Testing Limit of Autodelete

[rhoenix]

Desperate pleas my ass, but keep on with your bullshit arguments about it instead of listening to what other posters were saying. Oh wait, you won't now, cause you listen to Wong. It doesn't matter that people point out the stupidity of 'we had a mutual agreement' or 'Testing is X' when it wasn't. Nope, no siree. The epic failure was yours man.

Do you normally talk like this when you have mods debate for you, or just now when you want to feel like you can contribute something?

I laid out my arguments exactly as they were, and let them go when they were answered by fgalkin and Ghost Rider. This was proven in sequence in this very thread.

Your attempt to squeal "WHY DIDNT YOU GUISE JUST LISTEN TO MEEE" all by itself says that you're after ego masturbation instead of actual discussion, further evidenced by your lack of serious replies in this very thread.

If you just want to further show evidence of why proper debating skills are a necessary thing on these forums, keep right on going with your specious and self-serving arguments.

[Knife]

Do you normally talk like this when you have mods debate for you, or just now when you want to feel like you can contribute something?

I find that funny since I have posts on page one of this thread, and a direct point by point response on page two, before any Mod came a calling.

I also espoused a similar stance in the Ending Page 3 Lock thread just under this one at the moment. Hell, poster number two, right after the OT. Nope, mod didn't come in there before me and do my work for me. You should know this, you were in that as well, well I guess you were to busy asking why should they change the purpose in Testing and that they should change the purpose or existence of the Senate. Which, of course, was the whole core of my point; you and others a lot like you spend an awful lot of time investing on your arguments and not a lot reading and comprehending others and what is going on around you.

And I know I was in another one recently, can't find the thread, but Havoc's supplement thread about what would you call a new private group/sub forum in case (and in jest) that happened. My stance and my position is hardly new, nor has it ever needed a mod to do it for me, but perhaps I can offer you a T-shirt to dress your strawman with?

opps, meant to add this;

I laid out my arguments exactly as they were, and let them go when they were answered by fgalkin and Ghost Rider. This was proven in sequence in this very thread.
Your attempt to squeal "WHY DIDNT YOU GUISE JUST LISTEN TO MEEE" all by itself says that you're after ego masturbation instead of actual discussion, further evidenced by your lack of serious replies in this very thread.

Pretty funny that my response that set you off was to Duckie and not you. Who's sating their ego with hur-hur sequels?

[rhoenix]

I find that funny since I have posts on page one of this thread, and a direct point by point response on page two, before any Mod came a calling.

And...we have a dodge.

My point was that instead of substantively replying to points, as the mods did, you instead went the Testing route with vague allusions to what might happen to Testing, and then after the substantive discussion was over, went the "SEE I TOLD YOU SO" route. That's exactly what I'm saying.

As for your "direct point by point response on page two," further reading on page two will reveal how you never replied to my points.

I also espoused a similar stance in the Ending Page 3 Lock thread just under this one at the moment. Hell, poster number two, right after the OT. Nope, mod didn't come in there before me and do my work for me. You should know this, you were in that as well, well I guess you were to busy asking why should they change the purpose in Testing and that they should change the purpose or existence of the Senate.

Yet another oversimplification! My goodness, this is a running theme!

Again, you simply attempt to sound smart and snide without actually understanding the argument - much like what you're accusing me of doing. Again, I'll go slowly for you, since I want this to be clear - these are two separate issues, and attempting to conflate the two is facetious. I referred to the Senate's purpose in that thread, and if you'll notice, that was my same argument in this thread, because it appeared (until given adequate explanation otherwise) that the mods had completely bypassed their own Senate, which appeared to violate their credo.

Which, of course, was the whole core of my point; you and others a lot like you spend an awful lot of time investing on your arguments and not a lot reading and comprehending others and what is going on around you.

Describe what "me and others like me" are and do, and describe how all of us as a group suffer the same malady.

This is the same problem you had in page two of this thread, if you recall - I called you on your stereotyping. You dodged then, are you planning on giving an actual response this time?

And I know I was in another one recently, can't find the thread, but Havoc's supplement thread about what would you call a new private group/sub forum in case (and in jest) that happened. My stance and my position is hardly new, nor has it ever needed a mod to do it for me, but perhaps I can offer you a T-shirt to dress your strawman with?

Ok, when you find this mystical thread thread that somehow supports all of your points, by all means excitedly inform the Internet.

I laid out my arguments exactly as they were, and let them go when they were answered by fgalkin and Ghost Rider. This was proven in sequence in this very thread.
Your attempt to squeal "WHY DIDNT YOU GUISE JUST LISTEN TO MEEE" all by itself says that you're after ego masturbation instead of actual discussion, further evidenced by your lack of serious replies in this very thread.

Pretty funny that my response that set you off was to Duckie and not you. Who's sating their ego with hur-hur sequels?

Wow, this is the third dodge of yours in the same thread. Yet again, instead of addressing the actual points made, you're...whining because I replied to that specious bullshit you posted instead of Duckie? Really?

If you're attempting to prove the superiority of debate and argumentation inherent to all Senators, you're disproving it instead.

Oh wait, you quit.

[aerius]

The offending posts were HoSed. Nor was it a first offence. I think that counts as a "yes"

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Well in that case I can't say I see a problem.

[Oskuro]

I'd like to chip in with my perspective as a relative newcomer to the board's culture.


What the fuck is going on with all the drama? My perception of Testing has always been of a board without consequences or relevance, where you go to test stuff, goof about, be spammy or have some laughs at the antics of the regulars. I've always been clear on the notion that any relevant posts or discussions are to be made on other sections of the site, and also, that behaviour that is tolerated in testing is not tolerated elsewhere.

When did all this become such an issue? Testing regulars should be aware of the disposable nature of the threads, as Mike explained, and other posters should be aware that Testing is used to vent out and have harmless fun, or at least that's how I've seen it these years. As long as spammy behaviour is kept in check elsewhere, who cares about the hijinks going on in testing? (you know, as long as nothing really serious takes place)

My intention by posting this is to present the perspective of a relative outsider to the issue, I know that people involved in this discussion will have their opinions colored by their own history in the forum, so i just wanted to point out how silly it looks from the outside.

And if my vote couns for something, I'd keep Testing as it is, as I said on the Page 3 Lock threads, moderators can always kill a troublesome thread due to testing's disposable nature, there's really no need for the drama.

And we all know XaLeV preserves the worthy threads anyway

[Dooey Jo]

If there's going to be a "nuke everything on sight" policy, why not just remove the forum altogether? Any public testing, like getting opinions on avatars and sigs and whatever, will be pointless as no one will even see the thread before it's gone. All private testing has been redundant ever since we finally got a "sig preview" function. Of what use is it?

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

If there's going to be a "nuke everything on sight" policy, why not just remove the forum altogether? Any public testing, like getting opinions on avatars and sigs and whatever, will be pointless as no one will even see the thread before it's gone. All private testing has been redundant ever since we finally got a "sig preview" function. Of what use is it?

If this mess results in both the Senate and Testing being deleted it'll be a laughriot.

[VF5SS]

My own tortured analogy for the situation is like if someone lets you build sandcastles in their sandpit, and someone comes along and knocks it over right in front of you while saying, "it's disposable." That may leave some people a little befuddled. Although I believe the problem is some people started building sandcastles on the golf course. Maybe I'm saying people who used testing are just children, then again this analogy is pretty tortured.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

I'm rather skeptical of the whole 'Testing was creeping into the main forums!!' reasoning. There are all of... Two examples of this supposed infestation given. It's not like people haven't been posting snarky one-liners in the main forums for ages. Hell, the Emperor himself has done it from time to time. I don't think it has anything to do with the corrupting influence of Testing and its supposed power.

[Darth Wong]

The harder people try to justify their resentment over me treating the Testing forum like, you know, a Testing forum, the more I see that I should have done this a long time ago. The fact that "policies" are assumed to spontaneously grow as a result of inattention is obnoxious. It would be like somebody habitually using somebody else's sandpit as per VF5SS's example and assuming that this actually gives him some unstated claim over it, just because the person doesn't diligently kick him out of his backyard every time he does it.

[aerius]

Squatter's rights, that's pretty much what it comes down to. The owner came back from his world trip and kicked the squatters out of his home, and they didn't like that. Darn.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Hey, I have nothing against Darth Wong deciding 'Testing's too uppity and stuff' and knocking it all down. It's his private board, for Christ's sake, and he's basically honest about the reasoning behind the purge. If he wanted he could delete the History forum because he needed some catharsis after eating some over-cooked bacon. But silly explanations like 'The board standard is being threatened by Testingstani mongol hordes!' just don't stand up logically at all, and they were used as ostensibly logical arguments for the purge. It's all a moot point now, of course, but, you know, it's the principle of the thing.

[VF5SS]

My initial impression was that plebs and rulers alike were all building sandcastles with the occasional offensive penis sculpture. In light of recent discussion I see that was not the case.

[Darth Wong]

The "principle of the thing" in this particular case seems to be another way of saying "It rubs me the wrong way but I can't come up with a good reason". Does it have anything to do with spammy behaviour on the rest of the board? Maybe, maybe not. I would argue that if there is a "Testing contingent" which is starting to get well-entrenched, then there's a high likelihood that they will act more like that on the rest of the board, simply out of habit.

In any case, the very notion of a Testing contingent struck me as ridiculous, and still does.

[Dark Hellion]

Why don't we just try to solve all the problems at once? We nuke testing, make a thread in OT or HoS or here for when testing is necessary, and make a "testingstan" private user group for the "testing contingent" to continue their antics? If it creeps onto the main board the mods should be up to the task of dealing with it, if it gets really bad just temp ban someone when they do something particularly egregious. This way the testing spam is out of the hair of the normal board and the "testing contingent" has no right to complain.

One of the things is that many boards on the internet do have unspoken rules that are as good as policy. It is very easy to get into the mindset that the complete rules and "rights" of a board are not laid out in clear English and assume that this "unspoken policy" was actually a new rules set that the mods were enforcing that simply had not made its way into announcements. It is very simple to see why a poster would assume such and could react as if the moderators had overstepped their bounds. It is clearly not the case as has been explained by Fgalkin, GhostRider et al. but this does come back to the lack of moderator transparency the the Senate was supposed to fix (or so it seems from what has been said about it before) and seems to be failing at currently. Perhaps an additional usage of the Senate as a public mods forum would be in order. There are clearly things the mods need to discuss privately, but additional transparency by having them discuss what can be discussed publicly could help quell some of the feelings of star chamber justice returning to the board.

Of course this is all just spitballing, but I think it could be a pretty workable short-term solution.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Testing as an official subgroup gives more implicit approval to "Testing culture" than Testing as an accidental spawn of a forgotten forum allowed to live by the grace of the authorities, so that goes against the intent in ramping up deletion in testing. Testing as a private usergroup also leads to stagnation compared to Testing as an open forum, as shown by the BotM, from what I've heard. And testing in a single thread in a real forum isn't as convenient as testing in an ignorable, deletable forum. So it ends up being worst of all worlds.

[Dark Hellion]

I don't think that some aspects of "testing culture" are going to go away unless you burn them out (by banning certain posters). Perhaps the implicit approval of "I don't mind what you are doing, but do it somewhere else" would make a good stopgap solution? Again though, this is all hypothetical.

And the testing thread thing I will give you because there seems to be technical aspects of such a proposal that I did not know about.

[Ohma]

I don't think that some aspects of "testing culture" are going to go away unless you burn them out (by banning certain posters). Perhaps the implicit approval of "I don't mind what you are doing, but do it somewhere else" would make a good stopgap solution? Again though, this is all hypothetical.

Personally, I'm not sure why there hasn't been a mass banning. There really isn't a reason why it can't be done and it would solve nearly all the problems that admins, senators, mods, and others frequently complain about.

[Stark]

Why not? Bean is very active splitting off 'testing-style' posts, and using improper English is explicitly against the rules.

[Rye]

Why not? Bean is very active splitting off 'testing-style' posts, and using improper English is explicitly against the rules.

Bean should probably be reprimanded in some fashion for his persistently improperly spelled posts, too.

[Stark]

I was actually just reading several non-capitalised posts in SW and OT myself. Hopefully these posters will be informed regarding the expected standards.

[Darth Wong]

What the fuck is your problem, Stark? Do you have anything at all to say about any subject which does not mysteriously come out in the form of snarky remarks and sarcasm?

[Stark]

Excuse me? Rye mentioned people posting with mispellings etc, and I had just seen some posts with those qualities. They're noobs or low-volume posters, so it's possible nobody has ever told them it's wrong to do so (and they didn't read the rules etc).

EDIT - Such as this sort of thing. It's not a common thing, but if people picked up bad habits they should probably be told to shape up?

[Darth Wong]

Excuse me? Rye mentioned people posting with mispellings etc, and I had just seen some posts with those qualities. They're noobs or low-volume posters, so it's possible nobody has ever told them it's wrong to do so (and they didn't read the rules etc).

Don't give me that bullshit, Stark. It's patently fucking obvious that you were making a smart-ass remark about how we're being anal-retentive with rules. If you have something constructive to say, then say it. Otherwise shut the fuck up.