GeorgW said:
I can only speak for myself, but I always take context into consideration and make sure to make an informed decision before I do anything, and I'll be even more careful now that you're only allowed 8 strikes. In fact, I'd say I'm probably the most lenient of the mods, but I've still managed to give out some pretty severe punishments. So, you know, most of the time it's justly deserved. Also if you appeal the infraction and it gets removed, that bar of the health meter will also be removed, so the mark is not permanent if it wasn't just and you appeal it.
As for the post you quoted, it's aggressive, but not inflammatory and clearly a joke, so I would let that go. But that's just me, these things will always be subjective, there's no way around that, that's why we have an appeal system.
And I'm back having taken into account what you said and applied to around some of the latest topics.
Under the new forum rules I could have reported and argued for the upholding of two thirds of posts made on every page. Claiming that the post I quoted was not inflammatory and clearly a joke is a bad argument, because it assumes that I read it in the same 'tone' that you read it. The problem with bringing 'offensive' into the debate is two fold, firstly, it opens the Escapist up to massive amounts of hypocrisy, and secondly, it relies on everyone pointing out whether their posts are sarcastic, humorous, serious etc.
Point 1: Jimquisition is one of the most horrible things I have seen in a long time. It is run by someone I firmly believe, having researched his site, to be the worst kind of misogynist and sexist. He is rude, abrasive, deliberately offensive, and his continued presence on this site is an insult to the community that was built up here. But I can't report him, I can't complain about him, because under the new rules 'slandering' people on the Escapist is against the rules (and as long as he can claim that he's just doing it as a satire or joke then I believe that the Escapist would take his side over mine), so in other words, the Escapist maintains different standards for its 'official' contributers over its 'unofficial' contributers. I am a contributer just as much as Jim Sterling is, so why doesn't my voice matter as much as his? And why is he allowed to be offensive when I am not? A double standard, and as I said, hypocrtical when on the one hand offensiveness is outright lauded by the Escapist and damned at the same time. Similarly, many people find Zero Punctuation, the Escapists most popular show, to be very offensive, and as several people have said they wouldn't play it at work for fear of reprisals, which means that in both the above cases the Escapist is supporting and promoting the exact behaviour that they then expect their regular members to avoid.
Point 2: Human beings cannot discern tone from written text alone. Thus something I intend to be satirical or sarcastic could easily be taken to be meant in seriousness and I get reported. Any arguments against my probation or warning then hinge on the moderator being on my wavelength instead of the person who reported me. Then it becomes entirely subjective, so the point of having objective rules is undermined. I took the post I quoted to be offensive, you did not, I report it, he appeals, you overturn it. Or, a different moderator, one who sees it the way I did doesn't overturn it. The appeals system becomes a joke, which in turn makes the original rules which led to the probation in the first place look bad.
The last time the rules were overhauled they had a much more open tone. I can't remember exactly but it was along the lines of 'anything which is detrimental to the well being of this community.' We could have posts others might find offensive, we could have arguments about legality and morality, because it was contributing to the continued growth of the community as a whole, the rules providing a framework within which people could expand and develop. These new rules show one of two things. Either they will not be enforced as written, in which case why bother, or they will be, and instead of a framework for growth will be a cage that keeps people turning over the same topics with the same overly polite language for fear of writing anything that might be 'offensive.' And that will lead to people leaving.
And of course, perhaps the worst part of this: The post I just spent a lot of time quite carefully constructing could easily be seen within the mandate of the new rules to be slanderous to the Escapist, offensive to the moderators and members and thus worthy of probation of suspension. And if that's the case then the members of this community no longer have any ability to question the new rules, which means that the website is becoming by dictionary definition an authoritarian rule.
'It's cold and it's mean spirited and I don't like it here anymore' - Alan Moore in the V for Vendetta original introduction.
