Please apply consistent moderation to the "Everyone's a Critic" forum - - remove this derailing post.

Thank-you.

Some more details for those who may be confounded by my issue here...

I have requested that moderators remove an off topic post from the "Everyone's A Critic" forum in the District 9 review thread. It is clearly derailing the topic.

I have a particular interest in the "Everyone's A Critic" forum. In my (almost) five years as a member of KJ, I have contributed approximately 500 original movie reviews to this specific sub-forum. I enjoy the depth of the archive of the reviews provided there, as well as relevant discussion and debate of those reviews. I hold it to a different standard than the other sub-forums, where I realize all sorts of shenanigans go on.

Yet, two months ago, I posted what I considered an attempt at humor in the Time Traveller's Wife review thread, which could also be viewed as an off topic thread derail. It was quickly deleted by a moderator, whose gracious PM explanation was accepted by me. However, when I requested that a similarly derailing post be deleted from the District 9 review thread, there was no similar quick action by a moderator. In fact, the moderators went out of their way to defend the post and their moderation. And who have they chosen to break from consistency and go to the wall for? A member of KJ for less than one year who has rarely if ever contributed anything positive to the forum. If anything, he chooses to be an instigator and a troll. Further, I wrote parody posts of the post I requested to be deleted and added them to the District 9 review thread. Can anyone guess what happened to them? They were promptly deleted, while the original derailing post remains.

For those still interested in what all the fuss is about, here is a copy of the post that KJ moderators have chosen to defend at all costs:

Bradley Witherberry, ye make me laugh:

hello, i'm strongly against this kind of censorship which has both affected bradley and me. we were involved in a playful banter and i wish that NONE of my posts as well as none of his are deleted by some dirty heinrich himmler who destroys seconds or minutes or hours of work - whether it be humorous or serious or of high or low or mediocre quality - with one click, just because they feel the need to establish some sort of pseudo order just for the fuckin' sake of it; whatever is shown in this thread - unless maybe if it's pure advertisement spam or crude personal attacks - is in most cases not nearly as bad as this act of destroying the precious lifetime which went into creating said posts for no fuckin' reason at all other than a satisfaction of ocd-induced urges to establish order or moderation megalomania.

You want banter, I suggest creating a thread for that in the Water Cooler or so.

if it's about the movie (like ours here), it can and should be here.

Bullshit, it's just pseudo-intellectual blabber to get a rise out of each other. One review of this is enough which is why I left the original post in there, the rest will be pruned, especially since the intentions afterwards were clearly directed at getting to each other than discussing anything movie-related at all.

the discussion was connected to the movie in the way that it was a discussion about the things discussed about the movie, it's as easy as that. nobody can be interested in having loose, disconnected conversations with missing posts in between. nobody can be interested in writing their shit for minutes or hours and having it simply deleted for the sake of keeping something 'clean' in a vague, ominous and entirely subjective sort of way. this censorship and destruction of conversation strings is far worse than the occassional sub discussion that is slightly "off-topic" (whatever that means, since that's how human conversation goes anyway. if you want to delete everything that is not 100% about the movie, there won't be conversations but something very artificial) and destroys not only the threads but also the motivation of users such as bradley, who gave his all when posting his lengthy humor attempts. IF, for some weird reason of administrative megalomania and ocd mechanisms or just for the sake of doing SOMETHING as a moderator, you feel the need to get rid of the so-called off-topic posts, so that they don't "clutter" the thread and keep it from reaching the pseudoperfect state you want it to be in, then move them - to a thread in the water cooler or so, as you suggested. and as you just did here. just don't delete them. time went into writing them and simply seeing something that you spent time to create getting destroyed by some eager moderator with nothing to do, can never be motivating or constructive in any way. i'm against the moving of posts for the reasons mentioned in the beginning of this post, but the deleting is even far worse.

i also don't see bradley's motivation in trying to get my post deleted, just because his were deleted. it was wrong to delete his, why does this have to be justified or "made even" by repeating the same mistake? i do not see the need for killing another 3 million jews in 2009 just to make it fair for those that died in 1945. his posts should rather be recreated (which i'm sure it's too late for), possibly somewhere else if necessary, instead of continuing this bad trip of censorship and arbitrariness. just leave our precious posts alone or, for my father's sake, move them somewhere where they can live in peace. do not waste my and everyone else's time with your sudden need for showing off your petty power and establishing some so-called order, dr. lecter.

Gee! You are right, my lord.

You got one thing right - it is a subjective decision. If you expect the forum rules to be based on some univeral internet legislation - tough luck. If I consider something spam, then it's gone. I am not opposed to a few of senseless posts or a few back-'n-forth banter posts, but this was getting out of control and no end was in sight. Thus, it needed to stop. You disagree, fine. But it remains the way it is. Accept it or move on to greener pastures.

i'd rather have dr. lecter, a human, back, instead of this phrase-spouting administrator caricature. please come back and be a good admin, someone who actually reads posts and reacts accordingly and saves the phrases for lesser, robotic administrators such as roid, who aren't able to think for themselves and completely lack character to begin with. you can do better than that, believe me, for i am jesus christ, your savior.

Trust me, I am a more lax admin that most you'd encounter on any other boards (maybe except for CHUD). A less lax admin would have already deleted your original post. Yeah, maybe moving the posts to a Water Cooler topic would have been a better idea, but since most of the deleted posts were Brad's and he didn't complain about them being lost (only about yor original one being deleted) it didn't seem like he minded.

And trust me, I read every single one of those posts and a few gave me quite a chuckle. But they didn't belong there and in future, posts like that won't belong there either. You might find them somewhere else, though.

yes, that might be true. however, i think you should rather stay yourself with your own agenda than drawing comparisons to some ominous other admins and measuring yourself based on what they do. a less lax admin would have done that, but why is there a need to compare yourself to someone like that? so far you never seemed the dictator type (although i have already read some complaints which said this recently) who deletes posts uncontrollably and then justifies it with phrases à la "deal with it or go away" or by saying that others are EVEN worse. maybe you would be one of the friendliest dictators around, but you'd still be a dictator and i'm sure you can do better.



that would have been better and would be better regardless of whose posts they are. i'm complaining because some of mine were included, but seeing as they were rather short, relatively unimportant ones, i'm mainly "fighting" for the cause itself, which contains bradley's posts. it's about the principle as a whole, not about the two posts in particular. i'd like to prevent this in the future, too. bradley doesn't complain about his because he's too busy with trying to get "revenge" on me and justifying one wrong with another by getting mine deleted as well. that's the wrong way and i don't know why he's so humourless suddenly and obsessed with me, but that's his thing. either way i don't like seeing his posts deleted as well as with my own ones.



yes, but i was refering to the one i made in this thread to which you initially reacted without any tact and sense, but simply with administrative phrases that we know all too well from your predecessors ("just accept it or leave!!!!!!!"). i recommend you to keep on reading my posts and to do it as the dr. lecter we know and not as some administrative mutant who got corrupted by a taste of power suddenly, as the boy who lost his smile.

I just stated the facts. ANY moderating decision that will ever be made, maybe except for de-activating spam-bot accounts, will always be based on subjective decision-making. There's no constitution or legislation to base the decisions on. What I am doing is making decisions that, in my personal opinion, benefit the forum best.





Thing is that Brad's posts seemed to be going into the direction of "you either delete that post or I'll spam the rest of the thread" which, at the end of the day is some sort of a negotiations basis that I am not going to respond to. I made thechoice to leave your first two posts in the thread and thus, I also did not delete the first two nonsense-posts from Brad either, making you equal. However I am not willing to see even more of posts of that ilk in the thread. You might not mind it, but some others do who are not only Brad. I mind it. It turns people off the thread. You want nonsense conversations, I'm sure there are enough spots for that at KJ (Why don't you go to the Late Show thread?!). I, however, would not just go on and eelete something because I don't like it. If, however, I think that this is damaging to the thread/forum as a whole, I will act on it. Since I am new it at, I am sure my methods and decisions will become more refined as time proceeds. Maybe I'll just create a separate Spam hread open for everyone in the Water Cooler where I will move all of the precious posts that don't belong where they originally were. I'll see about that.






It's true, though. this is what it's like at message boards. Apparently several posters over the years decided "not to accept it" and they left. I'm not Stalin, but I'm not Ghandi either. I have stated my thoughts on bannings several times already, I think, but being lax doesn't mean that it'll be a laissez-faire leadership here.

i'm in favor of subjective decision-making. it is what i'm asking for. the problem is that your "subjective decision-making", and i mean both the action in the district 9 thread (which is what i am discussing here, because discussing decisions can be necessary) as well as your reply above in this thread (especially that), comes dangerously close to what seems to be in fact a constitution for everyone who has become admin. the character disappears with the enthronement and what was truly subjective and personal makes way for what is expected to be. we witnessed this with roid, who lacked any sort of character and was a caricature, who acted not according to what he wanted but according to what he thought was expected. this was not subjectivity based on reason but on the need to fill out a role in the "appropriate" way. i am for deactivating spambot accounts, but i see most other actions you could take as superflous and unnecessary. this includes the "cleansing" of threads from off-topic chatter, especially when it's only a few posts. it certainly includes the deletion (and without warning) of sometimes lengthy posts for the aforementioned reasons. it includes most every patronizing act towards a number of people conversating, unless maybe if there's strong personal attacks and one of the participants feels strongly offended. and it especially includes the way these decisions are explained afterwards. if it's robot talk that has absolutely nothing to do with the specific case in question, then i don't approve of it. we all know that it was such a robot admin without any sense of reason or empathy who decided to run his forum in a pseudosubjective one man show kind of way that resulted in the creation of this forum. i have only heard stories about this, but it seems to be a common trait among most admins, no matter what they were before they got the title. recently it could be seen during the admin election debacle, where reasonable people suddenly, sometimes within a matter of days, turned into complete idiots and felt the need to exchange their personalities for nazi uniforms although it was not close to being necessary.



his little mission to get his revenge because his pride was hurt months ago should not really bother you or at least you should not contribute to it.* as i said, i'm talking about the principle of the post deletion. i'm against it in mostly every case, and it's almost regardless of whose posts are deleted or what that person's motivation is. move it somewhere if, for some obscure reason it bothers you, but deleting is usually the worst decision, because i don't need some idiot (not you, just the general moderator/admin who acts in this way) judging my posts and aimlessly clicking buttons because they think it's for anyone's best when in truth it only destroys something that was created within a certain time. nobody can want that. how could anyone want to spend minutes or hours to create something just to see it clicked into oblivion shortly after never to be seen again? move it or, even better, leave it where it is. but don't bow to some misconception of what "might be best" for the forum and is expected of you as an admin and destroy people's thoughts. even if they are funny or non-sensical ones.

i have rarely visited the late show thread but from what i've seen there's only idiots in there, like mcsteamy, talking about 15 year olds stuff like the newest pokemon edition. i don't want to be forced to go to such a place. i want to spread my shit where i please. i spread my shit regarding district 9 in the district 9 thread. that should not be a problem. since other discussions evolved from that of course i participated in them THERE, where they happened. the same goes for any thread. i don't need to be driven out of this thread and lead the conversation somewhere else, like in a ghetto or concentration camp. it should be where it started. BUT, like i said, if for some mysterious reason people are really put off by this (not that 80% of people don't do anything like that themselves 100 times a week in various threads), then move it. it's bad, but if you really feel the need, do it. but don't delete it. by the way, the spam thread is a bad idea because of what i wrote in this paragraph. it's a prison, a ghetto and a concentration camp, a spiritual indian reservation and an articifial way to keep some hallucigenic order. i want to post where i post, inspired by the specific thread's topic and not keep my thoughts on any topic at some special place that only exists as a quarantine for posts that are not considered worthy by some random idiot who likes to click buttons alot (again, i'm talking about the general admin mindset here).



who the fuck cares what it's like at message boards? that's exactly what i meant above. apparently, there's still some constitution. think for yourself and improve what's there. don't fall back into the same schemes that have been problematic in the past. you compare yourself too much to what you think is expected and what is "appropriate". i know you want to desperately save kj at all costs but this can not be the way. it doesn't have to be full-on laissez-faire but i think something close to it would be better than becoming the next roid salsbury. you don't have to be gandhi, but at least reside in india and stay away as far as possible from russia. and deleting posts without warning and miscommunication afterwards is very russian.
this is my advice to you, my son.

* i am sure bradley enjoys this thread very much for i am largely defending his posts and make enemies with the admin by doing so. therefore this is my last post in this matter for now, i have said most things i want to say regarding it in this and the ones above. and i hope you will adjust your admin policy a bit, think for yourself and not turn over to the dark side, we don't need any more of misguided admins who aren't able to deal with their newly acquired powers. this applies both to your button clicking activities and your communication with those affected. bye.

Looks like a lengthy conversation. I'll reply to that on Saturday at latest.

I have to disappoint you, but you are actually not making enemies with the admin in this thread. This is a surprisingly constructive discussion, even though I disagree with some of the stuff that you have written.

Jesus and Argos try to make us think that they have more meaning in their posts than what we read.

But in reality, their posts are paper thin.