Yep, I know, pretty awful, eh? Let me explain where I am
coming from, what my thoughts are, and then please feel free to email
me your thoughts or comments, or feel free to post them on the forum.
I have nothing to hide about people's comments.
As for history, I started out in Sepember, 1999 with one goal. Set up
a message board - a forum - where people could openly discuss all those
issues and complaints that the Zone considered Anti-Zone. For me, it was
a great opportunity for people to voice their discontent about the Zone's
shortcomings, and hopefully provide a venue that the Zone officials could
come in and see what honest, hardworking peole thought about, or wanted
to see changed on the MSN Gaming Zone.
Originally, I brought up some of the more flammable issues - boots and
incompletes, players using Snowie to rate another player's morality, cheaters,
saving rated games, and how some Zone officials just basically got completely
out of control.
Needless to say, I was successful in my endeavors - to a point. What happened
next at first surprised me, then disturbed me.
My forum had apparently provided a venue that never existed before - an
opportunity to spout one's mind on Zone issues without fear of reprisals
from the "Zone". What also became very apparent, was that
there was a lot of built-up resentment against what they could not say.
I started to see many posts that went from addressing issues to addressing
individual's actions and thoughts. In some cases, the spirit of
the forum was still being followed - that particular individual's actions
were indeed affecting the Zone community at large and I could see a legitimate
argument for those postings.
Other postings were just plain snipe attacks - some made by Zone officials
or by the targets of legitimate criticism. In a sometimes misguided
sense of fairness, I felt an obligation to leave their posts so that they
had an opportunity to allow everyone a chance to see both sides of the
story. Something that the Zone had never allowed.
Somewhere along the way, the postings started going from being relevant
to being totally absurd. The day I saw an Anti-Semite, pro-Nazi
posting on the forum was the day I realized that I would have to change
my "no holds barred" approach to the forum. I made a decision
to delete these posting, and even though I did receive moral support form
many of the forum posters, I still did not like it.
As an aside, the postings were made by one of the biggest bullies
and one of the most criticized individuals on the zone.
After this occurred, two types of postings became more and more common
on the forum
Purely vicious attacks against individuals and their behaviours
on the zone, and,
Totally obnoxious, hate-filled, and racial anonymous postings done
by individuals that were so enraged that other people could actually
post their own opinions on subjects.
The result was that posts about valid issues were being overrun by these
ugly posts. Keep in mind, I knew that the goal of the latter group was
to get my forum shut down by Bravenet - they have a very strict policy
about racist and hate-mongering posts (and frankly, I totally agree with
them!) Still, I was very hesitant about deleting any posts.
I was at wit's end, so I decided to hold an open chat session to discuss
what I should do about this situation. What came out of that discussion
was the Zone Personas forum. An arena where discussion about individuals
and their behaviour on the zone could exist without interfering with the
Forum discussing Zone actions and behaviour. Everyone agreed that I should,
and would, delete postings that did not belong in the main forum.
Since then, I have made some good and bad calls when it came to deleting
controversial postings. In addition, I have banned several people for
short periods of time. Were they good or bad calls? I am not sure. I did
what I thought was best at the time.
I have taken a lot of criticism for NOT deleting certain posts, and I
heard a lot of criticsm about my "heavy-handed censorship".
The real pity was that these critics never said anything to me, instead
they chose to complain to other people. The point is that I do listen.
I admit my mistakes and I do really try to correct them. What was
most distressful, was that some of the people making the most negative
posts were also the ones complaining about the Auntie Zone Forum only
being negative!
After a long discussion with a number of forum posters, we developed
a new policy for the two forums. Since then, I have come under fire repeatedly for deleting *any* post on the Players forum. There now seems to be no consensus on how the forum should be run, so anything I do (or don't do) on the forum comes under the scrutiny of someone.
So here are the rules for the forums :
The Zone Issues Forum will be
open to any topics regarding the Zone, tournaments, events, bugs,
or problems, as long as the post do not include negative personal
references. Any posts that are personal attacks, or posts that falsely
represent themselves as coming from another person will be deleted.
Flooding posts will be deleted. Posts that I determine don't belong
on the Zone Issues Forum will be deleted. Many repeated inappropriate
postings may result in the banning of the poster.
Note that when I delete inappropriate posts, I usually delete posts
that have responded to them as well, since the purpose is to remove the
inappropriate topic.
Please do not post complaints about your post being deleted here. For
obvious reasons (its not a Zone issue!) it will be deleted too. Instead,
please email me and I will glad to discuss it with you through email. Posts
dealing with the Zone, but involving criticism of individuals can be posted
on the Personas,
or Players Topics Forum. Let it be know that I have no control over this forum, as this
forum is run by a totally independent and anonymouse volunteer.
Also, as a note, I periodically post short one-line summaries of what
is currently being discussed in the public forums as a service to
the users. Since the subjects of posts can be about an individual,
the summaries may on occassion include individual zone nics. If
you take offense to a reference to one of your posts on my homepage,
simply send me an email to remove it.
My one other request to everyone. IF you feel like complaining about
the content of the Forum, please let me know through private email first,
and if you are not satisfied with my answer, then feel free to post your
objection on the forum. IF no-one complains, then I will have no
IDEA what is acceptable and what is not.
Any comments or disagreements? Post them to my forum.
