Barack Obama!

Mohammed!

*banned*

That's always been the case, and is the case on most forums I've ever been to. And if you think a mod is being unfair or abusing their power, there is a link to report them, so .

The problem here is that almost the entire forum from what I've seen is objecting to this, and the administration is just insisting that it's their forum, and that we'll follow their rules. Woo teenager/parent fight on the internet.

But it is their forum.

I see it less as the mods/admin fighting it as waiting for a definite "yes, we'll allow this" or a "no, this is unacceptable". Until Estarra makes a post saying what form (if any) of a woes thread will be acceptable, we're stuck waiting, so the masses have taken to complaining about how they have no place to complain... ironic!

Mind you, that's just what I'm seeing, I'd guess that Estarra and her team of moderators are having super-secret discussions on these things... Until they resolve, however, we're left with ranters ranting about how there's not a rants thread.

Estarra! The Forums call out in agony, waiting for your voice/post to guide the mortals out of despair and on to a new forum-land!

-urge Estarra-

-cue Estarra-

-enter Estarra-

It was 3 AM, I was bored and troll-starved, they are decent books.

(Ranna is a pretty damn wimpy bell though. Dog ftw.)

Noola's thread is just fine. So far.

I think Romertien is talkin about one for IG stuffs, not RL stuffs.

Heh, this is classic IRE/Estarra. Acting like an autocratic, profit-driven conglomerate which suppresses all thought when it's really just a bunch of dudes who make crazy MUDs. Nothing we say is going to make a smidge of difference, folks.

Yeesh. Calm down. Yes, it's a profit-driven company. That's the way the world works. I personally don't care if the entirety of the forums is thrown into the trash bin, and likely it should except for the purely game related topics. However, there is absolutely nothing stopping a player driven forum from being made if this is so much of an issue, though the last one I saw was pretty obnoxious.

I find it a little insulting to say it's "classic" that I suppress all thought. I think I am extremely liberal in that regard. And, yes, we are part of a company that is profit-driven, but so what? I guarantee you that if we were merely a "bunch of dudes" that created MUDs for kicks that there would be an inclination to be much more autocratic because no one wants to be around haters who do nothing but dish your creation or those who enjoy your creation.

I'd like to say again that I disagree with these actions.

Also what I think is funny is half of the people who are posting about this have the "freedom of speech, I should be able to say what I want, when I want!" mentality. Roflcopterbbq.

Life goes on without the forums, trust me.

I actually have no issue if anyone cares to contact IRE directly to try to overturn their directives--I am the wrong person to request these changes be reversed in that regard. Anyway, I agree there is no "freedom of speech" when it comes to private forums like these!

Viva la Resista..

Oh.


Yeah.

I'm still a little confused as to why only our rants forum was closed but the other IRE forums' are open...

The actual politics board on achaea is still open and being posted in.

Correct.



Agreed, to a point. I see it more as the "I need an answer to my difficult, grey-area question NOW!" mentality.

Wait. Does this mean we can't have a Woes thread similar to the raves thread? Or has that decision not been made yet (Officially)?

I am not in charge of other forums so I cannot tell you. Anyway, it doesn't matter what other forums do. These directives were given to us and we are complying with them. I am trying to be open and up front about it, implementing the policies as cleanly and quickly as possible.

But this seems to be a chain reaction of over reactions. The original post said that the directive from IRE was to come down harder on 'forum greifers', and to completely remove any religion/politic threads. I understand this completely - it would be nice to be able to discuss religion and politics with the people I know here, but there certainly are other venues for that than a game forum. And coming down hard on forum greifers seems to justify itself.

But, stemming from this, we've seen the dissolution of a forum which was used for in-game complaints. Sometimes they were menial, sometimes they weren't. Either way, they were a valid form of output and not entirely 'indiscriminate posting'. And then, stemming from this we've had mods lock or threaten to lock any thread that looks like it might start to contain a rant(s).

Somehow I get the feeling that wasn't the intention of the IRE directives.

Or maybe it was, I dunno.

As has been stated, "rants" are now not to be considered a legitimate type of forum expression. Rather, we want to encourage those with grievances or complaints to try and be nominally constructive. If a thread aims to list constructive criticisms, then that is fine. If a thread aims to be a storehouse for "rants" (i.e., a place to "vent" nothing but negative comments), then it will probably be removed.