I think the argument being made by some is that mod/admin powers have often been used without actual rule violations to provoke them, and people have always had to take it and try to do so in good humor or suffer worse. Does that really have to be a DLP requirement?

No one is defending what NMB did. The internet and DLP have been growing and maturing over the years. I just hope that something is taken from this beyond "NMB gave us no choice". Absolutely true, but not the only thing to take from this.

 

#Ban Arthellion

*shrug*

 

I’d like to point out that Xipho has used staff powers in this way before. There was an instance awhile back where he messed with my account/avatar etc. because of a disagreement in IRC. I asked him to stop. He continued. I talked to another mod. They didn’t seem to care. They told me I was “too emotional.”

I just put up with it. Took some time away from the site. Eventually came back because I like the people even if I don’t like the admins as much.

The only reason this conversation is being had is because nmb had the power to fuck with the C2. I don’t agree with his actions; but I think there is something to said about this.

 

Just out of interest, was that the time you had the baby sloth as your avatar?

In general, as a still relatively new member (but one that followed the history of other bans and in particular the vlad story earlier in the year with interest), I second the points others made that perhaps a conversation should be had about staff and the powers and responsibilities they have.

If we do that I would like to advocate – and this is entirely off the top of my head – for a process based on a Google doc in the style of Taure‘s surveys in which members can outline what they expect from the staff on the site and what they view as being within the acceptable limits of behaviour for both staff and normal members. Of course, a catalogue of questions would need to be written, but that too could be a community project. Seniority on the site could also be determined (provided everyone’s being truthful). The results may then be used to start a conversation in good faith, backed up by (somewhat) empirical data.

 

I agree with this sentiment.

We could use this incident as a springboard to push DLP into being a better community. As the situation stands, this entire thing seems more to be a way to sweep everything under the rug, rather than both sides admitting fault and looking to improve from it.

 

Maybe not "sweep it under the rug". That was bad phrasing on my part.

However, they seem to at least be downplaying the actions of Xiph. Apparently this isn't out of the ordinary with what Arthellion posted.

The fact is everyone keeps mentioning how - what Enembee did was "bad for the community" - why can't the community have a voice on how on how to improve the site?

 

A mute on Discord/IRC and the "lag switch" option on Xenforo.

I mean, arguments aside regarding the unilateral/unjustified actions being taken, nuking the C2 and changing the title to something egotistical seems like a bit of an overreaction.

Isn't enembee like, an adult, or something?

 

In 10+ years I've never had any problems with staff or site management. That said, I am now more than a decade older than I was when I joined, and my life experience and outlook has obviously changed.

It sounds like (while it started ugly) reasonable attempts to make peace were made, and enembee rejected them. Okay, fine, in this situation I can't say the ban is unreasonable.

But, well shit, the last time someone I knew started behaving in an inexplicably erratic and aggressive manner, it turned out she had a brain tumor. I don't know enembee beyond reading his fics and existing in the same online space, so I don't know if this behavior is unusual, and I rather doubt he has something as dramatic as the tumor. My point is just that you never know what RL shit might be making someone act crazy. I'd appreciate knowing there was a door open, for anyone who acted a fool but later got some perspective and regretted it.

At this point in my life value the wellbeing of members of this community more than it's hard-ass reputation, I guess.

 

Strikeback feels good and it is easier to double down rather than de-escalate.

I would have preferred not to get a dozen notifications. Still, it is a shame to see him gone.

 

I'll admit that these two sentences have my scooby doo senses tingling. What did enembee had to do in order to wipe the slate clean which he refused to do? Give up control of the c2? Is that even possible?

 

I've debated with myself for over an hour now about whether to post this, but I guess I'm just too opinionated not to.

If you can't be trusted to not abuse your powers then you shouldn't be a mod. The fact that DLP isn't a democracy just highlights this more, because the mods have so much more power compared to any other user that there needs to be the trust that they won't abuse it. Given what Arthellion has mentioned about being told he was 'too emotional', what other recourse do we have when a mod takes advantage of their power for petty revenge?

Back in the early days of the forum this attitude was normal and accepted because, well, we were all young and dumb as fuck and didn't know any better. That's not the case any more. The community has changed well beyond the days when we hazed newbies until they stayed or left, or had the karma system. A significant number of us are pushing or have reached 30 years old.

So why should the mod team work by the same rules that were laid down when we were edgy as fuck teenagers when the site and community have evolved beyond that? Either there should be a set of rules you guys abide by for when punishment is handed out or the people who can't be trusted to wield it responsibly should have those powers removed.

It's a lot more frustrating than even a simple ban would be and it means you can't even post on the forums to make other people aware because it's a 1 in 10 chance of the page loading, never mind actually posting anything. I remember when I pissed Midknight off back in the late 2000s and had it applied. Took me about half an hour worth of retrying to post in tech support because I had no idea what was going on and the post wouldn't go through. Happened to quite a few people around that time.

 

Bitch, we're already the best community.

This seems like a shitfight waiting to happen. I think we've got a good thing going here with the mod situation. Abuses of power - which may or may not have occurred - are about the only drawback, but I couldn't say how often they may or may not happen. From the anecdotes provided in this thread, it seems like they're mostly piss taking taken too far or jokes done to people rather than with them. When you get a big list of rules governing behaviour instead of a vague sense of unease/fear that you'll do something out of bounds, you stop thinking for yourself about the appropriateness of your behaviour and more about what you can get away with according to the rules. And then we'll end up like these poor bastards.

 

I agree with @Aekiel but I also believe that the situation where admins/mods abuse their powers is actually "the norm" on the internet. I've always assumed that DLP is a pretty standard message board regarding this issue. Whenever someone has the power to silence those who show dissent, it'll happen. Not saying that this is a good thing, just that this is to be expected.

Btw, while I personally never really cared for the C2, I know that other members have and what NMB did was a pretty shitty move. Did it warrant a ban? Maybe, maybe not, I'm not sure he broke any of the site's rules. In fact, he was banned for something done outside the website. But on the other hand, the C2 was a very important thing to this board so I can understand the ban.

In any case, this is all very dramatic and a shitty situation, but like with all things, after a few months people will forget and move on.

 

Yeh. I can’t have been the only one that found it amusing that both forums had a massive mod shitstorm in the same week?

 

This is the important bit of it all. I don't want to say a ton here, for reasons ranging from being a known friend of enembee to not being a big name in the community despite my relatively long tenure as a member, so I'll keep it short as possible. I'm long winded, so I'll likely fail.

At the point at which the C2 was tinkered with, it was deeply unlikely that this ended with enembee getting what he wanted. I appreciate that DLP was in a "don't negotiate with terrorists" sort of situation, and that acceding to his demands would have opened a door to that sort of behavior from others/in the future. I'm not here to argue the decision to ban at that stage of this mess.

But that's not really the issue here. Enembee didn't wake up one day and decide to nuke the C2 if he wasn't given the keys of the site, so to speak. Enembee nuked the C2 after having his DLP access/communication privileges whittled away over time. Again, he's not some perfect innocent here, but by Xiph0's own word the inciting incident was the sniping at each other on IRC - something that happens all the time if the IRC sidebar can be trusted, both between them and more generally.

And that feels like the real problem the site needs to address, if it's in a problem addressing mood. Anyone who has been around long term knows the score: the site has never been a democracy, it doesn't have some inane punishment review council, the mods/admins have always been the chief and only voice, etc. To make that work, there's always been a policy of holding the line - one person makes a call, the others hold to it unless it's incredibly egregious. To do otherwise would breed factions in the staff/community and tear it apart. I get all of that, it's how the site has always been and broadly it's fine.

The problem comes with a situation like this, where something happens and it isn't really fine. I'd buy that enembee might have been able to reach out to enough staff privately to have his DLP access restored, but that feels like missing the forest for the trees. What is a non-enembee of DLP to do if something like this happens? Because not everyone has connections to call on or a big enough contributions to the site to warrant people paying attention when they otherwise wouldn't. Almost no one does, in fact. Arthellion's story feels significantly less serious than having access rights peeled away, but that's a good example of how these things normally go in my experience.

And I guess I feel that's the thing to address. It feels like time for a decision: either DLP goes full "hugbox", as it were, it shifts slightly so that a unilateral decision by Xiph0 or anyone else doesn't end up ruining the experience of the site for members large or small, or it doubles down on what it has always been. I don't feel super qualified to say how that should go, so I won't.

As a final word, I feel Arthellion touches on a couple important things here. First, if enembee hadn't been the person who put the C2 together, we wouldn't be having this conversation. It would be a missed opportunity for the site to push on without some serious reflection, because no one will ever have the pull to do something like this again. Second, when things like these happen, Xiph0 tends to be involved. Both of these things seem relevant.

 

https://forums.darklordpotter.net/threads/make-dlp-great-again.37811/
https://forums.darklordpotter.net/forums/dlp-feedback-and-improvement.152/

There are places for suggestions on improving the community, iirc there's a feature suggestions place as well. And I suppose now this thread is another.

In my experience the staff on DLP have in general been pretty fair. I thought this had already been pretty well explained in this thread but the reason why this

comes as such a surprise is because what NMB did was go nuclear over a petty fight that no one else on DLP besides xiph was involved in. Another thing to keep in mind is that on FFN you have to go through the entries and delete it one by one. He methodically decided to do this and didn't change his mind throughout.