Ler's Campaign Thread

Indeed. It is amazing how a character with so few lines can have so much... well... character.

You are perhaps the most paranoid person I have ever met. You even accused Matt multiple times of lying to everyone, cheating on his wife, etc. You are ridiculously fucking paranoid. I can hardly believe you would say something like that.

I'm confused. Which side are you taking?

Interesting response.

Never heard the term sedition before. Looking it up didn't help me figure out what your stance on all this. Doesn't help that I've never ran into that character, only heard of it.

Well, aren't you an astute one?

@JosefVStalin
So, you called and I answered. Well, actually, I feel like leaving Link alone to deal with this, competent though his responses are, isn't fair. You see, unlike Ler, I don't like to use people, and certainly not people I consider friends. I'm going to use this post to address some of the questions that people have asked, and a few that you have yourself raised here.

First, why did I leave the site in the manner that I did?

The simple answer is that I didn't want to cause drama. The more accurate response is that I thought that I could end the factionalism that had taken root in the site by leaving it of my own accord, without any kind of rallying call or teary goodbye for people to get in a kafuffle over.

Second, why am I back now?

Entirely because you have broken your word. As the screenshot of that Skype convo illustrates, I had absolutely nothing to gain, and everything to lose, from agreeing to a referendum on my modship. In order to balance the scales of risk and reward, I agreed to your terms on the condition that Ler be prohibited from running for Tribune, and that he be prohibited from accessing information unavailable to the common member. Now this latter clause has since been rendered useless by Ler's relationship with Chelsea, and with yourself, but at the least I could expect Ler not to influence policy on a direct level. And frankly, that was good enough for me.

When I was planning to leave the site, I had figured that by removing myself from the equation, I could put a serious dent in the shitty partisanship. But the key and pivotal thing I was relying on was that you'd maintain our arrangement even in my absence, and thus prevent Ler from destroying anything good left in the community. I expected you to be a man of your word, but clearly I was mistaken. What's even more annoying is that now that you've stated your position publicly, no amount of logic will dissuade you from maintaining it. No doubt you will simply get mad when reading this post, probably ban me for it, and forget that you'd ever agreed to anything.

Probably the one that everyone's the most interested in: why did I leave the site?

The answer is primarily twofold. On the one hand, I legitimately didn't want to remain active in the way I was, and legitimately did not like maintaining my role in the site. As a mod, I detested the structure of the rules and manner in which we dealt with users. As a member, I was sick of the overall decline in activity and the constant burden of assuming a position opposite that of the hordes of filthy ten-year old communists that flood the site constantly. To remain in the community was to, necessarily, fight back the tides of stifling comfort-driven policy in the Mod's Corner and to berate the unwashed red masses for being red. There is so much more detail I could go into regarding this particular set of issues, as it covers the vast majority of activity in both the Mod's Corner and the forums at large, but it's ultimately my personal distaste and my personal convictions that make it grounds for leaving.

What isn't relative, or personal, however, was the factionalism and exceptionalism that both you personally, and the moderating staff underneath you displayed. In particular I'm talking about the treatment of Ler. If we consider the material facts of what Ler has actually done on the forums and site, and what he's been involved in, he would have been banned loooong ago. However, Ler has consistently given excuses of physical, mental, or emotional instability, and has been given leeway for that. Not just leeway, in fact, but sympathy and respect. The response that people will have to the post he made in the Mod's Corner, the one that is in this topic on the top of the 2nd page, will not be that Ler is incompetent and in no way shape or form should be considered as a candidate for tribune, but that Ler has a tough life and that Link is a douche for posting something like that as an attack. Now, as an actual and singular event, I find that unbelievably irritating, but the mindset that enables that kind of thought is infinitely more so.

And the reason that that mindset exists is because you've given the go-ahead for it to exist. You've personally endorsed the factionalism and exceptionalism that exists on the forums, and have given it legitimacy. You've taken sides at multiple junctures, and considered the opinions of both sides to be equally valid or at least comparable, even when that's clearly not been the case. You have elevated Ler above the status of a normal user, and have allowed your personal relationship with him to influence your judgement and actions as a site administrator on numerous occasions.

The most obvious and recent example, besides this one, is the witch-hunt conducted against Matt. Now personally I find (and have always found) Matt's background and credibility to be overly suspicious, but, just as with other users, I find it to be completely and totally irrelevant. His conduct was, as many users agreed in his dismissal thread, far above average, and his contributions to the community go almost without comparison. However, undoubtedly because of your relationship with Ler, you instigated a public witch-hunt against him, with the sole (and admitted) intent of confronting him about his personal life. You claimed that you needed to know these details because you needed to be able to trust your moderators; if that's really true, then why didn't you ever question the authenticity of my background, or of pedro's?

Even if you found Matt to be suspicious, would him using an alter ego to interact with the community actually have any bearing whatsoever on his ability to perform his role as moderator, or to participate as regular member? Well, obviously not, as as I had previously mentioned, most members considered him to be above average, both in moderating ability and community interaction.

But, even if that were the case, was there any need at all to confront Matt about the issue in a public venue, and with such sensationalist rhetoric? Of course, all of these questions were asked by the people who saw the thread, and while your BS excuses may have convinced a few people to not bother with a further line of questioning, it was more than clear that the entire purpose of that endeavor was to get rid of Matt, or at the least to damage his character. It is equally clear that Ler, or perhaps more accurately, your relationship with Ler, was the primary agent responsible for convincing you to instigate this witch-hunt.

The incident with Matt illustrates how completely and utterly Ler has integrated himself into both the policy of the site and the minds of its administrators and staff. If you're asking yourself why that's bad, you need look no further than at the conduct and purpose of this incident.

What would I suggest you now do?

Very simple, I'd suggest you outright ban Ler from the site. He's personally responsible for every major crisis that's existed since Che was banned. He's personally responsible for the acceptance of censorship and groupthink among both the staff and a significant portion of the userbase. He's personally responsible for filing anywhere between 70% and 90% of user reports, and because of the aforementioned acceptance of groupthink and censorship, he's also indirectly responsible for almost every single warning that's been handed out in the last 3 months. To date, he's the only tribune to have leaked infraction related information, and the resulting leak was responsible for a major shitstorm of spam, as well as a death threat against myself. He's personally responsible for vicious personal attacks and hate speech, and despite his claims that the opposition has done worse, is the only person on the forums since Che to wish the death on a group of people for what they believe in or where they live.

However, in spite of all this garbage that Ler's responsible for, we do maintain a set of rules on the forums, and he hasn't actually broken a rule since his hate speech violations. Banning him would be entirely extralegal, and as someone who believes in the rule of law, I cannot ask that he get banned. Instead, all I'd ask of you, Stalin, is to uphold our agreement and stay true to your word. I won't be coming back to the forums and I won't apologize for anything I've done. My reasons, or at the least the reasons that I'd let other people know about, are stated here. My suggestion for what to do next is clear, concise, and incredibly simple to execute. Additionally, it would not constitute a change in the status quo to support it, and I think most people would regard you more highly for upholding your word than going back on it, even if you think you have cause.

So there you have it, folks.

Hookerbag coming in and stealing my show.

I do not leak info if that is what you're suggesting here.

@You Rang?
At last, the Glorious Leader hath return!

I am sick so I will not say much and it's the reason I only responded to one thing in my previous post. Ler is not "entirely responsible for censorship" as you claim. Uni as well as myself and others believe and have believed since the beginning (at least in my case, I have always believed it) that the rules on insults should be stricter. It was not due to Ler, I have had a strong stance on eliminating personal insults from this forum since the beginning, to make this forum a better place for all users. That is what we believe, we want to limit personal insults and keep the moderating staff from insulting large groups on this forum to make this a better place. I've already addressed in the past Ler's leak of info and why I do not think he would do it again but ya know I'm fairly certain that you have leaked info from the mods corner in the past too. Ler is not as awful as you guys claim him to be and no he would not have been perma banned by now.

<Post Censored Do To Seditious Lies>

Two plus two does indeed equal five. - Forum Ministry Of Truth.

Post completely irrelevant to what we are infact supporting. I only support punishing insults, nothing more.

And thus, Pedro remains the only subject to pass. Baring Link, on account of him being a gigantic asshole who won't stop knowing everything.

Locking on request of OP.

Edit: When I started writing this the topic wasn't locked, but I started writing this 4 hours ago then went to lunch, showered etc. needless to say I'm not going to delete all that hard work, if Kali or anyone else want to respond they may do so in a new thread (since I don't think it's fair that I should get the last word by virtue of being an admin)

So I started responding to Kali's post, then got bored & of the mess of quotes and now I am responding again with less quotes. However, I will respond paragraph by paragraph, big titles excluded.

1) (Starting with "WHY DID I LEAVE THE SITE")

How noble of you to martyr yourself Kali & how modest of you to believe that you were such a major cause of factionalism on the forum that just your leaving would result in its dissipation. Seriously did you honestly believe that your leaving would do anything? Well besides people wonder why you left. Still now at least you can see Kali wasn't "forced out" but instead tried to throw himself on his sword, tried being the key word here because his Sword was far too blunt to pierce his skin.

2)

I care little (in fact I don't care at all) for underhanded dealings made with Stalin or anyone else. This part of the post is obviously for Stalin only and I will leave it as that.

3)

My fucking hero. I'm just going to say 'how modest of you' sarcastically again and be done with it.

4)

Well them perhaps you should have made some reasonable arguments rather than calling me a tyrant all the time and throwing strawmen at me like I was a particularly brave crow. This website is called josefvstalin.com, I seem to remember him being famous for something or other. Seriously this isn't 1960's America Kali but you sound just like one of those paranoid morons from the time. I am not a communist, I don't believe communism works, or will work. That being said I don't feel the need to insult & attack everyone who disagrees with me because I am actually confident in beliefs enough to argue for them without doing so.

5)

Ler really hasn't done all that much, sure the spamming was a bit of a dick move but he was punished for it. I think in you paranoia addled state you have lost touch with reality since I succinctly remember myself and the other staff members arguing that Lers excuses for his actions were not a sufficient appeal, which must have been the case because we warned him for it. As for your comment about Ler having a hard life, I don't think I've ever said that, I don't think I remember any staff member saying that, so no I don't think Ler has a particularly hard life & yes, I also think Links posting of that screenshot was a douchebag move.

6)

What the fuck are you talking about? The opinions of what sides to be valid & in what debate? This is a forum with debating, both sides have the ability to argue and both sides have to stick to the rules we set out. Factions have formed based on beliefs because it seems a lot of people on this forum (yourself included) make it so by actually caring that people don't agree with them. Secondly it's not this site (as an entity) job to affirm or deny the truth or validity of peoples opinions in the coffee houses. That's the members jobs. Of course the two sides opinions are comparable, they both try to answer the same questions. Of course they're not equally correct but it's not for the staff (acting in an official role) to say that this is or isn't the case.

7)

I don't necessarily agree entirely with the way the Matt situation was handled however, I think calling it a "witch-hunt" is a bit over the top. Stalin thought Matt might be a liar, Stalin confronted Matt, Matt temporarily leaves the site. Matt comes back. Stalin speaks to me about his IP addresses, I confirm his suspicions, Stalin informs people of Matts suspension, Matt Leaves. Not really a witch hunt. Now Matt never did anything to the site in his time as moderator, this much is true however, since Matt was a lie it made him untrustworthy & untrustworthy individuals should not be in positions of Trust. The moderators on this forum have a lot more power than a lot of forum moderators have which is mainly so that people don't have to go through Stalin or myself every-time an action is carried out. I would contradict your argument that Ler is the cause of this, but you don't really make one. Suffice it to say that I can see no reason to link the two.

8)

Regular member: A okay! Though a little creepy. Moderator? I think there is a legitimate debate here but since Matt left rather than addressing the issue it is no longer relevant.

9)

This is another post for Stalin to Address.

10)

No it doesn't. It doesn't show that at all. Your reasoning here is non-existent. Has Ler somehow persuaded us that truth is important? I thought it was you that only cared about whether something was true Kali? I think Kali's influence of allowing us to say what we want provided it's true influenced Stalin to out Matt for who he is. No I don't actually agree with this argument but it's as equally baseless as your argument.

11) You are so Paranoid. Guess what I am actually fairly clever Kali, unsurprisingly my opinions don't revolve around Ler, you or anyone else. The reason I support rules against insults is not because of Ler it's because I think that having a community full of trolls and people insulting one another is not a good thing for the community. I remember arguing for people "attacking the argument & not the arguer". Perhaps you remember that debate, the one where I kept pointing out your intellectual dishonesty whilst also addressing your legitimate points, while you didn't address any of my points and kept calling me a tyrant instead, that or falsely stating what I believe despite that not being even close to the truth.

12)

Another one for Stalin.

In conclusion Kali, your not a martyr, your not a hero. Your arguments here are baseless assertions will no meaningful justification. Yes, I actually think you have some legitimate points, mainly that the Matt situation was imperfect. As for your deal with Stalin, that's between you & him. I know this post was addressed to him but frankly, you brought me into it by telling me what I think & trying to make yourself seem oh so heroic (your not). As for my opinion on the deal itself, I don't like it, but Stalin can choose whether he wants to justify it to me or not.