Straight from Grav. Zelaron Improvements

You've brought up 2 or 3 instances thus far, and on that D3V case, I have already told you the reasoning behind D3V being Banned and not Sovereign. Did you not read it?

First time posting with my own free will

Okay Saint Titus, if Admins are above the law and you can do whatever you want. Then why was Taco punished? Because he broke the rules and was acting like a retard. So in a way, no you can't do whatever you want, you are not above the law. If anything, the community is nothing with just 5 admins, members make it work.

Of course I read it. I don't agree with it, though.

Titusfied, I'm trying to back up the points on the list and so far, you don't really want to hear/believe it.

Of course, that was a paraphrase of what was said. Then directly afterwards, it was followed by something like, as long as you don't erase Zelaron's database or get into legality issues. I was clearly talking about Double Posting (which is non-existent anymore), spamming, flaming outside FF, etc. I can do that all I want, but I choose not to. I'm sure that after a while, it would get looked down upon anyway.

Believe it or not people, I am here for the better of Zelaron. I want it to flourish just like everyone else. I am just being the devil's advocate here and making sure everyone realizes what they are saying.

Of course I read it. I don't agree with it, though. Titusfied, I'm trying to back up the points on the list and so far, you don't really want to hear/believe it.

This is exactly what I'm talking about though. When I try to explain my side, and put up a defense for someone else, I get accused of not wanting to hear/believe what I read, but when you do the same, you can get away with "I don't agree."

What if I simply said that to everything you guys write, without stating why? Would that be better, because honestly, with the way you guys seem to be taking every little situation and making it into a world-ending issue, I just might start doing so.

Okay, are you trying to get yourself an Nobel Peace Prize? Even if theoretically you're able to do all that shit with little or no consequences, you know people would get pissed and your Admin position would mean nothing without actual members to look down upon.

Of course we realize what we're saying, you might not agree with it but hey, everyone have different tastes and opinions on how this forum should be run. Some people's opinions just happen to be uptight and lame.

Alright, I'm done trying to defend this group/list. I won't state my opinions on how to make things better around here.

As am I. Good luck guys.

Titus, nobody mentioned you moving the PMs from IronGauge's pm box to Grav's...

I'm gonna pitch in one last comment about this, if I may.

The entire purpose of this thread was to outline drastic changes that need to be made in regards to the functionality of this forum, correct? In other words, consistent and frequent problems that have not been addressed in quite some time that are killing the productivity of this forum.

Well, I asked Thanatos for examples of the complaints listed above and I got a total of two hard examples, which were in reality only one slightly larger example.

So, this entire "Zelaron Revolution" was started because a few of you guys got bitter because of one relatively small (and not at all unreasonable) situation? I have yet to see evidence of the second or third complaints on that list and so far I've recieved one hard example of the first complaint. One example does not equal a frequent problem. That could be chalked up to a lapse in judgment, while I personally think it was handled precisely as it should have been.

Seriously, I am at a complete loss as to what you guys wanted to accomplish here. Maybe Grav has the answers to that. I have absolutely no idea.

I think the biggest issuse is the double-standards.

The Staff may go around doing their job, and may get out of line. May even do something bad enough to the point of being temp'd or perm banned. Now when somebody like Sov or Bob does it, they have the power to edit posts/delete/move them. When this is done, any evidence against them can be deleted, and all thats left makes the defendant look like shit.

There really isn't anything on Zelaron that is the problem, it's the staff.

How many threads have been closed as of late? I must simply be missing them, because I can't think of one thread that I was talking in that got closed...

What does it matter what admins are able to do? Say they all had the ability and right to change members' names to Shitface and to make all of their threads say, "I am a big idiot." It doesn't make a damn bit of difference if they don't do it...

Well if a Mod (as yourself) breaks the rules, they shold be punished too. Lets say you Edit a post for no reason. Thats not against the rules, but it could change people's outlooks on the person.

The problem is people want Zelaron to be changed, but the staff is what is the problem to everyone.

The problem is people want Zelaron to be changed, but the staff is what is the problem to everyone.

D3V, I am going to lay this out for you as plainly and simply as I can. Are you paying attention to me? Will you read everything I have to say before you start typing up your reply?

Everything you guys have complained about in this thread has been based upon one, maybe two or three different occasions. One or two possible lapses in judgment. This giant staff re-shuffling that you want to see is not a reasonable response to one or two minor infractions. Titus and myself have already stated more times than the word "thou" appears in the Bible, that if you guys encounter these problems in the future, you need to report them to a staff member via PM and we will handle it. We have been lax about it in the past and now that we are aware that you guys are genuinely upset about these things, we will amend our behaviors in the future and staff will recieve appropriate punishment for these infractions in the future. This has all been said numerous times in this very thread.

Dev, enough with the whining. You have no solid reason to be complaining right now. Any and all unnecessary actions against you have been acknowledged and dealt with. We know what your fucking complaints are. Shut the fuck up. NOW.

Allright Raziel, I will try to proviede examples of each.

Moderators are not better than Members. (Special treatment and double standards)

I know this one has been said countless times, but the comparison between D3V's situation and Sovereign's situation has been made. Titus has attempted to justify D3V's banning with his 5 user notes, but I'm not buying it. D3V has been banned on multiple occasions, and many times, I have looked back in disgust and said to myself "What the fuck are they doing." Me and D3V have had our differences, but even then I believed that how he was being treated wasn't right. But I'm going off on tangents. My point is, that it is a known fact that many people don't like D3V. Is it also coincidental that D3V has been banned multiple times? I haven't seen him do too much wrong as of late.

Another example: I remember a new member came in trolling the forum with a perverted picture of a horses head up a girl's pussy. I assumed that Sovereign was going to ban, or warn the newbie, but on the contrary, he started trolling with that same picture. Given, he took it down after a while, but for around half an hour I couldn't go into a thread without puking all over my keyboard. What were his reprecussions for this? Nothing.

Stop being so damn controlling. (People want to say what they want, when they want)

This seems to be brought up here at Zelaron every few months. Lately, it is true, some of the mods have been disgustingly controlling. Especially as of late. When we make a thread, we generally don't want it closed or trashed.

I can't cite too many particular examples here, because I simply can not remember them.

One example, though, would be when Penguin and Sov were babbling over that stupid picture. I make a thread so they can go to argue there, and not clutter the Operation Dumbo Drop thread. I thought that would perhaps save the Operation Dumbo Drop thread. Instead of being thanked for reminding them to not clutter a thread, I got a snide remark from Sovereign about how he doesn't need to be told where to argue, and my thread was promptly deleted. After that, Sovereign and Penguin continued to argue in the ODD thread.

Another example is the Bob-D3V scenario. D3V's comments, though they might have been unethical, were not against any rule, whether bob told him to remove the comments or not. All of these comments were deleted. That's what I mean by too controlling.

And this is a recurring problem. It happens every few months. It happend back when Kuja tried to post that anti-christian thread. Unethical, yes. Against the rules, no. This is another example when the mods have been too controlling, and have abused their power.

It happend a few months before that as well. Recall when Titus was trying to lock down on the rules in the chat forum. Titus, and the new rules were met with resentment.

While the staff may not recognize these as valid examples of being "too controlling," I believe them to be. Now apparently this is all going to change, according to the staff, but here are some of the examples you asked for.

Insulting is fun, so deal with it. (Moving shit to the flame forum if it contains anything more negative than a proton)

We already have the staff's word that this will be dealt with more appropriately, so I feel no need to expand here.

Admin Actions Log

Here will be a 'log' of the actions taken by an Admin/Sup mod.

This is not ment to be any sort of an explenation of the actions, but it could solve some confusion about why somebody may have been banned.



I think that this would be a great idea for Zelaron improvements, this way, everybody can get their damn story straight.

Wow, aren't you the all knowing D3V.

This already exists, nice suggestion

Well I'm sure it exists in the Ad-mod , but there should be a public thread for it in (forum discussion?)

1) D3V, the staff has absolutely no obligation to cite reasons and justifications for administrative actions. That information does not warrant public display, and as such, it is the decision of the offending individual and the staff whether or not to make such information available to the general public.

2) Thank you, MJ for giving these complaints some actual validity instead of simply being baseless whining.

Now, to address these issues.

D3V, at this point, is in precisely the same boat as Grav is. He has been warned, reprimanded and scolded so many damned times by the staff that he is no longer afforded the luxury of the benefit of the doubt. Granted, he has been banned quite a few times, but he's never been permanently removed from the forum. On top of that, you probably don't recall this, but D3V was never actually banned for his misbehavior until a few months ago. He went for eight or nine months without recieving any kind of punishment for his bullshit except for the constant flame activity directed at him in the FF. Shit, I defended his right to spew his racist BS all over this forum. My opinion is that, although groutesque and moronic, he had every right to say it. Eventually, though, his behavior spilled outside of just racist remarks. He began flaming outside the FF and just causing problems in general. By that point, he should have been well-aware of the consequences, and as such, temporary banishment was an appropriate response.

In regards to Sov and the horse head, I had no idea that this had even occurred. This is just more reason why the staff needs to be notified when shit like that happens. If the staff doesn't immediately respond to the situation, most likely it means that nobody has seen it, or the staff simply assumes that the memberbase has no problem with it. You guys need to be actively making it known that these infractions bother you. Up until yesterday, I wasn't aware that you guys thought anything was wrong here.

As for Bob and D3V, Bob is new to the moderation job. Cut him some slack. If you'll recall, I went pretty overboard when I first got modded. Everybody does it. The appropriate response to D3V's antagonizing should have been to just ignore it, move it into the Flame Forum or Chat Forum and leave it be. He knows better now. You guys shouldn't be jumping all over his ass when he's only had a month of experience under his belt.

Like I said before, these are not constant problems. Yes, these things occur occasionally, but they are infrequent occasions at the most. People are capable of screwing up. Nobody is perfect. You guys are acting like this place is just overridden with these problems, and the truth is, this forum is running just fine. Bob is still getting used to his mod powers, all of the Off-Topic forums are generally very laid back and little to no actual moderation is required these days. However, I do appreciate it very much that these examples have been brought to my attention. Now that I've been made more aware of this stuff, I'll make sure to keep my eyes more attuned to what's going on in the future.