a specific complaint

I asked about the Youtube vids autoplay disable on this board purely because I didn't think it was for the Moderators, but for the people who actually have access to the coding.

from the 'most of the admin log' thread in question (one of the few in question)-

is there a feeling that there's been a lot of meta snark lately matt? (from your comment above). i know there's been the usual shenanigans regarding the SB's, but isn't that par for the course?

― Brewer's Bitch (darraghmac), 14 October 2009 09:27 (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Not compared to 18 months or so ago, no way - there's a couple of threads (chiefly Posts Very Much In Character) that are getting into dodgy territory and maybe people are forgetting what is and isn't cool round here. Generally I think it's okay though.

― Matt DC, 14 October 2009 09:40 (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i don't think that 'meta' is a problem anywhere on the site anymore, particularly, as matt says, compared to a year ago. talking about sb's, sb'd posters and all that is very tiresome, i'm sure, but really i don't think mods even needed to respond to anything on the locked 'missing u <3 sb' thread anymore, as all of the relevant information is out there.

locking it seemed strange, kinda like it came out of nowhere, and again particularly with reference to where ILX was not too long back.

i mean, w/ever though, really. unban LJ.

I bumped into LJ and the M0unt4in G0ats gig on Saturday and he seemed to be taking his ban in good cheer and enjoying his time not-on-ILX. I told him we'd see him in a month.

huh, didn't know you guys were there!

well he wasn't going to tell you matt, was he. were you armed at the time?

LJ and the M0unt4in G0ats

ok, whA?

m zero unt foreign g zero ats. hot new band in london town, innit.

Wtf did Kate do to get suggest banned? Are we really gonna do this until every ILX regular with a noticeable personality gets SBed? Should the board be ruled by blandness?

http://991.com/newgallery/Aretha-Franklin-Here-We-Go-119295.jpg

hasn't it been established already that mods won't reveal what post(s) led to suggest bans?

I'll answer your questions in order Tuomas:

1. She made posts that annoyed/angered/offended 51 different ILXors.
2. This shows a sort of willful decision to ignore various aspects other than "noticable personalities" that all the SBed people have had.
3. This is really pretty elitist and insulting.

Tuomas - is that a rhetorical question, or is it meant to be answered by anyone who sb-ed Kate?

1. She made posts that annoyed/angered/offended 51 different ILXors.

why is 51 the magic number?

*sigh*

1. She made posts that annoyed/angered/offended 51 different ILXors.
2. This shows a sort of willful decision to ignore various aspects other than "noticable personalities" that all the SBed people have had.
3. This is really pretty elitist and insulting.

I get point 1, but the leap from that to point 2 is not obvious. If the posts that got someone SBed are never revealed (not even to the poster herself), no one will ever know what exactly made the 51 people annoyed: some assholish behaviour or annoying but ultimately harmless personality trait? The poster won't find out what exactly is "wrong" with him, and hence might not change his ways when he returns. So what was the point of this whole system again?

to drive you batshit

funny display names?

1. She made posts that annoyed/angered/offended 51 different ILXors.

^Presumption! Maybe 10 of those people just hate britishes. I know I do.

Yeah but those posts offended ILXors by being made by a British person.

tuomas, given that more mod hours have been spent explaining what's wrong with your first question than any other activity this past year, it's gotta be pretty vexing for them that you chosen to open with it.

Good god. Tuomas, you and all the other people who keep getting sb'ed know exactly what about you is so infuriating at this point. Stop faking.

tuomas, please i entreat you chill out about this, you are appreciated in these quarters and it would hurt me to see you SB'd again, also if you and kate were gone at once i'd have to volunteer myself for ILTMI adminship and who knows how that might turn out

You're being a giant babby.

Sorry, xp in this case.

xxp - roxy is still an ILTMI mod

I honestly don't know what was so infuriating about Kate that she got SBed. If it's so obvious, maybe someone can tell me?

Good god. Tuomas, you and all the other people who keep getting sb'ed know exactly what about you is so infuriating at this point. Stop faking.

― WHY DON'T YOU JUST LICK THE BUS DIRECTLY (Laurel), Tuesday, November 24, 2009 12:25 PM (54 seconds ago) Bookmark

I really hope this is true because if Tuomas really doesn't get it at this point then I just . . . I don't even know.

51 people can tell you. the mods can't.

I promised myself I'd never do it again.

So you are sincerely asking people - presumably those that sb-ed her - why they did so?

Tuomas are you trying to turn this into a bash Kate thread? Why would you ask ppl to blatantly state what they don't like about someone?

x-post hahahaha exactly

it is the finnish way

I'm pretty sure I didn't SB kate, but I'll bet that most of kate's sbs were for the Pitchfork thread.

I never sb-ed Kate, but then I only sb people for over the top personal attacks on other posters or for being boring sockpuppet trolls.

a bowel-wrenching cry echoes across the darkling taiga

WHY U BAN K8

No, but Laurel was implying that it's somehow obvious why everyone who got suggest banned got 51 SBs. I can see why it happened to myself or Cankles, but with Kate and some other posters I have no idea.

(xxx-post)

i vote for mods locking a thread each time tuomas starts whining about SB's--just a suggestion

do you think ilx is some kind of democracy, Senor What?

What?

i wonder how many suggest bans tuomas racks up on threads discussing suggest bans

kate was hated by a lot of posters, many of them british. personally i didn't really have anything against her and am saddened by this because for all the ranty handwringing she is passionate about music and often brings good content to ilx, also her recent genderfuck WDYLL pic is truly one for the ages

tuomas doesn't do himself any favours, even if inwardly i applaud his anti-ban zeal

Laurel was implying

Pretty sure I didn't imply anything.

I am anti-SB but Tumoas you make me want to rip out my eyeballs every time I see you posting on one of these SB threads. At this point it's obv that the system isn't going to change so why even bother? Don't you find it exhausting?

keep fighting the good fight tuomas

suggest ban sucks

lol who is masonic boom?

sum british chick i guess? is this an ilm thing?

<3 Laurel

Tuomas, I think a lot of her SBs were for aggressive flame-outs at people - and I'm speaking as someone who gets on with Kate but she has been involved in a lot of pretty ugly fights here over the years, the rights and wrongs of which aren't really to be debated here. I like Kate a lot but I think even she'd admit she has an aggressive side.

The timing of this is really unfortunate given that Kate's actually been really quiet and a fun poster of late. It's a similar situation to Louis, she'd been sitting in the high 40s for a long time without accumulating any further SBs, and then it only took a couple to push her over the edge. I doubt she'll be treated any differently from the way LJ was.

You may now return to your 300-post clusterfuck of wilful misreading and stirring.

the system can change enbb dont lose heart - nothing will ever be right around here til my powers of sb count 10x

I've always liked Kate and even when she's gotten really facepalm.jpg I've never SBed her b/c overall I think she adds a lot to ILM, but I totally woulda SBed that blog post.

XXXXXXpost bc of internet conx. - Looks like it'll be a very Sargent Xmas!

Things turned ugly around the end of July/beginning of August. A long-term ILX poster - Mark Craig, aka Bimble - committed suicide, while under a Suggest Ban. I was in contact with him via email through the whole period leading up to, and after his banning, up to a few days before his death. I was well aware of the other issues he was facing in his life, both emotional and physical, during the lead-up to this devastating decision, and despite the allegations of a former ILX0r with an obvious axe to grind, AT THE TIME, I honestly believed that the Suggest Ban had little or nothing to do with his death. If anything, he seemed happier, more engaged with life, without the constant drag of negativity that others' reactions to his particularly ebullient posting style and sexuality.

Now I've actually been dealt a suggest ban myself, and am dealing with the emotional fallout of it, I'm not so sure.

Oh FFS. This is really really not on, as much so as Momus's post on that issue. I'd say more but I'd frankly be too damn rude.

yah i gotta say accusing the mods of assisting in bimble's suicide is a bit much

J3sus C.

― max, Wednesday, November 25, 2009 4:43 PM (1 hour ago)

looool i texted j this exact thing, did not see u beat me to it

suffering from severe mental health issues is a horrible thing for anyone to have to go through, but there is an aspect of responsibility that ppl need to address if they're in this situation: MB talks about how she's been part of the ilx community for 9yrs, but from what i can gather it's been a pretty tumultuous 9yrs, and it has always been her choice to keep participating. it's not like 2 days ago she got the shock of her life that ppl here aren't all sunshine and roses.

if participating on a msg board can impact your life to the extent that you feel suicidal, then i really think you need to stop participating. several thousand ppl posting to a msg board just cannot be expected to be responsible for the mental well-being of one particular poster.

the real issue - imo - is not suggestban or ppl being mean or personality issues, it's just doing what's best for your own mental health, and if that means not posting here, then don't. this is not THE WHOLE INTERNET - there are plenty of other ways to communicate with the friends you make here, ilx isn't the be-all-and-end-all (as my mum would say).

100% OTM

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l171/sicklesdawg/33cqarojpg.gif

xp Justin3 and darraghmac: the thing for me is just being a party to something where the person might not make the best choices for their mental health. I mean, it's not like we're responsible - the choice rests with the person with the issues - and I'm talking in general, not specifically about Kate - but it's hard not to feel somewhat complicit.

"if participating on a msg board can impact your life to the extent that you feel suicidal, then i really think you need to stop participating."

i think her point in that paragraph was that although it doesn't seem like an sb should be such a heavy trip, when it's you, it hurts way more than you would have guessed. if you read that as "ILM MODS ASSIST IN BOARDER SUICIDE" i think that is "a bit much."

that said, i usually enjoyed reading her pov, hope she comes back.

also, i see i conflated two different posts there. sorry to misrepresent your positions, deej and just1n3.

to clarify then:

deej, i dont read her comment quite the same way you did.

just1n3, i think her point was that people, mentally ill included, might not foresee how severely an sb could affect them.

honestly i'm just sorta shocked to hear about bimble, that's really terrible news

but part of my point is that she's been here long enough to know what effect this board, and its ppl, have on her. she has accused ilx and it many of its members of being malicious etc many times before. it's not like any of this has come out of the blue. she's also left for extended periods before.

youre a hard woman beth, whatever her issues she clearly found real solace and comfort in ilx and for someone to lose that for no good reason is fucking shitty.

"no good reason" = the whole problem with these clusterfucks. i get that for x number of posters, these people are banned for "no good reason". the problem is that for a whole bunch (uh 51 to be specific) of other posters, there is plenty of good reason for them to be banned. its fine to say that you disagree with them, but reducing it to no good reason just means that you think that their opinions/feelings/etc dont matter.

very noble John I just have a slightly less optimistic view of human nature/group dynamics!

exactly! how many of these 51 posters are just hitting the button for the lols? as a typical dick move? 100%? prob not. 0%? prob not.

i can't imagine clicking it with anything less than complete seriousness

is that sarcasm or...

If the guiding policy of ilx is "don't be a dick", how do you control for dicks dickishly hitting the SB button?

you get 1 sb for every sb you give.

ouroboros.jpg

totally agree with just1n3, i have major issues with the abdication of responsibility thing personally but to get into that would just be a needless mess.

initially with SB i didn't know if it was really gonna start affecting people i thought would be vulnerable to it but in time pretty much all of them have racked up 51 (the idea is that over a long enough period most regular posters would, but over a long enough period of time a single month is fuck all so for me it was never a problem). tbh this was re-assuring to me that i've generally not been unreasonable wrt the people i think go too far (not in 'being a dick' but by 'being annoying') on the board in different ways. seems its as difficult for some of us to understand the outrage and hurt over most s-bans as it is for others to understand how they could've occurred.

over a long enough period most regular posters would, but over a long enough period of time a single month is fuck all

never considered it like that but fair point.

(although from the other perspective probably doesn't seem like that tbf)

yes, also it would be silly if s-bans given 3 years ago or whatever were to still count against someone (obv s-ban hasn't been in place that long).

I thought someone did say that they expired after a certain period of time.

not sure that has ever been addressed, tbh- can't remember seeing a specific time mentioned.

don't think the expiration is automatic but I'm sure I've read a mod mention about spending some time manually erasing old sbs.

Could be wrong tho.

Six months.

The six-month expiration of SBs hasn't come into force yet, for the simple reason that we couldn't actually timestamp SBs until five months ago, so it would introduce as many inaccuracies at is solved. A couple of months down the line it should be easier to tell.

I've got an email from Kate saying she's uncomfortable with this discussion going on here without her being able to contribute to it, which is fair enough, so I'm going to lock this thread now. If people want to continue talking about SBs in the abstract then fine* but any further Kate-centric threads will be either locked or deleted. I think we've covered all we can here without things drifting into either unfounded speculation or bitching.

*Although it's still very tiresome.