Rule Change (New Staff Power)

[Heat]

1. Never said that I had a low opinion of staff

Your entire post belies that. If you think that staff would or does engage in bullying and coercion, that is by definition a low opinion of the staff.

2. Only said there would be a possibility of these things happening, which there is.

There is also a possibility of me hitting the 'Purge Spammer' button on the bottom of every single post from every non staff member. With two clicks, I could wipe out any member and every post they ever posted. Any staff member could do that at any time. Wonder why it hasn't happened yet?

3. Never said this would happen, or even remotely said there was a high probability of it happening. I was simply pointing out that it has some flaws that could allow things like this to happen, not that it will allow things like this to happen.

What flaws does this power have that any other power doesn't? Are the other staff powers less susceptible to coercion or bullying or favor trading?

4. Never said staff was corrupt.

Then what is the problem? If you're not suggesting staff has some corruption, then how could you "see staff getting mad at each other for possibly not voting yes, because of their own personal opinions, or staff possibly trying to coerce each other in to voting to pass it." Who on staff could you see doing something like that?

5. Stop making assumptions and getting up in arms for no reason about what your own imagination conjured up as representing what I said, when in reality it's no where near it.

Those are your words, no? Please tell me how your words mean something different than what they mean.

You know what i'm just not going to respond anymore because I don't feel like getting misrepresented.

[Jackalope]

My minimum bribe level is a turnip.

But if you want me to vote specifically to have someone banned it will cost you $50 and a bag of m&ms...

... and a turnip.

If you want to bribe me, send a big fat bag of weed. No, a FAT bag of weed. Then I'll consider your proposal, and still vote my own way.

[Joods]

It takes strong people to lead and keeping this place free of the riff raff isn't easy. Being staff here is a thankless job. Those who are just members don't get to see all the hard work that goes into such a huge responsibility.

Making decisions like this can't possibly be easy and I thank each and every one of you for taking the time to do so. After all, you could just say fuck it and let the members fend for themselves, but because you care and we are a community, that doesn't happen. Thank you.

[Alex K]

My favourite futurama quote is apropos

Hermes: Here, Leela. Take this and use it to shoot those guys.
Leela: Right! If they try to look in the box.
Hermes: Whatever.

[robvalue]

I'd like to say again that (unless I'm much mistaken) the staff don't technically have any more power than before. If they all decided they wanted someone banned, they could ban them. Or as Steel is saying, perhaps not even that many need to agree. They're not obliged to tell anyone the reasons, as far as I know. So they could quite easily nuke someone without this "power", if they decided to.

All this represents is putting forward a more formal way of doing something they could already do, which they perhaps would agree was the best cause of action but because of their sincerity in sticking to the rules, wouldn't choose to do.

Everyone will be made aware of this, and undoubtedly anyone being such a fuckwit as to need this extreme measure will have caused upset aleady and can be warned. If they ignore this and carry on like a fuckwit, poisoning the forum in general, on their head be it. It's not much to ask members to refrain from photobombing multiple threads with disruptive behaviour. I know this is subjective, like all rules are to a degree, but if someone is upsetting most of the forum with their behaviour, that's a bit more than "an opinion".

That's my opinion anyhow

[*Deidre*]

Another option is they need 'x' amount of posts in a particular section before they can create new threads on their own. That to me has always been a prudent idea with newbies to forums.

I get that but it's my belief that putting up impediments to posting or creating threads has a chilling effect on new members.  I don't think any of us want that.

It's certainly something that's possible, but in my experience, complicated configurations only lead to confusion.

Yes, I can see that, too.

[Napoléon]

The issue (from my point of view) isn't anything to do with whether or not the staff would use different powers to ban someone.

For me it's the principle of having a bunch of rules, and still saying you can ban people even when they don't break them. Again, don't get caught up on if staff decide to abuse such power (that they already have). I know for a fact this would never happen and I, like SC, doubt this new "power" would ever be used.

It's just the principle. And in my view, from spending a fair amount of time on staff myself, I know that users can be banned even when skirting the rules, not because we need to invent some nuclear option, but because the staff can already agree if someone is causing negativity to the point where it becomes a disruption, within the remit of the existing rules.

I don't know what situation has arisen recently to make staff want to have this nuclear option, but I really don't see the point in it.

Like I said though, in the grand scheme of things it'll probably never be used. But coming back to the principle of it, it seems a little silly to me.

[Losty]

I agree with you Napo but at the same time I just feel like, given the current situation, nothing will change as a result of this new power. So...I feel kind of apathetic towards it.

[Napoléon]

Yeah you're right, it's not even an issue in reality but I'm a stickler for shit like this. I'm not going to lose sleep over it but I do disagree with the whole notion of this nuclear option in principle especially when I honestly think it's irrelevant to declare it a thing. People have already essentially admitted as much by saying it will probably never be used and the staff already have such powers anyway.

So I'm sitting here, still wondering, even after all the justification, thinking "why"?

[Cyberman]

You know what i'm just not going to respond anymore because I don't feel like getting misrepresented.

Then perhaps you should concentrate on representing yourself more clearly. I'm not saying that to be insulting, but a forum is a verbal medium; so communication is sort of important.

Let's just say that the scenario painted in this thread is accurate. It's actually the opposite, but we'll go with it for the moment. A civil war breaks out among the Staff. One or two want a certain member banned so badly they can taste it. Others disagree violently and aren't afraid of making it clear. The rest decide not to get involved. What's the worst that can happen? Every Staff member has access to the ban function, with options to determine the ban length. Purging is also standard kit, which erases everything about a member except their profile page.

Point is that no high-order action of this nature is completely irreversible. Even purged accounts can be reinstated from database backups, though I believe not unscathed (I think kudos and reputation levels are lost). The reason this doesn't happen as a matter of course is that purging is reserved for spammers - and I don't think we want those things back.

This for me is an issue of trust. Mods have powers unavailable to grassroots members, and Admins even more arcane powers that would have you screaming for the hills if you only knew. Possibly. Being on Staff means being in a position of trust - like any relationship, if that trust isn't there then nothing is; and nothing is going to restore it.