Which, of course, no-one expects.

Living in Portugal, we always expect a spanish invasion. It happens every 13th of May, when the dumbfucks come to burn candles at Fatima.

The Inquisition? Thing of the past.

this thread is chuck norris

(July 10, 2016 at 1:41 pm)thesummerqueen Wrote: Without having read all of what was going on, I'd like to point back to the excessive negativity clause:

Sometimes a person causes trouble without trolling or breaking the rules per se. They just waste a lot of damn time by being either passive aggressive, harassing, or deliberately ignoring the answers of the staff and bulldozing through.

From the original pages that I read, heathenness had a real problem understanding that no matter what your IDEALS are, you still have to live by the laws of the land or forum or whatever until you can get them changed. This isn't to say I don't condone protest and action against said laws. But disobeying them and being a general nuisance is going to have consequences.

I have to say that the "excessive negativity clause" is just a euphemism for the "don't ignore our torches and pitchforks" clause.  It's pretty meaningless because it's so poorly defined (by design). It's like many Korean contracts which state "The terms of this contract may be changed without notice. The employ-EE will accept reasonable changes as defined by the employ-ER." I shit you not-- that's a real clause, found in about 50% of English-teacher contracts in Korea. The forum RULES represent a social contract: "If you follow these rules, you'll be considered a member in good standing." The NEC amends this to: "If you follow these rules, you'll be considered a member in good standing, unless the powers that be decide they don't like your attitude." Why have more than that one rule, then? Just be honest and say, "If you piss off the mods, you're toast."

When faced with a lot of opposition, some of it mocking or disrespectufal, ANYONE will feel, and act, negatively. Very few people here are positive when they're deep in a debate they care about.  If there was a "negativity clause," the membership role on these forums would include only those who exclusively post cat memes and respond to all threating ideas with smiley-face icons.  And as for "excessive?" Unless the terms are better defined, this amounts to a "Don't piss off those who get to define arbitrary terms, i.e. the mods" clause.

Wrong. There is a negativity clause and no one has been subject to it not even once since it was created. If you think the staff are going around shutting people up that don't agree with us, you're simply wrong. We don't even agree with each other half the time and that's the way we like it.

(July 10, 2016 at 7:06 pm)Losty Wrote: Wrong. There is a negativity clause and no one has been subject to it not even once since it was created. If you think the staff are going around shutting people up that don't agree with us, you're simply wrong. We don't even agree with each other half the time and that's the way we like it.

I didn't say that's what you're doing.

I said that's the nature of that particular clause.  It says, "We won't define the line, but it's there, so don't cross it."  No rule which is so poorly defined should exist, since the point of RULES is to reduce ambiguity, not to increase it.  It's a poorly-written rule, and should be removed or improved.

But since you keep saying I'm wrong, then why don't you say what I'm wrong about? Is the term "excessive" not a totally arbitrary term, and are the mods not the arbitrators of this forum?

Please understand, I'm not arguing against the mods. I'm arguing against a weak and poorly-thought-out rule. Forum rules represent a social contract, and introducing an escape clause into that contract is a lazy shortcut to proper rule-making.

(July 10, 2016 at 7:48 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(July 10, 2016 at 7:06 pm)Losty Wrote: Wrong. There is a negativity clause and no one has been subject to it not even once since it was created. If you think the staff are going around shutting people up that don't agree with us, you're simply wrong. We don't even agree with each other half the time and that's the way we like it.

I didn't say that's what you're doing.

I said that's the nature of that particular clause.  It says, "We won't define the line, but it's there, so don't cross it."  No rule which is so poorly defined should exist, since the point of RULES is to reduce ambiguity, not to increase it.  It's a poorly-written rule, and should be removed or improved.

But since you keep saying I'm wrong, then why don't you say what I'm wrong about?  Is the term "excessive" not a totally arbitrary term, and are the mods not the arbitrators of this forum?

Please understand, I'm not arguing against the mods.  I'm arguing against a weak and poorly-thought-out rule, which in fact isn't even a RULE, since rules are meant to reduce ambiguity, not to increase it.

I was responding to this mostly

Benny Wrote:If there was a "negativity clause," the membership role on these forums would include only those who exclusively post cat memes and respond to all threating ideas with smiley-face icons.

I like keeping the rule just in case of something crazy happening in the future. But it's really been rendered useless now that we fixed the trolling rule. I doubt it will ever be used.

(July 10, 2016 at 3:00 pm)LastPoet Wrote: Living in Portugal, we always expect a spanish invasion. It happens every 13th of May, when the dumbfucks come to burn candles at Fatima.

The Inquisition? Thing of the past.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

(July 10, 2016 at 7:52 pm)Losty Wrote: I was responding to this mostly

Benny Wrote:If there was a "negativity clause," the membership role on these forums would include only those who exclusively post cat memes and respond to all threating ideas with smiley-face icons.

Let me clarify: there's negativity in almost every line in every page on these forums, wherever ideas are being discussed and being debated. Just saying, "You're wrong" is negative.

So the clause revolves around the word "excessive," which is so hopelessly poorly-defined and arbitrary that it represents an escape clause, which is a violation of the principle of the social contract at a fundamental level.

I have nothing against cat memes. I used this as an example of the only members who weren't "negative," and thereby under the over-arching blanket of an arbitrary assessment of whether they were "excessively" negative. Although. . . now that I think about it, some of the cats in those memes say some downright negative things.