Foul Territory
For the first time in my entire life, I have been banned for an online forum. It pains me to say it, but I have, as of today, been banned for one week from the Chex Quest Fan Forums, which has been my online home for the past four years.
A quick timeline:
2008 – Desu. The now despised word that set this roller coaster in motion. Cleaved the forum in two.
March 2009 – The Evil Game.
Tuesday (this week) – Fed up with the way the staff are running the forum, I quit.
Wednesday – The other members, shocked at my sudden announcement, plead with me to come back.
Thursday – I come back, though still very agitated.
Friday – The staff reveal their new philosophy of moderation. It looks good to me, so I hope that this crisis is over.
Saturday – The staff announce that 85% of all talk on the forums has nothing to do with Chex Quest. They call this ‘disturbing’. I immediately raise the red flag, because I fear that they plan to do the same thing to GD that they did to the Evil Game. I voice my concerns.
Sunday (today) – Palm Sunday. The day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, with a large crowd cheering. Also on this day, my banishment from the CQFF, and given this message:
Sorry xbolt, you are banned from using this forum!
Xbolt, I did not want it to come to this. You may not realize it, but you are strengthening the divisions in the board. You are preventing us from refocusing on our cause and uniting the board in friendship. You are banned for seven days.
Yay. Happy day, now ruined. So, not wanting to be told where I can and cannot post just because the forum is supposed to be ‘about’ something, that’s strengthening divisions in the board? Maybe so, but opposing totalitarianism and just being a jerk for the fun of it are two very different things.
Where does one go to when faced with this? If anybody from the CQFF who doesn’t think I’m a jerk happens to read this, drop me a line. Please.
April 5th, 2009 saat: 11:42 pm
Xbolt,
[I’m kind of in a crud state, so excuse the level of negativity.]
I was with you on a bunch of the issues you raised. I have been trying to fight the good fight for some time now but the second you lumped me in one of your two groups and tried to publicly make an ass out of me, I was out. You had a staffer ready to help you achieve some of the things you wanted to see happen, but now I don’t have much of an interest in joining up with someone who thinks I’m some scumbag elitist who is tipping the scales in favor of what the staff want. Your words, not mine. Your behavior appeared to be motivated by selfishness and not for the good of the board… helping to further the division by creating conspiracy theories, name calling, and going on little ego trips (concerning single handedly changing the board policy) are not going to help us. At the very least, you’ve hurt a lot of feelings and burned a few bridges.
April 6th, 2009 saat: 12:06 am
I agree that the name calling and insults are not the way to solve this. I do not think you should stop fighting what you think is wrong, but the insults aren’t the way to go.
And whether you think you’re guilty of using insults or not is beside the point at the moment, just take special care not to say anything that might be misinterpreted as an insult if this is so. If not, just avoid insulting outright. It isn’t getting us anywhere. The board just needs levelheaded discussion about the problems to solve them, not hostile comments.
That said, don’t stop trying to get things to change for the better. We need change like that. Just state your arguments as nicely as you can. Be disgustingly nice if necessary. :P Just keep on working to make things better.
April 6th, 2009 saat: 12:22 am
Who are you? I don’t know who you are, as I don’t know anybody who goes by the name Unicorn…
But now down to business. First, I never acted purely out of selfishness, I protested against what I see as the staff abusing their power. The other members seemed to agree that my complaints were valid. So in my mind, I’m acting on behalf of the greater community. Am I wrong in that?
Second, ‘ego trips’? When did I say I single-handedly changed the board policy? I didn’t do anything other than walk off in a huff. It was entirely the other members’ comments that helped with the drafting. Richie himself said so. I knew that.
As for name calling and conspiracy theories… I can’t really say much there… It’s wrong. I know it’s wrong. If anyone talked like that about me, I’d be all up in their face. Which is what happened here, but in reverse… I apologize, and promise to have my discussions peacefully in the future. Fair enough?
EDIT: Ack, I hate when people post ahead of me. :P Anyway, yeah. I guess I learned today that if you post something on the Internet, don’t leave anything open to interpretation. Tone-of-voice can’t be sent through the Tubes.
April 6th, 2009 saat: 11:29 am
I don’t want to seem any more of an ass than you’ve already accused me to be by picking out specific examples, but there were several uber-dramatic sounding instances of you “rallying the troops” with speeches about how you had taken on the giant and such. This is probably the most straight forward example though: Most likely to cause a Mod policy change by announcing departure – Some Guy. Joke or not, both staffers and members alike took it pretty seriously. Anyways, the lot of it was pretty egotistical and hostile sounding.
Also, spouting a bunch of non-constructive criticism about the board policy changes and Richie’s being alarmed at the General Discussion statistics don’t help your case much on wanting to do it for the better of the board. Half the time, you appeared to be just trying to bait Manny or one of the other staffers. Other members felt that was the case as well.
And again, your unwillingness to work with the staff doesn’t help your case either. Calling us power hungry elitists when we’re trying our best to make things right and okay again, really really does absolutely nothing to help. I wanted to help you because your fight (other than all the power hungry, conspiracy theory accusations) was similar to something I was trying to fight off back when Rushnerd was around. Unfortunately, I was met with a brick wall from you.
I think what bothers me the most about all the name calling and accusations is that you and I have never talked directly. I don’t know a thing about you and you don’t know a thing about me. I’m trying to remain open to the possibility that you mean well and I need to help you get that across, where as you shut the door on me a long time ago. I don’t believe we’ve ever had any direct dealings nor have I had any direct dealings with any of your friends concerning moderation. I don’t know how you could just shrug me off and file me away into one of your categories without knowing a thing about me or what I’ve also been trying to accomplish. I think the same could be said for a ton of the other staff members.
-Ms. Hometown Unicorn
April 7th, 2009 saat: 10:55 am
I’m with you, Xbolt! If you decide to leave the forums, I’ll be doing the same.