[Rant] Need a place to post concerns/complaints

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figmentPez

Staff member
Done. My thoughts:

I think making a separate category for DC/Marvel is going to overlap with Comic/Animation/Movies/TV/Toys/Etc so much that I wonder if a separate DC/M thread is worthwhile.
That's based on the sheer number of people in DC/Marvel costumes. Right now for unposted cosplay (excepting what just went up) in their respective folders I have:
DC: 260
Marvel: 192
Comics & Animation: 268

Compare that to all of live action TV & Movies (with books thrown in too) at 126, and I think it's pretty fair to give DC and Marvel each their own thread, I just don't know where to post pics that feature both.

Keep in mind that you should go into this with the mindset that the rules will need to be tweaked as time goes on (even the Constitution has Amendments) and as things change.
I hope that if people think the rules need to change that they'll try discussing the rules first, and turn to civil disobedience as a last resort. Instead of the other way around.

Also remember that some cosplayers are attention-whores, and so there might come a time when you have to come down against a cosplayer or two when they're the ones who go too far.
A good point, if a cosplayer does start to do that, I hope someone will tell me.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
what he did was lock somebody else's thread because a joke at his expense was contained within it.
I locked the thread because there was continued off-topic discussion of the rules, which was bothering Kags and ruining her thread. It will be reopened later.
 
I understand the volume of DC/M submissions, I just think that they will be easier to sort and peruse (and discuss) if they are segregated by where they appear (Movie/TV/Comic) as opposed to their particular line (think of the differences between Movie X-Men v. Comic X-Men, or OVA v. TV). It's just an axis thing, really. I think they will be easier to sort in columns, you are thinking in rows.

--Patrick
 

figmentPez

Staff member
I didn't bother reading it, but did LittleKagsin really say that some offhanded, not "truly meant" comments bothered her?`
She was bothered by the arguing over the rules, and said as much. "Guys. Not in my thread." When it was clear people weren't going to stop, even if I did, I locked the thread.

Kags didn't like my locking the thread, and she chewed me out for it (well, in her own way, but it was harsh as far as Kags rebukes go.)

EDIT: Also, for fairness, I can't allow sexual comments to slide by just because they don't offend a particular cosplayer. Many cosplayers are hesitant to speak up about stuff like that, and I don't want to have to put each and every girl on the spot and maker her (or him) be the "bad guy" who ruined everyone else's "fun".
 
I don't think it goes without saying, that anything that's said to you Fig, you don't bring on yourself first.

That's upsetting because you've done the forum more good than anyone aside from Ame or Dave themselves.

If Adam really left over this though, consider me double upset.
 
I'm locking this thread. I hope some of our elements dont ascribe this to overzealous moderation. Rest asssured this issue is being discussed with the mods and administrators, or will be when I'm off my shift. Thanks for making it an interesting one.
 

Dave

Staff member
Okay, I'm here and reading. I assume Gusto locked this because he could not be here, so I'm opening it again for discussion. I have a few things to say on the matter so be patient.
 

BananaHands

Staff member
Guys. Look at this gif.



The peanut butter is simply rolling back and forth, yet the ferret takes offense. The ferret begins lashing out and suffers because of it.

I think we all could learn a lot from this gif.
 

Dave

Staff member
First, sorry I missed all the brouhaha. I was at my daughter's LAST EVER music concert so I have been gone. A couple of points have been made and they are actually valid ones and I'll be going over each one with a fine-toothed comb.

  1. Pez is being too heavy-handed with moderation in the cosplay section.
  2. Pez made a statement that could have been construed as sexual in nature while deriding others for doing the same, thus breaking his own moderation rules.
  3. GasBandit wonders why I haven't given him moderation abilities in the Politics subforum.
I'll start with these, but it's by no means a complete list of stuff.
  1. In the past with the cosplay threads, various people have been shown. Yes, several of the pictures have been of fairly lovely young ladies. This is due mostly to the growing trend of models working shows for vendors. In a lot of the cases the models are aware that they are being sexualized and don't care because that's precisely why they are doing it. Still, a great number of the photos were of people who cosplay for the love of it. They do it because of the art and not because they want to get ogled. We had several complaints and requests to take down pictures for this very reason. It's precisely because of that that we put the cosplay into a different sub and are using more strict moderation. With those we know and can interact with like Kags I don't think it's as big a deal, but we're trying to foster a place of acceptance and not one of uncomfortableness. If that's even a word. Which brings me to...
  2. Did Pez make a statement that broke his own rules? Personally, I don't think so. But I do agree that had anyone else made the comment he would not have looked so kind upon it. This is due mainly to an attribution issue. He's being hyper sensitive due to the past experiences while at the same time knowing that he didn't mean what he said in a perverted manner. So while I believe that he wasn't breaking his own rules, I do believe that he's not giving others the proper benefit of the doubt. Of course, it doesn't help that there are those whose natural reaction to moderation is to try and ratchet up the situation. You know who you are.
  3. Gas, the reason - the ONLY reason - I didn't make you mod of the politics sub is because politics needs to have every voice heard. Unlike the cosplay sub, politics needs to be a bit more unruly for true debate. Oddly enough, it's one of the least moderated and I find it's often the least IN NEED of moderation for that very reason.
Okay, so what does all this mean? First, that the moderation of the cosplay forum itself will stay as is and I'll be backing Pez. Do I think he's 100% right? Nope. But I think the cosplayers I've talked to respect him and that goes a long way in my book. However, the recent issue with the Kags thread means that we have to look at specific threads (meaning specific to a single cosplayer) differently than we do more generalized threads. Example, Kags said she was fine with a little playing around. This should be a signal to Pez that he could back off a bit. Meanwhile in a general thread with a truckload of pictures from people who do not frequent the boards, we should keep a closer eye on the content generated by our users.

The cosplay thread is Pez's to do with as he pleases. I hope he learns to moderate when needed and to back of when needed, but that's a learning process. I tend to go too far in the other direction sometimes (and I can hear makare screaming, "SOMETIMES?!?") but that's neither here nor there.

What I won't put up with will be endless bitching about it. You don't like it? Start a cosplay thread in general. Want to perv on some models who cosplay? Join the NSFW user group and post a thread there.

And if I see another PM posted on the boards the person doing so will get an auto 24 hour ban. The only exception to this would be if the person says one thing in PM and publishes something live on the boards that is radically different and slanderous. And even though it's a pain in the ass I can read the PMs to verify. (I have to go directly into the SQL to do it so it's not something I ever do. As I said, it's a pain in the ass.)

So everyone calm down, realize what it is we are arguing about and let's work together to make the cosplay section work for everyone.

Oh, one last thing. There's not going to be a bitching sub. If you want to report and send me a PM that's fine. But no bitching thread/sub, please.
 

Dave

Staff member
Oh, and a couple of warnings were given out for various reasons. I'm not going into them, but you know who you are that got them and why. But just because we don't advertise doesn't mean they didn't happen.
 
For the record, I'm not sure Gas was asking or complaining about mod priv's for himself, but simply using his relationship, with his own politics thread and the political subforum, as an example for Pez's relationship with cosplay threads before it got it's own subforum.

I think.

I dunno, what the hell do I know. I'm gonna go draw some dicks
 
Here is my only concern about the heavy-handedness and the general fragility with which the entire cosplay subforum readership is being handled.

Right now I'm not feeling very motivated to work on posting cosplay. If you want to see me post what I've found, then play nice. Treat me like crap and you get nothing. No, I don't care if I'm coming across as spoiled, it's a lot of work to search through this many photos and I'm doing it for my enjoyment. If you guys ruin the fun of sharing, then I have no reason to keep posting.
...the growing number of photos I'm using from DevianArt isn't helping things stay consistent.
Meanwhile in a general thread with a truckload of pictures from people who do not frequent the boards, we should keep a closer eye on the content generated by our users.
How many of these people we're so concerned about are never, ever going to come to these forums, because they're just photos of people that have been yanked off of various and sundry DeviantArt pages, with or without the DA user's knowledge or consent?
 
No offense Dave but I still have concerns that require to be addressed.

Firstly, the status of Kag's thread.

It got locked. The decision to lock it was upon the whim of one person's judgement which is clearly viewed by many to be not sound of mind. There was a brief, casual mention that this same person will re-open the thread upon his own leisure. For what, a few posts deemed unworthy by this same person? Thus the reason why this thread was created. The situation. However, this situation will not change because from what I understood, the staff of this forum will wipe their hands of this matter because the cosplay section brings "something" to the website. Okay.... so, when the thread gets re-opened, how exactly are people going to be interested interacting with the cosplayer in question? Will every word they type be meticulously judged? Every smiley scanned for perversion levels? Where are the background security forms we need to fill out? Will the same rules apply to everyone? Or will people be allowed to post with the benefit of the doubt or are we going to pretend that this fascism is normal? (i think in her case, she should post her thread elsewhere in the forum)

Secondly, the demeanor of the mod in question.

Emotions can run high, we all understand that. People have good days, people have bad days. I have it. You have it. We all have it. However mods should be above the norm and be able to discuss matters in a civil way with other members of the forum, especially when they take the time to attempt to discuss the matter civilly by PMs. Mods shouldn't be openly insulting other posters. I think we both understand that, don't we? Furthermore, when posters try to discuss matters privately with the mod in question, they shouldn't be told to go fuck themselves. I understand that sometimes people cannot play nice with each other, that's a fact of life but when you're a mod, you should be above that. It's highly inappropriate. Furthermore, his judgement is biased and that in itself is a detriment to the function of a forum moderator. There's no way, no how, how my comment gets a warning while his is perfectly fine. (in fact both are fine IMHO as well as the cosplayer)

Let's be honest, the only reason he started moderating that thread yesterday was because he was called out on his hypocrisy and the post that called him out went viral with the other forum posters. Boom, "locked".

Prove me otherwise.

And the way I understood your post was, "Yep, the shit hit the fan. That's unfortunate. I'm neutral about it because, hey, his sub-forum.... his rules, sorry to hear what happened. I don't particularly agree myself but whelp, everyone calm down. Let's play nice. Warnings distributed silently."

Yeah but no. This doesn't solve anything.

Kindly note, this was posted civilly and I've been caressing my fat tabby to keep me calm while posting this.

I feel like Dr. Claw.
 
M

makare

Yeah I find Pez's hands on modding style a little refreshing. But I don't go into the cosplay thread much so I don't have too much to say about it.

Ok I have loads to say about it but it has been said many times to the same people and frankly it wouldn't help to say it again.

So.. look a picture of Bea Arthur



Bea just loves a big ferret.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
How many of these people we're so concerned about are never, ever going to come to these forums, because they're just photos of people that have been yanked off of various and sundry DeviantArt pages, with or without the DA user's knowledge or consent?
I don't know. We've had a least a half-dozen people in my memory that have found themselves posted in the cosplay threads, and that's just those that spoke up and said hello. There are a lot of hits, and some of those come from cosplayers. Ones I'd like to feel welcome.

Yes, I hotlink photos off of Flickr and DeviantArt, and the provide links for attribution. Most don't find a problem with that, and are pleased to see their work getting credit around the internet. In the one case I know of where someone complained, we won't be using photos from him again (though why he had his Flickr account set to allow reblogging if he didn't want his work shared, I don't know).
 
I'm going to piggyback off Jay here a bit, but I want to preface this. I don't post in the Cosplay section, I haven't had any conflict with Pez, and I've pretty much watched this whole drama explosion from the sidelines. There are people being dicks on both sides (and it wouldn't be Halforums if there weren't, let's be honest), but a lot of the points in Jay's post match what I'm seeing and feeling from this.

Basically, I know that Pez's work has drawn a lot of views, a handful of regular posters, and he deserves a lot of credit/praise/hugs/what-have-you for that. He's brought, and continues to bring a lot to the community here. That shouldn't go unsaid. At the same time, I completely agree with Jay and Gas in that I don't feel that he's done anything to warrant being a mod over his own section, particularly when the approach seems to be to push for all cosplay-related content to be in that section.

The biggest thing here is the way he's conducted himself throughout all of this drama-stuff. Jay says that a mod should be held to a higher standard than a regular poster; up to this point, they have. That's the reason Juski isn't a mod anymore, isn't it? But over the past week Pez has been going thread to thread spamming "Disagree" and/or "Really? Really?" over everything he doesn't agree with, and insisting that unless the people he's flagging have specifically asked him which line, implication, or word choice he's cherrypicking out of their post, any response they make is based on their own bias and he's completely blameless for their reactions. It's gotten to the point where fishing for his tags is a new forum meme, and somehow it seems to have been spun into him being the victim of bullying and trolling. I don't get it.

Following from that, his rules/future of this section post in the cosplay subforum is legitimately baffling. There's a point dedicated to "if you guys aren't nice to me, I'm going to stop posting stuff for you" or, as it was put on the playground when we were 5 years old, "I'm taking my ball and going home". Is that seriously the behaviour expected from someone who's modding his own section? I can accept that there need to be rules, I can accept sending PMs to people to tell them when they're crossing a line, but that's just childish. And combined with the fact that he locked someone else's thread because he didn't like being called out on what appeared to be a hypocritical comment, and his defense was "no, that's the line I was intending to draw on these comments all along, I just hadn't gotten around to telling you all before I said it..." I'm honestly just waiting for the content in his subforum to mysteriously disappear when he decides someone's been too mean to him.

Finally, if Jay's representation of PM conversations between the two of them is accurate, I don't even know how to respond. He may not have called anyone a cancer, but responding to someone wanting to discuss his rules by telling them to go fuck themselves is pretty much the definition of inflated-ego internet moderation, isn't it?

I dunno, I'm not about to pack up my shit and leave because of any of this, but I don't think this reflects any better on the community we have than the sniping, aggression and bullying that other people are being accused of.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
And combined with the fact that he locked someone else's thread because he didn't like being called out on what appeared to be a hypocritical comment,
I'll repeat this until people understand. LittleKagsin's thread was locked because people were taking it off-topic with whining about the rules, after a PM warning was made public when it shouldn't have been (a warning given after two different rules of the sub-forum had been broken). It wasn't locked because a joke was made at my expense, it was locked because multiple posters were breaking the rules in a very blatant manner with disrespect beyond poking fun at my alleged hypocrisy.

Following from that, his rules/future of this section post in the cosplay subforum is legitimately baffling. There's a point dedicated to "if you guys aren't nice to me, I'm going to stop posting stuff for you" or, as it was put on the playground when we were 5 years old, "I'm taking my ball and going home".
I can't take the "ball" and go home. The forums are going to stay open, and cosplay can still be posted. I'm just not going to bother posting if all I'm going to get in return is harassment. That's a pretty adult reaction. If my efforts aren't appreciated, I won't make those efforts. I'm just being clear in my motivation for this. I don't have any other motive than enjoyment. I don't get paid, I don't get fame, I don't get anything but the satisfaction of knowing I found some neat photos and shared them. If sharing them brings me more grief than joy, then I'd be a fool to keep sharing.

If you guys are going to keep intentionally harassing me, it's not fun, so I won't play. Call me childish if you want, but the normal thing for adults to do is to stop making an effort for people who don't appreciate their work.
 
I'll repeat this until people understand. LittleKagsin's thread was locked because people were taking it off-topic with whining about the rules, after a PM warning was made public when it shouldn't have been (a warning given after two different rules of the sub-forum had been broken). It wasn't locked because a joke was made at my expense, it was locked because multiple posters were breaking the rules in a very blatant manner with disrespect beyond poking fun at my alleged hypocrisy.
You can repeat it all you want. It doesn't change the way it looks from the outside, especially with the context of the PM-we-shouldn't-have-seen.

Also, the condescension in your post isn't becoming.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
You can repeat it all you want. It doesn't change the way it looks from the outside, especially with the context of the PM-we-shouldn't-have-seen.

Also, the condescension in your post isn't becoming.
Yeah, I am consdescending. I get that way when people willingly make ignorant posts based on information they know is incomplete. Maybe you should ask some questions next time before spouting off conclusions based on half-truths.
 
If your goal was to provide evidence of the exact, specific things I mentioned in my first post, mission accomplished. Other than that, just looks like a personal attack against me, and since I have no interest in getting this thread locked/more people warned and banned, I'll just leave it at that.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
Oh, and since people seem to think I sent some sort of horrific PM to Adam. Here's what I said to him:

Title: Don't push me.
Body: Adam,
I know you're joking, but please don't push me on this issue in the cosplay area.
I politely overlooked your "FTFY" rewording of Kag's post into something sexual, but I'm not going to keep overlooking you breaking the rules. If you've got a problem with those rules, take it up with me, don't post passive-aggressive sarcasm in the forums.
He's the one that deleted his posting of that information.


Also, it's bullshit to complain about my rating posts. If I dont' have to give a reason for a Like or a Funny, then there's absolutely no cause to expect me to give an explanation for every Disagree or Really, Really?. I can rate a post Funny because of a single joke, and I can rate a post Disagree because of a single flaw. The points don't matter people, they aren't going on your permanent record and they don't affect your credit score. Grow a backbone.
 
Also, it's bullshit to complain about my rating posts. If I dont' have to give a reason for a Like or a Funny, then there's absolutely no cause to expect me to give an explanation for every Disagree or Really, Really?. I can rate a post Funny because of a single joke, and I can rate a post Disagree because of a single flaw.

Here's the thing; your numerous ratings of Really? Really?! and whatnot do nothing but serve to throw fuel on the fire, to the extent that it helped get, what, three threads locked in a row? I mean, you know it's going to do nothing but cause drama with certain elements, but you do it anyway.

Grow a backbone.
I think my irony meter just broke.
 
If the way he answered to Vrii, an outsider of the situation who posted constructively on the matter, is any indication to Fig's demeanor to others then nothing else needs to be said regarding his moderation and interpersonal skills in that role.

Furthermore, I thought posting PMs was specifically mentioned by Dave to not to be done... I also recall reading a 24 hour ban, unless I'm mistaken...
 
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