In the past I referred to the site as a community, but that didn't quite nail it down. Then I realized nailing everything down may not be the best approach. Mike has used the word "mob" to describe many acting as one. But that doesn't quite get what we're doing here. I think "swarm" covers what's going on here, so if you see me using that word, maybe you'll know what I mean.
The old system had some real social plumbing issues. It was left up to a "High Priest" and blessed "Priests" to cast "blasphemers" into "outer darkness", i.e. I had to ban people who I subjectively decided were bad for the publication. As described elsewhere, I disabled accounts and in extreme cases I banned the ISPs they were coming from.
The solution to this subjective dictatorship is to put the power into the hands of the readers, but I couldn't do that with PHP-Nuke (the old site's software). I know that many people find it irresistable to read posts that are infalmmatory even when they know the history of a particular member or guest, and many are baited by these social hackers and culture jammers. I am in agreement that members should have the choice; that it should not fall to one person to decide on your behalf what you should or should not be exposed to. The new fora empower you in two ways to anonymously control what you read and see.
Members can rate threads using the 1 to 5 stars measure. And now, finally, you can use the software to ignore another member. The ignore feature causes posts from the target member to disappear from the thread. You can even ignore my posts! With these three content control features in your hands, I am going to ratchet down my judge/jury activities so that you can control your exposure to unpleasant content.
Since bringing the new version of multiverse.org online, I have preserved the IP bans and account deactivations. I am willing to reset everything if we can find a concensus. Here is a list of accounts that have been deactivated. Should we reactivate them? I am ready to do it. Remember, if you don't want to read their posts you can ignore them mentally or manually.
Bill
dlackey
Kitsune
krunky
Moody
Obstreperous
Seebass
tzunder
A couple were deactivated due to threats of violence to one another, others for culture jamming, abusiveness and other anti-social nonsense. Maybe I was wrong. So I leave to the swarm to decide if we should reactivate these accounts.
I'll even reactivate Cxxxx Oxxx's account (Corum). I've just replied to a mailing list message at BOC-L (that's the Blue Oester Cult & Hawkwind mailing list). I've gotten abused by many people, but this guy has really been rotten towards me:
I'll no longer converse about this guy. I just feel it's time to break my silence now that we all have a way to deal with negative members, each in our own way. Thanks to this new software, you don't need me to decide for you what posts are objectionable. I guess you never really did.
The no porn/no hate rule stands. We'll ban accounts posting porn images and racial slurs. We have now localized the subjectiveness to you instead of me. I won't be breaking up fights or coaching people on their posts, rather, when I hear complaints, I'll point you to a document that tells you how to ignore your perceived offender.
One last note: the LSN thing. When I gave the LSN account a moderator role, I did not realize that the LSN account could view IP addresses (the first step in compromising your privacy). I discovered that I could not hide your IP addresses from any moderator in PHP-Nuke. With the new software I can! Moderators will not be able to have that first hook into breaching privacy, so you will see more moderators in the future.
I truly believe that we were all subject to the bad design of our previous site, even though it allowed us all to find a great deal of pleasure in it, it fostered a kind of authoritrianism that I felt fully uncomfortable with, and my lack of experience set me up for some serious failure. Now we are set up for some serious success and I hope one and all are ready to have some serious enjoyment.
The old system had some real social plumbing issues. It was left up to a "High Priest" and blessed "Priests" to cast "blasphemers" into "outer darkness", i.e. I had to ban people who I subjectively decided were bad for the publication. As described elsewhere, I disabled accounts and in extreme cases I banned the ISPs they were coming from.
The solution to this subjective dictatorship is to put the power into the hands of the readers, but I couldn't do that with PHP-Nuke (the old site's software). I know that many people find it irresistable to read posts that are infalmmatory even when they know the history of a particular member or guest, and many are baited by these social hackers and culture jammers. I am in agreement that members should have the choice; that it should not fall to one person to decide on your behalf what you should or should not be exposed to. The new fora empower you in two ways to anonymously control what you read and see.
Members can rate threads using the 1 to 5 stars measure. And now, finally, you can use the software to ignore another member. The ignore feature causes posts from the target member to disappear from the thread. You can even ignore my posts! With these three content control features in your hands, I am going to ratchet down my judge/jury activities so that you can control your exposure to unpleasant content.
Since bringing the new version of multiverse.org online, I have preserved the IP bans and account deactivations. I am willing to reset everything if we can find a concensus. Here is a list of accounts that have been deactivated. Should we reactivate them? I am ready to do it. Remember, if you don't want to read their posts you can ignore them mentally or manually.
Bill
dlackey
Kitsune
krunky
Moody
Obstreperous
Seebass
tzunder
A couple were deactivated due to threats of violence to one another, others for culture jamming, abusiveness and other anti-social nonsense. Maybe I was wrong. So I leave to the swarm to decide if we should reactivate these accounts.
I'll even reactivate Cxxxx Oxxx's account (Corum). I've just replied to a mailing list message at BOC-L (that's the Blue Oester Cult & Hawkwind mailing list). I've gotten abused by many people, but this guy has really been rotten towards me:
September 19, 2005 Cxxxx Oxxx wrote to this list:
"I dont post all that often, but I felt I had to reply.
Firstly, let me say this is MY reply and I dont pretend
to speak for anyone else here, this is entirely my
opinion. I posted for about 2 years on the Moorcock site
then without warning my IP address and in fact most of
British columbia suddenly got cut off from being able
to visit the site altogether. No warnings or explanations
or temporary bans no replies or technical help, nothing
just total disconnection with no explanation or appeals.
So be warned if you dont fit in with this persons
very limited, narrow minded, intolerant, dictatorial
views you will find yourselves permanently cut off from this
list if it amalgamted.
I would also add that I have been and remain a life long
fan of Michael Moorcock's books, especially the 6 books of Corum.
So you can imagine that this axxhxxx caused quite some distress,
and it is well beyond my mental abilities to fathom his reasons
considering what Mike Moorcock and his life long work
has stood for.
Cxxxx Oxxx"
Cxxx never really explained to anyone why this might have happened and I'm ready to talk about it after several years of silence. I speak now, because I am concerned for the privacy of those would wander over the Cxxxx's forum. Cxxxx wrote multiple messages to Michael Moorcock at the old old version of multiverse.org (pre-2003), wherein one of those messages he wrote personal information. He later came to regret that and rudely demanded that it be removed. Then he began to hold me responsible for Google picking up his personal information and demanded in an even more rude manner that I expunge information from Google, something totally out of my control. He used harrassing public messages at multiverse.org, messages to my multiple email addresses and communication with Michael Moorock and communication with ISPs to pressure me into managing his public statements. As soon as he began freaking out, we expunged his personal statements from multiverse.org, but he continued to freak out and attempt to insinuate himself as a kind of social manager over me and others. I accidentally restored his message of interest and was subject to an even more vicious campaign of abuse, and I decided to expunge every single message and I was forced to deny his ISP from multiverse.org and he mounted a campaign to gain access. I was forced to deny access to an entire geographical region in Canada (a specific ISP) to protect myself and the site from Cxxxx Oxxx's wierd demands. I have filtered all of his various email addresses to my spam folder because of the abuse he was directing to me. He was invited to be a guest at the site under a single condition: I must never be able to discover his identity. This ensured that no other person could deduce who he was thusly protecting his personal information. Since that offer, he directed abuse to Michael and I, and I was able to detect his identity by his email address. I have no idea what this dude's damage is, and it is obvious that he has no concept of what it means to use The Internet with his real name.
Now to address my immeadiate concern: he's hosting a site, but doesn't have any concept of how to preserve your private information or his own. I also fear that some of you would be subject to his wierd social manipulations should you have a falling out over his kindom of threads. He can see your IP addresses, but has no idea how to even protect himself from his own public messages. How could anyone be secure under his wing? I do not know who he really is and I have nothing personal against him. I actively protected his privacy during his abuse and those who frequent multiverse.org know that I have gone to my utmost to preserve privacy for everyone. I am transparent about how I operate the site and there was a falling out with a couple of our friends over the preservation of privacy.
Can you say the same of Cxxxx Oxxx? Let my four years of not publicly addressing Cxxxx Oxxx in any forum be my bond. I have serious concerns for my friends here and at multiverse.org. I don't have time for an endless debate with Cxxxx, so please understand that I won't reply to anything he posts to this list. Furthermore, I will not debate this multiverse.org. There's been enough nastiness over this. I've finally defended myself and that is enough for me.
Thanks,
Berry
On 4/18/06, Cxxxx Oxxx wrote:
"I dont post all that often, but I felt I had to reply.
Firstly, let me say this is MY reply and I dont pretend
to speak for anyone else here, this is entirely my
opinion. I posted for about 2 years on the Moorcock site
then without warning my IP address and in fact most of
British columbia suddenly got cut off from being able
to visit the site altogether. No warnings or explanations
or temporary bans no replies or technical help, nothing
just total disconnection with no explanation or appeals.
So be warned if you dont fit in with this persons
very limited, narrow minded, intolerant, dictatorial
views you will find yourselves permanently cut off from this
list if it amalgamted.
I would also add that I have been and remain a life long
fan of Michael Moorcock's books, especially the 6 books of Corum.
So you can imagine that this axxhxxx caused quite some distress,
and it is well beyond my mental abilities to fathom his reasons
considering what Mike Moorcock and his life long work
has stood for.
Cxxxx Oxxx"
Cxxx never really explained to anyone why this might have happened and I'm ready to talk about it after several years of silence. I speak now, because I am concerned for the privacy of those would wander over the Cxxxx's forum. Cxxxx wrote multiple messages to Michael Moorcock at the old old version of multiverse.org (pre-2003), wherein one of those messages he wrote personal information. He later came to regret that and rudely demanded that it be removed. Then he began to hold me responsible for Google picking up his personal information and demanded in an even more rude manner that I expunge information from Google, something totally out of my control. He used harrassing public messages at multiverse.org, messages to my multiple email addresses and communication with Michael Moorock and communication with ISPs to pressure me into managing his public statements. As soon as he began freaking out, we expunged his personal statements from multiverse.org, but he continued to freak out and attempt to insinuate himself as a kind of social manager over me and others. I accidentally restored his message of interest and was subject to an even more vicious campaign of abuse, and I decided to expunge every single message and I was forced to deny his ISP from multiverse.org and he mounted a campaign to gain access. I was forced to deny access to an entire geographical region in Canada (a specific ISP) to protect myself and the site from Cxxxx Oxxx's wierd demands. I have filtered all of his various email addresses to my spam folder because of the abuse he was directing to me. He was invited to be a guest at the site under a single condition: I must never be able to discover his identity. This ensured that no other person could deduce who he was thusly protecting his personal information. Since that offer, he directed abuse to Michael and I, and I was able to detect his identity by his email address. I have no idea what this dude's damage is, and it is obvious that he has no concept of what it means to use The Internet with his real name.
Now to address my immeadiate concern: he's hosting a site, but doesn't have any concept of how to preserve your private information or his own. I also fear that some of you would be subject to his wierd social manipulations should you have a falling out over his kindom of threads. He can see your IP addresses, but has no idea how to even protect himself from his own public messages. How could anyone be secure under his wing? I do not know who he really is and I have nothing personal against him. I actively protected his privacy during his abuse and those who frequent multiverse.org know that I have gone to my utmost to preserve privacy for everyone. I am transparent about how I operate the site and there was a falling out with a couple of our friends over the preservation of privacy.
Can you say the same of Cxxxx Oxxx? Let my four years of not publicly addressing Cxxxx Oxxx in any forum be my bond. I have serious concerns for my friends here and at multiverse.org. I don't have time for an endless debate with Cxxxx, so please understand that I won't reply to anything he posts to this list. Furthermore, I will not debate this multiverse.org. There's been enough nastiness over this. I've finally defended myself and that is enough for me.
Thanks,
Berry
On 4/18/06, Cxxxx Oxxx wrote:
Just a little test to see if the email method works.
The URL entry method seems to have stopped working for me in last 2 weeks.
Anyways, any musicians out there want to discuss playing Hawkwind tribute
music in greater detail, I just started a forum, come too think of it, it is probably a
more suitable place than the band list:
http://s3.phpbbforfree.com/forums/ether-post-3.html#3
Cheers
Cxxx
The URL entry method seems to have stopped working for me in last 2 weeks.
Anyways, any musicians out there want to discuss playing Hawkwind tribute
music in greater detail, I just started a forum, come too think of it, it is probably a
more suitable place than the band list:
http://s3.phpbbforfree.com/forums/ether-post-3.html#3
Cheers
Cxxx
The no porn/no hate rule stands. We'll ban accounts posting porn images and racial slurs. We have now localized the subjectiveness to you instead of me. I won't be breaking up fights or coaching people on their posts, rather, when I hear complaints, I'll point you to a document that tells you how to ignore your perceived offender.
One last note: the LSN thing. When I gave the LSN account a moderator role, I did not realize that the LSN account could view IP addresses (the first step in compromising your privacy). I discovered that I could not hide your IP addresses from any moderator in PHP-Nuke. With the new software I can! Moderators will not be able to have that first hook into breaching privacy, so you will see more moderators in the future.
I truly believe that we were all subject to the bad design of our previous site, even though it allowed us all to find a great deal of pleasure in it, it fostered a kind of authoritrianism that I felt fully uncomfortable with, and my lack of experience set me up for some serious failure. Now we are set up for some serious success and I hope one and all are ready to have some serious enjoyment.
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