR/SoE in the past, thereby granting serious consideration to conflict of interest.

All of which occurring shortly after Lanz decided to leave the board.

I have a hard time seeing how this could be construed to have been handled well.

You need one set of rules for all posters. Even the ones that are unpopular due to their own actions.

Fair enough, I withdraw my statement and apologize. I had concerns about the 'breakdown/master troll' (depending on your POV) and was unaware of the reasoning behind your actions.

Indeed, you are quite lucky.

Last time I did such a thing the staff locked my account for a day and claimed it was because I had clearly been hacked.

Edit - well, you might have been making an issue about privacy, but looking back in your statements it appears you were clearly trolling JC as well, indeed stating you were happy it was driving him batshit crazy. And I'd have to disagree - that IS the definition of a troll.

Your arguments that you should be able to use his image as your Avatar, that it wasn't trolling, and that you are happy it upset him is why I thought that any concept of 'privacy' was secondary.

I wasn't blaming you for what happened there, however I was pointing out that being too heavy handed can backfire spectacularly.

In regards to their avatars and sigs being used to troll him outside the Red Room, I could agree with that. However unless I missed it he never complained about it in that way, and just went off talking about his legal rights to his photos and so on with it seeming like he would object regardless of which room they were being used in.

Jenee brought it up in so many words back on the 2nd page in this thread. It was posted elsewhere. But I can certainly understand missing that in all the crap going on.

Though might I be so bold as to suggest it isn't just the user who has to provide justification for action, that the staff should be looking at any violation of rules, not just the one being complained about?

Personally, using his picture of "Neil" in an avatar was at least partly about saying "WTF" to the staff for not banning him when he started throwing around bad faith threats of legal action to bring down the board. If that's not ban-worthy then what is? I kinda hoped he'd continue to make bad faith threats of legal action and force the issue.

Seriously, WTF is wrong with the administrators here that he wasn't banned for those threats, especially given his history?

You did miss that, yes. I made a pretty strong point that, avatars and sigs being visible across the entire board, that should be considered trolling outside the Red Room. If it's trolling, and it appears everywhere, it's trolling everywhere. Tamar and $corp disagree.

More, though, is that there were a few folks actively trolling and flaming outside the Red Room. I admit to having gotten riled up in the Green Room, but that was after a good few days of putting up with the same because it seemed to me that staff wasn't going to put a stop to it.

The way I see it, trolling posts in the Red Room may not advance the board as a community, but they're to be expected. When they lead to the kind of thing I spent the last week or so putting up with, which is a whole league beyond vulgar language, and when that goes board-wide rather than staying put in one of the two rooms where it's supposed to be tolerated... a guy can only put up with that for so long.

Maybe gul or El Chup or WAB or Face or Liet would put up with it longer than I did. I wonder how many posters wouldn't put up with it for as long as I did. And I have the distinct feeling that because I have a history (as skinofevil) of foul language and painting -- basically just textual theatrics -- I got left in the wind where other posters wouldn't. If that's how it is, that's how it is. Does no good to bitch about it, and I would know; I gave bitching about it my all.

Yeah, he was initially citing copyright law, then moved to trolling accusations, and finally threatened legal action. That makes it pretty clear, to me at least, why it immediately alienated the staff from taking action. It's further complicated by the fact that he has both claimed the photos are him and aren't him. Why should the staff trust him when he's potentially crying wolf? There is no trolling if the picture is not of him, and he hasn't given any reason for us to believe the pictures are of him. It's pretty obvious he was throwing a tantrum to troll and not because he felt trolled or felt that he was going to suffer from a perceived violation of privacy/copyright.

Having said that, there is no reason why the avs should remain up. I'm not going to argue that they should be removed because of the rules because there is no clear rules violation. Instead, I would hope that the posters still using the avs would show some kindness to the board at this point by removing the avs, thus ending another pointless board drama and to stop bringing attention to Visionrazer.

The picture was me. I said so the first time the subject came up outside the Red Room. Besides, everyone wants to bring up Facebook; well, everyone on Facebook knows that the pictures are of me.

If there had really been any doubt as to who it was a picture of, then there should have been a moratorium on all avs that featured it, including mine. Wouldn't that have been an interesting troll on the part of the staff? "You guys have to lose the images -- and so do you, Skin."

No. Wrong. That's not what they were saying.

They were saying how can it be trolling when you denied the pictures were you? When you according to others on this board had said yourself that you took the pictures of some other person in order to harass that other person.

Now you can come back and claim they knew it was you and you'd probably be right but as I said before you burned a lot of bridges and gave everyone an out: "Prove the pics are you or else it isn't trolling."

Rules lawyer-ing at its finest. Except it backfired on you.

You certainly did get left hanging out there.

As for whether or not it was a troll: It wasn't, and then it was. Yes, I admit it, they trolled me good with the avatars and sig. Pissed me off. That's why I complained to staff. It's when it became obvious that no corrective action was going to be taken that I decided to just make the most of it, and yes, there was some wrathfulness driving that, but it also brought privacy issues into serious discussion, so there's a positive result to it.

Then you shouldn't have ever denied the photos were of you, because that also brings into question the validity your photos actually being you on Facebook. I don't understand why you are drawing a distinction between Red Room and non-Red Room when it comes to lying. Lying isn't banned outside of the Red Room.

Uhh no.

Its a two second check - post a pic of the person with the avatar with todays date on a newspaper, preferably a national one where people could check if it was indeed today's paper.

If he can do that, it's him. Everything else is immaterial then because its clearly trolling.

The noise to signal ratio was huge, and yes a large part of that was due to JC acted the jackass.

But that also is immaterial.

As of right now, we have a precedent that you can troll people with their personal information outside the red room.

If there's a question of whether or not that's the person, refer to the above, and tell people to remove the av. Give them 24 hours (or until their next post) to comply, and give the person with the complaint 72 hours to prove it is them.

If they can't, back to fun and games.

Instead we get 30 pages of BS.

No matter how many times you claim this it is simply not true.

We have no precedent that you can troll people with their personal information outside the Red Room.

This is a unique situation where the so called victim made previous claims that the pictures in question where not him and then later claimed they were when those pics were used to troll him.

Given his long past of abnormal behavior (that's putting it nicely ) he lacked any credibility and the judgement call fell against him.

Had it been you or someone else the judgement would have gone against the ones trolling with the pictures.

Though I will agree that the 2 sec check of the newspaper thing is a good idea.