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I would like a public hearing for a locked thread I posted. Trial by peers is a pretty diplomatic approach I'd say. The defendant is a moderator of substantial history to the forum, but I would like you to realize I refuse to be blamed for a broken set of rules, my five year meta-analysis is damn sure of that.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/541626.page



In order to play by the rules the rules must be enforced. What rule did I break?

"Hey everyone, I just wanted to post a few reminders about posting etiquette here on Dakka Dakka. We've had a lot of new people lately, and these are some things I've run in to."

Lorek
[MOD]
Purveyor of Heresy


I'm by no means a newbie to the world of Dakka. My profile confirms that. I've been lurking over the years but I've been involved in the hobby for the last ten years. I'm 22 years old. I understand the benefits and disadvantages of threaded discussion better than some of you because I was born in the internet news generation, but I acknowledge and I understand computer science through a biological lens, as I tried to explain by including an introduction. I'm a smart fethin' person. Please don't allow moderation that silences me when I am trying to follow the rules. Don't belittle what I can contribute by suggestion I do all the leg work and put it into a P&M blog, there is another section, I came to have a discussion.



1. Rule #1 is Be Polite! It's easy!

2. No Thread Necromancy. If a thread is more than a month old, leave it alone. If you're really interested in the topic, start a new thread! There are exceptions, like updates to modelling blogs or threads in forums that don't get much traffic, but in general bringing back old threads is simply annoying to the bulk of the posters who have already moved on.

3. Before posting on a topic, check for existing threads! There's a Search feature that works really well for this, and usually all you really need to do is scan the first few pages of the appropriate forum to make sure you're not duplicating something. This especially applies in You Make Da Call, where your question very well may have already been argued to death (and beware the rusty spoons!).

4. Stay on the original topic of the thread. It's really easy to wander off, but if you find yourself diverging too much from the original topic, start a new thread.

5. Please be intelligible. We strongly encourage proper punctuation, spelling, grammar and composition, but if we can't understand you, we'll ignore you. Before you post, hit the Preview button and double-check what you've written before posting it, and remember that you can always go back and edit your posts to fix any problems. I usually don't catch my mistakes until after I've posted, so you'll see a lot of "This post was edited 2 times" in small letters at the bottom of my posts. "

I understand that Warhammer/40k/table top gaming is an international community but I shouldn't be blamed for trying to be polite, posting original content, and stimulating questions for discussion while using the craptastic HTML that this thread is written in order to articulate myself. I refuse to be blamed for an international language deficiency, HTML. I won't succumb to the tower of babble because someone doesn't understand english or understand my reasoning for writing my post as I did.

Please unlock the thread and let a discussion flow from a series of points that I can elaborate on as I have a decade of vested experience in the subject but I would like to hear from other tabletop gamers with as much fervor as I for the hobby.

I posted a thread of this event in order to bring clarity to the finer points of moderation of a discussion as well as work against a misrepresentation of my past which may belittle my character, slander my reputation, and tarnish the good name of this account.


I hope this isn't interpreted as spamming the forum.

Apparently you fethers have never been on reddit.

Your post read like a Mad Libs session in a community college faculty lounge. I thought it was supposed to be a parody, and thus not open-ended for discussion.

Honestly, that's incredibly insulting. That being said, it was meant to stimulate a discussion. Ever written a meta analysis? I have. You start by brainstorming and acknowledging bias.

http://www.reddit.com/r/warhammer

See how a discussion unfurls? It's even more anonymous. I'll be taking my content there if this sort of reception keeps up.

Don't blame me for your misunderstanding if you make no effort to understand it. That's crappy moderating.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I'm guessing the best outcome you were hoping for this thread would be to have your other thread unlocked? I'd also wager you would have had a high chance of that but just pming the mod.

-ironicsilence

I demand a public trial


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Your post wasn't very coherent....I read it several times and couldn't make heads or tails f it man...

-BobtheInquisitor

You can't blame me for your misunderstanding if you're not allowed to relay that because the forum was locked. Blaming it on rule #5 doesn't make the ruling fair. The rule isn't fair if the moderators aren't brought down from their high horses every once in a while.

Please stop posting new threads in Dakka discussions complaining about moderation. This thread is good enough to get a response, but you can't expect that response to happen immediately (I'm typing on an ipad now, which is a pain, for example).

So please relax and you will get an explanation.

Of course, you can also always PM the moderator who locked your thread and politely ask for further clarification.

Faux Pas wrote:
Apparently you fethers have never been on reddit.

Your post read like a Mad Libs session in a community college faculty lounge. I thought it was supposed to be a parody, and thus not open-ended for discussion.

Honestly, that's incredibly insulting. That being said, it was meant to stimulate a discussion. Ever written a meta analysis? I have. You start by brainstorming and acknowledging bias.

http://www.reddit.com/r/warhammer

See how a discussion unfurls? It's even more anonymous. I'll be taking my content there if this sort of reception keeps up.

Don't blame me for your misunderstanding if you make no effort to understand it. That's crappy moderating.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I'm guessing the best outcome you were hoping for this thread would be to have your other thread unlocked? I'd also wager you would have had a high chance of that but just pming the mod.

-ironicsilence

I demand a public trial


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Your post wasn't very coherent....I read it several times and couldn't make heads or tails f it man...

-BobtheInquisitor

You can't blame me for your misunderstanding if you're not allowed to relay that because the forum was locked. Blaming it on rule #5 doesn't make the ruling fair. The rule isn't fair if the moderators aren't brought down from their high horses every once in a while.

We as posters made the effort to try and understand your post, the very first response even indicated that there seemed to be pieces missing from your opening post. You didn't have a complete thought in there. Please go back and try again. The idea seemed interesting in the title of the thread, but the execution was lacking. You can call it a meta-analysis, you can say that Reddit does this, but at the end of the day you still have to be able to communicate with your audience. Did you ever wonder why local newspapers write at a 4th grade reading level? It's because they try to garner the attention of the largest possible denominator to disseminate their information. Now compare that to the Wall Street Journal, they know that they sell papers to a very specific clientele and as such can focus their articles and columns towards those people. Coming to a site that you say you've been lurking for 5 years and posting an incomplete thought is not the brightest of moves. Neither is calling out the moderation staff in public. They are not people on high horses that have been sent because we broke the 7th Seal of Wargaming. They are mere mortals like you and I that have been granted a small bit of dominion over Dakka so that our benevolent overlords (the two dudes that pay for this site) don't have to spend every waking moment keeping this site in order.

You've not stepped into Reddit, a land where the users are neatly categorized into small categories, no you've stepped into a darker realm, a realm where people attempt to speak of little plastic man dollies as though they were the towering behemoths that we know as the Adeptus Astartes. For more than a hundred months, the Admins have sat upon the Golden Computer Chair of Earth. They are the Master of Dakkanauts by the will of the ISPs and masters of a million posts by the might of their inexhaustible DCMs. They are the embodiment of Sean Connery and Legos brimming with the invisible power of the Ban Hammer from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Scottish Yak of DakkaDakka and the Burner of Legos for whom a thousand words die every day, for whom Red Bull is drunk and Doritos eaten. Wrought for of Human Blood and human sweat - the stuff of which these fora are made. To be a moderator in such times is to be one amongst untold billions of posters. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody arguments of the Off Topic imaginable. This is the tale of those times.

It is a universe you can post in today - if you abide the rules - for this is a dark and terrible era where you will find little comfort or hope in YMDC. If you want to take part in the adventure of News & Rumors then prepare yourself now. Forget the power of Reddit, 4chan, and Warseer. Forget the promise of easily won praise in P&M for there is no peace amongst the painters, only an eternity of grey plastic and unopened boxes and the laughter of the thirsting Administrators.

But Dakka is a big place and, whatever happens, you will not be missed."
-BanHammer 50k, The Book of Dakka.

Faux Pas wrote:
Apparently you fethers have never been on reddit.

Being a redditor is not a prerequisite for posting on Dakka.

I also found your post very hard to understand; and the whole premise behind this thread you've started problematic. I don't think you're going to like the answers you get very much... You can preview them here.

OK, back onto a real computer now.

Every site has different rules for the types of content that are allowed or disallowed. Here on Dakka, we require that each thread has a cohesive topic for people to discuss related to gaming (primarily miniature gaming). And it isn't just good enough to have the topic of the thread be about gaming, it actually has to be a topic that is clear enough that people can understand and discuss it.

There are a few reasons this rule is necessary, mainly because we are one of the, if not the, largest miniature gaming forum, with users from all over the planet, for many of whom English is not their first language. While the occasional rambling post where a user waxes philosophically would not be the end of the world, once it is known that this type of discussion is allowed, then before you know it you get dozens of such threads popping up and then before long the forums aren't nearly as inviting to those who aren't masters of the English language.

Similarly, we also ask users to refrain from creating threads that are basically musings about their own life and experiences, because as above, once that sort of posting is allowed it quickly spirals out of control and becomes a distraction from the goal of the site (miniature gaming discussion). We do provide a space on the site to post random thoughts about yourself, namely your user wiki page. Yours is here (or would be here if you put anything there):

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/User:Faux%20Pas


Now, that is basically an isolated wiki page (although it does generate a discussion thread in the article discussion forum once you create the page), and is unlikely to generate any type of real discussion, so I understand that it may not fit exactly what you're looking for, but it is the space where personal musings on this site are designed to go.

If you want more latitude to just post a random collection of thoughts, then starting your own personal blog site or going to another forum that doesn't prohibit such types of posting would be your only other real option.


Hopefully that clears things up a bit.

That thread is fairly incoherent...
I agree with the MOD that locked it.

Get a blog

Oh I know!

I guess you could say...
*Puts glasses on*
He committed a faux pas.

Faux Pas wrote:http://www.reddit.com/r/warhammer

See how a discussion unfurls? It's even more anonymous. I'll be taking my content there if this sort of reception keeps up.

Actually no, I can't see how a discussion unfurls there... I find reddit incredibly hard to use!

That said, I did make a very good faith effort to understand your OP that was locked (even posted a reply asking a question about the context of it) and couldn't do so very well.

Your OP here is similarly hard to understand. Topic sentence, man, topic sentence! Your English / Creative Writing's teacher's eye just twitched

Edit: Also, if you do want to write in this style... it is very likely that Reddit is indeed, as you say, a better home for your content. Not better or worse... just different. Here, you need to make it clear what the feth you're talking about in the OP so people know the purpose of a thread and can reply to it appropriately. There... you can have an "unfurling discussion" to your heart's content, if that format is allowed!

Your locked thread very clearly violated "5. Please be intelligible"

While each individual sentence may have had proper grammar, it was all but impossible to follow what the heck you were talking about. I came away with no information that warhammer had taught you regarding microeconomics, color theory, or life. Even the "etc." bits were very disjointed and nonsensical.

RiTides has summed it up very respectfully and quite well: topic sentences, introductory and summary statements would go a long way to helping others figure out what you were getting at.

Faux pas wrote:I demand a public trial

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this. Demanding a trial? A bit dramatic don't we think?

Anyway, it seems most of the users agree with the Moderator's decision here. You can add me to that list too.

As a side note, I'd like to say the moderation on the site is probably the best I've seen on any site.

Faux Pas wrote:
Trial by peers is a pretty diplomatic approach I'd say.

I think you've confused Dakka with a democratic system.

We're a fascism here. We gladly bend down for our glorious fascist MODs to walk all over us lest we be baned.

If you had spoken that original post to me instead of typed it, I would have been hard pressed not to jump straight to Wernicke's aphasia.

 Platuan4th wrote:
...lest we be baned.

I love this meme

 liquidjoshi wrote:

Faux pas wrote:I demand a public trial

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this. Demanding a trial? A bit dramatic don't we think?

Anyway, it seems most of the users agree with the Moderator's decision here. You can add me to that list too.

As a side note, I'd like to say the moderation on the site is probably the best I've seen on any site.

I agree with all 3 points.

This whole thread is just silly.
You're demanding a public trial? Where do you think you are?
This is not the US, where you get to demand a trial by peers. This is a dictatorship, as are all forums. The site OWNERS and their appointed REPRESENTATIVES make, interpret and enforce the rules here.
You have no rights. You have permission to post. That is it. Even that permission is revokable for no more reason than "today's Thursday," or some even more random thought.

You posted something that a Mod did not care for, and he locked it. An Admin (Yakface) has supported that lock. That is all the reason you need and, in fact, more than is owed to you.

As has been said, if you want a place where you can post your musings, fitting your own criteria of "acceptable," that will not be edited or shut down by some higher power, then you need to start your own site and BE that higher power.

Eric

I couldnt make head nor tails of the original post being honest.

However, perhaps Manchu worded the initial response incorrectly.
I wouldnt have called the thread spam per se, there have been much worse cases of that.
It was not clear what the point of the thread was overall and the style of posting etc (Im gathering its some form of reddit thing ).

Having said that a the suggestion was made to write it as an article which was fair enough.

I would have just quoted rule #5 and suggested to post as an article.

I feel the offense taken by the OP might be in relation to it being labelled as spam.

Anywhooooo.