This response is one-sided and just confirms to me that different standards are being applied to different people on the basis of personal like and dislake. I joined this forum in the hopes of finding a more open-minded and civil place than guru gossiper to discuss Dan and Phil within the community, instead is has devolved into a nightmare of bullying and personal attacks which turn every conversation into a struggle to express an opinion that's different from the norm and a failure of the moderating team to respect basic human decency.missemma wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2019 3:17 pm Moderator Note
The moderator team has extensively discussed the recent activity on the forum. We are aware that the tone of the conversation has been less civil and that some users have become frustrated while others have become discouraged from posting here or even visiting. We are also aware that specific events outside of the forum have spilled over into some members' concerns about behavior on the forum and have contributed to negative feelings between forum members.
While it's human nature to have your interactions with someone colored by things that you read off-forum, we cannot take action against those things. We also have no reasonable expectation of anyone to set aside their ethical or moral values in favor of feeling forced to interact with someone, we just ask that you keep in mind that In Depth Bants, the main thread in particular, is for the discussion of Dan and Phil and related topics.
We have specific requests of forum users going forward.
Stakhanov: Other people are capable of disagreeing without the conversation regularly devolving into frustration against them. The condescending language with which you often respond to users and the repetition of the same opinion several times is antagonizing. At this point, it is borderline trolling and trolling is a punishable offense. Please consider making new points instead of continuously reiterating the same ones to people who have expressed that they are finished having a conversation with you.
You have also demonstrated an inability to discern what is appropriate and inappropriate. This is something you've expressly argued this on this forum and in conversation with moderators in the past. If you are unable to make that call, please understand that we will make it for you. Safety of forum users is not something we are taking lightly. It is not up for debate.
Everyone else: If you find a post inflammatory or a poster frustrating, please consider simply not responding. If you do choose to respond, please be sure to keep your post respectful and on-topic, and in compliance with forum rules. Respectful and topically relevant disagreements are allowed, as always. For the most part, when people on this forum disagree the conversation continues in a passionate but respectful and mature fashion. That's how we'd like it to continue. If you feel like someone is antagonizing you report the post and allow a moderator to deal with it.
We are watching individual members' behavior closely, and we will be issuing warnings for trolling, disrespectful posts, and any other violations of the forum rules.
We do from time to time move topics to side threads (e.g., a discussion centered around another YouTuber), and any member is free to create threads in the various subforums. Disagreements between forum members that become off-topic will be removed from the main thread.
This forum is a labor of love for all of us on the moderator team. Please continue to let us know of any frustrations or concerns, so we can do our best to address them to make this forum a safe and welcoming place for everyone.
Otherwise, we hope this is the end of this particular conversation and the topic can continue to move on with what it was intended to be about: Dan and Phil.
Signed,
Your Moderators
What is really being enforced here? The last personal attack by Ablissa came when two users noticed that the tone some others struck with me was pretty hostile and after they dared express they started feeling uncomfortable reading that.
As a response, a cheap accusation around off-site drama gets brought up once again. A pretty ridiculous and deeply unfair character assassination which she knows nothing about other than the tweet where i'm being slandered as a pedophile creep for having made 3 or so sexually suggestive jokes in the presence of some minors in a twitter DM group.
My intent when I was invited to that horrible twitter chat was simply to find a group of people to have some fun with, talking about a shared interest: the two lovely, quirky nerds we all know and adore. Little did i realize which snake pit I entered.
Dan and Phil themselves are two adult youtubers aged 32 and 28 who, if I may say so, kind of have a habbit of making sexually suggestive jokes which are very much appreciated and often emulated by an audience of minors and adults alike. We celebrate (smutty) fanfiction, (erotic) fanart and social media is filled with creative variations on their own jokes A lot of people even presume they have a romantic and sexual relationship. One which gets followed with a lot of interest and has through the years always been a topic of conversation and speculation, despite their own public position on the matter. Considering how sex jokes and mature content are very present in the fandom experience at large, I find it completely preposterous and hypocritical if you want to crucify me for "sexualizing Dan and Phil" or making any kind of sexual joke about them. Yes, even a joke that you may find in bad taste and which was made without putting much thought in it or having much awareness of the diverse presence of people which I didn't know, including minors, in that chat. I never meant to cause any discomfort and I was never aware that this was making people uncomfortable. In the deceptively edited tweet, text is removed and pasted together to make it look like people were clearly reacting to the two or three jokes I made. In reality, the chat was pretty hectic (i think it was 30+ people) and I mostly just dropped in and out of it while I was doing other things. I basically just chimed in when other people brought up mature topics such as their feet kink for Phil or the posting of spongebob erotic art. When I suddenly got kicked, I sent a message to the girl who invited me to wish everyone the best and agreed the chat wasn't for me, as at that point, it was starting to dawn on me that this chat wouldn't work out, mostly because of a vicious attack I saw organized and launched at another person in their 'twittersphere'. She blocked me, I went to sleep and the next morning I have to read all these vile implied intents and slander about me. I was shocked and angry. I don't think this person realizes that posting such an accusation is a perfect way of destroying someones reputation in a community. If this wasn't done in the anonymity of the internet, I would use ever legal means at my disposal to get the truth out, because even digitally, I've seen the consequences and they frankly hurt. I lost contact to people in the community who I thought i had established some trust with and I have found out that people who already didn't like me because i have silghtly different political opinons started messaging people in private to 'drop' or be dropped themselves - people who i know are befriended or at least connected to a lot of the mods here btw.
Now, the allegations are used as a tool on this forum too to shut me up and to "warn, scrutinize and closely monitor me" to insure "the safe and comfort" of others. On what basis? If you don't monitor "off-site" events, why am being treated as some kind of pariah? If you're going to base yourself on this deeply deceptive tweet, are you going to apply that same standard to everyone? Shall everyone who gets accused "off-site" of anything be warned and scrutinized too? Is it acceptable now to just attack other users with whatever salient allegations we can hurl at them? I've asked for clarification on these questions to the mods too, but get no response. Instead I get this moderating note.
So what does this note say? I'm the only one that gets specifically named. My tone is again policed and found condescending. The tone and attitude of others apparently don't warrant being called out. The personal attack against me is still just on the forum and does not get removed. I am told that my posts are repetitive and that i continue a discussion when people don't want to converse anymore. It's all a one-way street apparently. When i make 'repetitive' posts, it's a sincere attempt to clarify or put nuance in my posts, almost always in response to many post of other users, which I try to all address best as I can. This isn't me trolling and this isn't me "demonstrating an inability to discern what is appropriate or inappropriate" (sounds kind of condescending, doesn't it?).
This is me trying to express a view, one that may be unpopular, at least with the group of regularly posting users here, but which is how I think about it and which I think should be allowed to posted, elaborated on and modified or restated without being considered "trolling", which just offers a handy way to shut me up and warn or ban me if I become to much of an annoyance.
I don't know if I want to engage here any more. Clearly my discomfort is of no concern, i'm supposed to just "suck it up" and be content that i'm only being watched and scrutinized as some potential criminal. I've talked about this situation with friends and with my therapist and the uniform reaction is to get out of that echo bubble and way from these hurtful and infuriating accusations for my own well being. But I admit to being stubborn. I know some people would be all to happy to spin that as some admission of guilt, I don't want to flee when I think a situation is unjust and I know that for everyone who posts, there are many more reading. I want to thank all the people who sent me private or public messages in support. It's nice to know that not everyone is willing to go along with the oppressive social dynamic that's fed by some. Maybe this post is all in vain, but at least people reading on can arrive at their own conclusions.