Posts by stormyraven14

Larry Perez69 said:we don't know anything... come on, give us some actual details 🙂

EDIT: maybe you're spying on us 😱

As if I'd be spying ☕
They actually paid me at Kokošinjac to stage an invasion here. That's basically my full-time job—raiding innocent little forums... :evil:

hiddenmarlin14 said:my boyfriend told me I was being annoying, so I picked this handle. The one I actually wanted was already taken 😢

Well, I embarrassed myself with my first choice, and since nobody else would take what I wanted, I just went with whatever... But hey, even an outlaw can admit when they're being a handful—though usually only when their hands are tied, and he's standing right by the door... 😬

Honestly, I’ve already vented about all of this on those other subforums where they track post counts—I really don't care if anything gets back to anyone at this point... everything is pretty much out in the open anyway 😁

But thanks for the heads-up. Also, I love your username. If I didn't have my own, I'd probably borrow yours 😬

It’s not exactly fresh, not 😁

I’m not a teacher or anything—it's just that my company hits this intense crunch period from September through June, so then during the summer we basically just live for the weekends and wait for our vacation time to kick in 😳

I’m actually a fan of the ad we were shown here—it’s about waste management 😍
...

For myself, for my partner, and for our guests. If we don't have a drink before they arrive 😁

Why am I counting down the minutes until Friday? After nine long months at work—dealing with endless overtime and constant commuting issues—these two days at home... man 😍

😍

and I'm planning on making some strawberry liqueur this weekend 😍

Tuesday is 🙂🙂🙂

I just can't find any common ground with any of these holidays this month...

+

I feel like garbage complaining about my job when so many people are out there struggling to find work at all 🙂

damn yeah 🙄

the eighties, back when you worked until 2 AM and everything just seemed to click together 😢

I'm not sure if I should be saying this out loud—it feels a bit strange to bring up here—but I’ve been thinking about everything lately... it just stays on my mind more than it used to. It’s hard to find a sense of balance when everything seems to be shifting at once, isn't it? I try to stay grounded, really I do, but sometimes the noise of it all just gets a little too loud... anyway, I guess I'm just processing things as they come. stormyraven14 says:
I'm bringing this topic back up, but I really need a quick answer on this one...
So, here’s the situation—someone from Microsoft is asking me to co-sign a loan for them. We're talking about monthly payments that would be around... $667My mortgage payment is sitting right around that same amount too... $667My pay is around... $1933...and of course, I just want to be certain that she... I just can't... I'm not planning on being a guarantor—mostly because I have absolutely no desire to get tangled up in something like that...

I hope I’m reading this right—and that I haven't totally misjudged the situation—but I really don't think I can act as her guarantor. I mean, if I were to give her my Social Security number, which she was actually asking for... her bank could easily run a credit check on me... so it just feels like too much of a risk...🙄 But honestly, I'm not making any moves just yet—not until I can be absolutely certain about my credit score and everything else...

Is anyone around?

Just say no—plain and simple. Tell them you aren't handing over your Social Security number... because honestly, you never really know when you might need to protect your credit score down the road...
You don't owe anyone an apology—honestly, someone demanding that from you probably can't even be certain about their own job security right now, much less yours. With wages dropping every single day and layoffs becoming all too common... well, if I'm reading this right, the person asking you to justify yourself is just being incredibly rude and, frankly, exhausting...
If they're really that reliable, I bet they've got at least five more backups just sitting in the warehouse...

darkhawk said:In short—to wrap this whole thing up—Evgenia put together a solid post, one that gives me more than enough ammunition to finally articulate this idea. Honestly, thanks to the insights from Phiber and a few others, the concept has undergone a total transformation in my mind—it’s evolved quite a bit from where I first started thinking about it.

I don't even know where to begin with this—it’s just one of those things that gets under my skin, you know? It’s all very much a matter of perspective, I suppose, though some perspectives are clearly more grounded in reality than others. There is this constant, nagging sense that we are drifting further away from any semblance of a functional social contract, and frankly, it’s exhausting. I find myself spiraling into these long-winded thoughts about how everything seems to be fraying at the edges—just a series of small, cascading failures in our collective logic—but perhaps that’s just me being overly dramatic. Or maybe I am. It’s hard to tell sometimes when you spend half your life overanalyzing the obvious. Anyway, I digress. The point remains: we need to face these issues head-on, rather than dancing around them like we're afraid of a little uncomfortable truth. kaže:
Maybe it’s actually doable—but honestly? It feels pretty useless. We see this exact same pattern in real life with institutions like the Office of the Children's Advocate. Think about it: their entire scope of power is limited to essentially scolding the agencies meant to protect kids. Their only real job is to be an expert on the Constitution and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Now, most of these advocates—and I mean most—actually know their stuff. They understand the legal frameworks, the individual acts, and the specific internal rules of the various departments. But what does that get them? Nothing. All they can do is draft some official letter saying, "Hey, you're doing a terrible job," which everyone just ignores. And frankly, they continue to ignore them to this day. 🤷

Look, my intention was laid out clearly enough in those previous posts—really, it was—but I’ve got this nagging fear that it’s all just going to get swallowed up by this endless deluge of text we have going on here. So, to prevent that, I’m going to restate it. And honestly? I'll be making some adjustments based on the critiques you lot just threw at me—which, if I'm being fair, were actually quite valid reconsiderations of my position.

The notion that a forum advocate should act solely on the whims of the users—well, frankly, it’s a flawed concept. A defender of this community ought to operate on their own initiative, guided by their own internal compass. We need individuals who actually grasp the subtle nuances—the very intricacies I find myself constantly harping on about—which can be absolutely critical for determining how a user navigates their journey here after a inevitable clash with a moderator. See, the whole point is that such a confrontation, in certain circles at least, could actually yield a positive result—both in terms of bolstering the user's standing and, hopefully, nudging the moderator toward performing their duties with a bit more finesse and quality.

When you’re deep in the trenches of an online community and the administration gets locked in a heated standoff—it’s a mess. It creates this vacuum of negativity that just sucks the air out of the room. Honestly? Someone needs to step in—someone truly impartial—to flip the script and turn that energy into something constructive. There really ought to be someone capable of sweetening the bitter pill the moderators have to swallow when they’re forced to back down—you know, making that retreat a little less stinging—while simultaneously helping the users dial back that knee-jerk, "gag reflex" reaction to every single move the admins make. It shouldn't always be instant revolt. The goal should be to look past the immediate shouting match and find the actual essence of the issue—something that transcends the petty squabble at hand. You have to weigh a user’s historical contributions to the community, consider what they might bring to the table in the future, and try to ground the whole conflict back in those fundamental values. If we don't, we just let the fire spread until the users and the mods become sworn enemies—perpetually recycling the same old grudges across the entire board like some endless, toxic loop.

So, that’s really the heart of the matter. How exactly we pull it off—well, that’s the million-dollar question—but I honestly think our resident forum defender, wearywolf252, is onto something here. If we could just find folks who actually have the maturity to rise above the petty bickering—you know, people who can step back, take a breath, and look at the big picture instead of getting bogged down in the mud—it would change everything. Imagine if they could flag those subtle nuances or underlying issues to both the users and the mods (or the Admins/SMs) before things spiral? It wouldn't just be a small improvement; it would be a massive win for this entire community.

Don’t just come at me with that tired old line—that moderators and admins are somehow magically immune to criticism, or that if a user points out they aren't being fair, they shouldn't feel "called out" and immediately retreat into some defensive crouch. Honestly, that kind of reactionary mindset just clouds the entire perspective—it creates these rigid, biased stances that are rarely, if ever, actually correct. A true defender of the community ought to be above all that petty drama—his only real power should lie in pointing out the deeper flaws in the situation rather than playing judge and jury. We need people who call for actual dialogue regarding the peripheral issues—those underlying elements that often get ignored because everyone is too busy trading insults and finger-pointing between the users and the administration. We end up stuck in this endless loop of mutual accusations over trivialities, while the real problems remain completely out of focus.

And honestly—no—veterans shouldn't be stuck wading through the daily swamp of bureaucratic nonsense, nor should every single decision be subject to constant revision. That’s just madness—plain and simple—and frankly, it's impossible to implement. They ought to step in only on rare occasions; however, when they do decide to speak up, they absolutely must be heard. I'm not suggesting their interventions carry some kind of mandatory weight or automatic veto power, but there should be a strict requirement that their input is actually listened to.

I honestly believe that just the mere existence of these forums—the simple fact that people realize someone is actually watching and could potentially step in to shift things around—would change the game. It’s about accountability. If moderators know there’s an audience keeping tabs, they’ll inevitably feel that nagging fear of being publicly called out for being biased or unfair. So, in a way, just having this oversight in place would naturally reduce the need for actual interventions. It's preventative, really—a sort of built-in check and balance that keeps everyone honest without anyone having to lift a finger.

At the end of the day—and I really mean this—what’s the actual harm in requiring moderators to provide rock-solid justifications for their decisions just because they're afraid of backlash? Wouldn't that actually elevate the entire forum's standard? Wouldn't those decisions become more deliberate, more robust, and frankly, much more credible? Why shouldn't there be a requirement that any ruling made can be defended with far stronger arguments than the lackluster excuses we've seen in certain situations before?

It’s one thing when someone you’ve just banned snaps at you because they're stuck in a personal vendetta with you—that’s just ego talking—but it is an entirely different matter when a respected veteran of this community points out a mistake through an unbiased lens, without any prior conflict. And let's be honest, the reaction won't be the same; one person is personally wounded and acting out of spite, while the other isn't involved and can approach it with a cool head to extract the core issue and force everyone to focus on what actually matters. If a person is capable of stepping back from the fray and finding that middle ground where everyone wins by conceding a point, then that is absolutely wonderful for the forum and for the art of discussion itself. In the long run, it can only drive things toward being better.

So, in my opinion, I think you are absolutely right. You've described the role of a forum advocate perfectly. However—and here is the rub—modern American society doesn't react to anything anymore; people are just totally desensitized by constant scandals and the endless noise of people telling others how to do their jobs. One of the reasons I hang around this forum is that the crowd here isn't just some mindless group that's checked out. We actually talk about the problems here—the very same issues that people in the real world would just shrug off or ignore rather than bother engaging with.

I truly believe that individuals have built their personalities here, both within the user base and among the moderation team. A simple "you aren't doing your job well" would definitely hit home, and even the mere possibility of facing criticism from a credible source would shake them. I suspect that if they knew they might face that kind of scrutiny, it would significantly push them toward more self-reflection and a much more careful approach to their responsibilities.

Look, right at the start of this thread, Nica made it pretty clear that the admin team handpicks whoever they want to bring on as a mod, so the decision is basically a done deal from the get-go. As for credible criticism—on this forum, feedback has never been about starting fights; it’s always been direct, thorough, and actually respected... but even a moderator isn't allowed to tell someone "you're doing a bad job."
Ever since that third post, any mention of "you're doing a bad job" has been essentially banned for all eternity. The explanation we "regular folks" get is always some variation of "we don't know the full story behind the scenes."
They won't let anyone in who they deem... what was the word? Exhausting?

😬
I get where you're coming from, and it would work perfectly if things were handled more normally here, but they aren't. And the "behind the scenes" stuff isn't either... 😬

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that... if it's a typo or just some shorthand I haven't come across yet—could you clarify? I'd love to understand where you're coming from... stormyraven14 says:
I was just focusing on that one specific example—and look, I actually agree with you on the core idea itself... But there’s going to be more complaining down the road. Even worse, if this hypothetical "forum defender" tries to argue that the admin team is right, half the people who got penalized are going to start treating them exactly like the moderators, no matter how much sense they're actually making...

So, I think the core idea itself is actually pretty fair—but honestly? It just feels completely impossible to pull off...Honestly, I feel like some people here haven't quite grasped the core idea yet. It’s not about picking someone who’s just going to pick fights with the mods over every little thing—or every single ban that was obviously uncalled for in the first place... And, just to touch on the whole "sukkiya" situation, it isn't that forum users are "helpless" and don't know how to hold their own in a debate. It’s more about the fact that we're increasingly being brushed off with the classic, "Oh, that's just trolling, bye!" excuse—which is actually the crux of the issue. I truly think that’s a legitimate problem facing this forum right now, but I don't believe this specific proposal is the right way to fix it...

It might actually be doable, but... well, is it even worth it? We have similar institutions in the real world—just look at the Office of the Children's Advocate. Their authority is basically limited to scolding the agencies in charge of kids, and their only real requirement is knowing the Constitution and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Most advocates have mastered that—they know the laws, the specific rights, and all the granular rules of various agencies—but their power ends at writing a formal letter saying, "Hey, you aren't doing your job right." And everyone just ignores those letters. They still do, too... 🤷

Sophia Thomas7 said:And just stay perfectly objective in both scenarios? Yeah, right. 😬

We're talking about theory here, aren't we? Just exploring the "what if" scenarios...
In a perfect world, the moderators would be completely unbiased too. ☕

aha 😬

brightcrane56 said:One Reddit user claims that being gay is actually a sickness and reaches out to our resident veteran X for some guidance.
On the flip side, another Reddit user thinks being gay is perfectly fine and also turns to X for their take on the matter.
So, which side is our veteran X going to take?

A moderator doesn't represent the views of the users, nor do they push their own personal opinions... much like how moderators shouldn't act in any other capacity, really.

So, they’ll back either one or neither—it all comes down to whether a punishment was unfair, rather than whether the user is pro-LGBTQ+ or anti-LGBTQ+.☕

Sam Wright21 said:The issue is that on those specific threads, the people claiming to be "victims" end up doing most of the trolling. You don't see any "feminist warriors" there—they just imagine them existing...

I’ve said it a hundred times already—there aren't any serious discussions where people actually share their lived experiences of being screwed over by the courts, Child Protective Services, or other government agencies.

For instance, I could write an entire post about how much the legal system messed me up, and honestly, there are enough victims of the court system to fill dozens of threads...

So why don't the men facing discrimination open a thread like that so we can see actual, concrete cases? , instead of just making biased, generalized assumptions. Right now, it's just ten different threads that all say the exact same thing.

Well, someone actually did start a thread like that once, but they merged it with a "women's issues" topic before anyone even had a chance to respond properly or read through it... 🤷
I think that's exactly what your complaint is referring to... 😕

Charles Fox10 said:This is just an explanation from page 36—back when the threads were merged—and I honestly don't have anything more substantial to add to what was written then...

This is easily the fifth time we've seen a thread pop up regarding gender discrimination—and honestly, without fail, these discussions just end up bleeding into one another... It’s getting repetitive. I'm wondering if the moderators might be open to some suggestions on how to manage two separate threads simultaneously without them overlapping after only a dozen posts? Maybe there's a way to keep them distinct...

Despite everything we've thrown at it—all the hard work and effort we've put in—it just hasn't worked out for us yet...

The title isn't even the biggest issue here—I actually mentioned earlier that I just threw it together quickly. If anyone has a better idea, I’m more than happy to change it... but so far, nothing has come up.

Even if we start an identical debate regarding two different—or at least differently perceived—types of discrimination, the conversation about men will naturally attract a completely different crowd than a discussion about women... say, divorced fathers versus pregnant employees or job seekers. Because of that, the tone and the actual substance just won't be the same. Honestly, when people try to force one specific type of discrimination over another during these discussions, we should just call it what it really is: trolling. It’s like when someone tries to push their own brand of pity onto a conversation about affordable housing, or when certain anti-feminists jump into a discussion about men just to bash guys who are actually trying to be decent, supportive fathers despite the psychological toll being taken on them...
Maybe just hire a moderator who actually knows how to handle things—instead of everyone just being so condescending toward one another...
By merging them like this, you've basically killed any chance for people to actually vent—or even just find some decent advice from one another...

I just read through this—and honestly, I don't get why the topic was renamed to include violence against women, especially when the author explicitly opened this thread to discuss discrimination against men. It feels a bit off, considering there are already so many discussions centered on violence and discrimination against women 😕
. And I really don't see how this is some sort of "combined" issue... I mean, there are entire studies, specialized research, and established legal mechanisms dedicated to preventing discrimination against women, whereas the author is trying to point out that those same kinds of protections just aren't there for men 😕... it's a different conversation entirely
.

I'm really not happy with 😢
I end up browsing Reddit during my breaks—just like any other typical American worker—and then this just makes everything unnecessarily cluttered... plus, the IT guys at my office are going to block ninety percent of the previews for whatever you're advertising anyway 😢
and you're basically making it impossible for me to sneakily read the forums 😢

rustydrifter10 said:I only hopped onto the forum during those days to try and put out some fires because my schedule was slammed and I had a sick kid at home... in that moment, I figured it could just stay up, but if someone else in charge decided to archive it or delete it, I wouldn't have seen that as wrong. I already explained why I didn't step in when I did. My post was messy, the part about Springfield got missed, and the retroactive decision to release it only happened once the discussion was basically over anyway. I don't see any point in dragging this out further—especially not across two different threads.

Bringing up your private life and sick kids is tacky and inappropriate, but since you’re the one who brought it up—first of all, who cares? If that's the case, then don't jump in; just take a sick day and look after your children. And secondly, you seem to have an "overloaded schedule" incredibly often whenever it suits your selective answering, selective deleting, and selective everything else.

As for your take on what's purposeful or meaningful, we've already made our positions clear on two separate threads.

Don't try to make me look like a fool here... I went through this with Saš, and I'll go through it with you too. Just because you're picking on someone else instead of me—and doing it so politely—doesn't mean you aren't being biased or blunt while performing a paid job. I'm used to getting banned for trolling, and nobody's going to shed much sympathy when I get kicked out and end up taking another hit... so maybe it's best if I just say this:

Either learn the rules and how they actually apply (to everyone, by the way—hint: everyone!), or just retire.

rustydrifter10 said:Which one? In the first link you shared, you were just explaining your reasoning behind your moderation calls. In the second one, you were being pretty unpleasant—though I have to admit I didn't catch the part about Springfield until later, which made me hesitate on whether to issue a ban or not. Generally, I'm not one for retroactive bans, and since the discussion had basically reached its end and you hadn't continued being rude, I just let it go. It’s similar to how I didn't ban Splend immediately either, but waited until somewhere around the fourth thread. The difference is that her entire thread was deleted because there was nothing left to discuss, whereas yours was just a single post. I didn't ban you right away, and I didn't ban her right away either. I didn't ban her the second time, or the third... so I wouldn't say I was any stricter with her than I was with you.

On ejsin's thread from two weeks ago—the one where I didn't issue any bans at all. It was completely pointless to everyone except maybe me and her. Being rude is easy to flag, sure, that gets a ban. But it was just nonsense, and it went practically unnoticed by both Supermod and you. Based on your own lenient rules, it really should have been deleted...

Edit — here, this one

even if maybe, learning from your example, I should have just said "just scroll back, everything from today is posted and linked, I don't keep a spreadsheet of everyone I've called out"...

rustydrifter10 said:When I go through and delete stuff that's offensive or just plain tasteless—I'm not doing it because it's a personal vendetta or anything... it’s just that, to me, it feels pointless to leave it up...

I’m not going to go around deleting posts just because they’re decent or actually make sense—that’s not my style. But, if someone decides to drop something unnecessarily offensive or starts picking at people without offering any actual value... yeah, I’ll be clearing that out. I really don't want to deal with the fallout or have people getting into heated, pointless arguments in my comments section...

So, was Splenda really that offensive—like, zero constructive value kind of offensive? Was it actually enough to justify deleting the whole post instead of just locking the thread...

So, could you please walk me through how my post from two weeks ago on ejsin's thread actually differed from what was happening over on Splend's thread?

rustydrifter10 said:I didn't notice it wasn't mentioned how things can be deleted, but I just assumed that went without saying. I'll add that one detail.

He asked how many threads are locked, archived, or just plain pointless... Honestly, I don't know—I don't track any of that, I don't keep stats, and I really don't need those numbers. He can just scroll through the boards if he wants to see how many locked topics there are or what the archives look like. As for deleted posts, there's really no point in debating that...

Deleting stuff that isn't illegal or completely offensive/disrespectful has never been an "assumed" rule on any forum—not here, either. Maybe, before declaring ad hoc rules under the guise of "well, it should be obvious," you ought to consult with some of the more seasoned veterans around here.

At the end of the day, you're a forum user, and as such, you should probably understand which behaviors trigger a backlash. I think it’s time for some self-reflection... maybe stop dragging everyone else into your mess by jumping around when things get heated, then staying silent until you're forced to speak up—only to then claim "it goes without saying" and pivot the rules to fit your sudden change of heart.

No, it doesn't go without saying. You have enough experience to know better than that.

I actually asked you who gave you the authority to decide what's "pointless"? To the point where you'd label things as meaningless enough to be deleted—even things that are clearly just insults or hate speech? For everyone else besides you, it's pretty clear what gets deleted and what "goes without saying."

Edit — there are much kinder, more professional ways to tell someone to just scroll back through the history themselves. There's also the context in which the question was originally asked, a context in which your response comes across as rude and unnecessarily blunt. And please, don't pretend the context isn't clear... it's perfectly clear. Even to you.