Forum Post: Jart: get some sleep.
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 6, 2011, 2:30 a.m. EST by MichaelFerrer
(63)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
You are seriously over-reacting. The deletions are bad form. The threads attached to my reposts had good conversations going, and now you're just furthering hardening people's problems with the forum.
I am sure you're under a lot of pressure and over-worked. I apologize if I contributed to that feeling, but this is a very odd strategy, given the context. You didn't identify yourself as a moderator to begin with, so I didn't assume that you were. And I don't think reposting that comment was 'spamming' the forum; good conversations came out of doing so, and I would think that's what's important.
I think I glimpsed, in the thread you just deleted, an invitation for drinks and I'm fine with that. Really! I'd like to. Perhaps I wasn't respectful enough of the sort of workload the organizers are dealing with, but truthfully my sense was that the moderation looked so hands-off as to seem nonexistent, so I didn't even think those reposts were getting seen at all. In all honesty, had you identified yourself as a mod and asked me to cease and desist, with some clear indication that the site's organization and functionality were being worked on, I would have done so. Otherwise it was just about continuing a conversation around those related concerns: Disorganization & Demands. In any case, just speaking of public perception, deleting whole threads looks...well, reactionary. And domineering (from my perspective, in a misdirected way; I'm on the side of wanting the moderators to exercise their voices more, after all!). Which, really, maybe you're just frazzled and sick of dealing with a bunch of leftist squabbling; so please, if you've been up for forty hours, get some sleep ASAP. Then we can talk about those drinks.
I agree, the censorship by deleting those many threads and replies outweighs the supposed bad form of reposting. As a matter of fact, I did not see more then 2 people ask Michael not to repost. Many more of us agree the reposts were/are needed until this forum becomes easier to read and find topics in which we want to participate.
...and one of those did so because he'd mistaken me for the "Proposed List of Demands" joker to begin with!
I'm fine responding to moderators' requests so long as they identify themselves as moderators. Like I've just said above, I am sure (or at least I'm hoping) a good part of the reaction here really does come down to sheer exhaustion/ exasperation. I don't want to make some case out of this. But I think, for some other good reasons, a new forum is in order, and I do hope I'll be allowed to hang out here tomorrow with folks and try to work that out.
that person who mistook you has posted some great stuff here, what was the user's name? Can't find those posts ATM
distortion
agreed. revolution inside the revolution. these are the voices calling out to make positive change. if you can't feel the heart in these words its better to make no move and sleep on it then to make bad moves and lose good people.
phpbb, sub forums, and a wiki. stat. or this marketed system bleeds to death from missed opportunities.
yes!!
Yeesh, "further hardening," rather. I hate typos.
I can't believe you brought this up again in another thread. Thank you for your concern... but I'm a reactionary now? For removing the post you submitted eight times in a row? It's so funny that you should accuse me of such things at the same time when our comrades in LIberty Square are being assaulted, kettled, and barricaded on all four sides by the police. Innocent people are being pepper sprayed and thrown in jail thanks to the tyranny of American government and you're up in arms about not being able to assert dominance over an internet message board? Where exactly do your priorities lie?
You, and the others who participated in derailing the forum tonight, have wasted my time as well as the time of our readers. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
The problem is why you think the forum was 'derailed' when there were good discussions being had, and how you seem to keep overlooking the problem of simply deleting threads that raised valid concerns with the forum's organization. I'm not sure why you wouldn't see that as being a problematic way to deal with things. No one's up in arms about trying to 'assert dominance,' I'm not even sure what that could mean here. Many people have been/had been saying the same things and there was no apparent response from the moderators...until the deletions. And then deleting posts about posts being deleted?? Like I said, I don't want to get all "that's censorship, man!," but...that's censorship, man. And it doesn't address any real problem, but it does, pointlessly, cause a problem, because it raises the question of why, all of a sudden, after page upon unloadable page of unmoderated flakery and rants, much of which has done real damage to the Occupation, you/the moderators would suddenly decide to assert your presence by deleting threads that had been grumbling about why you hadn't been asserting your presence.
And don't try to guilt trip me about what's happened at Liberty Square. That has nothing to do with this and it's a dishonest way to try to avoid the specific issue at hand here. Of course I think it's outrageous when there's any police suppression of the protestors. My posts didn't contribute to that in the slightest, nor did they 'derail' the forum. The only thing deleting the threads--mine were not the only ones--accomplished is to raise the question of why the threads were deleted instead of choosing some more productive way to address, as in just plain saying something about, their concerns. It's a very strange way to behave, as a moderator, on a forum committed to a radical democratic movement--to suppress disruption and exercise unilateral authority, rather than just posting something civil saying "Hey, we are working on the site's functionality, here's how; please hold tight for a few days. We are trying to figure out how to address the media's misuse of our supposed demands..." That's it, that's all that had to happen, and should have happened. That makes sense. Reposting legitimate, civil concerns, albeit in a maybe 'disruptive' way, isn't derailing the forum. Deleting threads is derailing the forum.