Omnimaga
Omnimaga => Site Feedback and Questions => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on September 05, 2011, 09:36:17 pm
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As you know, both the site and channel attracted a lot of new users and, as a result, a wider range of type of people. This is not bad, as this allowed the site to grow, but of course there are higher chances of having to deal with offensive/provocative remarks from certain members who are still not familiar with Omnimaga's mentality or the policies that I instated during the 2 years I was root admin.
Initially, because Omnimaga was meant to be free of hostile remarks, this meant that freedom of speech over here was limited, like how certain other sites limits it by disallowing swearing or certain topics of discussions. On some other sites it's not limited at all (well... providing it remains within legality). In both cases, that free speech or lack of it was equal among every member, meaning nobody received a special treatment in their favor or disadvantage. However, recently I have noticed a new trend over #omnimaga/OmnomIRC main channel that also happened in the past on certain other calculator sites. This is the second time this happen within the last two weeks and I'm not liking it, because I fear moderators will take that habit in the future and that it will get worse, to the point of hurting the community. I myself am not planning to stay around if that is the new Omnimaga policy since I retired or if it's just gonna happen more and more.
The problem now is that in two occasions, there were some rather offensive remarks or lines of text subject to being interpreted as offensive to certain groups of people that were said on OmnomIRC. Even though the person was not within the forum/IRC rules, there were no indication of warnings given in the channel. However, when people started to defend themselves, they were practically told to shut up, while the offender simply got away with it.
The first incident involved a remark implying that people under grade 5 are not welcome on the forums and that the ones who spell badly or people who don't do much effort to spell properly should be banned. Granted, people should not abuse our language, but to the point of banning legitimately good contributing members who have poor grammar/spelling would be uncalled for here. However, when I told that person that was uncalled for, I was pretty much told I was going too far. There were no indication of public warning at this exact time towards the other person, which, from what people might read in the logs, meant that he was allowed to bash an entire group of people or age and that everyone who disagree aren't allowed to voice their views. Basically, punishment looked like it was one-sided, in favor of the offender. Later I learned he was warned for the same thing before, but it was not stated now, so it's subject to misinterpretation.
The second incident involved gay bashing in the channel. The person got away with his offensive remarks, then when people tried to defend themselves, they were all told to stop that convo, not even giving the other side a chance to defend themselves or to call the person out.
I'm not sure if this is a change of policy on Omnimaga now that I am no longer admin, but I disliked how the events above were dealt in an one-sided way in favor of the offender instead of equaly for everyone. Back in the days, this happened on another forum around 2003-08, especially 2008, where people would bash BASIC games freely, but the minute someone defended them he was told to shut up or that he was immature. On another forum in 2009, people would be rude to others, despite the rules disallowing that, nothing would be done, but when someone defended himself, he was told to go back on topic. The latter incident even lead to a boycott of that forum during about two months, which, combined with several unrelated downtimes, that forum never recovered from. Both forums today are nearly desert towns.
I am voicing my concern now because I noticed this started to happen too much for my tastes here lately, it's the second moderator in a row that does it, and I hope this doesn't become the way every rule violation case are dealt with, in favor of certain people, otherwise I do not think I am going to be as active in #omnimaga if it does and I'm sure the people that left other sites because that happened there will not like if Omnimaga channel becomes the same way.
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There are a few things that bug me about this, but before I get to those I would like to thank the person that advised me to stop. I know that I would have made matters worse if I kept that little war going, so thanks. Anyway, what bugs me is that we have shown that we can be responsible. I mean, for crying out loud, we had a religion thread that didn't end in a fight and it had several points of view present. That is not a feat that is easy to achieve, especially with many members from around the world. I had thought that we as a community had reached a new level of tolerance and I was very happy about that. I still think we have and I am personally proud to say that I got to witness that. However, tonight was an example where at least one member showed intolerance and another (myself) was almost ready to be just as bad by not respecting their opinion.
Again, I am glad that I was stopped from getting angry again because "gay bashing" is something that I particularly don't like. In retrospect, I can understand the offender's argument, but that still doesn't mean that I like it. The responsible thing, though, would have been to take the argument to a private channel. The reason why I take such offense is that not only do I have many gay, lesbian, and bisexual friends, but I am bisexual, too. I am attracted to men and I am attracted to women. If I were to marry a man or a woman, I would still want that marriage to be just as sacred and held with the same honor and, incidentally, I am getting married. The plans have been in the works for a while now, but next month will be one of the biggest days of my life and I will be marrying a woman that I would go to the ends of the earth for and that I want to be with for the rest of my life. I am just shy of 20 years old and it has been hypothesized that the first human to live to 150 years old has already been born. I am fully aware that I may get the chance to live for the next 130 years with her and I am ready for a commitment like that. So when somebody is willing to commit their whole life to start a new one with the person they love, I believe that their marriage deserves to be called a marriage, even if it is a same-sex marriage, regardless of what a dictionary says.
If this post needs to be removed for offensive material or whatnot, I will understand. Thanks and I am sorry if I offend anybody.
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It might be fine to not tolerate something, but when it comes to things such as hating a religion or group of people or even being against their actions, I think it's best that they just keep all of their comments for themselves. It's obvious that people of those groups or people who got friends in those groups will get offended. After all, notice how the last person that was intolerant toward a group of people here got permbanned (although the permban was more because of the channel takeover). If the person doesn't care about other people feelings or that their comment might be misinterpreted, then he is narrow-minded as much as the actual haters of specific groups, and narrow minded people aren't welcome on Omnimaga.
That said, the topic was more regarding the fact that in two recent occasions, some people were reprimanded after they defended themselves while the other person did not get reprimanded right away. As for if the moderator only saw the final end of the convo, I think it might be best in the future to check where it started, to make sure to apply punishments/warnings/other things equally on everyone involved in the discussion, depending of if what they say was appropriate or not.
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I agree with that, DJ. However, in the future, we need to respond to incidents like these without more flames and spamming. I also believe that we are all entitled to our own opinions and beliefs, however we should refrain from sharing them if they will offend people. Threatening to ban people if they don't change their beliefs is also not the way to go, warning people they will be banned if they keep on making offensive remarks is.
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You could have to take some type of quiz to use Omnom?
Anyways, I think that some of the growth may be due to our downloads.
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I always defended BASIC, as you know... it was just harder to pull off on certain platforms. I remember back in 2004/05 when I was on Omnimaga; there was no bashing of any kind... then again the community was much smaller. Everyone had great pride in their projects and there was plenty of encouragement to go around.
I imagine that if I had a website that I wouldn't want anyone to feel uncomfortable for being themselves or sharing a viewpoint...
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I've been on vacation. I just got back and saw this topics and read the logs. I'm disappointed with what I saw. As long as I'm here there will be NO discriminating or hate towards someone because of their sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion or age. That is completely unacceptable. Thankyou.
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"Better late than never." Meaning, if we reprimand the people who defend themselves without realising that someone else started the fight in the first place, we should be able to read the logs, copy/paste the piece of evidence and warn the person who started the fight.
However, it certainly doesn't do much to help the person who was bashed for simply defending himself.
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I agree with that, DJ. However, in the future, we need to respond to incidents like these without more flames and spamming. I also believe that we are all entitled to our own opinions and beliefs, however we should refrain from sharing them if they will offend people. Threatening to ban people if they don't change their beliefs is also not the way to go, warning people they will be banned if they keep on making offensive remarks is.
I agree. And while it makes sense to warn repeat offenders about the eventual consequences, I would be concerned about doing this to newcomers due to the risk of chasing more sensitive people away from a site or even the whole community. I definitely consider myself pretty sensitive in this regard, and if I were threatened with, say, a permaban the very first time I accidentally did something wrong even when I weren't trying to, I think there's a chance I would conclude the place is too hostile and simply leave.
I also agree with DJ_O that ideally, just the offender should be stopped, but I wonder if this is actually possible 100% of the time. It's a good policy in clear-cut cases whenever possible, but otherwise, where every person could have a different opinion on who was offensive and who wasn't, it seems that the only option other than allow the fight/flame war to break out is to stop everyone—I think this is why admins of various places often tell everyone involved to take it elsewhere or (in the case of forums) lock threads, which has the same effect.
Just a reminder: I don't claim to be right all the time. I'm open to other viewpoints, and I understand that the admins here are free to do whatever they want. I really hope I won't be misinterpreted.
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I always defended BASIC, as you know... it was just harder to pull off on certain platforms. I remember back in 2004/05 when I was on Omnimaga; there was no bashing of any kind... then again the community was much smaller. Everyone had great pride in their projects and there was plenty of encouragement to go around.
I imagine that if I had a website that I wouldn't want anyone to feel uncomfortable for being themselves or sharing a viewpoint...
Actually there weren't BASIC bashing here yet either, it was more on IRC that from time to time, we get an occasional member who can cause trouble and when it happens, it doesn't involve BASIC like it did on other forums in the past. Also actually on the old site it was much worse than this one (although still far less bad than elsewhere) after you left. When you were around there were only about 8 people around, so there were less chances of troubles. In general I would say things are going pretty well around here, though. I was just worried above that moderators would take bad habits of calling out people who defends themselves without punishing the person that was the source of the problem, which happened several times before on some other calculator sites.
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Okay I see
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I don't usually frequent IRC, so I was unaware of this issue...
I guess I'll have to start visiting more often, to see if I can help alleviate an issue if it starts.
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As long as I am on IRC (which isn't that frequent), I will not tolerate whoever bashes another group of people. That policy of Omnimaga has not changed.
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Possibly the last post here ever.
If anyone even fucking bothered reading the god damned logs there was NO "gay bashing" going on at all.
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Possibly the last post here ever.
If anyone even fucking bothered reading the god damned logs there was NO "gay bashing" going on at all.
Ouch, I can just feel a flame war coming on...
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gay bashing really... oh well. (depends on where you live, may sound different. In general Indiana the really is said incredulously)
I foresee a new problem. Hating on haters. :P
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Jkag the way you worded it definitively looked like you were bashing gays. Even if you just said gay marriage was wrong or something like that, the way you said it sounded like you were angry at the fact there were people that were gay in the first place. Not to mention afterward your comment saying you did not care if someone was offended or not was uncalled for and narrow-minded.
It was obvious saying the stuff you said would start drama. Either you be careful how you say things, or don't say it at all.
Also if you can't understand that some people are more sensitive than others and can be offended by some statements like that (especially people who ARE gay/bi), then you don't belong on Omnimaga. Remember that not everyone speak english as their native language here and we will not tolerate close-minded members.
Also Jkag, forum leaving announcements and ragequits (including in signatures) in response to rule enforcements/misinterpreting stuff is against the forum rules:
1: Flaming, bigotry, trolling or any other provocative or drama-starting comment aimed toward an user or group of users. Ragequits in response to rule enforcments are considered as starting drama.
If you chose to return one day, it may already be too late because of your signature.
And you are not one to be angry at me nor any of the forum members jkag. You contributed no fucking shit to this community, unlike a lot of other people here. Goodbye.
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I wasn't here when it happened so I can't really tell, but nonetheless, gay bashing or not, you offended people, which is unacceptable. So yeah. Bye.
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I find that (juju's statement) a little harsh.
I was a trollish when i first got here. Now I am just annoying, not mean.
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gay bashing really... oh well. (depends on where you live, may sound different. In general Indiana the really is said incredulously)
I foresee a new problem. Hating on haters. :P
^This
We should still be firm with people who break the rules, but not be overly harsh and make people want to leave here forever, that way, if they can decide if they want to change and come back. A while ago, there was a member who was making anti-American comments, and the matter was dealt with very calm and professionally, resulting in a one week ban for him, and he came back and is a well respected member and one of the top posters today.
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jkag, it looked to me (in yesterdays logs, which i read in their entirety) that you were voicing a very strongly held and inconsiderate opinion poorly masked behind a facade of civility. however, i recognise that you said you were going to drop the subject before it got out of hand. dj, then, after he said he was shutting up, was when you started to yell at him to shut up, which caused the situation to continue. at this point, jkag, you should have followed through with your word and left it at that. however, you continued on with sarcastic comments that were meant as targeted attacks. finally, there is the ragequitting post, which, as dj pointed out, is against the rules.
dj, as we all know, reacts strongly, and this isn't the best of character traits. however, when you are intentionally provoking him, as well as making mean-spirited comments which are insulting to a large portion of our userbase (including zeda, and myself as well) don't try to hide it and say that you have done nothing wrong. i am inclined to agree with you in that you may not be coming back.
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My opinion? Don't even tell your view on gay marriage. Or anything else which is very controversial or has the possibility to hurt others. Nothing bad will happen to you then, and nothing bad will happen to anything else. While you may think you have free speech, you actually rarely do, and even when you do no one *cares* if you think gay marriage is right or wrong; this isn't a morality/politics forum, trust me, no one *cares*. They will care though if you make the rivals to your opinion upset (and they won't care in a good way); hence follow these rules to be fine:
1: Don't talk about controversial topics in a way that shows how you feel about it.
2: Don't talk about controversial topics that will lead to debates and then to arguments that will hurt others.
3: Don't belittle others; you're not them, they're not you. They'll have different opinions and they should be respected.
4: When in doubt just don't talk about controversial topics at all. Switch the IRC subject to something productive.
These are Ashbad's ingredients to make everyone happy, reduce fights, and have a loving, friendly, community for people of all races, sexes, sexual orientations and general sexualities, lifestyles, levels of contributions to the site, levels of expertise in programming, etc. I call it "The Happy Pasta Sauce Mix" -- and boy does it taste good.
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Since this thread is rapidly denigrating into an anti-jkag thread, let's cut it here. I'm no more pleased at the comments than anyone else, but bashing the offender is almost as bad as the offender's bashing itself.
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I also realized, by reacting harshly to incidents, the rule breaker will just be inclined to break more rules, further alienating them from the community and making it far more likely they will leave for good.
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Well personally when someone tries to start drama here, I don't think he deserves much respect. After all, the person indirectly stated he was narrow-minded. While we welcome people around, narrow-minded people (such as people who cannot understand some people get offended easier at stuff) are not.
Also he is lucky those many rule breakings only counted as one rule breaking, otherwise his account would not even exist anymore.
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Exactly my point on why we should not respond to bashing with more bashing. That will just lead the person to start more drama.
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Yeah I guess, but we shouldn't try to censor anyone who bring it up again in the future when someone asks what happened. Else it looks like we protect the person like ifshe never did anything bad and he is able to get away with it elsewhere. Then elsewhere, it can make the person make us look bad easier because over here there is no trace of his bad behavior due to people not being allowed to talk about it.
In conclusion we don't have to bash the person more, but we shouldn't try to protect the person either.
(On a side note this is not the first time jkag does something bad here. He was warned for something else last Winter too)
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1: Don't talk about controversial topics in a way that shows how you feel about it.
I'd weaken that to "Don't talk about controversial topics in a way that strongly criticizes another's views on it."
2: Don't talk about controversial topics that will lead to debates and then to arguments that will hurt others.
There's nothing IMO wrong with debates so long as they are civil. As soon as they leave civility, though, the debate should be immediately dropped.
3: Don't belittle others; you're not them, they're not you. They'll have different opinions and they should be respected.
I agree about not belittling others. The antecedent of the second "they" in the second sentence is ambiguous (Does it refer to "others" or to "opinions"?), by the way; I'd say to respect others as long as they deserve it (If uncertain, err toward respect), and similarly for opinions, though there are many more opinions unworthy of respect. (Again, do err toward respect.)
4: When in doubt just don't talk about controversial topics at all. Switch the IRC subject to something productive.
IRC? Productive? :P More seriously, I'd say just to move away immediately in case of problems. But don't bring up a topic that you aren't prepared to be reasonable and calm about it. Similarly, don't join in if you can't be reasonable and calm about it.
I refrain from saying anything other than this sentence about jkag.
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Well people need to remember to be careful to not say thigns that could start a fight. Saying gay marriage is bad and looking hostile towards gays by the way you say it is prone to start a fight, even if the attack is not direct.
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I don't know how it was said; I'd find the statement "I believe that gay marriage is morally wrong" to be fine, although discussion might be forced to end after a few replies. Something like "Gay people are sinners" is more directly against the implicated people, and should not be said, though it might, with very careful guidance, be able to lead to something better. (And obviously the Westboro Baptist Church's "God hates fags" is an "apologize or else insta-ban" sort of thing.)
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Well even saying it is wrong might be offensive to gay people or friends of gay people, because it might sound like gay people have inferior rights.
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I think it should still be permitted that it be said; perhaps someone can find a less offensive way than as in my example to say it. :/
It's not a viewpoint I agree with, not at all, but saying that one isn't allowed to carefully state one's opinion seems to border on outright censorship, IMO.
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Yeah it definitively needs to be said in a way that is less offensive as Jkag's. For example your comment should be prefixed with a comment saying you haev nothing against gay people. I just think that on Omni, bigotry should be frowned upon.
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Yeah it definitively needs to be said in a way that is less offensive as Jkag's. For example your comment should be prefixed with a comment saying you have nothing against gay people. I just think that on Omni, bigotry should be frowned upon.
I read [present tense] this and agree wholeheartedly :)
Okay, we have two people in concord, who's next? ;D
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two people in concord, what does it means? ???
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From Google: "concord: 1. Agreement or harmony between people or groups."
Basically, you and I are in agreement about this. (inasmuch as I can tell) :)
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What a sec, did jkag just get banned?
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Banned from IRC for his innapropriate behavior (not just the gay comment, but him saying he doesn't care if people get offended and him being rude in general to people there), and banned from the forums for his ragequit for the sole purpose of starting more drama
I bet they last a week since it's his first ban and the nDoom policy isn't in effect. Maybe it's shorter, though. I just saw the +b and know he was banned on the site too.
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What a sec, did jkag just get banned?
Since you ask, yes, he has a 7-day ban for what should be obvious reasons.
Just as a warning, don't bash his actions, as this won't help anything ;) (not to mention that several others have already done so <_<)
Edit: ninja'd
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I bet they last a week since it's his first ban and the nDoom policy isn't in effect. Maybe it's shorter, though. I just saw the +b and know he was banned on the site too.
What's the nDoom policy?
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Yeah, sorry if I was somewhat harsh at my last post, but one thing sure it generated a lot of controversy. And yep, 7-day ban on the forums and IRC.
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During certain parts of the year, where a lot of troublesome users joins, rules are enforced more strictly and to prevent people from other calc sites from telling us how to run our site, we also add an extra rule disallowing others from trying to decide how Omni should be ran.
This is usually active during parts of the Summer and late Fall. It was active last Spring too, though, because of a troll invasion caused by nDoom (TI-Nspire port of DOOM) being featured on a troll site.
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Situation is dealt with for the most part, locking the thread for now. Jkag is getting a conditional unban. Jkag is still banned from IRC though for the time being.