The choices of those in power
A point of reference before I begin, when I say #starmen I'm almost always going to be talking about the sister channel of #earthbound as it was on DynastyNet. Also, let me set the stage. Late 2001, #earthbound moves to DynastyNet, the especially unhappy dissidents (read: FlatFace, Cyan683) get banned and make #starmen. Stupid me, playing political activist, took up FlatFace's cause. (I don't think this ever completely changed)
When #starmen was founded by FlatFace, I thought he had struck gold. I figured that we were out there, sticking it to the man. It wasn't long before I felt a need to steer the direction of this cause I had attached myself to. I think the main reason I took up that side, was that I felt the need to denounce what I believed to be (and honestly, still belive was) the unfair railroading of FlatFace by Zeth. In retrospect, with the sanctions of #earthbound being lifted, it was a big to do about nothing, but I took it seriously at the time.
After I got myself banned from #earthbound for being the local dissidents, conditions became right for me to take control of #starmen. FlatFace was becoming steadily more involved with his own project, FlatFace.net. I started as one of the higher ops through some conversations with FlatFace. Among the people there (many of whom, till the day I gave up my position, believed #starmen was the 'lamer' alternative to #earthbound) I quickly gained the reputation of being too hard. Somebody literally once called me 'The Hammer.' That was one of the kinder ways of putting it, as I quickly learned.
Finally with FlatFace.net becoming a consuming project for its namesake, I got to step up to run the channel. This is where the real trouble, and my respect for all the old #earthbound ops, went up. I had several problems to deal with:
1) most of the people, refused to give up the notion that #starmen was some kind of #sqrxz.
2) I constantly had to try and rid myself of all the 'infamous' lamers, like AtomBomb and GreenTom, without appearing ban happy. This is because there was a big front, even on my own part to be "better than Zeth." This was stupid in retrospect, authority is authority and should be used for the right reasons (namely banning morons), not little personal proofs of being better than somebody.
3) Cyan683. Even irreparable attitude and political differences aside, I couldn't get the right people as ops or banned thanks to his policy. We had to had the people he approved of, we had to ban who he said. I asked FlatFace several times why he didn't just let Cyan run the channel. The official reason was Cyan didn't want the job. I think the answer in the end is FlatFace found us to be extremes in the opposite directions, keeping the channel balanced. Don't quote me on it though.
In the end, it made for a bit of a power vacuum. The ops were too busy infighting about policy to do anything with the channel. The channel ops were in some cases, bitterly divided over issues. Mansion_Maniac and to a lesser extent `Freiza usually took up my side of things. The other side usually consisted of Cyan, Ramza, and to a lesser extent Anthadd. The main issues were:
1) The ability of ops to ban people without cause. I was the one who mostly argued for this, for reasons you'll see momentarily. It would have probably been unanimous had we not still been under the whole "better than Zeth" policy.
2) Swearing. Originally, I thought we should have no swearing at all, but I softened my position slightly when FlatFace weighed in. A lot of the rest of the time was spent arguing what constituted to a swear or not. The reasons I pushed for the ban without cause stuff, was to remove idiots who got kicked once for a minor swear and then started spending all their time arguing it wasn't swearing.
3) Finally, the biggest problem we had was with sexual innuendo. This got particularly bad, and came to a head when ZephieKun and CursedBurger began to insist that they could post homosexual innuendo. Mansion_Maniac was pretty much the only other op to take my side against it, and I fear in retrospect I spent too much time attacking those two specifically rather than going after the bigger problem and just outright banning all innuendo. I stand by my opinion that they shouldn't be allowed to post homosexual innuendo in a private room, however that, thankfully, is no longer my problem. (On a light side note, Cyan felt it was in calling me 'Hitler' for ' persecuting homosexuals.')
Depending on what side you take, I either went out in a blaze of glory or left in disgrace after that. I say in defense of myself, that at least I didn't pull an EBAholic and crash #starmen down, it still exists, even though I'm never going to touch it again.
In the end if all boils down to a choice few bits of information. The ops have a bad job. You've probably heard it from them a billion times, but maybe it will actually mean something coming from me. Even in a well behaved channel like #earthbound, there is more than one person itching to see how far they can push the rules. You can imagine how bad it got in #starmen. This will probably never change, and I can't say it really needs to. I just think we, as chatters would do well to show good judgement and mostly self moderate ourselves. Also, reduce an ops' grief, don't argue your kick next time, you probably deserved it.
As for myself, I can safely say that as long as he doesn't try another 'FlatFace' or something equally on the level, Zeth will have gained respect from me due to my experiences. I think he honestly just tries to run the place correctly.
This is Dr. Boris, saying, peace out.
A point of reference before I begin, when I say #starmen I'm almost always going to be talking about the sister channel of #earthbound as it was on DynastyNet. Also, let me set the stage. Late 2001, #earthbound moves to DynastyNet, the especially unhappy dissidents (read: FlatFace, Cyan683) get banned and make #starmen. Stupid me, playing political activist, took up FlatFace's cause. (I don't think this ever completely changed)
When #starmen was founded by FlatFace, I thought he had struck gold. I figured that we were out there, sticking it to the man. It wasn't long before I felt a need to steer the direction of this cause I had attached myself to. I think the main reason I took up that side, was that I felt the need to denounce what I believed to be (and honestly, still belive was) the unfair railroading of FlatFace by Zeth. In retrospect, with the sanctions of #earthbound being lifted, it was a big to do about nothing, but I took it seriously at the time.
After I got myself banned from #earthbound for being the local dissidents, conditions became right for me to take control of #starmen. FlatFace was becoming steadily more involved with his own project, FlatFace.net. I started as one of the higher ops through some conversations with FlatFace. Among the people there (many of whom, till the day I gave up my position, believed #starmen was the 'lamer' alternative to #earthbound) I quickly gained the reputation of being too hard. Somebody literally once called me 'The Hammer.' That was one of the kinder ways of putting it, as I quickly learned.
Finally with FlatFace.net becoming a consuming project for its namesake, I got to step up to run the channel. This is where the real trouble, and my respect for all the old #earthbound ops, went up. I had several problems to deal with:
1) most of the people, refused to give up the notion that #starmen was some kind of #sqrxz.
2) I constantly had to try and rid myself of all the 'infamous' lamers, like AtomBomb and GreenTom, without appearing ban happy. This is because there was a big front, even on my own part to be "better than Zeth." This was stupid in retrospect, authority is authority and should be used for the right reasons (namely banning morons), not little personal proofs of being better than somebody.
3) Cyan683. Even irreparable attitude and political differences aside, I couldn't get the right people as ops or banned thanks to his policy. We had to had the people he approved of, we had to ban who he said. I asked FlatFace several times why he didn't just let Cyan run the channel. The official reason was Cyan didn't want the job. I think the answer in the end is FlatFace found us to be extremes in the opposite directions, keeping the channel balanced. Don't quote me on it though.
In the end, it made for a bit of a power vacuum. The ops were too busy infighting about policy to do anything with the channel. The channel ops were in some cases, bitterly divided over issues. Mansion_Maniac and to a lesser extent `Freiza usually took up my side of things. The other side usually consisted of Cyan, Ramza, and to a lesser extent Anthadd. The main issues were:
1) The ability of ops to ban people without cause. I was the one who mostly argued for this, for reasons you'll see momentarily. It would have probably been unanimous had we not still been under the whole "better than Zeth" policy.
2) Swearing. Originally, I thought we should have no swearing at all, but I softened my position slightly when FlatFace weighed in. A lot of the rest of the time was spent arguing what constituted to a swear or not. The reasons I pushed for the ban without cause stuff, was to remove idiots who got kicked once for a minor swear and then started spending all their time arguing it wasn't swearing.
3) Finally, the biggest problem we had was with sexual innuendo. This got particularly bad, and came to a head when ZephieKun and CursedBurger began to insist that they could post homosexual innuendo. Mansion_Maniac was pretty much the only other op to take my side against it, and I fear in retrospect I spent too much time attacking those two specifically rather than going after the bigger problem and just outright banning all innuendo. I stand by my opinion that they shouldn't be allowed to post homosexual innuendo in a private room, however that, thankfully, is no longer my problem. (On a light side note, Cyan felt it was in calling me 'Hitler' for ' persecuting homosexuals.')
Depending on what side you take, I either went out in a blaze of glory or left in disgrace after that. I say in defense of myself, that at least I didn't pull an EBAholic and crash #starmen down, it still exists, even though I'm never going to touch it again.
In the end if all boils down to a choice few bits of information. The ops have a bad job. You've probably heard it from them a billion times, but maybe it will actually mean something coming from me. Even in a well behaved channel like #earthbound, there is more than one person itching to see how far they can push the rules. You can imagine how bad it got in #starmen. This will probably never change, and I can't say it really needs to. I just think we, as chatters would do well to show good judgement and mostly self moderate ourselves. Also, reduce an ops' grief, don't argue your kick next time, you probably deserved it.
As for myself, I can safely say that as long as he doesn't try another 'FlatFace' or something equally on the level, Zeth will have gained respect from me due to my experiences. I think he honestly just tries to run the place correctly.
This is Dr. Boris, saying, peace out.
