Barbelith Underground > Policy & Help

Haus, I think that's rather unfair. You seem to have omitted the rest of my sentence, so here's the full text (again):

PW:I even jokingly gave him a heads up in the Your Watch thread towards the Moderation Requests thread; which I admit was part playful, part "people are talking about you over there"; and a part still perturbed by what I'd seen as very harsh and still unanswered actions on his part. [new itlaics]

Why was my intention made up of many parts? Because I was conflicted. Hmm... How best can I explain this....

(Bear with me, this is going to be a loooooooong post)

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Although there are times and dates provided for each post on Barbelith (etc), it is very difficult to get an overall temporal sense of past events on Barbelith if one isn't there at the time certain events unfold. Indeed, at the time of DM's Birthday thread, many people active were appalled at Flyboy and Triplets respective posts; I'd say relatively few were not (I can't actually see much evidence of anybody else agreeing with their behaviour at the time, but I may be wrong).

So, to explain myself, to provide some temporal perspective to recent heated events, and to and try to discover more about the context and any possible intentions of different poster during all this: I will try to model how I read and interacted with the board at the time. Hopefully this will be beneficial all round. (hopefully)

Lets start, for now, with the "Talking of shots to the back of the head..." type comments in the 'Your Watch' thread:

Flyboy 19:23 / 02.09.06: There is a sense, isn't there, having read this thread, that Barbelith at the moment is a bit like the Deadwood camp, shortly after Bill Hickock made his exit.

Granted, Flyboy says that "after reading thisthread" he gets his Deadwood camp "sense" [my italics]. However, and it is very important to note that, to me reading the Conversation at that time, Flyboy's post had bumped the 'Your Watch' from relative obscurity to the top of the Conversation heap only ten minutes after he had posted his second moody post in DM's Birthday Thead, when that thread was already near the top of the Conversation and wherein people were already having a rapidly heated discussion.

At the time, therefore, I thought it was (at least) odd, but still funny, that Flyboy was using gunslinging cultural references to describe a "sense" of how Barbelith felt to him at that particular time (although he seemed to suggest there was a "sense" which all or any of us could also be likely to be feeling).

The "Your Watch" thread then continued as followed:

Xoc, 19:24 / 02.09.06: you mean there are two competing brothels at either end of the main street?

p.w, 19:25 / 02.09.06: As long as we've got you, Flyboy, the spirit of Wild Bill Hickok will always be here.

Yeee-haaaa!

Both of these comments were, to me, similarly ambiguous as Flyboy's also due to the circumstances of the whole board at that time.

However, then, back in DM's 30th birthday thread, and only a minute after my last post in the 'Your Watch' thread, Triplets dropped his stinker, which Ganesh and I replied to very soon after:

Triplets, 19:26 / 02.09.06: I don't think we should be celebrating failiure. Specifically the failiure of an abortionist.

Ganesh, 19:27 / 02.09.06: [pedant] Or failure of spelling "failure", come to that. [/pedant]

p.w, 19:29 / 02.09.06: "I don't think we should be celebrating failiure. Specifically the failiure of an abortionist."

Now that's what I call out of order. Care to unpack that Triplets?

(BTW: Where is Triplets, has he explained himself already, somewhere, yet?)

Back on track... Twenty three hours after Triplets "abortionist" post, in the 'Moderation Requests' thread, Falconator Returns started another ball rolling when ze indicated he had started requesting post deletions:

Falconator Returns, 19:59 / 02.09.06: I've put everything beyond this up for deletion, because I don't really think it's cool or acceptable to be a total shit to someone in their birthday thread. If anyone wants to disagree this, please do come and discuss it here.

(Note: six minutes then elapse before Ganesh replies to Falconator. However, If you want to go and find out what else was being posted elsewhere during these minutes and within other temporal gaps in this ongoing, multi-thread discussion, then I'm afraid you'll have to do it yourself. Here's a couple of other links to help you: "Barbecrush 2006' thread, DM's birthday thread; the Fight Thread,. Sorry, but seriously: you'll have to do this bit yourself; I've got my hands full trying to explain one aspect of all this as it is!)

Staying with the 'Moderation Requests' thread, Ganesh then replied:

Ganesh, 20:05 / 02.09.06: : I've agreed your requests, Falconer, because I feel that if there's a strong personal dislike between one poster and another, that ought to be addressed via PM or, at the very least, in its own thread (if there's been a breach of policy, a Policy thread). I don't think it's appropriate to evoke that personal dislike a propos of nothing, in what's clearly a light, fluffy birthday thread, in Conversation.

Two minutes later I responded with a comment (which, incidentally, thirty four hours later, I apologised for, here) which includes mention of "fuck holes":

p.w: 20:07 / 02.09.06: I admire your intent, gents. But personally, I'd rather leave it as a matter of record, and have the people who've been such fuck-holes apologise.

This conversation then continued in the 'Moderation Requests' thread: Falconator expressed why ze would "rather have the maligned poster's feelings spared this excessive and deeply unnecessary ire; I said "Fair enough. Tough Call ... "; and DM said he'd rather let "him post away. For all to see." (I assume "him" is Flyboy, not Triplets.)

(Again I can't re-post everything and attempt to post it ALL in temporal context, so...)

During all this and for many minutes afterward this multi-thread issue became more and more of a mult-thread issue, where lots of stuff (good and bad) was said by lots of different members coming from different angles and opinions, etc.

However, a little later, Barbelith time, and still in the 'Moderation Requests' thread, Flyboy disagreed indicated he'd vetoed the move to delete posts (which, at the time, I thought was the right thing to do; but there's more discussion about this elsewhere):

Flyboy, 20:44 / 02.09.06: I've disagreed the request to delete my post (and so had to disagree all the others. I think it's a bit odd that you'd choose that one, Falconator, when it was the one that actually raised the possibility that I might be wrong, and invited those people who do, for whatever unfathomable reason, think that Dead Megatron is a credit to the board to post their favourite posts of his in celebration. Weird.

There were then posts from others and myself in the 'Moderation Requests' thread and other threads: people talked about deleting posts, whether they found Flyboy and Triplets to be out of order, whether DM' and Kali's flirting had gone too far or should be contained in some way, etc, etc..

But (staying with the 'Moderation Requests' thread), two hours and forty eight minutes after Flyboy's last post, I posted again:

p.w, 23:32 / 02.09.06: DM, I'm sincerely sorry if this seems in any way like I'm taking away your right to be offended and / or annoyed by all this ('tis not my intention), but...

Flyboy, Triplets, may I suggest you just simply apologise for being so nasty and offensive and try not to repeat this error in future, and then we can all move on? Otherwise, someone might start following you around the board making jibes and reminding you of your error every time you post until you do.

Oh, for the love of Dog... Now I'm starting to feel bad for Flyboy and Triplets.., I don't know if I'm coming or going...

Conflicted? I'm such a freakin' dichotomy sometimes; I feel like I'm literally being torn apart... Help?!

Which is when and where we see my first public indication that I was feeling conflicted by the events of that present time; that I was concerned for DM and Flyboy and Triplets (etc) despite their current problems with each other and behaviours (etc).

Was my post and intent jokey? Yes, I think it was; but I think it's also pretty much painted well enough for others to see I was also being sincere about feeling conflicted (a "many a true word is said in jest" type of thing?). Shrug seemed to get it at the time, anyway.

*p.w takes a deep breath*

So, if you'll forgive me, I'll now leap threads and forwards in time by sixteen hours and twenty minutes...

The next day, in the 'Your Watch' thread, twenty hours and twenty seven minutes after my last post in the thread, Flyboy posted:

Flyboy, 15:52 / 03.09.06: I think you missed my point, PW.

My point being, that once a man who was held in high regard by the decent people of the camp has been dispatched by a cowardly shot to the back of the head, or been induced to leave the camp in exasperation after brawling in the thoroughfare with an unworthy opponent, and if others who might have been expected to play their part turn out to be unwilling or unable to make an assay, then it is left to flawed Montana cocksuckers to do their best to step into a taller man's shoes.

Now, as far as I saw it, the gunslinging references (cowardly shots, Montana cocksuckers, etc) were still being used by Flyboy, but it still wasn't even clear who the hell Flyboy was actually talking about, as nobody had been mentioned by name. i.e. was it alas, id, Haus, DM, Ganesh, etc, etc, Of course, it was likely that he was talking about Haus, but I wasn't entirely sure what the "cowardly shot" bit could have been in reference to, etc.

I therefore replied to Flyboy's post (five minutes later):

p.w, 15:57 / 03.09.06: Who you talking about?

It also then occurred to me that a discussion of the previous night's events was presently ensuing in the 'Moderation Requests' thread and that Flyboy's last post in the 'Moderation Requests' thread had actually been nearly nineteen hours earlier:

Flyboy (in the 'Moderation Request' thread), 21:01 / 02.09.06: I was willing to overlook the bit where he taunted myself and Haus to come and have a go, but to be reminded that he's now been polluting this place for a year... It was too much.

(Therefore, both mine and Flyboy's posts in the 'Your Watch' thread were actually posted sixteen hours after my James Dean-like "You're tearing me apart" post in the 'Moderation Requests' thread).

Anyway, I figured, "Maybe Flyboy doesn't actually know that there is a raging discussion going on elsewhere about him and all this, which Haus has now joined? Maybe he's just logged in?". To me, at that time, Flyboy's new post in the 'Your Watch' thread also seemed very Meta (or something), in that many different people could be described as having taking cowardly pot-shots (my interpretation) at other members. I didn't know, therefore, if this was intended by Flyboy as a deliberately ambiguous statement, or not.

For once again, from where I stood, it was all rather meta-analogous, very conflicting, and (I admit) funny in many ways. And so, taking my cue from Flyboy and following on from my own comments, I continued in a similar vein in the 'Your Watch' thread, with what I thought was a rather ambiguous and maybe even devilishly funny post:

p.w, 15:59 / 03.09.06: And talking of cowardly shots to the back of the head, have you been and read the Moderations Request thread, yet, regarding your recent behaviour toward DM?

Flyboy then replied nearly a whole hour later in the 'Your Watch' thread with:

Flyboy, 16:55 / 03.09.06: I'm on it, E.B.!

To explain further, and bearing in mind that at that time I'd already stated I was conflicted about all this, I think my "talking of cowardly shots" post was ambiguous and maybe even devilishly funny, because it could have been saying (and forgive any slight inconsistencies as this is a crude attempt at translating something that was ambiguous in it's execution AND it's intent):

1) People are taking (maybe) cowardly shots to the back of your head, Flyboy, over in the 'Moderation Requests' thread because of your behaviour last night; did you know?

2) If you do know about 1), then why are you even posting about "cowardly shots to the back of the head" here? Under the circumstances, couldn't your rather ambiguous post in fact (maybe) be read as a cowardly shot to the back of the heads of those who've already expressed annoyance with your behaviour of last night? Have you seen the 'Moderation Requests thread 'yet today?

3) Although you walked up and point blank shot DM in the face last night at his 30th Birthday party because he'd provoked you, wasn't that (maybe) rather a cowardly, violent, and disproportionate response, under the circumstances? Did you know people are talking about your behaviour in the 'Moderation Requests' thread?

4) What cowardly shots to who's head are you referring to, Flyboy? Did you know the multi-thread conversation you, myself, and others have been having lately about your behaviour last night is continuing (at this time) in more focus in the 'Moderation Requests' thread?

Also, note that Flyboy's "E.B." response to me was fifty six minutes after my own "talking of cowardly shots" post. Between these times, the 'Moderation Requests' discussion was meanwhile in full swing (albeit in an off topic fashion): Haus, Ganesh, myself, and others were already arguing about Flyboy's behaviour (and other stuff); and Flyboy himself offered his take on the events of the previous night- a post which included his apology (that I still feel didn't come across as genuine, and more importantly, was nowhere near enough specific).

So, trying to stay in one clear timeline (that of my previous interaction and interpretation of the events as they unfolded, of course)...

At the time, I didn't actually get the "E.B" reference of Flyboy's in the Your Watch Thread, but I took it to be a similar mixed intentional joke as my own, and thought it was quite funny, really -- the "on it, p.w", reminded me of some kind of team game or army type of reference. i.e. p.w "They're coming from rear! You see them? ", Flyboy, "On it, p.w."

In a PM to Flyboy, which I previously mentioned and the time of which I can't remember, I even asked Flyboy what "E.B" meant; although he still hasn't replied, so I still don't know. I think I sent this PM, however, after I decided to take a break and step back from the Multi-thread discussions about Flyboy and Triplets behaviour and how they should have been handled at the time, etc.

Indeed, although my attention shifted away from the 'Your Watch' thread and I then started posting in the 'Moderation Requests' thread; I eventually gave up arguing with Haus, and posted as much, to say I was stepping back and that I was sorry for getting annoyed with Haus and for maybe making the situation worse:

p.w, 17:53 / 03.09.06: Sorry all. Sincerely. I'm obviously not helping matters, and I believe there's a fair amount of confusion all round at the mo'. However, I'm backing away and will try to regain perspective on all this.

Haus, Flyboy, Triplets, DM, and everyone else: I have no personal problems with any of you (on my Mum's life). I just wanted us all to play nice, and then got annoyed when I shouldn't have. Apologies to you all.

After that, I pretty much stayed out of everything to do with the DM / Kali / Flyboy / Triplets / etc fiasco, for a long time afterwards.

Although I did post an off-topic post in this thread about loving the 'Fight Thread', here.

I also did screw around in the 'Fight Thread', because I wanted to keep my spirits up (and maybe those of others) as I was still re-reading all the relevant treads and trying to keep up to date with new posts and threads. I contributed a few other threads as well. But if my memory serves me correctly I didn't really get involved in all "this" again until I became interested with and posted in the 'Barbe-flirting' thread: a thread inspired and (arguably) about the flirting between DM and Kali which had obviously helped trigger Flyboy's "get a room" and other nasty posts (etc) in the DM birthday thread. Although, of course, the 'Barbe-flirting' thread was and is also about other flirts that occurred / occurs between other posters. e.g. Ganesh, Xoc, myself, Alex's Great Aunt, etc.

My next post directly regarding this particular debacle specifically was then in this thread you're reading now, where and when I apologised specifically for calling Triplets and Flyboy "fuck holes", and also explained my own feeling, intentions, and interpretations at length.

To conclude (at last!) this attempt at (for want of a better term) temporal contextualization, therefore:

Since my apology I've geuinely been trying nicely to get Flyboy and Triplets to explain themselves without using more barbed or offensive language and in such a way that we all know to whom and for what exactly they are apologising for.

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*deeeeeeep breath and relax*

I really hope that helps clear up a few crossed wires, and I'm sorry for its length, but...

Aslo, to further explain this exceedingly long post, another reason why I have attempted to put some of the MANY posts and threads into some kind of temporal context is that Haus (and others) seem (to me) to not be taking all aspects of "Temporal context" into account with this particular discussion: how everybody views Flyboy's and Triplets' actions and what should be done about this.

e.g. I do not know for sure when you, Haus, came to this discussion, but I suspect it was not around the time when Flyboy's and Triplets' comments were made. I assume this from your opening sentence in your (Haus') first related comment in the 'Moderation Requests' thread, which was made around twenty hours after (e.g) Triplets' offensive "abortionist" post:

Haus, 14:59 / 03.09.06: God, I go away for a week... thank God I locked the knife drawer. ...

Haus' take on all this may therefore, in some ways, be more objective about all this than (say) mine; but it is also (arguably) a kind of secondary source when it comes to describing events as they actually happened, as only those who were there at the time could be described as being anything like primary sources. e.g. DM, Flyboy, Triplets, Kali, Ganesh, Xox, Falconator returns, my crap self, etc, etc, etc,

And please don't take all this the wrong way, Haus: I believe you were right to question and pull apart many aspects of this situation (e.g. addressing the deletion of posts), but I think your priorities were wrong and your methodology has only helped to obscure the fact that two members personally and nastily attacked another member's character (on his 30th Birthday) and still really haven't made amends for this behaviour.

Yes, Flyboy has made a very brief apology. But to who exactly and what for?

Am I alone in thinking that this is simply not good enough?

Indeed, this has gone on for long enough, non?

[And please note: I've spent half the day typing this post, editing, re-reading, cuttin it down in length, cross-checking times, posts, and threads; sticking in links; etc. There may, however, still be errors that I haven't spotted: e.g. spelling, bad links, miscalculations of elapsed time, etc. But please be warned, I really am not going to respond to any pedantic negative critisims of this post (e.g. "But it was XX hours later, not X hours later!"), unless they prove I've majorly fucked up somewhere. Hope that's understandable. Aslo, I apologise in advance if Triplets and Flyboy have subsequently apologised to DM properly elsewhere and I haven't noticed. Once love.]

Anyway, a couple of thoughts I've been ruminating about - these enforced day-long absences do focus the mind a bit..

Anti-Yeti League:

This is going to sound patronising, AYL. Sorry. I can foresee, but God himself could not prevent it.

We tend to express quotation around here either by the conventional quotation marks or by bold type. So, without wandering too far through the threads, we can see in the post directly above your own this phrase:

"Dead Megatron called Flyboy specifically to post in his birthday thread, and then complained of an uncalled personal attack when he did."

The bold type means I am quoting directly. The sentence expresses that that direct quotation came from Dead Megatron.

Now, there is indeed a colloquial term meaning "inappropriate", which is "uncalled-for". It is more than possible that Dead Megatron was aiming for this. This does not, however, alter the fact that he called Flyboy, by name, to the thread, although it is unlikely that he specifically called a personal attack to the thread. There is now another question about whether what Flyboy said was actually a "personal attack", if by that we mean one relating to the person outside Barbelith rather than that person's actions on Barbelith. However.

Dead Megatron has given his reason for calling Flyboy (and myself) to this thread in the "Moderation requests" thread. He has subsequently given a different reason here - that he was curious as to what we would do if so "called". I imagine that is closer to the truth of his before-the-fact motivation, but how it stands in relation to his previous gloss remains unclear.

We have already discussed the previous gloss. During this discussion, you put things in quotation marks, suggesting that I had said them, which I had not in fact at any point said. I should therefore make it clear that my aim is not to do this, which is why I am happy to clarify, although I had not realised that it would be necessary, that the word "uncalled" was used by Dead Megatron, in the "Dead Megatron turns 30" thread, around page 3.

Mathlete:

You said:

I feel like I'm watching a group of people down the pub, and half the group are trying to get an answer out of one of the higher social standing members, the one whos quick witted, but also can shout the loudest, and uses both to diminsh the reasonable arguments being made by his friends and peers into unfair attacks. Now obviosuly this is a sound debating tactic, and without trying to become Stephen Colbert, this feels wrong in this instance. Hate to use that word now, but as I said, I feel uncomfortable with the way this thread has gone.

An unsound debating tactic is to make a vague comparison, and then to behave as if what you have just described is exactly what is happening in the different situation to which you were making the vague comparison.

For example: your example posits that the one person (the Flyboy-analogue) is quick-witted. This is flattering, but excludes the possibility that anybody else might also be quick-witted. It also posits that that Flyboy-analogue can shout the loudest. In what way can Flyboy shout the loudest? In no way. the most voluble poster on this so far has probably been myself or Duncan Falconer. Anti-Yeti League, paranoidwriter and I think probably Dead Megatron himself have posted as much or more than Flyboy.

I am also not seeing where both of these characteristics, one of which in this situation in not unique and the other of which is non-existent, are being made to diminsh the reasonable arguments being made by his friends and peers into unfair attacks. Perhaps you could give examples?

Moving on, I think there's a misunderstanding here:

This thing you've got against simple correspondance with people you don't like - it's something you've thrown about before, and it seems counter-intuitive. Surely the aim here is to get new bodies on the board, and then show them the right way to express themselves, allow them to grow etc. By sitting on this anger, by not telling people where they are going wrong, by just writting them off as soon as you can, you're doing the board a disservice.

First up, I don't see anything counterintuitive about not having correspondence with people you don't like. How many friends are you regularly in touch with that you don't like? I'll come back to your middle sentence in a moment, but:

By sitting on this anger, by not telling people where they are going wrong, by just writting them off as soon as you can, you're doing the board a disservice.

I don't see that here. If he had sat on his anger and not told people where they are going wrong, if anger it is, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because he wouldn't have said anything in the first place. What he is saying is that he does not want to engage in a private correspondence with Dead Megatron. Quite different. Personally, I try to reply to people's private messages, but I'm aware that much of the time people are sending private messages to me because they want to be personally insulting but do not want to look bad on the public board, so they sent their next post as a PM and leave the swearing in. Sometimes good things come of the move to Private Messages, sometimes they do not. I'm glad that you feel we've profited from exchanging Private Messages, but is there any guarantee that int he case of poster x and poster y, PMing will do more good than harm? I'd say no. I've seen differences resolved by PM, and I've seen people as a result primarily of PM exchanges put people on permanent ignore or in extreme cases get banned.

So... maybe it would be useful for Flyboy and DM to talk over the issues by PM. Maybe it would not.

To return:

Surely the aim here is to get new bodies on the board, and then show them the right way to express themselves, allow them to grow etc.

"Surely" is a slippery word. Right now the admissions process is pretty busted. However, it is far easier to get people onto the board than to get them off the board again, in most cases, so the idea that our aim is to get people onto the board and then devote our energies to teaching them in the hope that they will eventually contribute value - well, it's an aim, but no, it's not the aim. The aim of Barbelith is, as I understand it, to provide a form of online discussion not available elsewhere. This aim is not necessarily served by bringing new people on board - in fact, at the moment the people we have gotten on board who are notionally being shown the way to etc may be pushing people who provide a form of online discussion not available elsewhere off the board.

So, it is an aim, but not the aim. It is also an aim which can be pursued despite some people not wanting to exchange private messages with other people. I have been showing DM what I feel is the correct way to express himself (having read the relevant materials) and attempting to allow him to grow (into somebody who contributes relevant material). It turns out that my efforts in this direction may have been wasted. In those terms, I don't see how whether or not Flyboy was up for an exchange of PMs with him would be relevant.

However, that is a broader question of the purpose of Barbelith. In terms of this thread, is Flyboy bullying Dead Megatron by not wanting to exchange PMs with him? I'd say no.

Let's just ignore the "Dead Megatron: His Crimes" bollocks, shall we? Maybe you've already learned from it.

Bullying on Barbelith