OK I don't get mad with another poster usually, but Marthen was keep bringing me up in this thread when it got nothing to do with me at all. Pls stop it.

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I have plenty of civilized conversations with Hammer.

Keep in mind that with the state of our culture, television and games involve politics.

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Regardless of your personal opinions, the permabans for both Hammer and Galdus will remain in place due to their past conduct and unwillingness to reform in the places and ways required. Pursuing the matter further does no one a service and only re-opens old wounds.

Marthen, please do refrain from further use of SPK as a prop. The staff have made their collective decision on his presence for now.

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.

i love it when you behave dom, sir

Doesn't not properly taking of others who have violated the rules also open old wounds since we have this conversation every time someone is banned or suspended?

We have this conversation every time anything remotely involving staff rulings occur. We have every conversation every time staff rulings occur. I could declare everyone gets free cookies for a month and someone would complain that some people don't deserve x% of said cookies due to an entirely subjective metric that no single party agrees is true.

Given this, the only viable response for anyone in a position of authority is to say the following, "This has already been decided. No further conversation on this topic is appropriate at this time." Which is what I said, and believe to be true.

Less politely, because apparently we're at that stage...This isn't a negotiation, it's an order.

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.

All I'm saying is that this will happen again because it was never properly dealt with. That's the end of my comments on the matter.

The proper response when someone issues an order that doesn't imminently harm you or another is not to reiterate your opinion. It's to say "I understand," "I don't understand, please explain why," or not respond at all. I recommend you take that to heart both here and in the real world.

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.

Good leaders understand how to act professionally so these sort of fissures don't happen. In this case listening, offering compassion, and feedback is essential. Blind obedience in any authority is a trait that is frowned upon and in the US we have a penchant for criticizing our president constantly because of it. I would never ask that my subordinates were a bunch of "Yes ma'ams," and mindless drones. It wouldn't be effective for the goal and what I am trying to do which would generally be promoting cooperation and directing a team toward some kind of task. People offer criticism because they care about this community or at least care about its potential. It should be a platform for discussion and not an outlet for real world frustrations.

The end goal of any sort of moderation should be to protect the community and not just parts of the community someone likes but the whole community. Bad moderation can drive away more posters than bad posters can. We used to aspire to recruit more people to this forum but instead we have seemed to have went the opposite direction and drove some of the remaining pool away. I think Galdus could have been banned easily without the prior incident of banning words or the other sort of unprofessional behavior that went with that. These kind of relationships are based off of trust and in few but notable cases that trust is null. In many cases a friendly PM or leading by example can do more to mend a community than using more punitive measures. When the people within your charge do things for you because they want to and not because they have to then you know you are a good leader.

I'm going to respond to this once and only once in the next 48 hours. No one outside staff should make a further comment on my response. Consider that an edict. Why? Because this sort of comment has been consistently made by certain parties solely and completely as a means to agitate membership against Staff.

SoL is not your military squad. The ideas and concepts you learned there are an entirely different domain. The same is true for the fact SoL is neither a democracy nor a republic. It's also not a pure dictatorship, however the overall power structure can be simplified to the fact it's a benevolent authoritarian hierarchy. Pure principles that work in the above concepts of rule don't work here either. SoL is a giant flaming cesspit where we add new concepts to the fire to burn before the altar of subjective opinion. In order to police a place where person A can throw in water, B can throw gasoline, and C can dive in head first, all at the same time, Moderation must be actively altered on the fly to suit the situation. Limiting how far Moderation is altered is a healthy and necessary goal to keep the cesspit from overflowing or being completely doused, but it's still a variable limit depending on the nature of any given emergency and how imminent it is to fruition.

So, given the fact that certain individuals will literally never see eye to eye, bringing people together is not the first order goal. Instead, it's creating an armistice between parties at war under threat of punishment. If that can be achieved, we go to the next set of options, brokering peace. If that occurs, then we get to allowing for reasonable trade between parties. At the very top of all this is creating a space where individuals are given the opportunity to create reasonable relationships with one another. We cannot force two people to hug, kiss, and make up. We can make sure that the structure of the forum around them encourages this.

So...if the first order business is armistice, then the first thing to do in any given situation is lay out what isn't allowed or is generally a bad idea.

Now, I try to be polite when initially speaking to individuals, but when that fails and we're still at the initial level of responses, coddling individuals doesn't do anyone any good. I do coddle some people more often than others (not because I like them, but because I don't like wasting time having to respond to their personal cohort trying to defend them), but I do try to keep that to a minimum. The less preferential treatment and avoidance, the faster things get solved. So, a curt, honest, and forceful response is the best option. If this is not the first time that responses fail at the initial level, then the force applied necessarily increases.

To put all of the above into perspective...yes my response to Mertico was curt bordering on rude. It was also a response calculated from previous failures by him, you, and certain other individuals to understand that I'm not trying to mend wounds, I'm trying to keep them from being further torn back open simply by virtue of rehashing opinions that have no bearing on what has already been reiterated was a final decision. Maintaining an armistice is the only way for Staff to avoid active punishments for those participating in re-opening old wounds. So, there is no reason to preach your opinion at this time unless you want to agitate individuals. And, if you haven't noticed, agitation is something that we're slowly cracking down on more and more, because starting raging mobs over your or anyone else's personal vendettas is not something anyone has time for.

TL;DR: The time to preach on this topic is over. Stop. First warning.

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.

Moving onto more pressing matters, one particular issue concerning everyone's enjoyment of SoL, poster and lurker alike, as Noitora so eloquently remarked; "fix this fucking lag wtf". Because at times it's ridicolously slow. It's like Kellick's been pouring maple syrup into the servers.

So what's the status on this fucking lag wtf?

It isn't staff as a collective Cantus. It is 100% you. I like the other mods and admins. They conduct themselves with professionalism and fairness. Don't try to hide behind them. The idea that you are the victim here is fantasy. We don't need anyone to come out and white knight you. You brought this upon yourself.

This isn't a war. This is a World of Warcraft forum. There are many things that can be pointed at to show how we got this way and you share a fair amount of the blame. When you tell posters that they post on Stormfront or some other nonsense without any basis or evidence you sow discord into the community. You aren't wielding your power for the betterment of the community. It just seems like you are upset about some real life circumstance and decided to retreat to the forum because you know it is a place that you still have power. It is that chip on your shoulder that has helped lead to the degradation of the forum.

You do not try to be polite when talking to individuals. You take commentary about ideas and politicians personally and then lash out personally. That has been my understanding of how we should not conduct ourselves on this forum. Sometimes we need to just suck it up and accept that some people will have different ideas than we do. You resort to personal attacks right away and then cry fowl when so many people don't seem to like you. It isn't an escalation when people are being civil with you and you jump to the hostilities right outside of the gate. The hostility to people outside of your circle is not based on passed behavior at all. You made up these behaviors to try to enforce a sort of echo chamber. We criticize you because we care about this forum and your returned presence has been detrimental to the forum.

Do you see the other moderators causing the kind of controversy that you do? Don't you think there is a reason for it? You can threaten to ban everyone that threatens your sensibilities but the threat of a punishment hinges on the what sort of privilege you are depriving people from. In this case it is a forum with a lot less people where no one can speak their minds as long as you remain active. A gag order isn't going to make these feelings you helped foster go away. We tried that already. It isn't a personal vendetta or anyone trying to incite a mob. It is the unhealthy attitude that can't accept any sort of feedback or criticism. It is the excuses you make to violate your own principals and further degrade the forum. That is why we have controversy after every moderator decision. You can't simply cover it up and expect it to all go away.

Eh, despite Slowpoke's outraged reaction, I wasn't arguing for him to be banned or punished, it just happens that he is the most glaring example of "we don't take kindly to revenants" not being completely true across the board. But whatever.

Stop bringing me up in totally unrelated cases.

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Pertinent question. Sadly I don't have an answer, only Warlock is aware of server side issues. But...I'll bring it up in the MT.

PJ, there is a time and place for you to express your opinions of me and the Staff's actions in general, just as there is for everyone else. This was not and is not one of those times. It will remain "not one of those times" for quite awhile because of the fact that people like you cannot understand the concept of self-censorship for the sake of armistice. Whether or not "I'm the problem," has no bearing on whether a topic should or shouldn't be re-opened.

Now, given the fact that you don't seem to understand what you're doing wrong here, let me lay it out (again). You are continuously trying to start mobs against Staff (specifically myself and any Staff member(s) who side with me in a given period of time). This is the same basic concept as harassment by proxy and thus isn't considered tolerable action. This is your second warning on the matter. Do not post on these topics again within the next two days. Do not respond to this post. Do not even intimate a response to this post in this or any other thread on the boards. It's very easy to do...simply walk away. If you don't stop, you'll receive a 24 hour suspension. You can air any other grievance you wish, you can respond to me or any other Staff member on other topics at your leisure, but do not attempt to incite a mob against me and do not try to reverse the finalized permanent bans of either Galdus or Hammerbrew. These are off limits at this time.

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.

You're losing it, man.

Well, Hammer doesn't even want to come back. In fact he said a few choice words on the matter but I'd rather not quote him.

The thing is, we're losing people. And you know why? Drama. Drama is the quickest way to kill a community. When people are more focused on past crappy events than whatever brought them together in the first place it will make everyone feel like crap, and who the fuck wants that. So they're gone, and this forum is liable to go with them if you're catching my drift.

We are a small forum, we don't need a lot of rules and ridiculous heavy handed verdicts and policing. We can smooth most things out by talking and light moderation. This is where you are making a mistake Cantus, your approach is clearly wrong even if we disregard that you are not the sweetest poster personally. You should just take a step back, we all should take a step back and cut the drama and try to get this forum back on track. If we can even be bothered to save this forum that is.

I think ban certain topics would be better than permban ppl. Permanban is necessary but should not be used unless the situation is really bad and previous punishment doesn't work.

I don't know about these two guys well, so couldn't speak for themselves.

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The rights to post on Halls of Lordaeron should be a privilege to those who aren't involved in drama.

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I'm not absolving myself of guilt or the need for absolution on any given topic. In this case, I'm letting people know that some books that were closed will stay closed. More to the point, not to try to reopen them during the work week when Staff have less time to keep track of things, which inevitably leads to more drama.

SPK, No topics are banned from discussion, only the way people go about them. The more civil, or at least reasonable, the better.

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.

It depends on the situation, if a topic get too fierce sometimes, it would be good to ban it at least for a while to prevent further flamewar. This is overall, a forum about fantasy and lore, I don't like ppl to split and argue for politics all day.

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At no point in time will we ever ban a topic. This has been agreed upon unanimously by all the Staff and without reservation. End of story.

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.

I second this.
Because they are the Halls SoL deserves, but not the ones it needs right now.

It's in the cards, but there are some big changes, both technically and spiritually, that go alongside it. Thus why it hasn't happened yet. We're slow on changes because practically the entire Staff got swamped at the same time (classes, jobs, etc) so we reverted to a maintenance only state despite much bigger planned changes regarding the rules, user groups, opportunities, etc.

This feeds into why I explicitly stated that users shouldn't drum up drama/open old wounds, we're already swamped with real life as-is and we'd prefer to spend what little time we have here pleasantly and/or building the back-end over handling front-end incidents.

The above doesn't get into tech debt issues, but that's not something that needs to be elaborated on here. Suffice to say, yes we know we're old and slow, and yes there's a sportier, sexier version sitting in the showroom, but it's not so simple as trading in the old model for the new.

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.