Administrative Tribunal Commentary Thread

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Cloak&Dagger said:
Yes, I did read it, and almost all the councilors even noted it didn't deserve anywhere near a permaban, including Datcord who just decided 'fuck this guy just because I feel like it' and voted to uphold even though he stated in his own post he knew that was excessive.

Foamy's link to the specific post and explanation was perfectly clear it was about banned memes.
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And they didn't get permabanned.

Yes, they got indefinite suspensions and were exposed to the Council's scrutiny, but it is more than within the power of the Directorate to summarily permaban a user if they see fit.

Halsey and Vespasian got a chance to make their cases, ask for lenience, and apologize. And frankly, after their rather egregious posts, they were lucky they got that chance.
 
Salty said:
And they didn't get permabanned.

Yes, they got indefinite suspensions and were exposed to the Council's scrutiny, but it is more than within the power of the Directorate to summarily permaban a user if they see fit.

Halsey and Vespasian got a chance to make their cases, ask for lenience, and apologize. And frankly, after their rather egregious posts, they were lucky they got that chance.
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Poster A: "I posted this meme on another forum and they banned me!"

Poster B: "Yeah, that's pretty ridiculous."

Is not 'egregious' by either poster A or B, by any definition of the word, and is what both cases pretty much are.

Off topic or not supposed to complain about other forums? Maybe, I can see an infraction on that basis, but that angle wasn't even acknowledged as any part of the bans.
 
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Cloak&Dagger said:
Poster A: "I posted this meme on another forum and they banned me!"

Poster B: "Yeah, that's pretty ridiculous."

Is not 'egregious' by either poster A or B, by any definition of the word, and is what both cases pretty much are.

Off topic or not supposed to complain about other forums? Maybe, I can see an infraction on that basis, but that angle wasn't even acknowledged as any part of the bans.
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Maybe go back and actually reread the posts that got them infracted. Hint, you'll see them reposting the same racist meme, getting told that it's a racist meme, and then doubling down on posting the same racist meme.

And I dunno what goes on in your head, but around here racist memes are considered pretty damn egregious.
 
Cloak&Dagger said:
Off topic or not supposed to complain about other forums? Maybe, I can see an infraction on that basis, but that angle wasn't even acknowledged as any part of the bans.
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Those weren't brought up because it wasn't off-topic for that thread and because complaining about other boards isn't against the rules.

Are you sure you know which board you're posting on right now?

It's the one where you can talk about other boards without consequence but using and especially defending 'remove kebab' or other slur-laden phrases for genocide is contraindicated.
 
Salty said:
Maybe go back and actually reread the posts that got them infracted. Hint, you'll see them reposting the same racist meme, getting told that it's a racist meme, and then doubling down on posting the same racist meme.

And I dunno what goes on in your head, but around here racist memes are considered pretty damn egregious.
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By repost do you mean quote?

Yes, they quoted what they were talking about, and then said they didn't think it was racist. Then they were banned for racism?

How does that make sense? They could have just been told, 'Well we consider that racism here so don't post it'.

Then it would have been done and over with without any drama or extra effort because unlike trolls or disruptive people that permabans should be limited to, they would just not do it again and that would be that.

Flailing the banhammer around just seems completely unnecessary.
 
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Cloak&Dagger said:
Datcord who just decided to voted to uphold even though he stated in his own post he knew that was excessive.
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Hi. Allow me to point out what I actually said. I respectfully suggest you reread them, as you appear to have drastically misunderstood the entire point of both my posts.

Cloak&Dagger said:
By repost do you mean quote?

Yes, they quoted what they were talking about, and then said they didn't think it was racist. Then they were banned for racism?

How does that make sense? They could have just been told, 'Well we consider that racism here so don't post it'.

Then it would have been done and over with without any drama or extra effort because unlike trolls or disruptive people that permabans should be limited to, they would just not do it again and that would be that.

Flailing the banhammer around just seems completely unnecessary.
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To be clear: They were told, both of them. Repeatedly. And, as I noted (with links to specific posts even), they decided to just double, triple, or even quadruple down on it. This was not a case of some poor, misinformed posters making an accidental whoopsie and then, before they could say "Oh, we didn't know! My goodness, how silly of us, we'll certainly never do THAT again!", getting hammered by the mods. The chain of posts involved is... pretty clear.

And, again, I'll be the last person to argue against them being shown mercy in this case. Mercy is a virtue and it's good to show it in many cases. But I'll be damned if I'm the one who argues for it in this case, for the reasons I very clearly laid out in my Tribunal posts.
 
Datcord said:
Hi. Allow me to point out what I actually said. I respectfully suggest you reread them, as you appear to have drastically misunderstood the entire point of both my posts.
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I'm specifically talking about this sentiment from what you said:

Datcord said:
However, and this is where the conflict comes in... In this, TYOOL 2019, my capacity for tolerance of racism and/or intolerance is completely and totally gone. It's been gone for a long time. I find myself no longer caring if it's ironic, memetic, "normalized," or any other variety. I'm done. I'm 150% done and have been for what feels like an eternity.
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Which is that you want to flail the banhammer regardless of circumstances because of personal issues. Or at least that's how it reads to me.

Datcord said:
To be clear: They were told, both of them. Repeatedly. And, as I noted (with links to specific posts even), they decided to just double, triple, or even quadruple down on it. This was not a case of some poor, misinformed posters making an accidental whoopsie and then, before they could say "Oh, we didn't know! My goodness, how silly of us, we'll certainly never do THAT again!", getting hammered by the mods. The chain of posts involved is... pretty clear.

And, again, I'll be the last person to argue against them being shown mercy in this case. Mercy is a virtue and it's good to show it in many cases. But I'll be damned if I'm the one who argues for it in this case, for the reasons I very clearly laid out in my Tribunal posts.
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They were not 'told repeatedly'. Other people said those memes were racist, they said they didn't think they were. That's an entirely separate scenario from people saying they would be banned from SV immediately if they posted them, and them posting them anyway. In fact, they never even use the memes in question, they just quote them to explain the situation on another site.

Apparently mere discussion of the memes is enough to be banned forever, which apparently took them as well as many councilors by surprise going by their appeal threads.

There's no need for an immediate ban when a simple 'don't do that' would have sufficed. I'm really not seeing how more than a warning at most could be justified.

Like, if you're trying to get rid of thoughtcriminals, then Squishy's original ban makes sense, since I doubt they'll ever really care whether people were offended by their meme or not, or if people take their meme to mean something else.

But if you're just trying to keep them in line, a simple warning does the same as a nearly year long ban. By all means, if they do it a second time, hit them harder, but it's not necessary for a first offense.
 
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I have to agree with Cloak here, have since the start really. Jumping to permaban on users barely days into their existence on this forum is going way too hard and way too fast. If they had been permabanned it would have been an utter travesty of justice, and frankly, while I normally respect your judgement Datcord, you should be ashamed at having voted to uphold such a ridiculously overblown punishment.
 
I think an argument could be made that a suspension over, at maximum, 6 months long is a kind of a ridiculous "compromise" between the desire to permaban somebody vs. giving lenience, which really doesn't satisfy either side of the argument.

If you are told that you are banned from a forum over half a year... most people would just move on.

Do I remember it correctly or is a year about the minimum time, when permbanned members can quietly ask the admins for a chance at a new start/identity? So all an 8 month suspension does, is basically make the processes a few month faster and automatic.
 
Spectral Waltz said:
I have to agree with Cloak here, have since the start really. Jumping to permaban on users barely days into their existence on this forum is going way too hard and way too fast. If they had been permabanned it would have been an utter travesty of justice, and frankly, while I normally respect your judgement Datcord, you should be ashamed at having voted to uphold such a ridiculously overblown punishment.
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If a user has major rules violations within the first dozen posts on the site, they're probably more trouble than they're worth. It's a good sign that they could be a troll with no desire to use the site productively or similar kinds of troublemaker. Without a history of productive posting why should the staff or council make more work for themselves in hope of reform?
 
Iron Roby said:
I think an argument could be made that a suspension over, at maximum, 6 months long is a kind of a ridiculous "compromise" between the desire to permaban somebody vs. giving lenience, which really doesn't satisfy either side of the argument.

If you are told that you are banned from a forum over half a year... most people would just move on.

Do I remember it correctly or is a year about the minimum time, when permbanned members can quietly ask the admins for a chance at a new start/identity? So all an 8 month suspension does, is basically make the processes a few month faster and automatic.
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For what it's worth, Admiral Halsey did make his way over to SB from here. All I'll say about my interactions there is that there has been much out-of-band headache, and I have repeated a user-specific action taken here earlier for my sanity. Similar context, similar reason.

mr_stibbons said:
If a user has major rules violations within the first dozen posts on the site, they're probably more trouble than they're worth. It's a good sign that they could be a troll with no desire to use the site productively or similar kinds of troublemaker. Without a history of productive posting why should the staff or council make more work for themselves in hope of reform?
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I mean, I'd argue that a standard-ish 100/200 points plus probation (with instant ban on related violation) would do the job better. This is what I'd argue based on first principles.

But when you take into account personal experience – I'll just say that I've heard many off-site calls for threadbans over the past few days – and not just what I'd advocate as a general rule... As of this week, I'm feeling a lot less merciful.

I'm very willing to give a chance to reform, but at the same time, I only have finite patience. I still think that a speedy ban on probation violation would be a better precedent, though.
 
Cloak&Dagger said:
The whole thing with Vespasian seems totally ridiculous to me.

He comes in with:


And immediately gets permabanned. Not because he's complaining about another forum, but because he used some memes on another forum that are verboten?

So now he's banned for 'merely' almost a year. I'm sure he's learned his lesson about... not keeping up with what memes posted to other sites get you permabanned?

Seriously you may as well just put in a wordfilter attached to an autoban with how ridiculous this is.
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There is a point here, with a new poster, throwing a several month ban on them is effectively a perma, or an invitation to sockpuppet. There's no real incentive to do your time and come back.

I would have made the punishment either a 50-pointer, or gone full on with a perma, depending on whether you believed the poster had a chance at reforming. I think this in-between solution doesn't really show mercy, and will either effectively be a perma (in which case why not perma), or an incentive to do actions which would lead to a perma if caught (which is more work for staff)

I'm not arguing for mercy here on the grounds that they deserve it, I'm arguing that the solution was a middle ground that doesn't exist. This has to be either a standard severe infraction, or a perma.
 
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CompassJimbo said:
I'm fairly sure calling someone a cuck would be. Discussion of the term and its use, however, would be fine as long as it, you know, doesn't sputter into hate-driven drivel.
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This seems to be the staff's exact point of view from what I have seen in practise thus far.

You can discuss the word and why it's used by the alt-right but you can't throw it as an insult, even in an ironic/mocking sense against those who use the term themselves.

An interesting example, but I can't remember from where, was a poster got infracted for using "cuck" in an ironic sense mocking either Trump or an alt-right figure. But an infraction was handed out because it sort of degraded the tone of discussion. For my part, I'm not one to advocate the sort of "use the enemy's weapons against them" line of thought when it comes to rhetoric and certain words.

I'm a bisexual man, I don't want to call homophobes "faggots", I want to excise that word from popular discourse and make it categorically unacceptable in all circumstances except as a discussion of where we've come from as a society in terms of tolerance.
 
Heavy W. Guy said:
An interesting example, but I can't remember from where, was a poster got infracted for using "cuck" in an ironic sense mocking either Trump or an alt-right figure. But an infraction was handed out because it sort of degraded the tone of discussion. For my part, I'm not one to advocate the sort of "use the enemy's weapons against them" line of thought when it comes to rhetoric and certain words.
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Same. There's no reason to legitimize their putrid vocabulary. Plus, if you make sure they're the only ones to use it, they out themselves by using it.
 
Cloak&Dagger said:
They were not 'told repeatedly'. Other people said those memes were racist, they said they didn't think they were. That's an entirely separate scenario from people saying they would be banned from SV immediately if they posted them, and them posting them anyway. In fact, they never even use the memes in question, they just quote them to explain the situation on another site.
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Post: "It's not racist, it's a meme from EU4"
EU4: "It's not a meme, it's racist."

Everybody is responsible for what they post, ignorance is not a defense.
 
Nyvis said:
Same. There's no reason to legitimize their putrid vocabulary. Plus, if you make sure they're the only ones to use it, they out themselves by using it.
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And for my part, I'm really skeptical of the idea that we can "defeat" various undesirable words by reusing them. I wouldn't ever want homophobic slurs to be used to describe me even if it were in a joking or affectionate manner.
 
Heavy W. Guy said:
And for my part, I'm really skeptical of the idea that we can "defeat" various undesirable words by reusing them. I wouldn't ever want homophobic slurs to be used to describe me even if it were in a joking or affectionate manner.
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It worked for queer, so if you really invest yourself in it, it can work. But there wasn't the same organized push to use it as a slur the same way the alt right can mobilize. It was more of a background homophobia thing.
 
Pidl said:
ignorance is not a defense
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I mean, but it is.

I do wanna point out I understand your point though, just being facetious and a smartass, somewhat.

Edit: Will point out, that link is actually somewhat enlightening in the fact that it does show Ignorance can be utilized as a defense, maybe not here, but in RL, where quite honestly I thought it couldn't. Looked up if it could be a defense as a joke, and then that popped up. Interesting stuff this thread incites me to discover.
 
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grommile said:
Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis :)
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Completely fair point, just pointing out that if we took the statement as absolute, it would be wrong. Nothing more, nothing less.

Edit: Also, thanks for giving me that to further research. Honestly I do enjoy the learning of new and old things.
 
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