May I have your atention please?

[Hitori]

TLDR

In the Mark era, a guy had a signature with three old (and I mean OLD) men having a threesome. I believe it was called lemon party or something of the sort. It was disgusting, disturbing, gay, blablabla. And what did I do? Block signatures for some time. What did Mark do?

Come on. People in SOT have been behaving EXACTLY the same way for years, it is nothing new. If you block one of them, you'll end up blocking ALL of them. Personally 90% of the threads I read at UM are from SOT, and while they are highly stupid, they have made me laugh countless times, and have taught me much about the psyche of young males. It is the most entertaining forum in this board, period.

There is discussion about Deron's abilities as a moderator. I won't go into that (not wanting to be banned is only one of the reasons ). What I WILL say is Mark always acted in a mature adult way, and Deron is sinking to SOT level, making childish remarks such as "why don't you go post in your livejournal" etc at other members. If you make a decision, stick to it, explain why you did it in a professional way. Don't go around proving so hard whether you are a good or not moderator. Don't say, "if you want I'll bring Mark and you'll see he would do the same thing!" You're in charge now. When you banned DE and then brought him back the first time you lost lots of credibility, making people know banns are a game, a threat. You did that with Azogue too. Now no one takes bans seriously, they are just little punishments.

 

[Steingrim]

http://www.scandinavianmetal.info is willing to host the official board to Dark Tranquillity if you decide to leave for FREE. We have the possibility to have an unique custom design for every forum as well, just look at the 3 official forums we host alreadly. http://www.scandinavianmetal.info/board/index.php


One day we'll have the biggest database over Scandinavian Metal bands, prominent bands may hook up with us soon.

 

[Hitori]

awwwwwwwwwww

 

[Misanthrope]

tempting, too bad is not up to me hehehe

 

[Dark_Jester]

Hey, it doesn't look to bad either. I wonder if it's more reliable than UM has been lately....
Anyone else had problems with slow loading, errors and suchlike?

 

[Misanthrope]

Hey, it doesn't look to bad either. I wonder if it's more reliable than UM has been lately....
Anyone else had problems with slow loading, errors and suchlike?

Lots, but i have general Computer problems so dont take my word for it. But before this mess it was always unstable anyway

 

[rahvin]

Anyone else had problems with slow loading, errors and suchlike?

slow loading: yes, at specific times of day.

errors: yes, but i thought my browser was kinda fucking things up.

to be fair, though, i don't think it's as bad as it was months ago.

 

[Dark_Jester]

slow loading: yes, at specific times of day.

errors: yes, but i thought my browser was kinda fucking things up.

to be fair, though, i don't think it's as bad as it was months ago.

Oh, yeah, definitely not as bad as before, just curious, because I couldn't tell whether it was problems with my computer or not.

Thanks all

 

[GreatPhoenix]

What I WILL say is Mark always acted in a mature adult way, and Deron is sinking to SOT level, making childish remarks such as "why don't you go post in your livejournal" etc at other members.

You saw that too, huh? I was like "What the fuck?!"

 

[xenophobe]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to take an unpopular stance here.

Freedom of Speech is a right affirmed by the Bill of Rights in America. Paying $10 to become a Premium Member on a web site does not grant you the right to free speech. This is not a democracy, and you cannot vote Deron out of administering this site the way he sees fit. This site is his personal property, and he can choose to run it any way he wishes it. Free of moderation, or with an Iron Fist.

Mark was very lax about enforcing decency standards. He knew it was relatively impossible. He did try to do something about it, and he had taken some heat at various times, but the masses of mindless zombies having some necessity to having huge or offensive pictures in their sigs fought him. He gave up. He knew it was a fight he couldn't win or he didn't care enough. Obviously. He ended up selling UM, right?

Deron can DICTATE whatever he wants... signatures to conform to any standard he wants... posting under certain guidelines... or banning certain topics altogether. He does not have to apply rules consistently, nor does he have to give a good explanation why. This board is run with his commercial interest, and in the interest of the bands who pay to have forums here. Merely paying for a membership does not grant you the right to do whatever you want.

You may not like the fact that he's threatened to ban and is banning people for posting what he deems inappropriate. That's his call and his call alone. Whether or not you've paid your $10 movie ticket for your right to sit in your Premium Member Seat, you can't just start masturbating without getting hauled to jail like PeeWee Herman. This may be a place you'd like to call home, and it is, unless you want to push the staff beyond whatever they might think is a reasonable line.

You may say that it is violating your rights... it is not. You may say that he is acting like a homophobe. Who cares. Whether he is or isn't can be a subject to debate, but his choice to ban gay signature pictures because it offends him for any reason whatsoever isn't. He doesn't even need to give any explanations. You can give him heat about it, but it's his right to police the board as he sees fit.

It certainly has become a childish vigilante back-in-your-face retribution for some members to rebel against his decisions and actions and changing their signatures to mock him. This is certainly as questionable as his stated reasoning on why he banned people for such things, using any reasonable gauge for maturity. There certainly were reasons why Opeth wanted to distance themselves from the actions and behaviors from SoT, and I can't blame Deron for wishing to do the same.

Posting on a message board isn't a right, it is a privelidge. Up until recently everyone has had the luxury of doing whatever they wanted. Now it's gone to a point that someone doesn't like it and that someone is the owner of this board. You'd think that would be the time to chill the fuck out, but of course not. Like spoiled children who have to have everything the way they want, they're having their tantrum and it isn't pretty.

I would post this in Off Topic, but if they don't see decaying, maggot infested vaginas or some midget amputees having sex with burn victims then THEY get offended. Their attention span is maybe 5 seconds and probably wouldn't even be able acknowledge that Deron does have the right to moderate his board however he wants, or to grasp that there is indeed more than one side to this or any story.

Do I think Deron handled this appropriately? I'm not sure how you can lay down the law against anyone from SoT without getting the whole forum ready for war. Even if he had handled this in a different way, I seriously doubt the outcome would have been any different.

 

[rahvin]

@xeno: i don't think you're saying anything new or disconcerting. obviously deron is entitled to act in the way that he finds more adequate. and the users are equally entitled to find it irresponsible and stop contributing/posting. some expressed their opinion about the way things are handled. until deron sees fit to forbid that too, this is also a perfectly legitimate thing to do, which does not imply anyone thinks this is a democracy.

 

[xenophobe]

Well, I'm not trying to say anything disconcerting. I was just stating my opinion. I'll just be quiet again.

 

[Taliesin]

Of course Deron has the rights you mentioned above, but the question is, to what extent is it reasonable to claim them? If he chooses to force his rules upon a message board, he is bound to get a reaction. The question then is how well he can explain and justify his actions, and that's where he clearly failed.

Im not saying that I like to see gay people kissing or anything, but see, that's just exactly why I never visit the SoT. Whatever, it doesnt matter anyway, the DT board is as fine as ever

 

[Miolo]

so, no, i most certainly don't have a problem with pictures of gay people, as long as it's not porn. those who do have a problem can and should choose not to have signatures shown when they browse the site.

this pretty much sums up my opinion on the matter.

i didn't read the whole thing and i certainly don't intend to. from what i gathered, i can safely say deron's way of handling this issue is ridiculous to say the least, even if perfectly legitimate.

 

[Salamurhaaja]

Censorship of ALL kinds should be avoided.

If you can't handle a picture or words or whatever the fuck,
thats too bad, hope you die and leave more room for the rest
of us.

 

[Delirious]

Anyone else had problems with slow loading, errors and suchlike?

slow loading? from time to time i'm not sure it even counts as loading...
errors every now and then ("page cannot be displayed"), but it's much better than it was around the time you introduced the alternative forum.

 

[GreatPhoenix]

It certainly has become a childish vigilante back-in-your-face retribution for some members to rebel against his decisions and actions and changing their signatures to mock him. This is certainly as questionable as his stated reasoning on why he banned people for such things, using any reasonable gauge for maturity. There certainly were reasons why Opeth wanted to distance themselves from the actions and behaviors from SoT, and I can't blame that fag for wishing to do the same.

Posting on a message board isn't a right, it is a privelidge. Up until recently everyone has had the luxury of doing whatever they wanted. Now it's gone to a point that someone doesn't like it and that someone is the owner of this board. You'd think that would be the time to chill the fuck out, but of course not. Like spoiled children who have to have everything the way they want, they're having their tantrum and it isn't pretty.

I would post this in Off Topic, but if they don't see decaying, maggot infested vaginas or some midget amputees having sex with burn victims then THEY get offended. Their attention span is maybe 5 seconds and probably wouldn't even be able acknowledge that that fag does have the right to moderate his board however he wants, or to grasp that there is indeed more than one side to this or any story.

God, I love our reputation. We're spoiled children, we have a low attention span, we're degenerates, trouble-makers, assholes, trolls, sissies and bullies. Oh my fucking God!

 

[Siren]

Anyone in this forum has a problem with that?

Sorry, but i do.

Call me whatever you want, a homophobic or a closeted fag (), but i just don't like being forced to see that kind of stuff, it disgusts me. And it's even more annoying when it's just for the sake of getting in someone's nose. You're taking this whole thing way too seriously.

 

[hyena]

@siren: you're not really closeted anymore, you mentioned the possibility of wanting to marry me

i hadn't seen this thread - mr. moderator, i humbly suggest that it be merged with the other one on this topic.

 

[rahvin]

Call me whatever you want, a homophobic or a closeted fag (), but i just don't like being forced to see that kind of stuff, it disgusts me.

you're absolutely entitled to be one or the other, really: you're not forced to see signatures at all.

@hyena: yeah, maybe i should. i was enjoying having a few more threads with a little less than 300 replies, though. i think we should just stop posting in the other one. i might close it.