Friend said:

That's the whole point in a nutshell to me. Shausler's nonsense thread (which I didn't post in but at the same time I wasn't bothered by it) was made an example of.

I think people who have spoken up for Shausler know he's a harmless, friendly guy who only posted to have fun with whatever subject he brought up - and sometimes it was Prince's music, believe it or not. A guy who doesn't speak ill of women in general (like some other posters and threads they create), a guy who doesn't race-bait (like some other posters and threads they create), a guy who doesn't go off on others with expletives just because he doesn't agree with them (like some other posters and threads they create), etc.

This is what most of us have objected to - NOT necessarily that his thread was so needed or relevant - it's the fact that since the very beginning of this new site other people have started threads of equal or worse gibberish, and many times threads of a truly virulent nature. Those are the people who should have been made an example of, not someone like Shausler. That's what people are confused about.

Someone said this sets a bad precedent, and I agree. To me it would have been different if a thread that exhibited those things I mentioned above had been the first one locked, even along WITH Shausler's thread. But since Shausler's was the first one locked yesterday it leaves some a bit bewildered.

I'm sure everybody here is well aware that Matt, Ben and Kevin can delete or lock anything they wish, even without an explanation (as the GD forum clearly says), nobody is arguing that. It's just that there seems to be a lack of consistency about it in the context of what is NOT locked or deleted.

Supernova said:

As I said above:

"Some people have asked why I locked Schausler's thread when other, more objectionable stuff has gone unchecked in the past. As I said above, I'm turning up the moderation a notch. I can't monitor every single thread (and thus I'm depending in part upon prince.org members to use the "Report msg to moderator" function), but I'll try to take a more active role in policing the forums. And if that "more objectionable stuff" comes to my attention, I'll take action."

supernova,

great post...you stated my thoughts exactly!

Matt, I have never met you, and I don't know the person you truly are. I'm sure you're a real cool person like people say you are. Attacking wasn't really kosher on my part. You're a very smart man, and you brought up some cool points about what I said that deserved to be questioned.

What I still can't understand is your motives for doing it. Guess that's why I put those "attacks" in question form, for it completely dumbfounds me to see such an innocent thread taken away because it was nonsense to you. I still thought you should have seen the Love behind it, and I continue to believe you should look deeper, beyond the nonsense. You might have seen something much more special than you had given it credit for.

What I learned is that people are premature in taking actions sometimes. I definitely proved that here today. I also think you were a bit premature in your actions. I hope you can acknowledge the fact that you did as well.

You're already a bigger man than I am, Matt. Hell, I acknowlege that right now more than ever. In my last post I also thanked my fellow Orgers for everything that they are. While I once again want to thank them, I want to apologize to my fellow Orgers and the staff. Talk about little man -- that's what I evolved myself into as my emotions grew ever the more. So, for the record everyone, I'm the little man, not Matt. I'm sure those 250 people that read my post probably think the same of me as well. I apologize and deserve any shots you or anyone here would like to take at me.

I tried defending a fellow Orger that I felt was treated unjustly, and my passion to fight for his rights went overboard. Not cool. It's classless, and there's no style goin' that route. No style whatsoever.

Regardless of our strong and separate differences on this issue, I offer a sincere apology to you. And regardless of whether you accept it or not, I thank you for teaching me something that definitely needed to be taught. It's good to be taught a lesson and a little humility at the same time.

A Peaceful Wild to you and the rest of the Orgers.
T-O-DoubleD

NPGJughead:

Thanks for your gracious message. Hopefully, once emotions have cooled down, we can all learn something from this incident (including me). I realize now that it probably would have been better to communicate my intentions to "turn up the moderation" instead of firing away without warning.

prince.org has been around in one form or another since 1995 (when the PPML was launched), and has survived many things, including a server crash that kept us offline for over half a year. I'm sure that, in the long run, it'll get through this controversy just fine.

matt said:

All the more respect to you, Matt. That being said, I think everyone should be satisfied with your statement, and we can finally all give it a rest. And like you said, we can all learn something from this, apply what we learned, and everything can and will be cool as usual. Thanks again, Matt.

A Peaceful Wild.
T-O-DoubleD

Matt,
Want to also acknowledge how you've tried to handle this by both explaining your reasons as well as responding to individual posts.

For me, it was locking the referenced thread while other stuff which is more objectional, in my eyes, continues uncensored.

Your response to this point (made in a post to someone else was:
"Some people have asked why I locked Shausler's thread when other, more objectionable stuff has gone unchecked in the past. As I said above, I'm turning up the moderation a notch. I can't monitor every single thread (and thus I'm depending in part upon prince.org members to use the "Report msg to moderator" function), but I'll try to take a more active role in policing the forums. And if that "more objectionable stuff" comes to my attention, I'll take action."

Although i still disagree on the Shausler lock out, this explanation helps. Also mad respect for not taking the reactions personal, even though some of the posts tried to take you there.

Speaking of getting personal, wish you'd have locked out that OKay Player diatribe within the thread...guess in the end its the differing opinions which make the discussions fun.

The Matt Ethical Rule Has Begun.
All Hail the New Equation


The Mooderator makes sense. I have only read this one thread on the topic because frankly, it's not so easy to draw the line. When I came back here, threads like Shausler's irritated me, but I thought I should accept it as just part of the Org's zany side. Now I actually understand what Voomio voom or whatever means.

Let's just see where this train takes us.

Perhaps the definition of "General Discussion" should be firmly ironed out...

"Get Wild. Get Loose. Get freaky, let ya head bop..."

"You can discuss any topic that doesn't fit into one of the other forums here. Do not post anything for sale or trade here; such posts will be deleted and your account will be terminated. Be courteous to other members. Posts may be deleted for any reason by the moderators, without explanation (deal with it)."

Yes, the ultimate decision of the moderators is a fact of internet life that people should understand. And I wholeheartedly agree that there are a shitload (some of them started or maintained by me) of worthless posts here. But such a lack of clarity regarding what IS and what IS NOT allowed is going to, in the long run, damage a truly unique and cool community that we have here at the .Org. Ben, Matt, & Gang have always done a great fucking job keeping this place in shape, and I owe them all A LOT for providing me with an outlet for wasting my time at work (my employer, however, should sue them for decreasing productivity! ). I think even something simple should be added into the description of the "General Discussion" forum, so that people understand that there random nonsensical posts might have an extremely short life. Until such clarity is achieved, people are going to be upset when they interpret "Get Wild. Get Loose. Get freaky" their own way with minimal guidance, only to turn around and find their ramblings gone. The 'stepping up of moderation' is a turn of events that I think will help this site. There's just so much bullshit floating around here! But I think it is key to keep communication clear between the mods & the other community members, so that we are all aware of the changing rules.

Well, just as long as I can still curse. When that changes, I'm gone!


.
.
.

Hey, where was the random fascist when this hit the org?

http://www.prince.org/msg...#msg_45120

And I'm only posting it because he told me to go find it for proof.

Aaron said:

Deleted (along with the followups where several people, including you, repeated the personal attacks). Happy now?

matt said:

Oh, sure, 3 months after the thread is dead isn't too late for moderation. Thanks bunches!

-Timely moderation IS important.
-Shausler left of his own accord.

Please read http://www.prince.org/msg...&tid=16851 . Thanks.

matt said:

Exactly my point. He put it on the General Discussion thread, because he wanted people to see it. He didn't lock the thread and move it to the site discussion forum, because he actually WANTED PEOPLE TO READ IT. Which is the point I was making about you trying to bury the complaints about moderation.




And Ben assured me that he would talk to you about getting a thicker skin. But here we are...

Aaron said:

All of the locked threads had a link to prince.org Site Discussion, where people could continue the discussion. Let's give prince.org's account holders some credit--I'm sure they have the ability to follow a link.

It's not about trying to "bury" complaints. If I wanted to bury them, I would have just deleted them. And I certainly wouldn't have posted multiple links to them. But I did exactly that, because I had no desire to bury the discussion at all.

So what's it about? It's about organizing information to make it useful. Want to discuss the meaning of "Poom Poom"? Then you go to the Music: Prince forum. Want to talk about your plans for this year's Celebration? Then you go to Celebration 2002 forum. And, not surprisingly, if you want to discuss prince.org, we have the prince.org Site Discussion forum. We created the latter forum because the news threads at prince.org v1.0 were getting clogged with stuff like, "This isn't worthy of being posted as news" and the ensuing debate about the merits of a particular item.

Likewise, if I wrote a book on, say, the history of house music, a library would shelve it with other music books, according to either the Dewey or the Library of Congress system. They wouldn't put it with cookbooks or trashy romance novels. Even if most patrons never browsed the music section, that's too bad for me--my book will be "buried" there, because, well, it's a book about music.



As I said, divide and conquer...

Was I angry? You bet. That's hardly surprising, given that you were conducting a smear campaign against me and taking out your anger by vandalizing the General Discussion board.

But as for growing a thick skin... really, Aaron, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. As I recall, you started this "war" because I edited the title of thread you created. That was hardly surprising, since the title contained a personal attack against another prince.org poster whom you've been feuding with for months. (I know you don't think that calling someone "stupid" is a personal attack. I do. If you really think someone is stupid, prove it by attacking their ideas.) But had you not gotten so upset, I would have forgotten about it by now.

Anyway, I just don't understand what it is you want from me, Aaron. Throw me a bone here... what can I do to settle this dispute?

matt said:

Matt:

Everything that you have said is solid and is hard to argue against. I have to agree with you about the fact that you did not delete the topics and re-directed them, including a link to the new topic. That was an honorable way to handle the situation. It would have been even easier to delete the topics entirely.

I sincerely hope that the general discussion forum comes back soon, as I have had some good discussions about some interesting topics there... but I understand that you guys are sick of dealing with all the crap too...

I think that Aaron is just angry now and will get over it soon enough... he is a reasonable guy.

IceNine said:

Ultimately it's up to Ben, but I think it will be back in one form or another. We (i.e., the prince.org staff) have been talking about some new moderation guidelines, and Ben also has some ideas for "tools" to help make moderation easier for us.

matt said:

WILL BEN MAKE IT EASIER FOR TOOLS LIKE REVENGE TO POST

POOK CURIOUS

POOK said:

"Pook" should take the blame for "Revenge" being here in the first place perhaps.

While criticising the closing of Prince.Org General Discussion Board those who decided to "invade" Okayplayer should assume a large share of the blame.

Essence said:

RIGHT

MATT CLOSE SHAUSLER THREAD AND THAT HAVE WHAT TO DO WITH POOK?

I'm sad to see the GD forum go,(albeit temporarily) I've had many a good discussion there.

But let's be honest...it had it coming.

The GD forum was spiralling out of control. There were just far too many threads being created every day, the interesting ones were being buried under the sheer volume of new posts. Not only that, but the other forums were slowly dying in it's wake. What's the point of making an interesting new post in one of the other forums if no-one is going to read it, because everyone is still wading through the GD forum? Or that's what everyone felt, and therefore it became a self-fulfilling prophesy. The GD event-horizon was expanding and threatening to engulf all the other forums, and possibly the org itself.

The way I see it
Shausler's thread was certainly no worse than most others.
It was merely the straw that finally broke the camel's back. The General Discussion forum had been approaching critical mass for quite a while, and something was gonna give sooner or later.

I'm sure this has already been mentioned, but..
Surely if the number of new posts could be regulated somehow, then the main problem with the GD forum could be solved. If everyone could only have X amount of new threads per week, then maybe more restraint and consideration would be used before starting yet another thread.

I must admit, I don't know enough about running a site like this to know if this is possible or practical, but something along those lines seems to me to be the fairest solution.

I'm sure Ben, Matt & co. will come up with the answer,
& I know the Org will go on...
(eewww...sorry, that last bit came over all "Celine Dion" .)

I'll shut up now.
[This message was edited Wed Jun 19 16:28:46 PDT 2002 by BorisFishpaw]

i admit i was getting pretty hooked on the 'general discussion' forum. in fact i rarely visited the other forums.
the closing of the general discussion forum has been motivating me to get in touch with the other forums again.

this website is so cool. so what if it's having a few growing pains? i say just kick back and let the ORG gods do as they will, and at their leisure.

yeah, so... where were we?

Aaron said:

and then there is you who makes my life complete...and then i am no where...

SkletonKee said:

Well, I'm glad I make your sun shine

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[This message was edited Thu Jun 5 16:06:42 PDT 2003 by shausler]

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[This message was edited Thu Jun 5 16:06:35 PDT 2003 by shausler]

Wow, reading this thread is kinda freaky.

bkw said:

That was what I was thinking.

Jesus.