Wow, this seems to be getting a bit nasty quite fast.
Long post coming up:
<tl;dr>
* Self promotion is completely within TOS
* My thread separation was based on respect for the OP's wishes
* Robert Jasiek is doing nothing that would constitute a TOS offense
* Reported posts are more likely to have action taken than non-reported posts
* Personal attacks are not within TOS
* Most arguments about internet anonymity are straw men
* General appeal towards civility for the sake of L19
</tl;dr>Firstly, my lack of picking up on the OP's post was that the subject is, in my opinion, a really good topic for discussion. I think there have indeed been good discussions on it, and I would also oppose a policy against self-promotion. I think self-promotion is basically self defeating, but that's up to the primary antagonists to discover for themselves. When I posted a thread offering my teaching services I knew full well I'd get stick for them (partly due to my playing strength), but I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't really the case. That's probably because I tried extra hard not to over sell, and I'm sure there'd be a lot more criticism my way if I said something like "You're better off with me than a professional", but there still was criticism, despite it having its own thread in the appropriate sub forum.
Likewise, I completely support Robert in having threads advertising his work, and having discussions about Go theory. The only time I'm likely to have an issue is when an OP wants a specific answer to something he raised and it gets derailed, and then people (including the OP) complain. In this case, Robert was the victim of the complaint, but it could just as easily have been someone else in some other thread. I did it out of respect for the OP's wishes, as it can be very frustrating asking an honest question and have some sideways meta discussion take place - you feel uncomfortable about starting another identical thread, but at the same time your question wasn't answered. I didn't delete posts, I simply moved them so both separate discussions could carry on in their own right. Robert raised an excellent point that perspectives are different and that his were equally valid, but in my mind that's why it deserves its own thread and its own airtime rather than confusing itself being interleaved between another topic. I made an effort to make sure the new title was explicitly clear on the discussion taking place.
In general, if a thread goes off at a tangent and everyone's happy, I'm happy too. If a thread ends up being a dual-thread and the OP is unhappy, I think everyone is
happier with the separation. If not, I'll adjust the way I respond.
I'm not going to beat around the bush regarding Robert Jasiek, and I apologise to him for bringing him up as a direct example, but it seems relevant here. Personally, I sometimes get frustrated at what I perceive to be less than logically sound arguments from him, and what I consider to be derailing of some threads I was interested in following. However, that's my problem, not his, and I wouldn't want to stop him from posting his thoughts, reasons and feelings, as I see that as unalienably his right. Regarding conduct towards other members, he has been almost impeccably behaved, and often under considerable provocation. I have a lot of respect for the way he has dealt with a number of things other people have said, and I don't think I have ever seen him resort to even an implied personal attack, despite having received fairly blatant direct attacks, such as the content in some of the OP of this thread.
I consider him to be one of the more thorough contributors to the forum, and to Western go literature as a whole, and am delighted that he chooses to spend some of his time on L19. At some point (when I actually have spare money that my wife will let me spend on Go books), some of his joseki material is pretty much at the top of my list for books to buy.
There are quite a few instances where I would have taken some form of action if he'd reported individual posts that were targetted at him, as some of them were genuinely unpleasant, but as a rule if he can brush it off and not care, I'd rather sit on the side than bring out the stun baton. I don't think anyone particularly wants to see any form of police-statism (or whatever the forum equivalent is) from moderators and admins. That doesn't mean I didn't notice the original offense, and repeated offenders get warnings regardless of whether their posts were reported or not. However, reporting is still important. For one thing, it gives us an indication of conduct that is creating an unpleasant atmosphere on L19 for members, and for another, it allows us to try and resolve it peacefully behind the scenes rather than have people take chunks out of each other publically. The reporting system is supposed to be there as a helpful service, not a secret black mark function.
Regardless of someone being completely wrong (either in a poster's opinion, or just clearly objectively wrong), there is never any excuse for personal attacks. The most clear personal attack in this thread was in the OP (I'm sorry, you really can't claim that it wasn't a personal attack just because you didn't use his name. As you said, we all knew who you meant, and that meant it was a personal attack), and the second most clear was, surprisingly, from John Fairbairn. Just like Robert, I thought that Nick (you are normally that, not Nicholas, right?) responded very reasonably with an attempt to defuse it, and I hope that it doesn't create yet another possible personal antipathy - we have enough of those already.
For what it's worth, I consider the internet anonymity argument particularly weak for two reasons. Firstly, it took me about 5 seconds in Google to find out shapenaji's real name (ok, I knew it anyway, but I thought I'd check), and I'm topazg pretty much everywhere and have been for a very long time. Google topazg and you'll see what I mean. Neither of us make any effort at all to hide who we actually are, and that leads me to the second reason: Even if John Fairbairn was known as MrBig and self published all his books as MrBig Books Ltd, I'd still buy them if they got great reviews. Quite a few authors have pen names (Mark Twain being probably one of the bigger examples) and I have no problem knowing him as Mark, even if his real name is Samuel. A name is just a name, you are who you are, it's no more anonymous with an arbitrary handle than it is with your birth name - both are just a collection of characters that you choose to be known as. Ironically, I'm now far more readily recognised online as topazg than I am as Graham Lamburn, and people who know me, know me as both (and many people still think of me as Graham Philips, but that's another matter
). That's just dandy by me.
Finally, an appeal:This is partly with my mod hat on, but to be honest it's more of a personal appeal. I like Go. I like Go players. I like L19. All of these things make me part of a community that I'm proud to be a part of. If someone says something I find annoying, I'll do my best to ignore it, and I'd love to see others doing the same. The forums should be a platform where people can make flippant jokes, discuss deep and meaningful philosophy, debate complex theoretical issues, and just generally chat about various semi-related issues if they want to.
The idea is there's something here for everyone, regardless of what you want to get out of it. If you see a thread full of captioned images that gives you twitches, just ignore the thread and find one more interesting. There's never any chance of a forum being completely filled with lots of interesting stuff for every member, so spend your time in the bits that you get the most from. If people are doing something that you find really annoying, report it if it breaches TOS or try to ignore it. If you think the forum itself will benefit from action taken like thread splitting, raise a report specifically to ask for it - to my great happiness Robert did this very appropriately on his own ko discussion with other members, and that split seems to have been just fine.
I want this to be a community where people maintain respect for the fact everyone goes about their Go activities in their own ways. I want L19 to be a place to actively encourage new players and existing players to come to, for both it's content and the pleasant atmosphere. I want L19 to thrive as a community, not get stuck in handbag fights. Please can everyone think twice before either creating threads like this one, or making negative comments clearly directed against an individual. This isn't the place for starting random fights with people you don't agree with, God knows there's enough of that everywhere else.
In fairness, I still think the majority of the content on here is great, constructive, and a pleasure to read, but some of the recent trends haven't been so nice
</rant>
