Master rla wrote:

But it would make it harder for the trolls.

I think you completely missed the whole point. It would make it harder for everyone. The average user wouldn't be bothered to put out the extra effort of spamming their friends in order for their post to be seen, whereas trolls are already making the extra effort because that's what they do... they troll.

All good information can be stickied on the forums.

The "good information" I'm talking about that people post about, like DivineTraveller showing us great deals on indie games that would otherwise go unnoticed, wouldn't warrant being stickied on the forum. It would be pointless. There's no reason why he should have to go to the forum for it either when he can do it from the comfort of his own blog.

*Appears in via jumping off Jaredoggy's head* The Amazing Katoma appears!

Humor aside, I'm going straight to the point:

This IS about Silk when you get down to it. The moderation was made over complaints, fairly legitimate at that, of Silkwizard stealing money (PS Silk: Please Ban me, I don't like NEStalgia anyway).

Let's review everything from the ground up:

Fugsnarf made a request that the movement system of BYOND should be changed. However Silk burst in and called it "Stupid" because an obviously advantageous (with next to no downside, bar possibly bugs like some games got) system like this shouldn't be implimented when everyone should be able to code it on their own.

Let's review that last part: "We shouldn't improve BYOND because every coder should be coding that anyhow".

Wouldn't that, by proxy, mean that having it programmed into BYOND would be better, for less coding issues and for a little bit less space used, or am I missing something? Does this mean Silk was arguing for the sake of arguing?

Continuing that same discussion, Silk simply refused to back down, not changing his views, not even defending them, just shooting down everything others said which basically expanded my last paragraph (bolded section).

The end result of this was:

-Fugsnarf got banned from Silkwizard's blog (seemingly, Fugsnarf recieved a VERY rude message for even logging into that Blog to make a message).
-Multiple people who spent money on Silk's games are now banned from it. Not for their in-game actions, but because they thoroughly outdebated Silk. This isn't an opinion, the fact Tom and the BYOND staff agreed with Fugsnarf and implimented that update is proof.
-This tragedy.


Now let's go to that third part, shall we? What happened here (related to the 2nd part as well)?

A player reported Silkwizard's money mongering. Now, I'm unsure about this, but I'm fairly sure a scam is a scam. You can't legally run any sort of scam even on the net. It's liable for lawsuits. I'm unsure about this mind you.

Yes, they got what they wanted, but if I remember law right (and all I do is sound good, so I doubt this is the case), unless specifically stated otherwise, a person is to recieve money compensation back when their 'contract'/subscription is forcibly terminated by one party equivalent to the remaining amount of time in the subscription (IE: 12 months = 12 dollars, 3 months have passed, the buyer gets 9 bucks back).

Anyhow back to the topic, the complaint was suppressed from the main page.

Now, I want to clarify one thing:

Where in the name of Jesus did there exist any rules for this service about griefing other members via the blogs? Wait, here we go.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<& lt;<<

2. CONDUCT
Once you become a BYOND Member, your BYOND Member site is yours to use as you wish, with a few limitations. BYOND will not accept sites with clearly pornographic content (as determined solely by the judgment of the BYOND Staff) or with content that causes a significant use of bandwidth for purposes that don't benefit the BYOND community in some manner acceptable to the BYOND Staff. It is your sole responsibility to ensure your site's content does not break any laws or contracts.

We want to allow free expression of ideas on BYOND Member sites; in particular we want the BYOND Member pages themselves to reflect the personality and interests of the Member. However, in cases where the BYOND staff determines that images or content on a BYOND Member site are detrimental to the interests of BYOND, the BYOND Staff may choose to filter or remove the images or content, such as from search results, site summaries, or the BYOND forums. In extreme cases, the BYOND Staff may determine that the content of a site is so detrimental that we must terminate the BYOND Membership.

Inappropriate conduct in other areas of the BYOND system, such as creating pager spam or harassing other users, may warrant termination of BYOND Membership. BYOND Staff reserves the sole right to determine what conduct is inappropriate.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<& lt;<<

I would like to emphasize this bolded portion for this point of the discussion.

Now, let's review, Tom knows that Silk's a problem. And now Silk's antics have reached a point that it's forced players to form a swarm of complaints, many key BYOND members to QUIT using BYOND or stop their direct (advertisements, etc) of BYOND. However, instead of solving everyone's pretty legit problems (I don't know Silk, I've never talken to Silk, but I've seen enough to make a thorough psychological profile from my point of view), they choose to Suppress the posts and not solve the problem at the source, which again, Tom admits has been a long-running problem.
----------------------------------------
http://www.byond.com/members/ Magicbeast20?command=view_post&post=97352&skip_comments=159

Quote:
The only reason it's really being played out as such is because it involved one of our more controversial users.
--------------------------------------

Now this brings it around full circle.

Tom acknowledges Silk's a problem, he didn't state it outright, but he admits that silk is a problem and a huge source of controversy. There's 2 choices that I can see that will solve all of this:

1: Tom removes Silkwizard, which will result in an insanely minor lost of BYOND's profits. This might also restore the trust of those who have left, and prevent FUTURE issues revolving around him. (Note on Silkwizard's Blog/rebuttal, he notes this has happened before with Prolium or however you spell it).

2: They leave Silk alone, and wait to lose another 20-40 members from BYOND as a result of his tendancies to steal money (nobody has denied this fact, not even Silk mind you), ban people for issues completely not related to his game, and to silence anyone who disagrees with his opinion (see: Fugsnarf).


If It were me, i'd sacrifice one for the benefit of many. It's become slightly obvious that Silkwizard has no intent to 'improve' his behavior, which seems to be a long standing problem despite how well known and 'respected' he is.

I think I've said about everything.

Actually one more thing: I just want to note that I find it funny that the Terms of Service note harassment of players, like Silk has done to Blogs he completely disagrees with, is a means to have one's BYOND membership completely removed. Yet he still has his, and yet the only threats are towards those who continue making seperate Blog entries. This is a direct contradiction of enforcement in my opinion, is it not?

Latoma wrote:

tl;dr

SilkWizard is simply expressing his views and doing what he wants.He can charge for subscriptions and he can steal money if he pleases.Please go away.Nobody is going to read that anyway.

Anyway I find it hilarious that people gave someone money and got banned.I am in full support of it.He deserves a six pack of corona.

Lummox JR wrote:
Technically I haven't suppressed any of them. But I've agreed with the hiding of those posts. The problem is, his "every way" has been, in my opinion, over the line each time.

LJR, you are full of bullshit, and you know it.

Again, if this is the going to be the policy going forward, I will boycott any gift memberships. He wrote a post that violated exactly zero terms of service and yet you agree with the ban.

LJR, take a page from Tom. He already acknowledged that the front page ban was wrong. Stop being purposefully ignorant and, get with the program.

I don't see how it's intellectually dishonest to point out that there's a distinction between saying there's a contradiction in a straightforward manner vs. "You are a horrible liar".

That's a ridiculous straw man. The dishonesty is saying that the distinction is the justification of a front page ban. Why don't you fine tooth comb every damn blog post to find any sentence that *might* be construed as criticism and front page ban it?

Yes, pointing out the contradiction is tantamount to calling someone a liar, but it also isn't loaded. As Tom said, it was a subtle attack.

Fine. Grow some testicles, LJR. Criticism is an attack. When I tell you or Fugsnarf that your religious and political views border on insanity, you have the choice of being all hurt and wrap yourself in the blanket of cognitive dissonance or taking the initiative to understand that you are, in fact, wrong.

Your support of a front page ban for this triviality further solidifies my view of you that you are incapable of cogitating criticism.

Realize that most people in the world are.

On the note of Silk, notice how hes done this same thing before?

http://www.byond.com/developer/forum/?id=353116
Link provided by Silk himself on his blog post.

This blog can stay up as long as this:

http://www.byond.com/members/ Kingstone99?command=view_post&post=97408

trash is up.