[True_Avery]

Disclaimer, these opinions entirely represent me, and not the rest of the Staff nor Lucas Forums

Originally Posted by Qliveur

1) Kavar's:
It was a noble experiment, but I agree with Darth InSidious' assessment that it was doomed to failure from the very beginning and has acted as a sort of cancer, with arguments and agendas spreading to Ahto and beyond. Various treatments have been applied to little or no effect and the only real solution left is for the KotOR forum to undergo radical surgery to have Kavar's permanently removed. Any and all political discussion (and agendas) should be relegated to the Senate Chambers, which has successfully existed for years without having the effect of poisoning the rest of the forum. I give credit to the Swampies for this, because they don't want and won't stand for that crap polluting their little corner of LF, and really: who can blame them?

It has not successfully existed for years.

Know why I like posting there from time to time? Because it is the most lax on rules. Meaning I can post pretty much any insult I want as long as it has something to do with the topic. Should I be allowed? I don't think so, but as long as the staff there is going to be lax then sure. You'll also notice that senate is hardly active a lot. The only reason it has had an influx as of late is because everybody is enjoying the opportunity to chew out a certain member.

I would hardly call that a successful forum.

I, however, agree with you on Kavars and was the one that started the vote within the staff for its possible closure. It was voted against, so we opened it back up again for now. But, as has been said, it is your choice and your choice only that determines if you post, read, or are infracted for being in that forum. If you don't like Kavars, then just leave it. Thats what I did.

Originally Posted by Qliveur

2) Post editing, snipping and deletions:
These have to stop. I recognize that they are used in an effort to smooth over arguments and to eliminate the offensive nature of certain comments in order to prevent people's feelings from being hurt, but they are having a very detrimental effect by preventing conflict resolution and giving the impression of censorship and bias. Offensive and rule-breaking posts should be left as they are, warts and all (sans profanity and obscene photos, links and other objects), so that everyone can see exactly why certain actions are being taken by members of the staff. The only editing to offending posts should be moderator comments and the removal of the afore-mentioned profanity/obscenity. This will (hopefully) have the following effects:

You just contradicted yourself. You said leave them there, but then you stated that it is ok for staff to remove them.

Which is it?

Again, a misunderstanding on how the staff works. Posts are not deleted. They are hidden from members. You may not see your post when it is deleted, but moderators can.

And no, we will not allow members to see what we have deleted, give them the option to, or leave there there with a mod note. Your no censorship flag is admirable, but we actually have some laws we have to follow here.

If a bot or member posts child porn, we are not going to put a tag under neither saying "beware" and leave it as is. If someone posts the "N" word a thousand times in a post, we are not going to put a mod note under it and leave it as is.

Want to know the actual way of fixing this?

Don't post things we need to snip or delete.

Try some self moderating guys. If you don't want your posts to be snipped, then for the love of god stop insulting, flaming, and sniping each other. We don't have to snip anything if you don't post any rule breaking posts in the first place.

It has been spun that we are snipping and deleting because we have some kind of agenda going on. It can easily be spun backwards to say that the people complaining about snipping are the people that cannot control their ability to follow the rules in the first place.

Originally Posted by Qliveur

b) To enforce permanent accountability on any and all posters, including staff, by preventing the exploitation of the current policy of snipping and deleting flames and other forms of asshattery by depending upon it to cover their tracks. This should make anyone think twice before posting because once it's there, it's there for good and for all to see and use for future reference.

Yeah, that child porn bot really showed me.

If you are trying to prevent rifts, you are going in the wrong direction. A forum with no rules, accountability, or staff is an idea that would never work. It just wouldn't.

Utopias do not exist, and frankly turning this forum into some kind of neo-communist democracy would work about as well as it has worked for Russia or China.

Originally Posted by Qliveur

3) Staff meetings and decision-making:
Should be open to the public and subject to oversight and input by all forum members.

Nothing would get done. Plain and simple.

Originally Posted by Qliveur

4) Promotions and demotions:
Should be decided upon by all forum members.

One problem with this:
fa⋅vor⋅it⋅ism
   /ˈfeɪvərɪˌtɪzəm, ˈfeɪvrɪ-/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [fey-ver-i-tiz-uhm, feyv-ri-] Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. the favoring of one person or group over others with equal claims; partiality: to show favoritism toward the youngest child.
2. the state of being a favorite.

Your cure for favoritism is favoritism.

There would be no staff. A staff member would be put up for demotion vote anytime he did someone that people did not agree with, like ban or infract someone.

Unfortunately, you have to have someone in charge and if the current state of the forum is any indication, the current staff would be all voted off and any new staff wouldn't last a week.

Which brings me to my next point:

Are you asking to be a moderator? Not you, Qliv, but a lot of the people bringing up these complaints.

I can assure you that you want nothing to do with this job. I've seen more drama in this staff than in my actual life. There is enough hate, pain, drama, etc to go around to fill a mid-day soap opera for years.

This job is not fun. It is not rewarding. It is, for the most part, thankless and a massive pain in the ass. New staff quickly realize that they've gotten into a bunch of drama way over their heads.

Ask mimartin. He was one of the ones criticizing us before he became a staff member, and has since apologized. I'm not asking for an apology from you; I am simply stating that there more activity within the staff than is being considered.

Originally Posted by Qliveur

Because it feels like "ratting", which I find distasteful if not despicable

If nobody ratted on anyone else, nothing would be accomplished. It would be chaos. Nobody would be held accountable for anything.

We seem to have exact opposite viewpoints on justice. You feel that nobody should be held accountable for what they do, instead their sins being held out in the open so that they may do justice upon themselves.

Personally, I feel that if you've done someone then someone should hold you accountable for it. If someone runs off the street and hits me with their car, I'd appreciate someone telling me who hit me with a damn car instead of hoping that they would "feel bad" about doing it later. If someone raped me or a friend, I doubt the person who did it is going to feel bad about themselves later.

You let everyone flame and bite each other without any punishment but of which they exact on themselves, then you have anarchistic chaos and civilization would crumble and burn.

Anarchy isn't law for good reason. If it was, we'd be Sudan.

Parents who don't punish their kids get spoiled and rotten children for good reason.