Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2014 6:56 pm
Alright $#@!ers. You want a proper post? Fine:
Masta's ban is long overdue from an objective point of view. Personally, I found that Masta's special brand of crazy was only slightly above par for the course when it comes to the internet (also it was hilarious). By and large we are a very mature community by internet standards, so perhaps that exacerbated his impact by comparison. Hell even in real life I've met people far worse (ok well I use the word 'met' loosely) who will resort to violence (let alone verbal threats) at the drop of a hat just because of who I am and/or what I say.
I have found that it's best to laugh at these people, regardless of whether it's appropriate or not (it isn't always a bright idea, I will conceed). Getting pissed off at someone (especially some internet bum bandito) only really negatively affects you. Having a good laugh is rather therapeutic and usually serves to piss them off, which is just icing on the cake really.
But I digress.
Objectively, Masta should have stayed perma-banned in the first place purely because I can sit here and rattle off names of well established community members who left because of him - let's not even bother trying to estimate the amount of newbs who gave up after suffering one of his many tirades. As far as I can recall, he never showed any signs of improving, no remorse, no redeeming qualities - actually someone remind me why his permaban was even revoked in the first place aside from brute peer pressure. Were there even conditions attached to his return? I vaguely remember some, but clearly they were never even enforced.
Would I have banned him now? No. The execution was completely tits up. Forgive me Dome for the @#(! talking - I have the utmost respect for what you've done with the community - but those already disenfranchised with the establishment will note, and the rest of the community should note, that what has in fact happened here is that Masta has been banned and pkk/Dome have retroactively re-interpreted the rules (contrary to an already well established precedent, might I add) in order to make what Masta had done a bannable offence. That isnt' justice.
Regardless of what Masta said (and to whom) it has always been clear (as far as I remember) that VOIP servers were strictly outside the purview of the RoC. Regardless of the motivation behind this at the time for establishing such a precedent - it held and if i'm not mistaken it stood right up until now. I'd hazard a guess that another reason that BV chose to keep TS/Mumble off limits from the RoC aside from the fact that they were privately owned and him being lazy (as has been suggested) is because unless someone was recording at the time (and sometimes even if they were) it is simply word of mouth that one relies on for punishing a community member. Is hearsay, even from a respected community member, enough to permaban someone?? It seems to me that it would be rather perverse to change the rules in order to retroactively ban someone, and even worse (as is the case here) to retroactively change the meaning of the rules to justify a ban for something that was not a bannable offence at the time.
Yes, Masta received plenty of warning and then some regarding his poor behaviour. Yes, there is no justification for what he purportedly said to Dome. Yes, he was not the most popular kid in school. Yes, he did not deserve leniency, but he followed the letter of the law. As far as I see it, Masta was permabanned for doing something that an @Alleg would not be allowed to give a 15 minute time out for simply because he pissed off the wrong person.
Anyhoo to conclude - as an ex Evil Overlord I accept that my objections are academic at this point and I'm not sorry to see Masta go, but what a way to send him off. The sensible thing to do would have been to establish a new precedent and warn him - make it clear that if he so much as put's an apostrophe in the wrong place, he will be banned. I understand why Dome banned him, I understand pkk re-interpreting the rules to justify it but I don't condone it.
tl;dr - you can piss right off, Rav.
Masta's ban is long overdue from an objective point of view. Personally, I found that Masta's special brand of crazy was only slightly above par for the course when it comes to the internet (also it was hilarious). By and large we are a very mature community by internet standards, so perhaps that exacerbated his impact by comparison. Hell even in real life I've met people far worse (ok well I use the word 'met' loosely) who will resort to violence (let alone verbal threats) at the drop of a hat just because of who I am and/or what I say.
I have found that it's best to laugh at these people, regardless of whether it's appropriate or not (it isn't always a bright idea, I will conceed). Getting pissed off at someone (especially some internet bum bandito) only really negatively affects you. Having a good laugh is rather therapeutic and usually serves to piss them off, which is just icing on the cake really.
But I digress.
Objectively, Masta should have stayed perma-banned in the first place purely because I can sit here and rattle off names of well established community members who left because of him - let's not even bother trying to estimate the amount of newbs who gave up after suffering one of his many tirades. As far as I can recall, he never showed any signs of improving, no remorse, no redeeming qualities - actually someone remind me why his permaban was even revoked in the first place aside from brute peer pressure. Were there even conditions attached to his return? I vaguely remember some, but clearly they were never even enforced.
Would I have banned him now? No. The execution was completely tits up. Forgive me Dome for the @#(! talking - I have the utmost respect for what you've done with the community - but those already disenfranchised with the establishment will note, and the rest of the community should note, that what has in fact happened here is that Masta has been banned and pkk/Dome have retroactively re-interpreted the rules (contrary to an already well established precedent, might I add) in order to make what Masta had done a bannable offence. That isnt' justice.
Regardless of what Masta said (and to whom) it has always been clear (as far as I remember) that VOIP servers were strictly outside the purview of the RoC. Regardless of the motivation behind this at the time for establishing such a precedent - it held and if i'm not mistaken it stood right up until now. I'd hazard a guess that another reason that BV chose to keep TS/Mumble off limits from the RoC aside from the fact that they were privately owned and him being lazy (as has been suggested) is because unless someone was recording at the time (and sometimes even if they were) it is simply word of mouth that one relies on for punishing a community member. Is hearsay, even from a respected community member, enough to permaban someone?? It seems to me that it would be rather perverse to change the rules in order to retroactively ban someone, and even worse (as is the case here) to retroactively change the meaning of the rules to justify a ban for something that was not a bannable offence at the time.
Yes, Masta received plenty of warning and then some regarding his poor behaviour. Yes, there is no justification for what he purportedly said to Dome. Yes, he was not the most popular kid in school. Yes, he did not deserve leniency, but he followed the letter of the law. As far as I see it, Masta was permabanned for doing something that an @Alleg would not be allowed to give a 15 minute time out for simply because he pissed off the wrong person.
Anyhoo to conclude - as an ex Evil Overlord I accept that my objections are academic at this point and I'm not sorry to see Masta go, but what a way to send him off. The sensible thing to do would have been to establish a new precedent and warn him - make it clear that if he so much as put's an apostrophe in the wrong place, he will be banned. I understand why Dome banned him, I understand pkk re-interpreting the rules to justify it but I don't condone it.
tl;dr - you can piss right off, Rav.