Friday, June 6, 2014

My journey on the Atheism+ boards

So I figured I would take my time and talk about my time on the Atheism+ forum. Mostly because it was a steaming pile of shit heaped on me by people who were supposed to be involved in social justice.

Before I start on that let's examine the setup of the Atheism+ forum shall we?



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You see that last category called "Technical" and under that is "Forum Moderation" - Forum Related matters, such as technical problems, user accounts and comment moderation.

Click on that and we find . . .

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Hmm....wait.... the topic is called "Are the moderators here censorious, capricious and biased?"

The forum is supposed to be devoted to Social Justice right? It's Atheism+ humanism, social justice, etc. . .

From wikipedia "Social justice" is generally used to refer to a set of institutions which will enable people to lead a fulfilling life and be active contributors to their community.[3] The goal of social justice is generally the same as human development. The relevant institutions can include education, health care, social security, labour rights, as well as a broader system of public services, progressive taxation and regulation of markets, to ensure fair distribution of wealth, equality of opportunity, and no gross inequality of outcome.

 No gross inequality of outcome and yet the first thing they do is create a Moderation complaint forum based in sarcasm? What the fuck is up with that? It's not sarcasm you say? Then what the fuck is it? Honesty? If so then they are saying "fuck you our moderators suck and you have to deal with it."

 There is no nice way to take that topic label. Not a single one, unless of course they were right wing conservatives in disguise. Then I might accept that they didn't get the concept of "social justice" and so they fucked it up right there.

 Okay let's remember that as I move into my encounter with these forums. You'll have to excuse some of this because the lovely assholes at our supposedly "Social Justice" site deleted almost every single thing I ever wrote while leaving in the responses.
The thread is here:

Re: world without bankers?

Postby Setar » Tue Nov 27, 2012 7:28 pm
Quontir wrote:
Setar wrote:
Quontir wrote:As much as we decry
men
white people
straight people
cis people
people within the gender binary "bankers" there are many people who
are male/white/straight/cis/binary work in banking or even for Large Central banks who are thinking about how to make
society capitalism work and regulate it so that less people are
oppressed unemployed.

intent, it's fucking magic. also you forgot a few things, hope you don't mind me re-adding them.

The VP I work for at the Federal Reserve is Female and a Lesbian. So, yes I do mind. Do you know why Central banks exist? Can you explain why you act as if the service that they are providing (reducing unemployment and attempting to prevent financial disaster) is a bad thing?

Because, I have to say that in my books it's not a bad thing at all and everyone who didn't go unemployed because of things that the Central banks have done to prop up their economy might just be a tad upset if you were to tell them that the institution that saved their job was opressing them.

Even the most socialist system of government would require banks and banking. Hell half the EU is having issues right now is because they all joined into a common currency system without a strong central bank that could lower interest rates or even buy up government debt (like say Greece's).

Money transfers wouldn't exist without banks. Micro-loans to impoverished people wouldn't exist without banks. Any monetary system wouldn't flourish or work without banks. I really don't think that Socialism and Communism can work without having banks in some form or another and a central bank to regulate or control them.

If you want to suggest that banks ought to be more regulated or even fully government owned that's a different standpoint, but not at all the same as removing them entirely. Heck government ownership of banks would mean that they could be just as prevalent and local as any Post Office and that would improve lives everywhere. Plus, the loan percentages could be tagged to need with lower rates going to those who need that the most and higher rates going to thse who could more easily afford it. silly fool, stop complaining about predatory bankers, because that means you're complaining about the banks themselves too! and we can't have anything without banks! I'm going to condescendingly go on to you about how we need banks, and not talk about the people who run those banks at all, or the practices by which they are run!


qmartindale wrote:I fail to see how "bankers" is analogous to any of the axes of oppression Setar's editing inserts. Presumably there's some sort of claim that "bankers" are benefiting from systemic oppression as bankers, but someone needs to explain how a privilege analysis makes sense in this context.


how about the both of you go check your class privilege and look up crony capitalism, also known as the revolving door linking the top offices of the Fed and Treasury to those of major investment banks.

-waits for Quontir to start going on about but of course there is because all the experts are at investment banks while holding up a sign reading "Paul Krugman for Fed Chair"-

edit: and, seriously, qmartindale, your post made my head go thunk into my keyboard. bankers don't benefit from privilege? give me a fucking break.

edit 2: and this in particular
Quontir wrote:The VP I work for at the Federal Reserve is Female and a Lesbian.

tokenism like whoa. that doesn't change the fact that the faces of the investment banks, and the Fed, happen to be mostly white guys. nor does it alter class privilege.
"...authoritarian followers feel empowered to isolate and segregate, to humiliate, to persecute, to beat, and to kill in the middle of the night, because in their heads they can almost hear the loudspeakers announcing, “Now batting for God’s team, his designated hitter, (their name).”" -Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarians
pronouns: she


I meet this fucking asshole named Setar and what do they do? Why they strawman my arguments by crossing out what I wrote and pretending it's something else. Why? Who the fuck knows but they sure hate the banking system and capitalism despite the fact that they don't know any single fucking thing about it. Much like creationists hate evolution I think.

 So the argument continues and I get rather pissed off.

Re: world without bankers?

Postby ceepolk » Tue Nov 27, 2012 9:08 pm
If all you want to do is whine about how evil all bankers are I have a solution. Try any of the lovely African nations


Mod Hat: Do NOT Use Straw Africa as a justification for any damn thing. I will not tolerate anti-black, anti-african racism in the Atheism Plus subforum, which is a no 101 zone.

I'd like you to read the rules before posting anything more. so they sink in. 

Take a day.
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 Note the issue was resolved.
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Re: Are the moderators here censorious, capricious and biase

Postby Cipher » Tue Nov 27, 2012 9:31 pm
qmartindale wrote:I've got a real problem with what I think just happened in the bankers thread.

It looks like Setar edited Quontir's quote and then ceepolk banned Quontir for a day for Setar's insertion.

FTR, to make clarity appear in both threads, it seems that Quontir edited Quontir's post and the cee banned Quontir for a day for the pre-edited version of the post.
Oh, I may be on the side of the angels - but don't think for one second that I am one of them.
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 I later admitted that using Africa like that was a shit move even more I deleted the statement about ten seconds after writing it, but not quickly enough that Ceepolk here hadn't already banned me. This incident will come back to haunt me . . .  

 In any case the moderation thread goes like this:
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Re: Are the moderators here censorious, capricious and biase

Postby ceepolk » Fri Nov 30, 2012 4:05 pm
and when the person insisting that people really truly were saying that all bankers are like this, when in fact not a single one of them said any such thing, and in fact explicitly stated that they were speaking of only one set of bankers, that person really starts to look foolish.
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Yet Ceepolk missed this gem from Setar::


qmartindale wrote:I fail to see how "bankers" is analogous to any of the axes of oppression Setar's editing inserts. Presumably there's some sort of claim that "bankers" are benefiting from systemic oppression as bankers, but someone needs to explain how a privilege analysis makes sense in this context.


how about the both of you go check your class privilege and look up crony capitalism, also known as the revolving door linking the top offices of the Fed and Treasury to those of major investment banks.

 Gee no one was saying "all bankers" were like that ... maybe Ceepolk thought that Setar was "no-one" considering what an asshat Setar was I'd agree. Fuck that nobody.

In any case that was November of 2012. Fastforward to August of 2012 and what do we have?

Re: Are the moderators here censorious, capricious and biase

Postby ceepolk » Tue Jan 22, 2013 10:11 pm
so I was incredibly confused by quontir's posts, because I certainly didn't remember banning xir recently, and went looking, and when I couldn't find it, got really confused, but I did find it. I wasn't looking back far enough.

it had been on November the 27th. it was for one day. and on the 28th of november, Quontir, you went right back to doing what you had been doing that got you the once day break in the first place.

What was that? you'd write a message, and then you went back in and completely edited it to something different, changing the record to reflect something else. two days in a row, I caught you doiong this, and I called you on it both times.

Maybe that's something you didn't want brought up but since I didn't remember banning you, I had to go look to see what you were talking about.

but it wasn't until the second time that anyone besides me chimed in to say anything about it. and only one person did. 

And you were using the "but they're not all like that!" argument, which is in the arguments to avoid thread. So i'm not surprised that more than one person objected to your argument on that day, and if you're continuing to use arguments from the arguments to avoid thread, I'm still not surprised.

at what point does anxiety mean you get to ignore the rules and guidelines, if I may ask? or edit your posts without indicating what you're editing or changing, so people angry with you for what you said appear to be fabricating reasons to be angry with you?
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One GIANT FUCKING LIE and an insult. This is giant asshattery writ large. It is lying about someone COMPLETELY and then making up your own story to insult them. This "moderation" is fucked up and I was very very upset about that. 

 In addition to that there was Flewellyn's treatment of Wind as related by kbonn here:

Re: Are the moderators here censorious, capricious and biase

Postby kbonn » Wed Jan 23, 2013 7:06 pm
Flewellyn wrote:Kbonn,if I have lost your respect and your trust, because, when confronted with the choice between answering a question honestly and safeguarding confidential information that could lead to potentially life-threatening consequences if it were disclosed, I chose protecting members' safety over being nice...

Well. All I can conclude is that your respect and your trust are not worth very much.


I understand why you didn't divulge the existence of the forum. My problem was how you treated wind. You didn't just deny, you attempted to manipulate to find information you wanted. I completely understand that the situation you, and all the mods, and all the members of that forum were in a tricky spot. I think most all of us understand that. I thought your apology was well thought out, my issue with it was that it wasn't the only reason you made the post. 

You lied about the existence of the forum until there could be some discussion about it. Understandable.
You badgered wind about how she knew about it repeatedly, when wind coming into this information is not her fault, and she did nothing wrong. Your primary concern there was to find out who had "leaked" the info. What would you have done if Wind had publicly posted evidence of a secret forum, like a screenshot or something? You'd have the proof you wanted, but wouldn't have kept the forum safe. Did you even think about that? No. You were focused on finding the "rat" as it were. 
You didn't just lie to protect the secret forum, you lied to try to extract info from Wind. Then when you made an apology, you tacked on some guilt tripping to get wind to spill it.
That is what I have a problem with.

Also, please stop with the false dichotomy, admitting their is a secret forum isn't the same as divulging the information on it. Trying to find out who spilled the beans is not a pass to treat wind the way you did. On the latter point, that applies to Ceepolk as well, not that she gives a shit about what I have to say. If I, or someone with roughly my post count/posting frequency treated one of the "favorite few" the way you and Ceepolk treated Wind. We would be banned, possibly permanently, and rightly so.

In the future, please don't presume why you have lost my trust, actually read my posts, and if unclear, ask, I have no problem clarifying something I say if there is confusion. 

Presuming that your actions and methods are always justified because you are "in the right" is one of your biggest problems, and is rather big problem on this forum in general. None of us are always in the right, so motivations justifying (shitty) actions is always a bad idea, doubly so when we are in a position of authority.
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 Note that in the course of said discussion Flewellyn called Wind a liar many, many, many times without any recourse. Why? Because Flewellyn was a mod, of course, and we all know that the mods arent "censorious, capricious, and biased" noo not at all. . . (Feel that dripping sarcasm)

 I then accused Flewellyn of being exactly what they are a fucking LIAR.. So of course I was banned for a week by Flewellyn....of course:

e: Are the moderators here censorious, capricious and biase

Postby Navigator » Thu Jan 24, 2013 5:48 am
Setar wrote:Why did you only respond to the first half of my post, and not the second half where Quontir's use of Ray Comfort's "logic" was in full view? Seems to me that you're cherry-picking the parts that work best for you.

I didn't see the relevance. Your view of Quontir's logic isn't pertinent to Flew's censorship of Quontir, which is what I was pointing out. If Quontir's wrong, it should have been handled by another mod team member. Is it not clear that Flew suspending someone accusing her of lying appears censorious, capricious and biased?

But my question remains: Did Flew act unilaterally, or was it a team decision? If it were a team decision, it would have been prudent for someone else to enact the suspension, no?
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Re: Are the moderators here censorious, capricious and biase

Postby ceepolk » Thu Jan 24, 2013 5:56 am
Information you're not privy to is none of your business.
Ceepolk was highly useful there....NOT! I Did complain about this moderation style and the lack of social justice in it. Those posts were sadly deleted I beleive they went something like this:
- The very thread title in and of itself reads as sarcasm. 
- There are no followed rules in place on ban terms
- A moderator can decide on whim to ban someone for a week or for a day 
- The posted rules and guidelines for how long a person should be banned and for what offenses etc at at individual MODS discrection 
- People have been banned for nearly the same infraction for different lengths of time 
- Some people have been warned for breaking rules while others are banned for the same and even others aren't even warned 
- Moderators in this thread have bullied members and there has been no correction to them 
- Moderators in this thread have admitted to lying and there has been no correction to them 
With evidence and links . . . Can we guess how that turned out?

Re: Are the moderators here censorious, capricious and biase

Postby Flewellyn » Tue Feb 26, 2013 9:17 pm
Alright, I took the liberty of going back in the moderator logs to see what specific complaints Quontir had submitted to us. Apparently, Quontir feels that a ban Ceepolk gave on November 27th was unjustified.

According to the logs, Ceepolk caught Quontir editing xir posts retroactively to change what they said, after others had reacted badly to the first version. In effect, changing the record, which had the effect of making the people who posted in reaction to the first version look unreasonable. (This, by the way, is why we have a time limit on editing your own posts now.) This is extremely dishonest, and Ceepolk chose to issue a temporary ban in order to discourage this behavior.

Quontir has since claimed, in this thread, that this stated reason for the ban was a lie on Ceepolk's part, and that Ceepolk was bullying Quontir and abusing moderator authority. Whether or not the ban Ceepolk issued was justified or not, depends on whether or not Quontir engaged in this dishonest retroactive editing of xir posts or not.

So, I checked on the validity of this assertion, once again. We have records from before the posts were edited by Quontir, which show that this dishonest editing DID take place. We also have indicators in the log which show when a post was edited, and by whom. As such, we can confirm that Quontir DID edit xir posts in the stated manner, and did try to claim that xe did not say something that xe clearly did. 

Ceepolk was therefor entirely justified in issuing a temporary ban for doing so; such behavior is clearly against the principles of this forum. You own what you say here, folks. You have a grace period to reword things if you screwed up your post, but you don't get to change the record afterwards, and claim that you didn't say something that you said. You can walk it back, apologize for it, explain it further, whatever. We all screw up. But we own it when we do. Changing the record of the past in order to avoid having to apologize for shitty behavior is dishonesty on a level akin to creationists. It has no place here.

It is my belief that Quontir is upset that we, the moderator team, did not do anything to punish Ceepolk for this imagined abused of authority on her part. But, the records show that Ceepolk was justified in her actions.

So, is that it, Quontir? Is that your complaint? That we didn't believe you over our own lying eyes?
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Flewwelyn JOINED into Ceepolks LIE! Wohoo "social justice" warriors unite and LIE. Asshole powers activate.
AT that point I dropped out frustrated and annoyed until I read post on Almost Diamonds and it brought the whole incident back to me.
I came back at a later date and re-made my arguments hoping that maybe, just maybe this "Social Justice" place might actually be one.

Re: Are the moderators here censorious, capricious and biase

Postby Quontir1 » Sun Sep 29, 2013 3:46 pm
SubMor edit: I'm hiding this because I'm censorious, capricious, and biased. Also because it's bullshit. While I can see why Quontir would think that a misclick deleting xir posts might have been purposeful, that's really not what's happening here. PS: Go away. [ Hide ]
GreatAmericanSatan wrote:So did Quontir delete their own posts? It sort of takes the fun out of all of your responses. :(


The moderators deleted them because they are in fact censorious, capricious, and biased.

Proof of the fact was a bit too much for them.
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Re: Are the moderators here censorious, capricious and biase

Postby Lovely » Sun Sep 29, 2013 4:13 pm
Moderator notice

Hey folks I've got good news & bad news!

The good news!

Quontir won't be coming back as last night I banned them for being a pot-stirring pointless troll.

The bad news... In my sleepy haze I fucked up and hit the OCB button that's used for spammers instead of going through the usual permanent ban process. 

So the bad news is all their pointless boring troll posts are now deleted, and they'll probably think it was a big bad conspiracy.

But seriously we're looking to see if we can restore the posts, regardless Quontir is still banned forever.

In conclusion: My bad! As Ive said elsewhere I'll say 10 hail mary's and light a candle for my grievous sin.
I look fresh to death.
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I'm sure someone beleves SubMor and Lovely, but it isn't me. They are lying their asses off. 
So there it is. My journey on the Atheism+ boards an my experience with the lying moderation team there. 
Social Justice? Go somewhere else these people are scum.
Lying assholes go to http://atheismplus.com/forums/index.php
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