My last post in F4A.

[Jimmy Onestroke]

The American bashing stopped a while ago... at least protoman's gone. Most of what I've seen here is lots and lots of patriotism.

[Laguna]

I agree entirely with what Fire and Drageuth have previously stated. I appreciate your position regarding the issue, and your decision demonstrates a great deal of maturity on your part. However, editing a post in order to change its content would be a questionable action in my opinion. That's just "venting anger", something that I am not a fan of. People are entitled to their opinions here (to a certain extent), and when I see posts that I am uncomfortable with, I try to ignore them. After all, I don't see much point to getting riled up seriously over mere words. Take them whichever way you want - perhaps the person is even joking. Who knows. Or the person could be in a bad mood, and that may influence what they are posting. Posting a flaming retort simply fuels the dispute and reinforces the negative feelings by "polarization by mere thinking" (as sociologists call it). If I am somewhat dismayed with the post, I usually simply type out a suggestion - directly responding and fighting back usually does little. Especially from an individual who is a mod (high up in the rankings). I understand that it may be difficult to keep out of an argument and suppress your feelings, but mods should generally choose their words carefully as they have a great deal of responsibility. It comes with the position. Although I am not one who likes these "anti-country" posts and I believe that we should respect each other, if everyone did the latter, there would be none of these troubles. But again, each person has their individual standards, and hence it is expected that they react differently and would post differently. I believe that this lack of respect is highly disagreeable (and so did sakura_st - who has apparently disappeared). But as a mod, I think that one should keep their cool and do what is best for the boards. Being hot-headed often leads to irrational and brash actions.

About the spam, perhaps it is currently going a bit overboard - but it is important to recognize that such comments are a valuable component of the boards. If we were so anti-spam, perhaps there shouldn't have been boards in the first place. But perhaps the amount should decrease, and we should be more careful about what we post.

But again, what I mentioned here is what got me into trouble into cyberxion101. So please don't kill me for what I have typed here. Hehe, your user name is Vengeance. Uh-oh - long post. I'll cut myself off here.

[Cyberxion]

If you cant differentiate a Spam post from a normal post, then your opinion holds little weight. There is a difference, you need but look at most of the board to see. When someone hijacks someones thread and starts going off about A) Something completely different then the topic for 12 posts, that holds no relevance to the topic just to pad thier post totals, then thats Spam.

EDIT: You also have to take into account that this isn't your message boards, they are MasJ's. And MasJ and the Moderators for better or worse decide what Spam is. We'd hate to loose members, but if you dont like the rules or the way we do things around here, you can go elsewhere.

Originally posted by James20
Free For All = Free Speech = Spam? NO

Nothing in the Free For All should be considered spam as the name speaks for itself.

Free For All just screams Spam.

So I don't completely understand you, Vengeance.

But that is just my opinion.

[Laguna]

Well, either way, there is a "fine line" between spam and a "normal post." Placing them in "mutually exclusive categories" would be quite artificial. But they would belong to separate sets with an overlapping region if you were to illustrate them on a Venn diagram.

Hello, cyberxion101! And sorry about yesterday's incident.

Changing the topic could be regarded as spam in some cases, but in others, it just fuels discussion. Perhaps it depends what that topic change is towards.

[MasJ]

I don't really see as much spam on FFA as people complain about, it's just that the volume of posts has increased hell of a lot. Yeah, there are some people that go off topic just for the heck of it, and thats a problem we shall always face. Like protoman and Xenocide and I think coolwinner even spammed the Rules thread. THAT is bad IMO. Those are the kind of people that should be banned. But besides that, I don't see too many people who are bad, infact, most of them are really good, and I can proudly say that people can be themselves over here, this isn't an uptight and snobbish community, it's all about having fun, but yes, helping people out too! (and we have a record of ALWAYS doing that!)

Editing posts if they're extremely offensive is alright, we have to do that at times since we can't let a lot of people see them. For example, someone says "America got what they deserved" well, there are lots of americans on the boards, and ofcourse they will feel VERY offended and hurt about it, in such a case I think it's in the best interests of the board members and the board itself to edit/delete such a post. [and sometimes have a bit of fun and make it funny too ] Does that make sense Laguna ?

[MasJ]

Laguna, I don't think we can use the Venn diagram to depict spam and normal posts, since they're of the same set and it really depends on the point of perspective, not the opinion of one person.

[Cyberxion]

Dont worry about things Laguna. Ancient history.

EDIT: Nevermind. It's apparently not.

[SomeUserGuy]

i like the funny edits.

[Laguna]

That's your first double post, MasJ. I'm surprised.

But wouldn't it be one person constructing the Venn diagram anyways. And do they belong to the same set? Certain ones get deleted, and others don't.

In regards to editing/deleting posts, that's fine. But really, is editing them to make the person look stupid all that worthwhile?

Long while ago, I remember Super Bagel's thread about how his chair broke or something.

Oh yes, and cyberxion101, weren't you the one who started the "I'm going to sleep now" thread? I know you closed it, but you did it just for the record.

That's quite an extreme case of spam, cyberxion101. I really hope that nobody would post that. Remember what we did to XXLEnigma for doing something of that sort.

[Cyberxion]

I actually didn't do it for the record. I did it at like 5am in the morning when I was tired and not really considering that it could be spam. When I did take it into account, I closed it. I wasn't as extreme a case of spam as you would like to have it seem, you just want to slam me and make me look like an ass to further your case. Anything you need to say to me can be handled through PM's. Otherwise dont bother.

[Parha_ha]

Well Ill like to say something about what MasJ said earlier with the volume of posts increasing. He has a point here, people are posting much more often, with some being spam. Now Laguna, you and James20 are some of the main culprits here with a post per day ratio of 22.14 for you Laguna, and James20 has one of 27.62. Now that is a lot, especially when you consider that MasJ posts 5.60 times a day. Now if you post helpful comments and that which you seem to do Laguna, i cant say for James20 i dont come here often enough to notice, then it wont be a problem but if someone spammed some of those 25 odd posts a day it would accumulate just like that. Sorry if it is a bit off the topic but i had to say it.

[battousai]

i agree with what dargeuth, fire and laguna are saying. people need to grow up a bit and be more sensitive to other people's feelings... i know that spam is rampant in the boards... some people are just having fun... but if it gets out of hand people should back off and look at what is going wrong... kudos to vengence for this. i know i don't know everything that happened during the past few days, but i feel that i should say this

[Cyberxion]

I know I cant speak for the other Mod's here, but I get the felling that us Moderators will Moderate the board in whatever way we see fit, until MasJ takes us aside and slaps us around for it. I know I'm becoming increasingly unpopular with the way I do things around here, but I've come to the conclusion that I no longer care. Deal with it.

[V]

OK people. I dont want to take away freedom of speech. But, it is my job to delete/edit posts that could be very offensive to other members. Here is an example, a emember from outside the u.s makes a post saying "Haha, america really got what they deserved. I enjoyed seeing the buildings burn!" it is my job to delete or edit the post. And if i feel like having fun with the person, I will edit the post to this. "I love america so much. My countrymates will be praying for all the victims familys. Maybe one day i will get to live there." So, pretty much. Besides spam, it is also our responsibility to remove posts that could be hurtful to a persons race or nationality.