Selecting a Despot for the Autism Thunderdome

[Kenya Jones]

I'd like to nominate @WolfeTone. He's a good boy, and could get the job done.

I agree he is spineless and desperate for approval from people he considers his peers. He is also unemployed and unemployable, so he can be on here every waking second. @WolfeTone please be our mod <3

I see you have a sense of humor after all, why then do you bitch about hugboxes?

Because I have a sense of humor.

 

[Matt Damon]

No, but it is very common for Supporters users to shit talk A&N users behind a paywall.

 

[Nobunaga]

Seems to me nobody has a problem with hugboxes until it concerns A&H which isn't one to begin with. Every single argument for more moderation in my opinion is disingenuous for one reason or another because I've yet to see one that doesn't apply to some other area of the site to the same extent if not even moreso yet no other section gets so much vitriolic hatred.

Dsp/guntbros/vtumors.....are we being called out????

 

[Kermit Jizz]

When someone says he hopes Philosophy Tube dies, nobody bats an eye. When someone says he hopes AOC dies, people lose their minds.

A&N tends to A-Log about politicians rather than random cows like the rest of the forum, and politicians are our betters and cannot be spoken out against. In mild cases, you get activists using posts like that as ammunition to make Null's life more difficult. In extreme cases, you get SIGSEGV, which also makes Null's life more difficult. It's not fair, but it is what it is.

However, Null is still - within reason - pro free speech, so banning anyone who says "I hate the antichrist" is too crude of a solution. A lot of people are here because it's one of the few sites left without infinity jannies permabanning everyone they don't like. If that starts happening here, it could cultivate an atmosphere of distrust and trigger a mass exodus.

So the problem is that certain people do need to be banned, but it needs to be done in a way that makes it very clear that these bans are highly localized and done for a very good reason. It's a delicate balancing act and it may not even work if done correctly.

The fedposting seems like the easiest issue to resolve. Big fucking banner at the top of A&N that clarifies what constitutes fedposting (like if adding in minecraft is not allowed make that explicit) and if you blatantly break the rules you get a temp ban and a dm from the janny explaining what you did and why it was gay. You fuck up again after that and you're gone. Jannies can give leniency at their digression to account for frequency/severity of offences, someone accidentally breaking the rule once a year with a poorly worded joke probably doesn't need the same treatment as explicit threats.

I really do get the desire to not want to ban people, but if it's such a problem Null is considering nuking parts of his forum he might as well start liberally banhammering first. I mean do we really want people around who don't understand blatant fedposting is insanely retarded?

No, but it is very common for Supporters users to shit talk A&N users behind a paywall.

Oh no, have I secretly been getting bullied this entire time? I really need to get off my lazy ass and throw Null some crypto so I can do absolutely nothing because anyone seething about my posts is gayer than pride month.

 

[Pharaoh Fungus]

I'd like to nominate myself. I have no experience, no idea how to do it, am prone to forgetting important tasks for no reason at all, putting off the tasks I didn't forget until it's too late to accomplish them, and will most likely do what I think is funniest, not what is best for the Thunderdome (i.e., banning random users, not banning people who need it, possibly posting weird but tasteful porn and or weird but true facts for no discernable reason, etc.).

However, at least I'm honest enough to admit I'm the last person here who should get the spot.

So in conclusion, vote for me, take your vitamins, drink your Ovaltine, take care of your pets, and imbibe in psychedelics frequently but not too often.

God bless and peace out!

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Oh no, have I secretly been getting bullied this entire time? I really need to get off my lazy ass and throw Null some crypto so I can do absolutely nothing because anyone seething about my posts is gayer than pride month.

Yet A&N is somehow the hugbox.

 

[pwnest injun]

This is always my reaction to people talking dramatically about how it's an existential threat to the site and so forth.

Maybe there's a lot of shit going on behind the scenes that I don't see, but it seems pretty unremarkable in any of the threads I've followed. Almost every thread on KF eventually gets some faggot who can't keep his sperging to a dull roar and gets thread banned.

When some people read a post that makes them angry, they assume that the person posting it is speaking in anger. They sort of project their emotions onto the other person. At least, I've noticed this happening with certain people on a certain spectrum.

 

[Kenya Jones]

Ok fuck it I'm tired so I'll just post what I have from the last 6 days:
Post
Proofs
And here is one that is just plain conspiracy theory:
Post
Here is a post where the OP posts two conspiracy theory articles followed by and article that debunks the two:
Post
Another conspiracy theory article:
Post
A stupid opinion article disguised as a real one:
Post
Proofs
I know these are not the best examples, and that three don't even have any proofs (although it shouldn't be hard to see how they're insane) but I think the two with proofs are pretty solid. Also I'm tired, fuck you.

 

[Megaton Punch]

No, but it is very common for Supporters users to shit talk A&N users behind a paywall.

You're not wrong there. Many, if not most, of those people are former SA regulars who are trying to turn KF into what they perceive as the golden age of SA. A leftist hugbox, but not so swamped with troons that it's unbearable. SA is a completely lost cause and everyone knows it, so the rats fled the sinking ship and are doing what rats do: make rat's nests.

Or maybe they're just whiny babies who have nothing better to do than bitch on the internet. Could be either.

The fedposting seems like the easiest issue to resolve. Big fucking banner at the top of A&N that clarifies what constitutes fedposting (like if adding in minecraft is not allowed make that explicit) and if you blatantly break the rules you get a temp ban and a dm from the janny explaining what you did and why it was gay. You fuck up again after that and you're gone. Jannies can give leniency at their digression to account for frequency/severity of offences, someone accidentally breaking the rule once a year with a poorly worded joke probably doesn't need the same treatment as explicit threats.

I really do get the desire to not want to ban people, but if it's such a problem Null is considering nuking parts of his forum he might as well start liberally banhammering first. I mean do we really want people around who don't understand blatant fedposting is insanely retarded?

I personally don't think that making a set of rules that say "if you keep doing this, the establishment will fuck this site to death, and I mean that literally, so now it's a bannable offense" is a bridge too far. But a lot of people do. And the thing about enacting that kind of rule is that you don't know exactly how many people will leave because of it. It could destroy the forum and nobody would know until it's too late.

Like I said, this is basically a community of outcasts and exiles. If someone declares themselves the arbiter of morality, everyone might just leave pre-emptively because they anticipate what comes next. Many people here have been banned from multiple sites, and it always follows the same pattern: a website declares itself to be on the Right Side of History and then culls half its users, replacing them with bots and sockpuppets. I know that if this were to happen, I'd be among the first to leave. I don't think it would happen, because this site doesn't endeavor to be advertiser-friendly like most do, but if someone has been burned several times before, they're not likely to stick around long enough for it to happen again.

 

[Occam's Spork]

Oh, it's this thread again. Lol. A&H is really only a sore point to people who have no idea how to debate politics, and/or get butthurt when insulted about their beliefs and generate spurious reports driven by emotion.

The whole Idea of a despotic mod and a cohort of jannies to me seems like a hamfisted solution in search of a problem if you want political discussion at all. Since you said in your OP that you actually wanted a place on the site to discuss news, you're just going to have to simply deal with the current political climate we have, doubly so if you value free speech, and I know you do @Null.

So I have very few concrete ideas that haven't already been posted here, but I'll say I'm in favor of a few things, namely:

Hide AT entirely. There's no real reason for it to be visible because the real point of this place was never politics, even if some of the cows here are funny for retarded takes on politics.
I used to admin another forum, and banning people is a last resort. All that does is incite paranoia and distrust among the rest of the users. That said, bans for obviously illegal shit that threaten the existence of the forum itself are something that should be swift and merciless. I didn't really agree with SIGSEV getting banned, but it was his choice to fly so close to the sun there. You reap what you sow.

I like updoots as much as the next person, it's nice to feel validated. And I agree with @Spunt that really, A&H doesn't really need stickers. However, in the interest of simply being able to up/downvote posts in lieu of making threads about hotly contested topics more full of long winded disagreements, especially considering how most people tend to post there, I'd err on the side of keeping them.

I don't know if this point has been raised yet, but If I were in the position of owner of this site and all it entails, I would just keep registration completely closed throughout the summer. Really past the midterm election. This place isn't as unknown and wild westish as it was when I started lurking here in 2015. To add to that, I think that AT should kind of always have some sort of user agreement, much as I hate that whole concept. Ideally, literally everyone should be able to go and say whatever the hell they want in a political forum on a place like this, and I also agree with @xXx: State of the Union that the real problem isn't speech itself, it a bunch of whiny asses butthurt mashing the report button. To that I can only say harden the fuck up and get thicker skin. This is KF first off, and second, it's always going to be words on a screen. I doubt many of us here have enough political clout to actively directly change much.

Ultimately, A&H is, and always will be, a dumpster fire. There's no amount of heavyhanded moderation that will change the minds of the people who whine constantly about it. Politics in general is also a dumpster fire these days, for reasons you'll find endlessly harped about in AT, so really, it being a political part of KF, would obviously reflect that sad state of affairs. C'est la vie.

All that said, while I love the rest of the site for lurking, my interests lie more in politics than lolcattle, at least when it comes to actually posting. I have no reason or desire to go shit up the portions of this site that deal with internet drama with my personal political opinions, especially if they're totally irrelevant. To me, I have a hard time giving much of a shit about internet drama, but if that's your bag, baby, I ain't gonna rain on your parade.

 

[Cold Root Beer]

I nominate @Disheveled Human, He got @L50LasPak canned, so by Highlander rules the position is rightfully his.

 

[Larry David's Opera Cape]

Ok fuck it I'm tired so I'll just post what I have from the last 6 days:
Post
Proofs
And here is one that is just plain conspiracy theory:
Post
Here is a post where the OP posts two conspiracy theory articles followed by and article that debunks the two:
Post
Another conspiracy theory article:
Post
A stupid opinion article disguised as a real one:
Post
Proofs
I know these are not the best examples, and that three don't even have any proofs (although it shouldn't be hard to see how they're insane) but I think the two with proofs are pretty solid. Also I'm tired, fuck you.

I started the Florida church thread. I'd like to hear a clear explanation of what makes it a "conspiracy." You don't like the website the first links come from, I understand that. That alone might make it "biased" or "misleading" or "an editorial" but it doesn't make it a "conspiracy theory." The third link is from a MSM source. In it, leaders from the church in question confirm that they are hosting the conference. They confirm the existence of the drag show for kids. Where is the "conspiracy theory" debunked?

 

[Sammich]

Oh, it's this thread again. Lol. A&H is really only a sore point to people who have no idea how to debate politics, and/or get butthurt when insulted about their beliefs and generate spurious reports driven by emotion.

The whole Idea of a despotic mod and a cohort of jannies to me seems like a hamfisted solution in search of a problem if you want political discussion at all. Since you said in your OP that you actually wanted a place on the site to discuss news, you're just going to have to simply deal with the current political climate we have, doubly so if you value free speech, and I know you do @Null.

So I have very few concrete ideas that haven't already been posted here, but I'll say I'm in favor of a few things, namely:

Hide AT entirely. There's no real reason for it to be visible because the real point of this place was never politics, even if some of the cows here are funny for retarded takes on politics.
I used to admin another forum, and banning people is a last resort. All that does is incite paranoia and distrust among the rest of the users. That said, bans for obviously illegal shit that threaten the existence of the forum itself are something that should be swift and merciless. I didn't really agree with SIGSEV getting banned, but it was his choice to fly so close to the sun there. You reap what you sow.

I like updoots as much as the next person, it's nice to feel validated. And I agree with @Spunt that really, A&H doesn't really need stickers. However, in the interest of simply being able to up/downvote posts in lieu of making threads about hotly contested topics more full of long winded disagreements, especially considering how most people tend to post there, I'd err on the side of keeping them.

I don't know if this point has been raised yet, but If I were in the position of owner of this site and all it entails, I would just keep registration completely closed throughout the summer. Really past the midterm election. This place isn't as unknown and wild westish as it was when I started lurking here in 2015. To add to that, I think that AT should kind of always have some sort of user agreement, much as I hate that whole concept. Ideally, literally everyone should be able to go and say whatever the hell they want in a political forum on a place like this, and I also agree with @xXx: State of the Union that the real problem isn't speech itself, it a bunch of whiny asses butthurt mashing the report button. To that I can only say harden the fuck up and get thicker skin. This is KF first off, and second, it's always going to be words on a screen. I doubt many of us here have enough political clout to actively directly change much.

Ultimately, A&H is, and always will be, a dumpster fire. There's no amount of heavyhanded moderation that will change the minds of the people who whine constantly about it. Politics in general is also a dumpster fire these days, for reasons you'll find endlessly harped about in AT, so really, it being a political part of KF, would obviously reflect that sad state of affairs. C'est la vie.

All that said, while I love the rest of the site for lurking, my interests lie more in politics than lolcattle, at least when it comes to actually posting. I have no reason or desire to go shit up the portions of this site that deal with internet drama with my personal political opinions, especially if they're totally irrelevant. To me, I have a hard time giving much of a shit about internet drama, but if that's your bag, baby, I ain't gonna rain on your parade.

This guy here, this is pretty much my exact opinions down to a t. Only difference is a rarely use AT unless something big is going on. Midterms/abortion stuff, just hot button issues really.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

You're not wrong there. Many, if not most, of those people are former SA regulars who are trying to turn KF into what they perceive as the golden age of SA. A leftist hugbox, but not so swamped with troons that it's unbearable. SA is a completely lost cause and everyone knows it, so the rats fled the sinking ship and are doing what rats do: make rat's nests.

Or maybe they're just whiny babies who have nothing better to do than bitch on the internet. Could be either.

T&S is one and the same as A&H.

We both want walls.

 

[Flowers For Sonichu]

Shut the fuck up.

You don’t have permission to quote me

 

[Megaton Punch]

One more post where I take an internet forum about an autistic manchild's Sonic OC way too seriously, and then I'll shut up for a while.

I've talked a lot about rules scaring people off of a site where half the users have been banned from the rest of the internet for not following unreasonable rules. And there's one seemingly obvious solution: ask the people what rules they find palatable. Why don't we simply ask the masses whether or not having a No Fedposting policy is reasonable to them?

Well, imagine if the leader of your country asked you whether you would be okay with him coming to your town and murdering everyone who didn't vote him. He's not going to do it, he just wants to know if you're be okay with him doing it.

Merely asking that question has some extremely unpleasant implications, and that's potentially how such a thing would be viewed here. Obviously comparing being b& from an internet forum to being killed by your government is a gross overreaction, but to a lot of people this is basically the last stop before the internet ends. Ruin this place, and they basically have nowhere else to go, except real life. And real life has wasps and uncomfortable levels of humidity and all that shit. Fuck real life.

This is a very specific problem with a very specific solution that nobody has figured out yet. It seems on its face to simply be schoolyard REEEEEing about my subforum is better than your subforum, but it's not so much about A&H itself and more about the fact that real life political discussions bring real life political problems wherever they go. On topic did the same thing recently, with Byuu. His (fake) suicide caused a lot of bullshit here, and his claim to fame was being a Twitter furry who made an emulator. Imagine if the same thing were to happen with someone like the relative of a powerful political figure. The scapegoating and blame would come directly from the top. That'd be the end of this site.

 

[Aidan]

Ok fuck it I'm tired so I'll just post what I have from the last 6 days:
Post
Proofs
And here is one that is just plain conspiracy theory:
Post
Here is a post where the OP posts two conspiracy theory articles followed by and article that debunks the two:
Post
Another conspiracy theory article:
Post
A stupid opinion article disguised as a real one:
Post
Proofs
I know these are not the best examples, and that three don't even have any proofs (although it shouldn't be hard to see how they're insane) but I think the two with proofs are pretty solid. Also I'm tired, fuck you.

What's your point?

Anyway I'm personally convinced it's a few autistic people who autistically report things from A&N thus making it a pain for Null as there aren't mods reliably handling things but they'll never admit to doing it. Same thing with stickers in A&N, the people who got mad about stickers don't appear to be the people everyone claims cares about stickers. The only people I ever saw upset were known trolls who kept getting negrated with MATI and puzzle pieces so I'm pretty sure they're the ones who griped in the first place.

The thread that has resulted in the current fiasco is just part of the increasing current year brain-break as people dig into "camps" and get mad when they encounter a view different than their own so someone reports posts they don't like in the thread and instead of a janny (Null?) sifting through pages of autism they go the safe route and just remove the "offending" posts.
What's nutty is that then an entire subforum is blamed on a handful of spergs that are the equivalent of Randall.

 

[Darkholme's Dungeon]

Where's the "on boarding" for regular mods? I feel like I ought to apply only because I use the board, so it's partially my responsibility

I say just make the following:
-No actionable threats (eg; Time, place, manner)
-Members of the team are assigned threads at random and rotate through them on an interval
-Mod who edits/deletes is listed, and has to defend their reason in public on the appeal
-Bring back SS13 server and make it a thunderdome and get the slapfighters to fight/wrestle/ whatever gladiator bout site decides for each other in the game, winner gets bragging rights and banned for a few days, looser gets banned from the thunderdome for a week. Or something to that effect, think of how people used to make up after fighting sometimes.
-"Despot" gets the final word on appeals in this section, so glorious leader "technically" isn't responsible.

 

[Secret Asshole]

Anyone who wants stickers back in A&H:

The absolute fucking misery you bastards put us through because you were angry someone was rating your post dumb or autistic or whatever without responding to it was hell on Earth. If stickers come back I will fucking quit on the spot. Stickers single-handedly caused more chaos than the worst posters there. I've honestly not seen anything like it here. Fucking pure reddit. People wanted @secret watcher's fucking blood for the audacity of never speaking and rating them 'dumb'. Whole entire cliques formed. There were like five PM threads. And then I and HK were pulled in the middle of everything. I can honestly say that probably made him quit.

It was the most batshit retarded thing I've ever seen. They are never coming back because you autists can't handle a number going down.

At the end of the day, I've said my peace. Do what you will with the forum.

Ok fuck it I'm tired so I'll just post what I have from the last 6 days:
Post
Proofs
And here is one that is just plain conspiracy theory:
Post
Here is a post where the OP posts two conspiracy theory articles followed by and article that debunks the two:
Post
Another conspiracy theory article:
Post
A stupid opinion article disguised as a real one:
Post
Proofs
I know these are not the best examples, and that three don't even have any proofs (although it shouldn't be hard to see how they're insane) but I think the two with proofs are pretty solid. Also I'm tired, fuck you.

Bro, if we had standards for sources then we'd have no @CatParty posts. I don't care if it comes from Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, AP or some schizophrenic's medium or substack.

We accept articles from journalists. We have no standards.

 

[Kermit Jizz]

The absolute fucking misery you bastards put us through because you were angry someone was rating your post dumb or autistic or whatever without responding to it was hell on Earth. If stickers come back I will fucking quit on the spot. Stickers single-handedly caused more chaos than the worst posters there. I've honestly not seen anything like it here. Fucking pure reddit. People wanted @secret watcher's fucking blood for the audacity of never speaking and rating them 'dumb'. Whole entire cliques formed. And then I was pulled in the middle of everything.

It was the most batshit retarded thing I've ever seen. They are never coming back because you autists can't handle a number going down.

At the end of the day, I've said my peace.

I really wish there was a time capsule of that autism us newfags could look at to help us understand. It's such a touchy subject for you and Null, I can't even begin to fathom how bad it was.