bl staff, policy and process feedback

[Jabberwocky]

so, in the spirit of the op, phr feels that there are numerous issues with me as an admin. and that numerous problems would be solved by simply removing me. does anybody else agree with his analysis?

alasdair

No.

I can think of too many instances that, without your reliably calm, restrained never-shoot-from-the-hip demeanor, this place would have gone to hell in about 48hrs.

This thread is a good example. Look at how quickly the original thread escalated and imploded, then compare to this thread. I don’t think we’d be able to even discuss BP’s concerns without your influence.

I regret lumping BP in with the behavior of droppers and Phr prior to now. If anything it now seems clearly like the offsite BL cabal has tried to exploit this situation with BPs concerns (not illegitimate concerns, even if I disagree with the bulk of them) for their own ends.

I didn’t see anything in BP’s grievances about TL, it’s was about interstaff conduct (especially for those of you who were privy to it, it was literally all about interstaff issues). Of course, now it has essentially become all about TL, how the leadership decided to finally start implementing the BLUA there same as every other forum on this site and how that is somehow a miscarriage of justice...

That’s old news though, and we are obviously not going back to the old TL. What I am interested in discussing more of BP’s original concerns. It would seem crucial that staff concerns are addressed and that staff have a harmonious “working environment” on the boards.

As this continues to cool down, assuming we don’t just stay limited to the topic of TL - which does seem rather mute considering direction from management - maybe we could talk about how to achieve a more constructive environment in the staff forums when serious disputes arise. To me that would seem to mostly be a discussion for staff, but maybe others not on staff have suggestions?

It would be kinda cool to have a way for staff to address issues they have with other people on staff in constructive, positive ways - especially that kind of thing can make tempers easily flare. As it is right now, it seems like that is mostly up to the individual to facilitate in bringing their issues forward.

It would be cool to have more framework there (or an I just missing an entire section of the handbook I overlooked that deal with this specific interstaff grievance issue?).

 

[phr]

the problem in your case was not that you were posting but that you opted to create and manage a forum which seemed designed to incite abuse and disruption on bl. we're not a corporation but there are parallels. imagine you were ceo of ford and found out that one of your employees started a website called http://fordcarsareshit.com encouraging people to boycott buyoing ford cars. it's problematic and i can't imagine you'd allow it to continue because free speech is so important...

It wasn't designed to incite abuse or disruption on BL. It was designed as a continuation of TL. You know how TL was right before you closed it? That's what it was supposed to be. Matter of fact, once the abuse/harassment started, the people that wanted to continue on with that left that sub and started their own. The situation that exists now as a free for all shit show there is because you did not want to contain that on this site as it was contained in TL.

so, in the spirit of the op, phr feels that there are numerous issues with me as an admin. and that numerous problems would be solved by simply removing me. does anybody else agree with his analysis?

alasdair

Nobody is going to honestly disagree with you. This line of questioning rarely works when a superior is asking. There's a reason why anonymous surveys about management exist. There's a reason why retaliation laws exist. You're not dumb, you know what I'm getting at here.

When did this discussion take place? I don?t think you and I have spoken for many years. I also not aware that you r ever emailed or PMed me with any grievance.

I would like to genuinely get to the bottom of whatever it is you?re upset about and understand why you believe Ali is at the root of the problem. All I see is a lot of personal attacks on him for enforcing rules, such as editing/banning for racist and homophobic comments. Regardless of what anyone else things, Bluelight will never be a place that welcomes racism or hatespeach in any form.


If there is something else I?m missing, I?d genuinely like to know about it and will make time to hear your side of the story. Feel free to reach out anytime.

SG

It was conversation I had with TLB.

TL was just fine before its closure and the rules were enforced. A small select group, or rather mostly alasdairm, did not like it, how it was run, who was there posting, so he closed it. All of the top posters left, some started offshoots that are worse than TL ever was times 10 in regards to "offensive" material, and TL's replacement has been an utter failure. The people that clamored for its closure said "meh" and never bothered posting when they were given what they wanted. People that liked it are still bitching and upset a year and half later and are here complaining.

I think if there's a takeaway it's that people really fucking liked TL and the fact that even this long after its closure are still bitching and moaning tells you how much they liked it and how upset they still are for having it taken away from them.

I asked alasdairm in the past, but name one time that someone said "oh, i don't take those drug users seriously because someone said modfag in their social forum. it taints their image." I still haven't been given an example.

 

[alasdairm]

The situation that exists now as a free for all shit show there is because you did not want to contain that on this site as it was contained in TL.

the content of the sub. to which you refer is the only reminder i need that we were absolutely right to address the long-standing issues with the transition. we may have lost traffic (and traffic is down regardless of the lies) but, with the lounge, we're aiming a little higher than "a free for all shit show".

...how upset they still are for having it taken away from them.

the lounge/social was not taken away (except for a brief couple of days during the transition). it's still there and people are free to post as long as they stick to the rules. if people are as upset as you say they are that they can't call people nigger and faggot anymore then i don't know what to tell you but i think that is a depressing perspective.

I asked alasdairm in the past, but name one time that someone said "oh, i don't take those drug users seriously because someone said modfag in their social forum. it taints their image." I still haven't been given an example.

that's a curious characterization which you and people like droppers like to push. i have never discussed the lounge issues in those terms but i've become pretty used to having my position on issues mischaracterized, misrepresented and lied about.

alasdair

 

[sekio]

I'm still a little baffled that people are still so hurt by the idea of making derogatory racial/sexual epithets unacceptable on BL. Is the need for openly calling people 'faggots' or 'niggers' really the hill you want to die on? Does it really make the forum and the discussion that much better?

even this long after its closure are still bitching and moaning tells you how much they liked it and how upset they still are for having it taken away from them.

The only "bitching and moaning" seems to be coming from people who desire so deeply the right to call people names. There's hardly a mass demonstration going on. In fact I bet if a poll were created more than 75% of people would consider it unacceptable to use slurs in TL. It's not accepted in polite conversation nor is it acceptable on any other boards here. Go post on stormfront or wherever if it's so important to your forum experience that you must slander blacks or gays or whomever.

 

[tathra]

Nobody is going to honestly disagree with you. This line of questioning rarely works when a superior is asking. There's a reason why anonymous surveys about management exist. There's a reason why retaliation laws exist. You're not dumb, you know what I'm getting at here.

fine, i'll run a poll somewhere else, where ali isnt admin but is full of blers, and we'll see how it turns out.

 

[swilow]

Topic started well until phr chose to dominate with off topic and personal individual grievance with a specific person that has been playing out for years now.

Lets talk about bluelight and not phrozen or ali.

 

[tathra]

results thus far is that nobody really agrees that ali is the problem.

 

[sekio]

"Phrozen loves diaper furries" is tied with "eggs". Ok, that's great.

My vote goes to eggs.

 

[alasdairm]

if anybody has comments or criticism and they're genuinely scared to respond in this thread, you can contact us anonymously via: http://www.bluelight.org/vb/sendmessage.php

you can use a fake name and burner email and the feedback will be sent to the admin gmail from where i'll just repost it here.

alasdair

 

[zephyr]

if that were true then why havent you been permabanned yet?

Iirc, this person copped ban after ban for coming back and behaving the same way as this person did prior to said ban.

Until such time said person managed to once again become his usual self which would have earned said bans if this person was treated with some consistency.

However, that is not the case.

This person has caused more grief behind the safe little space created which even using a reddit avatar earned someone else a ban, but these days is fodder for fire for fed up mods in cep

This person was publically humiliated and I wont pretend I care, I dont- his behaviour since has been fucked but I guess a lot less hassle "dealing with" than a badly thought out meme or whatever unforgivable faux pas are dolled out now.



Hey, tude got canned too- she really was cool and teally deserved better. Just thought she should be mentioned, remember her? Cant blame her for being angry.


So yeah why no permaban?


Because they dont exist? Yeah sure they dont. Maybe they should exist again.


This infraction system is causing problems that can be seen from the side that cops them. They solve nothing and just make things worse.


As for dishing out warnings etc, they really arent that hard to do- there were never as many disciplinary actions taken when the board was pumping as there are now. It seems really slack when staff complain about giving out infractions and just infracting and banning is lazy. How about try something different like pwning trolls with a cutting one liner or cant you do that anymore?


It doesnt matter what system bl has in the end, trolls will beat it and it WILL be a bone of contention between members and staff.

Irony aside, no matter how unfair phr says I was, the power of veto was always there and is there for a reason.

He SHOULD have been permabanned, or his reddit creation dealt with a long time ago.




I dont do bullet points and am not a robot, dont think youll read this and will just say patronising shit about me behind my back anyway so yeah, its the owners site. If they like things as they are then great. If they like the infraction system or even know its changed and WHY it changed, great.





Who knows? Its not like they are seen around the place so wouldnt give a shit anymore.



Ali - the many years of fun postwhoring aroind tl with a bunch of mutual friends might be years ago, but at the end of the day you always were a stand up guy and youre not shifty or intent on clinging onto your admin spot for the wrong reasons.

While I have thought since reading your "if I could do it again I would" comnent, you should not be in the position you are as you're too dangerous and destructive- its not actually YOU thats the problem, cultures become toxic over time and itll take gentle nudging over time to fix.

Ill admit its easy to take bait and let off steam where it shouldnt happen as thats as bad as reddit. I got balls enough to talk here without resorting to that.

Poll was not the best idea, apologies if my answer upset ya ali. I didnt see where it was coming from, now have, just a few idiots calling for your head. Calling for their heads didnt work unfortunately. I think im mad at you because i love ya and dont understand why things just cant be fun like the old days.

 

[alasdairm]

p.s. if you use the contact form, make sure to log out first (or use an incognito/private browsing window) or your username will be logged.

alasdair

 

[zephyr]

I'm still a little baffled that people are still so hurt by the idea of making derogatory racial/sexual epithets unacceptable on BL. Is the need for openly calling people 'faggots' or 'niggers' really the hill you want to die on? Does it really make the forum and the discussion that much better?



The only "bitching and moaning" seems to be coming from people who desire so deeply the right to call people names. There's hardly a mass demonstration going on. In fact I bet if a poll were created more than 75% of people would consider it unacceptable to use slurs in TL. It's not accepted in polite conversation nor is it acceptable on any other boards here. Go post on stormfront or wherever if it's so important to your forum experience that you must slander blacks or gays or whomever.

Using those 2 words in an aggressive slur is against the blua across the board right? Or just any mention of those wirds? Is adking if we can say n or f now- an aggressive racial homobhobic slur? Or just a drunk bloke surly about once again an absentee mod allowing a chick to say f but cracking down on blokes?

This whole n and f bullshit was brought up years ago when atri and animal cookie were mods iirc, has been bounced around since then and handled very differently depending on who was running the place

There were mods after that encouraged their use as a big f you, maybe that was the time to reign it in?

so its actually NOT TRUE that tl was just a bunch of bigots intent of saying n and f. It was just a recurring meme and Id bet if the whole thing was dropped no one really would use n and would prol still use f as in "modfag".

Im suprised you or anyone else has used those words here as it costs ppl their accounts in tl.


Maybe you and anyone else using them here just shouldnt as you look really childish .

 

[tathra]

Im suprised you or anyone else has used those words here as it costs ppl their accounts in tl.

intent matters, and context is everything.

 

[zephyr]

^ exactly. Using the word fig should be ok when talking about figs. Context is not judged without bias and you know it.

The capital F should be ok for all.

And bloody hell talking about these 2 bloody words again!

Any mention of n***** or f***** has been used for infractions or not even if not used as an aggressive insult!


Hey what about obscene insults that arent homophobic or racist- thats okay right? 8)

Depends on who sees it first as to what happens!

Srsly if it gets just dropped and time passes itll just pass, its not as if literally anyone uses them except as a meme reference to tl.

Its not hard to just remove a few stupid words and not make a big deal.

Its really insulting and horrific to see tl STILL being bullshitted about by staff who never really bothered giving tl a chance and never gave us a hand with participating in it when it shut/socialed.

So please dont continue the racist/homophobic rubbish about it, its really not true .

 

[mal3volent]

What part of this do you not understand?

A note on the BLUA #4

Bluelight takes the issue of bigotry seriously. If you write this off as political-correctness gone mad or SJW behavior, that's an opinion to which you are entitled but you may find that Bluelight - and therefore The Lounge - is not for you. If you want to aggressively insult people and pepper those insults with racism, homophobia or other bigotry, you're not welcome here.

From the BLUA: "Specifically, you may not: ...post or upload any content that victimizes, harasses, degrades, or intimidates an individual or group of individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or any other reason;"

We do not allow hateful speech so terms such as nigger, faggot, spic, kike, chink, gook, wetback, etc. are forbidden. There's no formal list of banned words and both what you say and the way you say it are taken into account when considering whether something is a problem. If you're not sure whether something you want to post is problematic, err on the side of caution and don't post it or contact the mod. team and ask them for their opinion.

Trying to skirt round this rule by masking words or adding a suffix or prefix won't work either. So don't call somebody a 'newfag' or a 'fig' pejoratively. We'll just assume you mean 'fag' and action will be taken anyway.

What may happen based on mod. discretion:

• An edit with an explanation that it's not allowed.
• UA'ed content and PM sent with explanation and link to guidelines
• Warning or infraction issued

If this all sounds terribly oppressive and you think you should be able to call people nigger and faggot freely, that's a perfectly valid opinion but, again, you may find that Bluelight - and therefore The Lounge - is not for you.

 

[phr]

if anybody has comments or criticism and they're genuinely scared to respond in this thread, you can contact us anonymously via: http://www.bluelight.org/vb/sendmessage.php

you can use a fake name and burner email and the feedback will be sent to the admin gmail from where i'll just repost it here.

alasdair

People can comment all they want. You are unable to tolerate a different point of view that you do not agree with. It's your way or the highway, regardless if the other way has no impact on anyone or anything except on your delicate sensibilities. That's the point here. Everyone wanted TL to continue as it was since its inception. You, and a couple of your buddies (who were not active in TL compared to us active people) did not want it to continue as is. You had the power to change it in your favor and as soon as you had an opportunity, the death of yet another BL'er, you had your "straw that broke the camel's back" and had justification to close and take it away. Once you guys got your forum and pushed us all out, it died. That is because you guys didn't really care about having the forum, you just didn't want us to do something that was against your delicate sensibilities. You frame this as "decency vs. TL" when in fact it's "alsdairm's sensibilities vs TL" or "alasdairm's power vs no power."

the content of the sub. to which you refer is the only reminder i need that we were absolutely right to address the long-standing issues with the transition. we may have lost traffic (and traffic is down regardless of the lies) but, with the lounge, we're aiming a little higher than "a free for all shit show".

That is a mischaracterization of what TL was when you closed it. It was not a free for all shit show. People were not saying nigger and faggot and getting away with it. Hell, I banned more people for stuff like that than anyone else. Plus, anyone so much as thought about using something you thought was an epithet you bombarded the reported posts forum with "bula abuse." Sup Max Powers.

the lounge/social was not taken away (except for a brief couple of days during the transition). it's still there and people are free to post as long as they stick to the rules. if people are as upset as you say they are that they can't call people nigger and faggot anymore then i don't know what to tell you but i think that is a depressing perspective.

Again, a mischaracterization. Not once did any of us fight to say nigger and faggot. Matter of fact I said that it'll never happen and it's a stupid thing to argue over. We wanted it to remain the same as it was and we wanted the little freedom we gained when you finally allowed us to say things like modfag and to call things gay. You remember the little experiment we ran towards the end, where you let us say those things? You asked us multiple times, over a few weeks, how that experiment was going. BP, myself, and others all said it was going well -things are in order, less people are banned, once they can say something it's no longer taboo, etc. Yet that wasn't the answer you wanted to hear, so you kept asking it again and again. Sup BP, remember that?

that's a curious characterization which you and people like droppers like to push. i have never discussed the lounge issues in those terms but i've become pretty used to having my position on issues mischaracterized, misrepresented and lied about.

alasdair

Funny, cause that's exactly what you're doing here with us "you guys wanted to say nigger/faggot/etc" and that's not true at all.


------------------------------------

Nevertheless the proof is in the pudding. You got your way and here we are with a dead forum. You can blame it on The Facebook, IG, snapchat, or you can just look at BP's chart and see that you personally had a hand in pushing out the majority of the top posters. None of those people said "i'll go to FB." What they said was "TL was taken away from me." Not literally like you're trying to misdirect here, "oh it was only closed for a day" but figuratively.

You won, your forum is dead. The end.

 

[zephyr]

You appear to be attempting some kind of condesending post mal.

 

[sekio]

in other news though

Using those 2 words in an aggressive slur is against the blua across the board right? Or just any mention of those wirds?

As much as phr and friends seem to imply that the mere act of typing "nigger" is going to result in an instant permaban, context matters. Here I am using the term per se as a word only, it's not in reference to anyone. In other contexts it would not be appropriate. You'll notice I don't make a habit of using either word in my posts.

People can comment all they want. You are unable to tolerate a different point of view that you do not agree with. It's your way or the highway,

If ali was as evil as you claim, this thread wouldn't exist and your account would have been permbanned a long time ago. I think ali is amazingly patient given all the chaff he has to deal with.

 

[phr]

I'll end this by giving two examples of the type of person you are, alasdairm, and why I don't believe your moral high ground stance. People that have dealt with you can attest to this, though I'm sure they would never have the balls to do it publicly, except maybe a couple of us. Sup lysis.


Droppers caught an infraction that lead to a ban. I don't remember the particulars, but it was a mistake. Anyone that looked at the post that got him the ban realized it was done in error. I point this out in the staff forum, either in the ban thread or the infraction thread. You look at it and agree that it's a mistake and should be overturned.

I wait, and I say, OK, do the right thing and overturn it. You refuse. You say "if droppers wants his ban overturned he has to speak up through the proper channels and we'll do it." THAT represents whom you are. You know what the right thing is, but you refuse to do it because it's for someone you don't like. It's not about doing the right thing, it's about what YOU personally want done. (Same with closing TL and kicking us out. Wasn't about doing the right thing, just about pushing your personal vendetta or agenda.

And another example.

We were playing IWS and TNW won the round so he made questions and scored them. He took your answer to a question in different way and he gave you very low to no points for it. It was probably some sort of technicality he tends to get caught up in. You should have gotten the points, or it could have gone either way, and he didn't give you the points. You were fuming over it.

I won the round so I was making questions and scoring them. You PM me and tell me to give TNW a score of 0, regardless of what it should be. You go on about how the scorer can score anyway they want, regardless of whether it's correct or not, and that he should get a 0. I say NO, I'm not doing that. It's not fair and it doesn't matter if it's unfair to a person I don't like (i didn't like TNW one bit then). You didn't like that answer from me and you ended it with "fine i'll win and get him back myself."

The fact that you would ACTUALLY do something like that, or rather seek out to do something like that, just over some petty shit like an IWS score says all one needs to know about your true motivations.

-------------------

My point with all of this is you have no moral high ground. I don't believe you when you say you wanted to "clean up TL" and I most certainly don't believe you when you say, with no proof, that TL effects the image of some drug injecting addicts. You think your behavior that I highlighted above is OK behavior, but when drippersneck makes a stupid fried chicken and grape soda joke, oh that can't stand. Please. Let people be who they want and when it actually harms the site then do something. And do something with everyone's input and opinion.

 

[mal3volent]

You appear to be attempting some kind of condesending post mal.

not at all. I was just wondering why there's still all this talk about what kind of language is and isn't allowed when it's clearly spelled out at the top of the forum.