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Traditio wrote:

IllumiNini wrote:Nobody is coercing you, though. We're simply saying "Here are the rules, and one of the is Be Polite. Please follow them."

That's not coercion, that's trying to get you to follow the rules.

It's that simple.

Ok. How about this:

Illuminini, I am going to make a pact with you. I am not going to put you on my ignore list, presupposing you follow this rule:

"Do not post anything which is potentially offensive to Traditio. PS: Only Traditio can guage what is potentially offensive to Traditio. Furthermore, I refuse to tell you, in advance, the sorts of things that Traditio finds offensive."

What do you think about this?

Hahah ok put me on your Ignore list. Go ahead. See if it causes me any grief at all. [Hint: It will not in any way cause me grief.]

The whole idea of Rule #1 - Be Polite is to use your common sense to figure out, generally speaking, if something is rude or offensive. If you subjectively find something rude or offensive, then the onus is on you to let people know so that they may refrain from such comments in the future. I'm genuinely curious: How is this a hard concept for you understand and/or accept? Everyone else on the forum seems to understand and accept it pretty well.

Peregrine wrote:

As for your "derailing" argument, it makes no sense at all. Here is the thread you are talking about: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/687036.page It was locked with the following comment:

Please don't spam the forum with posts like this, thanks

This comment says nothing about derailing the thread, it simply calls it spam.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/forum_rules.jsp

"While Spam may be a tasty meat product (yum!) on the Internet "spam" refers to invasive, unsolicited information. There are many versions of spam such as: posting advertisements for unrelated web pages or services, making multiple posts to increase your post count or to generally be 'cute', making posts full of jibberish or emoticons, etc. Whatever its form, "spam" is always inappropriate and is a violation of Rule 2 and certainly Rule 1."

Note the following:

1. If the last sentence of the rule is discounted, the rule is completely meaningless. It literally says "it can apply to all sorts of things." In fact, the first sentence "invasive, unsolicited information" can literally apply to anything posted on the internet ever.

2. If the last sentence is counted, then we must assert that all spam is either: 1. impolite (rule 1) or 2. off-topic (rule 2).

So, yes. Saying that I was spamming the forum implies that what I wrote was off-topic or derailing, or else, impolite.

And I think most people will agree that this is a fair criticism given your poll was full of obviously silly answers like "I play one of these factions, and I do not have a soft spot for kitties, puppies or bunnies" and "I play one of these factions, and I cry at weddings". It was incredibly unlikely that any constructive discussion was going to happen in that thread, and it had no apparent purpose besides increasing your post count by +1.

Except, it's not. I was attempting to gauge the psychological predispositions of tau and eldar players. If a tau player does not cry at weddings, does not have a sympathetic predisposition to small, fluffy, cuddly mammals, etc., then this bespeaks the possibility of emotional mal-adjustment on the part of an eldar or tau player, no?

Traditio wrote:
making posts full of jibberish or emoticons, etc

Yep, sure seems to fit what you posted. And, again, the forum rules are not a binding contract of "this is a list of every possible thing that could be inappropriate". The term "spam" has meaning, even if the forum rules don't explicitly state every possible thing that could be spam. And your post was spam by the definition that virtually everyone but you seems to understand.

Except, it's not. I was attempting to gauge the psychological predispositions of tau and eldar players. If a tau player does not cry at weddings, does not have a sympathetic predisposition to small, fluffy, cuddly mammals, etc., then this bespeaks the possibility of emotional mal-adjustment on the part of an eldar or tau player, no?

Yes, this is totally a plausible psychological test and not a rationalization for a joke post that you thought everyone would laugh at, invented after a moderator didn't laugh.

IllumiNini wrote:Hahah ok put me on your Ignore list. Go ahead. See if it causes me any grief at all. [Hint: It will not in any way cause me grief.]

Except, you miss the point, I am afraid.

What is at stake is not whether or not my blocking you causes you emotional grief.

What is at stake is whether or not the rule, as stated, is particularly constructive for guiding your own behavior.

How on earth should you know everything which I might possibly consider offensive?

Why on earth should you care?

The fact that somebody might be offended does not make the object of that offensive impolite.

Again, sometimes, reality is just "offensive."

Grow thicker skin, man.

The whole idea of Rule #1 - Be Polite is to use your common sense to figure out, generally speaking, if something is rude or offensive.

Which is contrary to the very notion of a written statute. The very notion of a written statute implies that I can read the statute and clearly and unambiguously apply it, here and now, to a given case.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Peregrine wrote:Yep, sure seems to fit what you posted. And, again, the forum rules are not a binding contract of "this is a list of every possible thing that could be inappropriate". The term "spam" has meaning, even if the forum rules don't explicitly state every possible thing that could be spam. And your post was spam by the definition that virtually everyone but you seems to understand.

It was neither jibberish nor a jumble of emoticons. It was a poll asking for specific bits of information which, collectively, would render a psychological overview of the sympthetic dispositions of tau and eldar players.

Yes, this is totally a plausible psychological test and not a rationalization for a joke post that you thought everyone would laugh at, invented after a moderator didn't laugh.

It wasn't a joke posting. This is not a post facto rationalization. That's the entire reason I wrote the thread in the first place.

Insaniak contested my assertion that tau and eldar players are disproportionately WAAC TFGs. I came up with a set of criterion to gauge their psychological mindsets.

Traditio wrote:

IllumiNini wrote:Hahah ok put me on your Ignore list. Go ahead. See if it causes me any grief at all. [Hint: It will not in any way cause me grief.]

Except, you miss the point, I am afraid.

What is at stake is not whether or not my blocking you causes you emotional grief.

What is at stake is whether or not the rule, as stated, is particularly constructive for guiding your own behavior.

How on earth should you know everything which I might possibly consider offensive?

Why on earth should you care?

The fact that somebody might be offended does not make the object of that offensive impolite.

Again, sometimes, reality is just "offensive."

Grow thicker skin, man.

The whole idea of Rule #1 - Be Polite is to use your common sense to figure out, generally speaking, if something is rude or offensive.

Which is contrary to the very notion of a written statute. The very notion of a written statute implies that I can read the statute and clearly and unambiguously apply it, here and now, to a given case.

So not only are you over-complicating your own interpretation of the rules and what they should mean, but you're telling me to grow thicker skin because I'm apparently offending or hurt?

You're logic is flawed at best and your assumption that I'm offended is utterly wrong. Also, considering that you've accused me of making personal attacks in the past when all I've done is state facts, I don't think you're in any position to be telling me to "Grow Thicker Skin".

Traditio wrote:
Grow thicker skin, man.

The fact that you were probably able to type this completely free of irony is impressive, considering this chuckle factory.


Also, thank you for bring the OT forum into the Nuts & Bolts forum. It's something we definitely need.

Matt.Kingsley wrote:If you had said "I personally don't trust Muslims" nothing probably would have happened, however because you then went a step further and tried to justify your views by saying all Muslims are inherently trustworthy because of one small part their belief system which is only tangentially related... yeah that's going to be removed as it's painting an entire group of people with a negative trait.

What if it's true? What if that entire group of people actually has that "negative" trait?

What if the presence or absence of that "negative" can be verified or disproven by rational argument, research, etc?

Again, what if I said that African Americans disproportionately suffer from sickle cell anemia?

Grow up in single parent households?

Get arrested on drug charges?

Sometimes reality itself is offensive.

That's not my problem.

Traditio wrote:
I came up with a set of criterion to gauge their psychological mindsets.

No you didn't, you came up with a bunch of jokes that are maybe vaguely related to your idea that Tau players are all WAAC sociopaths. Nobody with any understanding of psychology would consider your poll even remotely useful as a serious analysis of personality traits. So it's either spam (lol guys Tau players are all TFGs who hate puppies!!!!") or trolling (seriously, Tau players are psychologically damaged), and the reactions you got immediately demonstrated that nothing constructive was going to come from it.

Traditio wrote:

Except, it's not. I was attempting to gauge the psychological predispositions of tau and eldar players. If a tau player does not cry at weddings, does not have a sympathetic predisposition to small, fluffy, cuddly mammals, etc., then this bespeaks the possibility of emotional mal-adjustment on the part of an eldar or tau player, no?

The reason that thread is considered spam is because you did not, in any way, attempt to make an explanation in the OP as to why getting those particular (uncommon) questions answered might matter as a wargaming topic, such as you provided right here in the quote above.

That, at the very minimum, is what is required for anyone to potentially understand the point of such a thread. However, even with your explanation, I personally would still struggle to see the relevance of such a thread as a wargaming topic, and hence it could easily be seen as spam: meaning a 'pointless' (or off-topic) post/thread in this case.


I am sorry that you find our site rules meaningless. However, I can assure you over nearly a decade of running the site that the vast majority of users that do read those rules glean some understanding of what types of behaviors are allowed and disallowed.

If you ever have any particular questions of what is appropriate or inappropriate, please PM a moderator before posting it to check and see.

I may be missing something, but labeling something like 1/3 of the population as inherent liars might be offensive. Maybe calling for outright bans of certain armies based on personal playstyles might be instigatory. Maybe relying on freshman philosodophy terms in order sound intelligent to make a point (it really doesn't work) might be of putting to certain people? Maybe the fault doesn't lie in the forum mods?

Peregrine wrote:No you didn't, you came up with a bunch of jokes that are maybe vaguely related to your idea that Tau players are all WAAC sociopaths.

They weren't jokes. I intended the poll questions as basically serious criteria.

So it's either spam (lol guys Tau players are all TFGs who hate puppies!!!!")

How is it spam to create a poll where Tau players are able to select a poll option asserting that they hate puppies?

or trolling (seriously, Tau players are psychologically damaged)

Again, how is it trolling to create poll options which facilitate, but do not necessitate, Tau players providing answers which suggest that they are psychologically damaged?

and the reactions you got immediately demonstrated that nothing constructive was going to come from it.

That's what it comes down to. The poll got negative reactions. The community collectively said "boo" rather than take it seriously (though, mind you, I intended and hoped for the poll to be taken seriously; I actually wanted real, substantial, concrete data). And the mods acted accordingly.

It had nothing to do with the actual rules.

Tradition: Please read my above post for why your thread was appropriately identified as being spam.

If you'd like to discuss this further, you can PM me.