Octopus Overlords

Carpet_pissr wrote:

GreenGoo wrote:a) We are too like minded here, and voices of dissent are necessary so we don't all congratulate ourselves on our "right thinking". Conversations are boring when everyone agrees and posts +1. This has influenced my own posting habits significantly, for the record.

So you're saying you introduce artificial conflict into threads. Man, we need to start a list in the wiki or something.

List of allegedly self-admitted OO Trolls:
1. Rip
2. GG
3. U2K (not really sure if he admitted it or not, or was an alt)
4. ??
5. ??

Surely there are others?

Not exactly. Two statements that might need clarification.

"we" as in the forum members are too similar in their political outlook. That was probably already clear but just in case.

The idea that things are boring when everyone agrees has made me more vocal in expressing my own opinions no matter how unpopular they are. I used to be extremely accommodating (you should see me in real life, I'm the peace maker. No shit, this is on my yearly review. Able to see the big picture and help others reach a consensus) as far as expressing my ideas in a way that was least likely to result in conflict, even softening my own stance (outwardly anyway) to minimize conflict. Now I'm just like "fuck it, if they don't like it they can go fuck themselves". That causes conflict at times, but it's usually good for the forum.

I'm not saying I'm above playing devil's advocate or just being a prick because I'm in a bad mood or because I'm in a mischievous mood, but I don't troll, typically.

If I feel that people are taking themselves or the topic too seriously I will, rarely, poke at them. It happens to me often, and while it can get my goat at times, I think it's good for me to learn self control and keep perspective, so I feel like I'm doing others a service too. If they don't want to learn self control or keep perspective, well I can't control how other people behave/react.

GreenGoo wrote: Me personally, I think nothing needs to be done. He goes through phases of loudmouth obnoxitude and then quiet participation. Shrug. It's all good.

I would go along with this. I've never had a personal conflict with Rip even though he is consistently and loudly wrong. When you can't support your opinions with facts, you can only shout them louder. Or change them, but somehow I don't want Rip to ever change...even though I did almost get him to admit that his municipal ISP is socialist and that socialism is sometimes beneficial.

That was satisfying.

Anyone that plans on discussing religion and politics, and NOT expecting asinine behaviour is a fool. It brings out the absolute worst in people and the one or two times I peeked in there, I wasn't disappointed in my assertion. In my opinion you're all batshit crazy for even trying to debate anything under that umbrella.

Now I'm not sure where the confusion comes from on a few points, but I will clarify some things (note: This is from a strictly FP perspective, not from an "admin" perspective).

1. RIP hasn't hosted anything since the days of the posts being really slow (randomly) on edits/submissions.. I think that's been 8 years or so -- maybe a little less than that?
2. RIP *was* hosting us out of his personal business for free. That shit earns him a red title, he pulled it out of the ashes and got it up and running.
3. RIP Sucks at MySQL tuning, or at least he did. So did I, I learned WAY more than I anticipated in those days -- but it's been good to know through my career so hey, unanticipated payoff.
4. Amazon.com links I think wash out the costs per year, a little more so now that the CDN dollar is dropping and our server is in Montreal. The USD conversion is at a premium, so I'd say we're doing just fine provided the spend rates remain the same and there's the annual Christmas/Black Friday push. That pays for a lot of the year.
5. I'm the only technical admin with root. This should probably change in the event that I get run over by a bus, but the server is seriously stable now and self updates. I'm pretty happy with that, perhaps I should have the virtualmin backups dump to an FTP at RIPs basement for posterity in case that bus happens sooner rather than later.

Anyways it's a total tangent, and I'm not soiling myself by getting into the R&P side of things -- just wanted to clarify those points around OO hosting and where I probably should do more from a coverage standpoint.

-- This tangent not brought to you by Adderall --

Rip wrote:
Of course more than one person has commented on it, this a a board with 90%+ liberals who get stirred up anytime someone doesn't conform to the liberal circle jerk they prefer.

Despite this not being worded in any manner the way I would word it, I do think this point plays a role in the complaints about Rip recently on this site. If his views were inline with most of those on this board and he posted the same way there wouldn't be a thread about it. I could give examples of a couple of liberal posters that absolutely do the exact same thing and of a poster who even has gone ridiculously too far, but that's really not all that terribly useful. When they do that it's best to take a break from that poster for a while rather than start a thread like this.

I agree that sometimes (or more often) we're all assholes trolling in R&P. Rip can even take the heat when he's stirred up a lot of retaliation, and I respect that a lot.

As someone who has frequent disagreements with Rip and tangles with him regularly in R&P, I don't
want to dispute his right to disagree strongly. Or take my sometimes similarly bombastic rhetoric as a judgment on him personally. We've played a few games online together, and I would expect to enjoy a nice stiff drink with Rip if he's ever in Chicago.

I also enjoy finding those areas where I'm more conservative than Rip -- which seems to be happening more frequently lately. I don't know if he's mellowing or it's just me. Don't answer that, Chrisoc13. Or at least not until you're back at Octocon to shoot me down again in X-Wing.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me the problem is Rip and not his views. Fireball aggaravates me when we agree because his posting style is so counterproductive to our shared argument. When I had a more conservative outlook, msduncan used to routinely agree with me in a similar way. And I'm sure there is a huge list of examples from my posting history where I've done the same thing.

The difference between all of them (including me) is that when we (I) disagree with you it's because we genuinely disagree with you and think that you are wrong. There is no genuineness to Rip's disagreement. Sometimes it's genuine. Sometimes it's because it's Tuesday and he feels like winding people up. I can trust that msduncan's disagreement is genuine. I can trust the Fireball's strident agreement is genuine. I cannot trust Rip.

Anonymous Bosch wrote:From my limited perspective, I've never seen Rip use his administrative powers for anything nefarious. So I see no reason to call his administrative powers and position into question simply because of posting-style peccadillos.

I have seen someone with board admin powers abuse them horribly in the past elsewhere, changing the signatures of people they didn't like to insult the account holder and stuff. Person was removed from their position, but it was seriously damaging.

Edit: I'm not implying that I'd expect something like that to happen here, unless someone went seriously off the rails. Only saying, when someone in charge of a forum wants to abuse their powers, they can do a lot worse than making inflammatory posts.

I've never witnessed anyone in a position of responsibility here on OO abuse that position. Like, never.

GreenGoo wrote:I've never witnessed anyone in a position of responsibility here on OO abuse that position. Like, never.

Those in power are so judicious with it here that honestly I even forget who the moderators are.

Nope, never. And I've seen it on a lot of other boards, just in cases of things like unwarranted moderation or using a temp ban as an "I win" button in a disagreement.

Some people really can't be trusted with any kind of power. But I've never seen that as a problem on OO.

Oh, where were all of you in the days of Hooterloo and the Battle of Fucktard Ridge? That kind of staff support would have been nice!

Nah, even if a staff member went of the deep end, they could only get away with something like that once here, after which it would be called out and fixed in short order.

Blackhawk wrote:Oh, where were all of you in the days of Hooterloo and the Battle of Fucktard Ridge? That kind of staff support would have been nice!

Nah, even if a staff member went of the deep end, they could only get away with something like that once here, after which it would be called out and fixed in short order.

Playing Wow, I think. I'm not actually sure, but I wasn't here for that.

what was hooterloo? I don't recall that one

I tried to look it up. It seems to have involved posting images of owls in U2K's threads to derail them before they had a chance to get started. Perhaps someone who was there to witness could provide more insight if that doesn't basically cover it.

silverjon wrote:I tried to look it up. It seems to have involved posting images of owls in U2K's threads to derail them before they had a chance to get started. Perhaps someone who was there to witness could provide more insight if that doesn't basically cover it.

It was a few people posting an 'O RLY' image in response to an unpopular poster's posts. It was one thing when it was in response to an absurd thread started by that poster, but then they started following that poster around. It got to the point that if that poster went into any thread, regardless of author or content, and made a single reply, that thread was instantly destroyed by pages of owl pictures. Staff asked for it to be stopped, staff received owls in response, owl bombers received bans in response, owl supporters cried foul and protested, cattle conspired, and we ended up losing a number of regular posters in the process. I also lost a number of friends in the process, which stung a bit.

That pretty much does.

It was theoretically coined in the secret mod forum (I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a beast) First used in public in this thread.

http://octopusoverlords.com/forum/viewt ... oo#p522880

Rip wrote:That pretty much does.

It was theoretically coined in the secret mod forum (I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a beast) First used in public in this thread.

mystery link removed

Denies existence of secret forum.

Posts link to secret forum.

Blackhawk wrote:

Rip wrote:That pretty much does.

It was theoretically coined in the secret mod forum (I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a beast) First used in public in this thread.

mystery link removed

Denies existence of secret forum.

Posts link to secret forum.

Rip wrote:

Blackhawk wrote:

Rip wrote:That pretty much does.

It was theoretically coined in the secret mod forum (I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a beast) First used in public in this thread.

mystery link removed

Denies existence of secret forum.

Posts link to secret forum.

Rip I wuv's you. Despite being on the other side of the fence from me (politically speaking) you post some of my opinions far more eloquently and coherently then I ever could. Don't let the haters get to you!

Blackhawk wrote:

silverjon wrote:I tried to look it up. It seems to have involved posting images of owls in U2K's threads to derail them before they had a chance to get started. Perhaps someone who was there to witness could provide more insight if that doesn't basically cover it.

It was a few people posting an 'O RLY' image in response to an unpopular poster's posts. It was one thing when it was in response to an absurd thread started by that poster, but then they started following that poster around. It got to the point that if that poster went into any thread, regardless of author or content, and made a single reply, that thread was instantly destroyed by pages of owl pictures. Staff asked for it to be stopped, staff received owls in response, owl bombers received bans in response, owl supporters cried foul and protested, cattle conspired, and we ended up losing a number of regular posters in the process. I also lost a number of friends in the process, which stung a bit.

Ah good ol CSL Did you now that's all grown up and is serving in the Canadian Army?

Say what you will about the behavior, 'Hooterloo' is a kick-ass name.

Who was looking for a band name recently? You're welcome.

I don't want to wade into the debate or discussion or whatever this is, but I noticed the other day that I don't see a link to the Code of Conduct anywhere on the site. Maybe my eyes are just passing right over it somewhere.

What are you talking about? Not knowing where the CoC is located is against the CoC. Are you seriously admitting to that right now??

paulbaxter wrote:I don't want to wade into the debate or discussion or whatever this is, but I noticed the other day that I don't see a link to the Code of Conduct anywhere on the site. Maybe my eyes are just passing right over it somewhere.

ImLawBoy addressed that in the first page of this thread:

ImLawBoy wrote:(Technical matter, but we don't have a CoC anymore. We lost it at some point and never bothered replacing it. We do still try to run the place by the old principles, though.)

First - can we get the darned thread title changed?

This has absolutely nothing to do with Bullying by a longshot. Just Trolling.

And yeah, I think Rip went a bit overboard with his Hilary-spam in R&P. Not offended or pissed off about it whatsoever, but I definitely found it annoying - mostly because it was pure off-topic trolling, taking away from whatever possibly interesting conversation may have been taking place.

I even clicked the report button on one - mostly to just indicate to Rip that he should chill out a little, and I think he has.