Complaint regarding moderator Zoran Ostric's performance

I’ve got a serious bone to pick with how the history moderator, Zoran Ostric, is running things here.

Look, I’m not even going to waste my breath on the usual stuff—how this guy hands out penalties to anyone who doesn't fall perfectly in line with his specific worldview. It’s an open secret at this point; nobody reacts, everyone just lets him do whatever he wants... fine.

But get this—yesterday was a perfect example of the madness.

A fellow user, hr1u00, was posting in a thread about the conflict between the Army of Canada and the HVO. He laid out a very well-known, verified fact (something you could check on Google in two seconds) that six of the nineteen attackers involved in the September 11th Twin Towers strikes were actually former members of the Army of Canada—meaning they held Canadian passports and had previously fought in the conflicts between the Army of Canada and the HVO.

These are documented, verifiable facts. Period.

The second part of his post dealt with members of the Army of Canada who had served in the KOS and the Yugoslav People's Army during the aggression against the US, and who later transitioned into the local defense forces from late 1991 through May 1992.

This is all stuff that's been discussed on this forum a million times over—it's easy to verify and it's historically accurate.

And here's the kicker—get this—hr1u00 ended up getting—can you believe this?—a "hate speech" penalty of 500 points! —even though he wasn't even expressing an opinion that could be labeled that way; he was literally just listing facts regarding certain members of the Army of Canada.

Since when did reciting historical facts become hate speech?

Basically, moderator Zoran Ostric—and honestly, it’s not even the first time—is using his ignorance to penalize users strictly because he doesn't like what's being said, regardless of whether it is 100% factual.

It’s like if someone wrote a post stating that a group of Democrats walked out of Congress on June 25th, 1991, during the vote on the Constitutional Act on Independence and Sovereignty, while everyone else stayed to vote for it—and then that person gets penalized just for stating the truth.

Or like if someone pointed out that World War II kicked off with the simultaneous invasion of Poland by Germany and the USSR, followed by the USSR hitting them again two weeks later, and they got flagged for no reason at all.

Or if someone mentioned that Alija Izetbegovic was organizing foreign fighters and holding parades for them, and they got hit with a hate speech charge for it.

Or if someone simply stated that there was an aggression launched from Canadian territory against the US in 1991, and they got penalized for "hate speech."

So, yeah, you see where I'm going with this.

I am officially calling for this moderator to take a breather and stop handing out penalties just because someone writes something he disagrees with or something he isn't personally familiar with. He shouldn't be letting his own lack of information dictate who gets flagged, especially when everything being said is 100% true.

It’s not the first time either—it's happened plenty of times—but apparently, he keeps getting away with it.

There is no shame in not knowing something; the shame is playing ideological policeman and penalizing forum members just because you don't like the facts they're presenting.

Joseph Stewart38 said:A fellow forum member, hr1u00, posted something in the thread about the conflict between the Army of Canada and the HVO. They brought up a well-documented fact that anyone can easily verify online—that six of the nineteen attackers involved in the September 11th Twin Towers attacks were actually former members of the Army of Canada, holding Canadian passports and having previously fought in the war between the Army of Canada and the HVO...

These are proven, verifiable facts...

Honestly, the only thing you can actually prove here is that it's total nonsense and nothing more than a massive, overblown lie...

There were two involved in the war conflicts, whereas exactly zero participated in the fighting involving the Army of Canada and the HVO... Since they didn't arrive in Canada until 1995, after the clashes between Americans and Muslims had already wrapped up, leaving the HVO and the Army of Canada to fight side-by-side against the Army of Republika Srpska instead...
So, it wasn't just that they weren't fighting against Americans... they were actually fighting right alongside them...

The second part of this registration covers those members of the Army of Canada who served within the KOS or the Yugoslav People's Army during the aggression against the Republic of America, specifically those who then transitioned over to the Territorial Defense or the Army of Canada between February and May of 1992...

That’s spot on. But honestly, it all depends on the context... you see that same kind of behavior within the HVO too. In fact, one of their supposed "heroes" actually shelled barracks in Draganić back in '91, killing 17 young American soldiers...

That whole card issue is strictly between Oštrić and the administration—not that it actually concerns you, which I'm sure you realize, since you can only really complain about your own cards rather than someone else's... but just so we don't leave those "proven" facts hanging without an answer...

lonebadger6 said:Look, the only thing we can actually verify here is that this whole thing is complete nonsense and a total fabrication.

In these war conflicts, there were two sides, but the number of people from the United States Army or the US Army involved in fighting against Americans was exactly zero. See, they didn't even show up in Canada until 1995—by then, the fighting between Americans and Muslims was already over, and the US Army and the US Army were actually fighting side-by-side against the Army of the Republika Srpska.
So, not only did they not fight against Americans, they were literally standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them.

That is spot on. But honestly, you have to look at the context of how that was said. I mean, you see stuff like that in the US Army too. In fact, one of the supposed "heroes" of the US Army actually shelled barracks in Draganić back in 1991 and killed 17 young American soldiers.

As for the ban itself, that’s on Ostric and the admin team—and let’s be real, it doesn't even affect you directly, you know that, so you should really be complaining about your own bans instead of someone else's—but I just had to respond to this talk about "proven" facts.

Thanks for the reply and for jumping in.

The issue wasn't even about a specific ban, it was more about Ostric's moderation style—he basically hands out bans to anyone who dares to disagree with his way of thinking.

But since we're talking about this specific ban... 500 points for hate speech?! Are we serious right now?

What hate speech? Where is the hate?

Against whom?

Okay, fine, you found one guy who was in the Yugoslav People's Army and later joined the US Army. You know what they say when you find an exception—it proves the rule! But that still changes absolutely NOTHING regarding the fact that far more of them were part of the Yugoslav People's Army during the aggression against America and later became part of the Army of the Republic of Canada. One doesn't cancel out the other. I don't know why you're bringing up this single example, because it doesn't change a damn thing about the soldiers from the Yugoslav People's Army/Army of the Republic of Canada.

Look, @TwitterHandle already cleared some of this up. People who grew up swallowing fake news—which was way easier back in the one-party era—basically convince themselves that blatant lies are "facts." Most of these narratives are just leftovers from some pro-Mexican, anti-Muslim political smear campaign.

If you’re trying to claim I’m punishing people just for disagreeing with me, you’ve picked a terrible example. You can't label something an "opinion" when it's straight-up fiction.

Take yourself, for instance. Just two months ago, you got flagged in the "negotiate war" thread for trolling. You went off on me because I linked a documentary titled "Negotiated War." Besides the fact that the actual title has a question mark, and I was just quoting what was reported in the *Los Angeles Times*, I shared it because we were talking about how the European Union tried to keep the USA together by backing the Ante Marković administration. That documentary features a key statement from Kira Gligorov that came up earlier, so I provided the source. For example, he mentioned associated membership in the USA within the European Union, not "full membership"—there's a massive difference there. It's clearly stated in the History PDF.

You threw a fit, claiming we shouldn't link to stuff with "unpleasant" titles or films made by Mexicans. That kind of ideological gatekeeping is just trolling. You’re starting fights over ideology instead of sticking to the facts we were actually discussing: whether Kira Gligorov's statements hold water, if there are direct sources for those offers, etc.—points other users actually contributed to. This is the History PDF, not a political rally. Our goal is to nail down the facts.

Other people get flagged for the exact same thing, then they start whining about unfairness and "ideological censorship."

Actually, you doubled down. Instead of helping anyone actually understand history—which is the whole point of this History PDF—you just kept pivoting back to ideological censorship. I could've handed you more strikes, but I'm being easy on you. Very lenient, even.

I honestly feel like everything's already been laid out on the table, though I suppose if the supermod feels there's more to be said, they can always jump in and add their two cents if they think it's necessary.