Life In 19x19

I think there is a difference in perspective, which leads to different stances on this issue.

If you view people as unchangeable beings - those that have done "bad" (if we have some good definition for that) will always be "bad" - then it makes sense that, if they were bad in the past, they should not be here anymore. They will just be "bad" in the future.

But if you view people as changeable beings - individuals that can grow and learn from past experience, then it does not make sense to hold grudges against them for that which has happened in the past.

Or, if you do have grudges, as most humans do, it should not be reflected in your admin actions. If being an admin is a service to the community - which is how I view it - those that get banned from time to time are also a part of that community and deserve fair treatment.

I know there are individuals that do not view being an admin as a service to the community, but rather as their personal "right" as an owner of a site or service, but I have to disagree with this stance, as it is the community that really makes a place what it is.

We have already seen that with the move from godiscussions.com to L19. We are not dependent on the admins or on the server. mWe have power because of each one of us together. We are the community, and it is because of that community that I continue to visit this site, even after saying I wouldn't for awhile (that and lack of self-control).

And that community includes the "hooligans." Let's have faith in one another, and use reasoning instead of grudges. Perhaps banning is inevitable from time to time when posting disrupts the rest of the community. But how we respond to such disruption can make all the difference. If we can turn one "hooligan" out of 10 into someone that contributes positively on the forum, I think we have benefitted.

Of course all of this "hooligan" talk is subjective, anyway... But grudges can't be a good solution as an administrative policy.

"No rants please" certainly didn't do much to discourage rants in this thread.

Adding "no rants" to a really contentious subject must be dry.

My experience of KGS admins and in fact BigDoug in particular has been broadly very positive.

If anything I think they are perhaps way too tolerant of repeated and repeated belligerent behaviour. To some extent you can avoid the issue by just leaving the EGR, but in some ways that's both inconvenient and it's weird that you would have to.

(Or perhaps their low tolerance is too patchily enforced; I did once get warned for discussing sex in the teaching ladder; "...as a prophylactic measure...".)

I think the ban made complete sense ... in the end. However, the fact that the majority of people have no idea what the original conversation was "not to have in here" does rather indicate either an overstep in the first instance, or a really badly explained judgement by the mods on what conversation is appropriate.

However, we don't have full information, and this conversation may have occurred before and had a bad outcome, and BD was trying to discourage a repetition. It's quite clear Abyss has some issues to respond in the way he did, and it may well be that he took a similar conversation somewhere bad previously.

jts wrote:

speedchase wrote:overstepping slightly

Overstepping? How? All he did was tell a user to shut up for no apparent reason. Isn't dishing out mysterious bans the primary duty of the KGS admins?

I have read the transcript 5 times. Where does the admin tell anyone to "shut up"?

"Please do not have that conversation here" is a polite request, which was ignored.

It seems clear to me that both the admin and the player knew what "that conversation" meant, so, to them, the reason was apparent, even if it is not to us.

People keep attacking this guy for being so horrible, yet every time the post their examples of how horrible he is, my reaction is...really?...this is the best you have? Not that I want to encourage threads like this.

Perhaps my attitude is clouded by getting "yelled' at Saturday night for wishing my opponent "good luck". In a world where that is an insult, and "please" means "shut up" any admin who tries to do his job has no chance.

Actually I started this threat to gather transcripts, not to fight this old flame war again.

If you have issues with kgs admins, you should post a transcript instead so people can read them and make up their own mind.

I rather people not debate about them here.

duckweed wrote:Actually I started this threat to gather transcripts, not to fight this old flame war again.

If you have issues with kgs admins, you should post a transcript instead so people can read them and make up their own mind.

I rather people not debate about them here.

I appreciate the sentiment and attempt at holding admins accountable, but I'm not sure if the whole idea isn't simply doing the admins a disservice.

a) People can choose which bits they quote, as opposed to have the whole conversation. Also, it would be simple to edit prior to posting it, with almost no ability for anyone to check.

b) As expressed by HKA, examples like the one listed, give the distinct impression that there was prior history behind the original comment, which means it's quite possible the entire transcript is out of the context. The request by BD that honfu contact by PM over "what he did wrong" further implies that there was history which BD did not want to produce publicly, which is a very appropriate way of not re-airing dirty laundry.

c) I very much doubt people will go out of the way of posting transcripts where the admins did their job particularly well, giving an unnecessarily negative impression of them that may well not be justified.

I fail to see any good coming from this idea, even though it's well intentioned.

I don't think there's anything wrong with selective quoting. From people who are given authority, responsible behavior is an obligation, not a special favor. I certainly don't feel obliged to watch ten videos of a police officer issuing traffic citations or asking loiterers to move along for every one video I see of a girl being pepper-sprayed directly in the eyes.

However, if this is the measure of objectivity that people want, I will gladly add something to this thread every time I see global admins speaking in that capacity.

I agree there are some actions that are inappropriate for an admin pretty much regardless of the provocation, but the only offence BD seems to have committed here is one of stopping a conversation unreasonably prematurely (and, possibly, treating an individual where there has been prior provocation with a shorter fuse than normal). However, the intervention only seems premature because we don't know what came before, which is a common issue with selective quoting.

Your analogy is a bit more extreme, but for example, if you see a policeman pepper spraying a teenage girl and think "OMG, what an abuse of power", would you think the same if you saw the clip from 10 seconds earlier where she slashed his colleague across the face with a switchblade and turned it on him before being on the receiving end of pepper spray?

Context is essential when making any informed judgement on the appropriateness of an individual's behaviour.

Topazg, jts, you guys are wonderful, and I mean no harm, but I'm so incredibly tired of hearing cop analogies. Even calling them sheriffs might not get me through. Let's try and come up with something else.

What KGS admins might be like

• teachers
• talk show hosts
• seminar leaders
• librarians
• daycare attendants
• the drudge report

Help me brainstorm. I don't think I've quite hit the nail on the head yet, but there's gotta be something.

hyperpape wrote:Topazg, jts, you guys are wonderful, and I mean no harm, but I'm so incredibly tired of hearing cop analogies. Even calling them sheriffs might not get me through. Let's try and come up with something else.

What KGS admins might be like

• teachers
• talk show hosts
• seminar leaders
• librarians
• daycare attendants
• the drudge report

Help me brainstorm. I don't think I've quite hit the nail on the head yet, but there's gotta be something.

mall security?

i too am sick and tired of these sheep who look for any reason to make admins always right.

doug has kept me banned from KGS for the past month at minimum and it is tiring to deal with people who abuse their power to carry out grudges.

Joaz Banbeck wrote:

speedchase wrote:... "Past history" as some people have said is just another way of saying that Big doug has gruges against people he doesn't like....

Or "past history" could mean that the user has a history of offenses that merit a ban, and the admin is doing his job impartially and fairly.

speedchase wrote:...If someone does something wrong and they get punished that should be it until they do something wrong again, someone doing something wrong isn't a excuse for admins to be abusive towards them for the rest of their time on kgs.

I disagree. A continuing pattern of the same offense indicates a contempt for the rules, which is a much greater problem than just breaking a rule.

Almost all modern systems of jurisprudence have the concept of a 'strike'.

If this is the case, then the user should get a larger punishment when he breaks the rules, or maybe if it is bad enough he should have been banned last time he broke the rules. but no amount of past history should make a user be randomly attacked by an admin when they are doing nothing wrong!

hyperpape wrote:What KGS admins might be like

Zookeepers? (=


But more seriously....maybe a residence hall/dormitory RA?


And as has happened many times before, sometimes the fruit just hangs too low and I can't resist...

The pepper spray pictures are powerful, but I always think of the queue for the beating stick in Ghandi when I think of injustice