Further Light and Knowledge

Yeah, OK. You have me there.

Fucking Dawgma.

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"To those seaching for truth - not the truth of dogma and darkness but the truth brought by reason, search, examination, and inquiry, discipline is required. For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope." - Thomas Edison

Since you brought it up, Rick, I'll make this statement:



Both you and Figaro, as well as others, have crossed this line on several occasions and the mods have more or less let it slide. You are particularly good at violating these. Your constant badgering for fig to make an argument to support his claims walks a very fine line of the latter of the two.

At this point, I see a couple of options. #1 - We can ban politics entirely from FLAK. The mods have talked about this. #2 - The mods can get more heavy handed in monitoring political posts. But this very much goes against my own views on forum moderation. #3 - We can dis-invite you and Fig from posting here. I've only ever banned 1 person from any forum I have ever administered and I don't like doing so. For me, #3 is an absolute last resort.

You may get ridden more than Fig because as much as Fig's lack of substance to the majority of his arguments bug the living shit out me, he at least keeps his arguments mostly with the bounds of the rules and etiquette of the forum.

Telling a moderator to stay out of your face when that individual doing their job in a rather delicate fashion is also quite distasteful and might earn you the scorn (read scrutiny) of more than just that mod. Keep that in mind. This forum has among the most even-keeled moderators of any forum I have been a part of. If you want to continue to go down this road, though, I can certainly start working on implementing some much more rigid moderation.

In other words, don't bite the hand that feeds you.

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"To those seaching for truth - not the truth of dogma and darkness but the truth brought by reason, search, examination, and inquiry, discipline is required. For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope." - Thomas Edison

Actually, I didn't tell a moderator to stay out of my face WHEN that individual is doing their job. I told NP to stay out of my face because of a previous, unjust accusation for which I haven't forgotten and won't. NP is free to regulate according to the rules, but I won't tolerate direct confrontation outside of that role. NP has already proven poor judgement and a willingness to falsely accuse: that crosses a line. So, don't conflate the issue.

Perhaps next time NP shares a private message, it will be in context and complete.

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- CV Rick
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I don't know why you think you can wave your 'pee-pee' around in a private message that you initiated - in the course of me doing my job. The issue is one and the same, and you conflated it yourself.

But that's okay - I forgive you. I vent all my steam in the CV Rick dartboard thread, you see.

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Fear will keep the local systems in line.

I know you want me to leave alone, but I have to say that the screenshot thing was funny.

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"It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office."

- H. L. Mencken

I was told, when I pledged my paltry numbers and attributes to the guild, that my personal preferences and possible fetishii would never be used against me.

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"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."-Thomas Jefferson

Nor will they. I consider it a part of your charm, to be honest.

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"To those seaching for truth - not the truth of dogma and darkness but the truth brought by reason, search, examination, and inquiry, discipline is required. For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope." - Thomas Edison

NP was doing her job as a moderator. It's not up to you to decide whether a mod is doing their job or not. I have no idea what previous unjust accusation you are talking about. Nor do I really care, to be honest. That's beyond the scope of this thread.

If anyone feels that the mods are stepping out of line when filling their roles here, myself included, they are more than welcome send me a PM about it and take it there. I'm sure all of the mods were attest to the fact that if I feel they are out of line on something, I call them on it.

In this case, I stand 100% behind NP based on what I'm seeing.

If NP shows poor judgement and a willingness to falsely accuse, I would argue that you, too, show poor judgement and a willingness to let things go, particularly when it comes to Figaro. Your constant badgering for him to argue with him boarders trolling just as much as his drive-by political postings.

Don't get me wrong here, Rick. I think you're an intelligent person who has contributed some quality points of discussion. I just think you get so emotionally wrapped up in your point of view that you tend to take it too far.

And Figaro ... unless you want to open a can of worms, I'd recommend not even commenting on this post.

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"To those seaching for truth - not the truth of dogma and darkness but the truth brought by reason, search, examination, and inquiry, discipline is required. For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope." - Thomas Edison

notpotable: Alright, let me try this another way. What would you do if someone on this board pointedly and willfully accused another board member of a egregious character fault - which did in fact hurt that person's feelings, and which accusation was pointedly false? What would you do if the accuser then, instead of apologizing or backing down, proceeded to Mock that person repeatedly and denigrate their complaint as frivolous - to the point of photoshopping board topics for the sole purpose of further demeaning this person and minimizing the importance of the offense, and the character injury it caused, in a publicly demoralizing fashion?

What would you do, Notpotable, as a moderator, if this happened?

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- CV Rick
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Okay, CV, you want to hash this out? I don't know what bee got in your bonnet, and from my perspective since you have consistently shown failure to address this rationally, I have no idea what you expect to get out of this threadjack, but here you go.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11346&start=75
This is the thread that has you so enraged. I read over it to see whether the perspective of another year has changed how I read it, and nope, it hasn't.

Here are your gripes, then:
* That I called you sexist.
* That your feelings were hurt.
* That I trivialized your complaint.
* That I caused you character injury.

And here are my responses:
* I never called you sexist. What I in fact said was that your words carried sexist connotations that you were probably unaware of, and that could be hurtful to individuals whose lives have been negatively impacted by similar words. This is similar to the way that calling something "lame" as a pejorative can be hurtful to the differently-abled (which was the subject, relevantly, of a thread contemporaneous to the one in question). You consistently refuse to make the connection that people can say things they don't really mean that hurt others, and that's different from being a deliberate ogre.
* I am sorry your feelings were hurt. But I stand by my original statement: that denigrating someone by accusing them of too much emotion has pretty rotten sexist connotations.
* Yep, I'm guilty of trivializing your complaint. I have already addressed the shit out of your complaint in that thread, and if you couldn't set aside your wounded pride then to understand that I didn't call you sexist, I have no illusions that you're going to do so now. And frankly I doubt you're even trying to listen to me reasonably, so what point in writing more about it?
* You do a great job of injuring your character yourself. You certainly don't owe any of that to me.

If I were a moderator, and something like this happened, I would read over the thread and see if everyone abided by the board rules. If they had a spirited argument, but no one broke the board rules, I'd let them knock themselves out. If I thought that one side was far more dismissive of another side's position, I might ask the other moderators to see what they thought. They might say, "jesus. Just apologize to each other, this is moronic," in which case one party might send a conciliatory PM apologizing for making a big deal out of the issue, and the other might respond with a variant of "no way".

You're obviously still outraged. There's absolutely nothing I can do about that. You clearly cling to a perception of yourself that is free from all negative traits (or at least from sexism), and quite frankly that is ludicrous. Both of us (and that means YOU and that means ME) are products of a patriarchal society, and regardless of how egalitarian our upbringings were or adult interactions are, and how carefully we police our behavior and campaign for the oppressed, we are still going to unwittingly display some oppressive behaviors. You think you're immune to that fate? Then tell me you've never, inwardly or aloud, called anyone a bitch.

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Fear will keep the local systems in line.

I'm not defending CV Rick, he can stand up for himself. But I did think it was shitty the way the mods in this thread trivialized things with the mocking fake posts. Frankly, that was troll-like behavior, kinda lame for so-called moderates. And you were able to get Fig to pile-on in response to the bull shit, nice going.

Regarding Fig, I hope people never stop attempting to make him accountable for his intellectual dishonesty. Cherry ran his ass out of the forum because he was so insufferable.

eta: the mods were not responsible for fig piling on, he did that on his own and we should all hate him for it (like we should hate most tea baggers for their existance)

You really don't get it, do you?



Just like last time, when you called me sexist (yeah, we'll get to that), you butted your fucking head in where it didn't belong. I didn't violate any board rules, but you had to go in and try to "explain" why you might have to "rein" me in. Instead of slamming Figaro, I merely said that I'd better not and that he's your little conserva-pet. But no, you can't keep your fucking nose out of shit - - got to put on the moderator hat and intercede with fake authority where it wasn't needed. You did that before, when you decided that the sentence, "need a tissue?" was an egregious sexism. I know you don't understand what I'm saying, but the fact of the matter is that I only get mad at you when you decide it's your right to interject your moderator authority when it's not necessary. You, and jb-defendoNP, can go ahead and say that you need to step in anytime anywhere and it's not for me to say . . . blah blah blah, but the fact of the matter is that nothing was out of hand this time and nothing was out of hand last time when you decided that the thread better be about you vs. me.



Fine. If that's the criteria you want to use, then I'm not calling you an ignorant fucking asshole - I'm just saying that you have ignorant assholish tendencies. See, I'm not calling you a name. I'm just saying that you have these tendencies, just like we all do. Perfectly within the rules you've set forth.



You still see nothing wrong with butting your head in and declaring me a sexist . . . oh I'm sorry - that I was uttering a sexism, like you blrt out ignorant fucking assholishness. You don't know how to apologize. You're not sorry that you might have done something to hurt my feelings and denigrate my character, you're sorry that I might have taken offense at your innocence. I am sure you don't understand why I might think that's total bullshit. But you're free to absolve yourself of any complicity in my feelings because you're a moderator and you couldn't possible have done anything wrong.



You've actually never addressed my complaint. You've explained time and time again how I shouldn't be offended. You've explained that any criticism of emotions is sexist. You've absolved yourself of any part in my complaint. But you haven't actually understood what my complaint is, nor have you accepted any role in it. But you've done a great job of pretending that since I disagree that I must be unreasonable, for anything you, as moderator does must be right. You couldn't possibly be guilty of anything . . . right? Are you starting to see where your idea of "reasonable" is just another way of you denying and mitigating culpability?



So, because you don't like me, unfairly insulting me is okay in your book. I happen to put a lot of stock in character and in honor. I don't lie. I don't believe in bigotry, nor do I use race nor gender nor orientation to demean or denigrate anyone. I might be insufferable and intolerant, but I never gossip, I never misrepresent, I never cheat nor steal. I didn't serve in the military because I thought it might be cool, I served because I believed that there are things worth giving my life for - and things worth taking a life, among those is defending the freedoms and rights of those who would otherwise be marginalized or victimized. These are very personal issues to me, and they are very important.

One of the reasons I like being here in the CC of FLAK is because of how much I've learned about power - Dominance and Subordinance - in discussions with Cumom. Figuring out new ways to look at our society fascinates me. But under no circumstances do I buy into your "guilty until proven innocent" stance with regard to sexism - - - "We can't help it because of the patriarchy .. . " I call bullshit on that today and I called bullshit on it last year. We can help it . . . and I always presume innocence until someone crosses a clear line.



Because you are obviously powerless over your own words and actions and are incapable of doing anything wrong. Such innocence. /snark



And this being your worldview is sad commentary on your personal expectations. But it doesn't apply to me. I never said I was free of negative traits, but I'm not a sexist, and it offends me that you presume guilt from me - and everyone else apparently - without even knowing me.

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- CV Rick
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NP, do you think CV is a sexist? If not, can you tell him so?
CV, I think your pedantry is pushing NP to give up on your ass, can you give any ground on the particulars?

I'm putting a temporary lock on this thread to give myself some time to evaluate everything.

There have been some good points made by everyone, but I need some time to reflect, research and look at try to look at everything objectively. I'll post more sometime tomorrow.

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"To those seaching for truth - not the truth of dogma and darkness but the truth brought by reason, search, examination, and inquiry, discipline is required. For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope." - Thomas Edison

OK, I have sent PM's as necessary. While I know that threadjacking is expected, I would ask that any more conversation regarding CV Rick, Figaro and NP be either addressed to me in PM or take to PM in general.

Thanks.

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"To those seaching for truth - not the truth of dogma and darkness but the truth brought by reason, search, examination, and inquiry, discipline is required. For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope." - Thomas Edison