Posts by Jacob Allen

Bryan Sanchez86 said:Look, I already told you that you’re just trolling at this point, so don't act surprised! First, you hit me back with a reply that had absolutely nothing to do with what you were even quoting, and then you immediately tried to stir the pot by dragging the whole conversation off-topic with those questions about veterans, which honestly has zero relevance to what we're actually talking about here!

Honestly, you just label everything as trolling whenever someone calls you out on stuff that doesn't fit into that rigid little value system you're constantly trying to force down everyone else's throat like you're competing in some high-stakes championship!

Look, your moderation style is totally biased and honestly does absolutely nothing to support free speech or protect anyone's right to speak their mind! If you’re going to give yourself and all your little buddies a pass to say whatever you want, then you seriously need to extend that same grace to everyone else on this board too. You can't just use your moderator powers to twist the entire conversation and manipulate the thread to fit your own agenda or whoever else you might be looking out for!

Honestly, you really need to take a second to look in the mirror and ask yourself if you’re actually the problem here! Just seriously think about how much you're totally trashing this entire forum and how much of a hypocrite you've become lately. You should definitely be wondering if you're even remotely replaceable as a moderator at this point, and honestly, you need to ask yourself why you're constantly resorting to heavy-handed tactics just to get your way!
You really gotta take a second to ask yourself why some people are so obsessed with shoving their own agendas right in front of everyone else or, even worse, building themselves up by stepping on everyone else's toes, and honestly, you should probably start wondering who exactly these types of people are and how much they actually remind you of yourself!

Look, if you actually sat down and asked yourself those hard questions—and tried to be the kind of person you claim you want to be here on this forum—your conscience would have given you a massive wake-up call a long time ago telling you it’s high time you showed some actual gratitude for the mod team and especially for the site admins, and honestly, I bet your character would have finally listened to that gut feeling by now!
Honestly, I think it’s high time everyone starts asking some serious questions about when you’re actually going to step up, because seriously, why are you even a moderator? Like, who is actually putting up with this nonsense and for what reason?
Look, I’m not even trying to call out your massive, top-down moderator authority or anything like that, but I honestly feel like everyone hanging out in this sub you're running needs a fair heads-up about what they're actually signing up for! People should know right off the bat if they actually want to deal with this, because at the end of the day, being forced to adapt here feels less like joining a community and more like having your entire way of thinking shoved into some mindless Borg hive mind!

Look, since I already know that one of your go-to moderator power moves is to dive into this insane, nitpicky level of micro-analysis whenever you feel like your authority is being challenged—basically just obsessing over every tiny little detail until it’s completely ridiculous just to prove to everyone here how "unbiased" and objective your ego supposedly is—I honestly don't even see the point in dragging this conversation any further with you, so...

I’m honestly calling on the admins here to step in and give me the straight truth from both sides of the fence, because I really need to know if they think my post was just some blatant trolling or if I was actually just pointing out a massive, textbook example of how someone can use totally broken logic to defend a point—which is something this guy keeps doubling down on instead of admitting he's wrong—or if this is just a sneaky way for the mods to silence an opinion using tools they’re clearly itching to use!

Look, I’m totally sorry for rambling on like this, but honestly, there’s a huge reason why my post is such a novel, and it’s directly tied to how I reacted and why that other thread got nuked for being "trollish" in the first place! It also ties right back into that neighboring thread they just locked up, and since I really don't want to go starting yet another whole new discussion from scratch, I figured I'd just lay it all out right here.

So, I’m putting this out there for the admins, all the mods, and honestly just everyone hanging out on the boards, because I really think we need to have a serious talk about how our moderators are handling those threads regarding the recent student protests!
Honestly, the words coming from those moderators just don't carry nearly as much weight as what the actual students and all the supporters or critics are saying in this thread about these campus protests!
They honestly use every bit of their expertise and experience right up until they hit a wall where their own knowledge—or just some other personal limitation—kicks in, and then suddenly they start pulling rank and using those moderator powers to shut down anyone expressing an opinion that, I don't even know why, just doesn't sit right with them!

Honestly, it’s pretty obvious that these moderators are totally fine with dragging the whole discussion into this hyper-politicized mess just because it gives them an excuse to play games, whether they’re being subtle about it or just straight-up insensitive when it comes to tossing around ideas about using force against protesters!
Look, call it whatever you want, but I’m gonna say it again... the mods running this thread have a serious responsibility here.
If the admins and the higher-ups can’t or won't step in because they're hiding behind "freedom of speech," then I’m totally using my own freedom of speech to point out exactly how people are trying to twist this discussion and play the victim card.

So, I’m wrapping this up, and sticking to what I already said, I want to bring up my very first post along with that one they deleted—the one where I was calling out the total lack of logic from people trying to oversimplify the whole idea of using force to deal with student protesters. These folks are trying to paint those students as nothing more than classic internet trolls who deserve everything coming their way, but honestly, those people cheering for the crackdown should take a good look in the mirror and decide just how much they actually deserve.

To be real with you, the questions I’m asking are mostly rhetorical; I don’t actually care about who wins this little debate or how this thread ends up playing out.
The real answers, and the actual positive change I’m looking for, will show up through the actual posts, the disciplinary actions, and the way the moderators and admins actually run this site.

I could’ve even titled this thread with that famous Hackle quote... facts don't just vanish just because we choose to ignore them.

Check the attachment, the extra bit, or whatever you want to call it...

...internet troll...

Just a quick note on the attachment: on an American forum like this, the term "troll" usually refers to the users, while the mods tend to use much more subtle tactics.

Thanks for listening and being patient.

Here is the post...

1. the users
2. supermoderator Vojka
3. supermoderator Bryan Sanchez86
4. moderator ZgSash
5. moderator d@d@
6. the admins
7. Secretary of Education
8. everyone else interested

Man, my post about those college protests just got nuked from the political discussion thread!

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/2517/picture5beg.png

I mean, seriously, what gives?

And hey, I’m asking the admins if there isn't some crazy reason for pulling it, could you please just put my post back where it actually belongs in that thread about the student protests?

Jonathan Reed4 said:I was actually wondering on that other thread what kind of surprises the moderators have in store for us this April Fools' Day! 😍
😵

By the way, your sense of humor is pretty terrible. 🙂

Do you seriously think I'm joking?

I honestly saw this coming from a mile away, but I figured I’d just sit back and see how far you guys were actually going to take this. I’m going to keep a close eye on how things play out in the moderator lounge over the next few days, and then... well, you're gonna have to cut me loose. But before I go, I’m taking everything with me. Every single one of your posts, every little detail about who said what to whom, all those private chats where you were planning how to target the exact same users just so you could mess with them and mock them in the moderator corner... yeah, I've got it all. All of it. And I'm going to take my sweet time, dropping screenshots one by one.
People really need to know what’s actually happening behind the scenes with this forum and who these moderators really are... and why on earth they won't just let everyone see what goes on in that private lounge. ☕

Larry Cruz51 said:...whose opinion they actually disagree with. Either stop commenting on stuff you don't agree with or prepare to get banned:

..

🤣

..Larry, I honestly think you interpreted northerncrane4's post exactly the way Groucho Marx would have understood a movie... and not only did he get it, but that's exactly why he'd be totally pissed off at the flick too..😁

northerncrane4 even threw in a few comic-strip style emoticons in that post just to be safe, but... clearly, it didn't help one bit.

..and hey, maybe he really did take the whole thing like Groucho? 🤷

As for everything else, I haven't had much run-in with the moderation team personally, but as a fellow regular here, I truly believe northerncrane4 is one of the most fair and spot-on moderators out there, and he's got enough chill that it seems to me he doesn't take himself nearly as seriously as some other folks do.

Sorry for jumping in here when this thread is pretty much wrapped up, but I really didn't want to see the topic die out completely.😳

gentleeagle45 said:I have a question for the skeptics here. A friend of mine traveled through Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia, and he told me: "Every time I tell people I'm from the States, nobody has any clue where that is."
When he mentioned Marshall, some of the older folks in Indonesia actually recognized the name.
When he said America, a few people knew the deal and reacted with interest,
but when he just said USA, most people were completely lost.
It’s frustrating; a few people actually knew what he was talking about, which was a relief.

Honestly, we spend so much time debating our place in the world, yet half the globe doesn't even know where we are on a map.

😲 ..so, you're telling me they even heard about our Secretary? If they were in the loop for that, then I guess they definitely heard all about the mess in Chicago and Philly, plus the highways and the land deals and everything else too..😍

So, is anyone actually seeing any comments on this yet? And seriously, how many times has everyone been hitting that vote button? 🙂

Jack Harris3 said:"The struggles of young Jacob Allen," I'd say.

That’s a pretty rough paraphrase... honestly, calling it the "struggles of a young moderator" hits way closer to the mark! Even Pushkin tried his hand at describing my whole vibe in his work, though he definitely couldn't quite nail it perfectly...😬

We're totally veering off topic here, you know? ☕

Jack Harris3 said:Sometimes.
..

😕
..man, I hear you. It’s not even that I don't trust the guy, it’s just... look, someone is a moderator and then suddenly they decide they're totally over it and just stop doing the job. They vanish! Poof! Gone! Then one of their buddies tells them they really need to show up, and they’re all like, "Yeah, sure, I'll be there tomorrow..." and then, surprise, surprise, they still don't show up.
So what are we talking about here regarding sanctions? A total ban? Getting fired without cause? No official record of it in their file? Or maybe just social pressure because they aren't being super cool anymore? Like, what, are people going to start dodging them on the forum or literally spitting at their feet? Seriously, what would Goethe have even written today? That Faust was actually working as a moderator?

😁

ps. ..I could have sworn I saw a post from him somewhere else here... something along the lines of saying moderators are basically just waiting to crash and burn and that we should just scrap the whole system entirely? Or am I seriously just having forum-induced hallucinations? 😁

Jack Harris3 said:What’s even happening right now? Sadly, it’s not what would make anyone’s day—or their next three years—better, which would have been something like, "The inquisitor's finally out, hallelujah!"😛

The inquisitor actually stepped down from being a mod on his own terms.
And man, he really had to dig his heels in and fight like a hero just to make sure this, his fifth attempt at last getting some actual respect, actually counts. 😁

Okay, so the first part of your post is a comment and the second is a statement... or maybe it's the other way around, who knows!

It’s a general question though (and I’m totally ignoring that little smiley you tacked onto the end)... is stepping down as a mod really that complicated? Is it harder to leave than it is to join? And can an ex-mod just be ignored? Honestly, being a mod here feels like having diplomatic immunity or getting a massive shot of Depakote... once you've had it, you can spend the next five years doing whatever you want without a single worry in the world.

The thing that would actually make my day is whatever you guys consider blasphemy... since you're all mods, I guess. I'm assuming because I don't know if you guys enjoy handing out diagnoses on the politics subforum, though I wouldn't be surprised if you actually were specialized in it... for everyone else, obviously.
I’d be thrilled if the inquisitor stayed, but if the new mod ends up being someone like natch or quietwolf, hey, why not? Sure, people might get jealous, but who cares! It doesn't matter to me who it is, as long as we don't end up with three different mods all using the exact same biased standards. If that happened, where's the fun in the politics section? It wouldn't be nearly as lively.
Look, I know it's hard to pull off right now, and I'm not saying it's impossible, but... if none of you have noticed that making a choice like that could actually bring a huge wave of joy to the community, then what am I even doing? *I'll just stay here hanging out and talking nonsense while you guys look in the mirror tomorrow morning and tell yourselves you did a great job.*
...here's another thought. Why not shake things up? Have some guest posts, rotate roles, or do a guest moderator stint. Why couldn't Elysium moderate the politics section for a bit? It's not like they're going to get access to the nuclear launch codes or cause some major diplomatic incident. Or better yet... Kiki. Or that fat cow. 🎉

Want more? Yeah? Alright then. Let's put some young, bright minds in charge of politics. Basically, as soon as someone hits twenty-five, they're ready for moderator retirement. They're too wild, too crazy, or just totally out of touch. Aren't there any like that? None? Well, then our politics subforum is just like our actual national politics: completely impotent.

There you have it...
😎

Keith James812 said:Jacob Allen... seriously, just try to give me one single sentence explaining why you're putting Michael Adams2 up for nomination 😎 😁 😁

Nah, we aren't doing that today... look, you're definitely not Big Brother, and I'm just not playing that game with you..😁

Maria Barnes said:Who on earth says they aren't transparent? 😁
...

..I mean, seriously, the Vatican Secret Archives or even some top-secret FBI files are probably easier to get into than the politics subforum, and the moderators are basically like... Marines or something? Like, is there some secret initiation ritual you guys have to go through or something? Do you get some kind of special protection or a company car when you finally retire from modding? 😁

Even though I’m totally happy with the answer and I totally get where everyone is coming from, I still find this whole thing super fascinating... just the idea that someone wouldn't want their posts seen, maybe because they want to be perceived a little differently by the rest of us on the Forum.
It can't be easy being a moderator, really, it isn't, because I can see how stressful it gets, having to constantly fight for and against the users, the mods, and their own sanity at the same time. 😁

So, my totally naive little idea was that we could just open up a peek into that subforum, but then strictly shut down all the trash talk, the insults, and any threads trying to gossip about the mod room—basically hit them with a massive ban or some nasty penalty if they cross the line—but if someone manages to be clever and hide a witty little joke or a tiny jab at a moderator deep within a regular post using some sort of code, well, if they pull it off, no harm done, right?

And, even more naively, I honestly think letting the users catch a glimpse would have way more upsides than downsides, though I won't get into the specifics here, I'll save that for another time. But hey, I get it... a deal is a deal.

Don't go overestimating me, though; this is really just fueled by my own curiosity and this little itch I have to stir the pot just a tiny bit, purely for the sport of it.
Please don't take it personally when I try to recruit a mole outside the system to leak something to the public, especially now! : wink : ...it's just more fun that way. Am I being fair or what? 😁

..thanks, cheers, peace!

Keith James812 said:so, you were basically just hanging around to read Michael Adams2, since he was way more active on the Forum back then 😁 and then, after scrolling through Politics, you’d just drop a hundred posts across all the other subforums? 😁 okay, okay, I see the logic there... it's just that there's no Sulja around to start throwing cables about it 😁

but seriously, what actually bugs me is seeing you take this sudden turn toward those low blows... looking at it from the outside, it totally feels like when you run out of actual, solid arguments to prove that Michael Adams2 is a desperate moderator, you just pivot to making snarky comments about "decorum" on the Forum... Michael Adams2 hasn't lost his touch, but that still doesn't mean what you're doing isn't straight-up targeted flaming 😁

... oh, please, I see what you're doing there. 😁 ..anything can mean anything, really. :kirin:
honestly, I could probably say I’m missing my books right now—those intellectual crutches I need to explain here, or anywhere else on this Forum, that words like "argument," "thesis," or "premise"—which people love to toss around during that third stage of these so-called forum "debates" (which, goodness gracious, some people actually call polemics)—don't actually carry any functional weight and are basically just empty buzzwords.
even the crowd over at the local Starbucks would be embarrassed by how people use logical and rhetorical figures in the name of their own egos on certain subforums. 😳

..look, I have zero interest in explaining my views here—heaven forbid!—and I don't owe anyone an explanation or a defense, nor do I feel like I should even ask... which "low blows" are we even talking about? I'll just grant myself the luxury of staying blissfully unaware. It's much easier that way. If someone sees something that isn't there, that's on them, not me.
I'm not trying to descend into that typical forum brawling folklore, but yeah... I am absolutely going to target-flame whenever I see someone being allowed to act aggressive while someone else is being totally silenced, and I'll do it whenever I'm feeling weak enough to react like this. It's just how I know how to handle it.
besides, where does it say that Forum members with thousands of posts spanning years—which is, like, at least thirty minutes of life spent here—aren't more or less dissatisfied people? whether it's their social status, their job, their family, or just other struggles, or maybe they're just at that stage of maturity where they need to prove themselves, even virtually. There's nothing wrong with bruising your ego a little bit, even in a place like this.

..as for moderating forums, I don't know anything about it, and I don't even know what I *should* know about such a job. All I know is that it's incredibly hard to moderate yourself. If someone doesn't realize that, yet thinks they can lecture everyone else—which is super obvious—and then tries to wrap that up in a whole "premise, thesis, and argument" package just to reach a conclusion they think makes them right, well, hey, Keith James812... if I actually wanted to do that, I'd at least be doing it for a paycheck.
the way things are, it's all just unpaid service, so... yeah... maybe the Forum itself has just had a stylistic shift. 🙂

and of course.. 🎉

..edit.. I'm not trying to be brief... hey, Keith James812, since Maria Barnes showed up here, I'm gonna step aside for a bit. we can just keep this going somewhere else.. 👍

Keith James812, you're totally hitting the nail on the head here!

Maria Barnes said:What the active users don't really realize is the fact that for every single registered member on this Forum, there are about ten non-registered folks dropping by every day (we're talking 3,000 versus 30,000!). So, at the end of the day, people are mostly coming here just to read. Plus, most of the registered users who show up aren't actually posting anything, which means the ratio of posters to lurkers is roughly 1:30, so keeping the quality of this Forum high is a constant goal even if it feels pretty much impossible.

😁

..and besides that, we're still missing all the data from back in 2001 and 2002. 🎉

..hey Maria Barnes, check out this moderator.

..I mean, what can I even say besides that this Forum actually provides some serious life lessons on how you take someone who used to be a total troll or a flamewar addict and mold them into a top-tier, loyal moderator—someone who’s a ruthless truth-seeker with a super subtle knack for sniffing out hidden aggression. Especially when they finally get their hands on all those technical tools!

..So, how could you not think back and compare our Forum to places where people like Vienna, Pollux, or even Maria Barnes and a bunch of others I can't even remember right now used to moderate? It’s honestly so fascinating to watch how this whole place evolves, truly. And man, comparing how things used to be versus how they are now in terms of quality, wit, coherence (which is basically the go-to word here whenever someone's ripping a post apart), and just how clearly people express themselves... it's wild.

But hey, whatever. Whether anyone actually stops to think about what they want from this Forum—be it just some commercialized virtual distraction or a genuine attempt at high-quality info sharing—that's totally on you.
If you guys want to keep this "debate" going in the exact tone and style the moderators clearly want for this thread, then by all means, go for it... without me. I'm officially bowing out.

Maria Barnes said:.. Seriously though, we’re taking all these complaints super seriously and going into massive, deep-dive discussions with the moderators, which is why that politics subforum is actually one of our biggest hubs when you count up all the threads and posts.
..

..Sorry to just jump in like this, but I’ve got one question—okay, make that two, actually let's go with three, please! 🙂

..Why isn't the politics subforum open up for everyone else on the Forum to see as a read-only section?

..Is that just your personal call, or is that what most of the moderators want?

..I mean, what exactly are we trying to hide here?

And look, I’m apologizing to the rest of the community right now because I really don't want to get sucked into a huge debate or keep piling on more questions. 🙂

Maria Barnes said:Me too! 😉

Every single moderator has to follow the exact same rulebook, obviously, though there’s always room for some individual judgment call here and there. You guys absolutely have the right to jump in and react to any deviations or issue warnings, and then we’ll step in to review everything. We just have to keep in mind that a moderator with a different political leaning isn't necessarily going to be a bad moderator.

Well, I don't really *have* to say anything, but I'll give you my two cents anyway.

I totally agree with those first three sentences, even if they sound a bit like textbook accounting definitions... kind of like saying "it's a general principle" or something super synthetic. Honestly, it's hard not to agree with them if we're actually acknowledging things like... the rules of the game or authority. Any criticism you throw out here has to be three times more logical just to prove a point, and even when you finally nail it, people just fall back on Rule 1. It's honestly impossible to talk about anything when terms like... objectivity, criticism, and logic... are treated like they're obsolete or just being nitpicky... or annoying? Whatever, just petty. And yet, at the same time, everyone keeps insisting on using those exact terms!
But hey, that's just how life works, not just on this Reddit thread.

And man, I completely, 100% agree with that last sentence. To put it in Reddit terms, I'm signing my name to it...
...I've always maintained that someone having a different sexual orientation—let's say a professor had one that was, I don't know, even something as extreme as pedophilia—that doesn't automatically mean that professor can't be an excellent ethics professor. 🙂 ...In fact, they might even be better at it...🙂

Chloe Garcia98 said:Alright, I'll give you the inside scoop since this thing is basically a total carbon copy of our buddy Wem🥳
But honestly, the way it's written... I mean, it's just as easy to follow as ever☕ 😬

___|___|___
___|_x_|___
___|___|___

..your turn now.. it's your move..

Look, I’m definitely not some bot or clone...

As far as I know about women, all I can say is that soldiers are always looking for a shortcut, but... 🥳

Anyway, I really just swung by to drop one little thing in here...

PS

By the way, why isn't Dolac listed on the dustypilot22 census?

..and maybe we should open up a section for... nature and society...

..sorry Bradley Fisher20 if that came off sounding sarcastic instead of just being ironic... 🙂

...so, let me skip over a few lines of thought here, because it really feels like everyone is dodging the idea of opening a psychology subforum... I honestly don't get why... maybe it's because of the potential responsibility involved, or maybe people are afraid someone will start demanding a psychiatry subforum next? haha...

...and who knows, we could even dive into genetics... anthropology, sociobiology... neo-rascisim...

..that’s why I think it’s best to just lump everything under "Science," where hypotheses, theses, and antitheses can be laid out clearly using the laws of dialectics—you know, actually arguing and debating through real thinking exercises! Every single step outside of that rigid structure gets immediately slammed as "unorganized knowledge" or "disrespectful to the rules," and then you always have some guy stepping in to explain how things *really* work, acting like he’s the only competent one in the room while everyone else is clueless... because, apparently, science only works if we stick to this hyper-rationalized way of proving things... and any doubt that isn't presented in a perfect, textbook model is treated like it's not even worth questioning or thinking about.

..it's actually kind of dangerous to let certain ideas develop among the masses... the elites tend to gatekeep discussions just so the common folk don't jump in and mess things up or misinterpret them...

..isn't that just how it is?.. Aren't forums supposed to exist so people can express alternative, unofficial opinions? Even if someone isn't quite capable of meeting some arbitrary, socially accepted standard for how they present their ideas?

..I see this forum—and not just this one—as a place where you can actually let your personality shine without having to debate through these half-hidden, overly academic, elitist scientific publications all the time.

..It would actually be pretty cool to once in a while discuss why online spaces are even called "forums" to begin with... why not call it an Agora, or a town square, or Tiananmen?... What are the connotations and definitions behind the word, the logos, the idea... the forum itself?

...so, I really don't see any reason (aside from a few 🙂) why we couldn't just open a psychology subforum, especially since we have so many fresh, creative pieces here on philosophy and science that aren't just displays of ego and libido in the style of... "I know this and you don't," or "I'm right and you're wrong," or "I'm capable and you're a wimp"... or "I have information you don't have, so I get to dominate the conversation because, hey, the world is just lions and sheep."

...there are so many topics... sorry, so many questions... including stuff about psychology that actually interests me! Am I supposed to go look for repeats in existing psych threads? Or go get mental hygiene treatment? Or formally study it? Can't I just exchange my own questions, doubts, and insights without it having to be about US, or Les, or deterministic chaos... or Plato's Allegory of the Cave... and why shouldn't that topic fall under health?

..I'm interested in everything... from mice (whose fault is it when they get lost in a maze?) to statistics to the absolute fringes of knowledge...
..Why hide all this under other subforums?.. Is it so some arrogant, condescending kid doesn't officially drive someone to suicide? I feel like the whole concept of psychology is being mystified... meanwhile, we're all out here proudly defending ideas we just memorized from philosophy or linguistics textbooks... we act surprised by mathematical paradoxes or the Vatican's stance on the singularity (with all our right!), so why can't we demystify fear, uncertainty, addiction, and human behavior? Isn't that just as worthy of wonder?

..I'll say it again... how do you even moderate or guide a subforum like that? Who has the strength, the willpower, and the tact to pull it off? Now, *that* might be a problem... (not to say that a psychological supervisor wouldn't be more than welcome on the forum here and there 😁 )

ps

Bradley Fisher20, nothing personal 🙂. Your post was just a springboard for me. Not just for this topic, but obviously for my own situation... psychologically speaking... 😁