Free Speech

[bomber]

Anyway it's that time of the day when all good elves have to go to sleep..... night night.

[Lydiot]

Lydiot, we know, you will be unable to apologize for libel and slander you committed, so tick tock ...

So like the rest of the "core" you resort to throwing out accusations yet fail to back them up. The theme that is exposed here is super-clear for anyone who reads this thread.

1. Moderator/Admin makes an accusation
2. Refuses to discuss or back it up or even quote a source
3. Blames those trying to defend themselves of the accusation of "tit-for-tat" or "trolling"

It's beyond weak.

Of course, now, after what you tried to paint for a loong long time wrongfully, Lydiot, is enforced by your perpetual outright criminal behavior (by all means, libel is technically a felony), you, the perpetrator, cries, your rights are limited ... that's not gonna pull it! One has to be a real Lydiot to think, it will.

Just tell me in which posts I lied and committed a crime and if you show how I was wrong I'll apologize.

[Lydiot]

@Lydiot--

First, I just went back and read over the PM you received from the other two admins and me and I reiterate, I am not going to discuss it further.

I know you won't discuss it any further. And I now you know that I'm right. It's just sad seeing someone I actually thought was a "bigger" person not acknowledging that.

Second, I fly using the FG Tracker and Planner so I can keep track of my hours as well as use the multiplayer to fly with my friends. You have used it once under the callsign "Lydiot." At least, you were on Multi-Player in FG using "Lydiot" and tracked by the Tracker and Planner that one time. Perhaps you are just flying by yourself on your computer. Perhaps you fly using a different user name and are among us all the time. At any rate, you are not in the FlightGear community, which, itself, is quite cordial and welcoming of newcomers. If you are on multiplayer and hiding behind another callsign and flying with us all the time, you are going to have to explain that, man, along with your callsign, because it makes no sense.

It's really completely irrelevant if it makes sense to you, the fact remains that it was entirely presumptuous of you to assume that everyone does or should do things your way. I mean, a bit narcissistic even.

Since the very first time I went on multiplayer on FG I've flown with different callsigns. If you've seen "Lydiot" once that was probably an exception. Almost all other times I pick a plane I like, a livery I like, and then I use the airline ICAO identifier plus some random number as a callsign. So if you see BA123 that could be me, or it could be someone else.

And "no", I didn't really "have to explain that", but I did that anyway because I'm such a fucking nice guy.

As for the rest of your post, playing "tit-for-tat" is not my game.

Yeah, I've noticed you prefer to just throw out allegations and then not having to back them up. Takes a lot of courage doing that, doesn't it?

[KL-666]

Hello Bomber,

Look here, i am trying to help you understand something, but you seem to have a plate in front of your head (dutch expression). Take away the plate and let some information in. This is really your last chance.

I'll take as example your post about preconceptions. It is exactly what you should not do, namely redoing the discussion the way you did.

1) You are creatively cutting and pasting again. The post you got that quote of mine from, clearly states that talking about the letter has nothing to do with the topic. Talking about the letter came later when Lydiot started off-topic quoting out of the letter. So you can not turn that around and say that the topic was started with the letter in mind.

2) Things you say, specifically when attacking a person, must always be provable. No matter how much you believe something, when you can not prove it, it is thin air. Broadly spreading thin air about someone makes it libel. Unfortunately talking about someones intentions, what is on his mind, etc... is very hard provable, if at all. Maybe the only way it is provable is when the person has told you what is on his mind. The quote of yours you put under mine, is only talking about intentions i never spoke to you about. Really as long as you can not prove something it is a preconception, lie and in many cases libel too.

Btw. The same thing goes for your signature. You can impossibly prove what is on my mind. That part really has to go.

I sincerely hope you finally get it now. Whatever fantasy about intentions you pumped into your head, it is wrong and not provable. You can not attack a person with it. Doing so is to say the least very indecent.

I really do not know how to explain this any better.

Success and kind regards, Vincent.

[Richard]

The point remains: No mod, no admin ever edited or deleted any of your posts. You were not banned for opinions. You are though about to be banned for repeatedly making utterly wrong statements with the intent of libel. Freedom of Speech does NOT cover intentional criminal behavior, end of the story.

Lydiot and Bomber, you get hereby a last chance to clear your statements and publicly to admit, that your accusations were baseless and only intended to get your some attention your craved so badly.

It seems to me that you are acting as judge and jury in deciding that these statements are "utterly wrong"; or that a secret discussion has taken place where the moderators have decided this. Either way this seems at odds with the stated intention of the community.

You cannot claim that these actions are intentional criminal behaviour because you have not proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the intent is there. To resort to the criminal law to deal with this matter is a massive over reaction for something that is essentially an argument based on difference of opinion. You can't and moreover, you shouldn't use criminal law in this way, firstly because of jurisdiction issues, secondly what is the specific offence that you are alleging has been committed, and finally I can't seem to find any reference that libel is a felony in the US; but that's not really the point. The point is that using criminal law in this situation is just simply the wrong thing to do.

Threatening a ban unless members do what you require of them, based on a recently announced standard is to the act of an aristocrat or an aristocracy, rather than a community led, freedom of speech based approach[1]. Insults have been thrown by some members and moderators of this community, and that seems to be the norm and tolerated, provided that it isn't directed towards yourselves. This nastiness and name calling bothers me but normally it's not worth my time to attempt to dissuade anybody from acting in this way as it only generates more arguments.

This time it is worth my time to write a short note to tell you that, yes, jwocky, you need to reconsider this. Your position is at odds with the quoted intentions of the community. Failure to do so would reflect badly on you.

I would implore both bomber and Lydiot to stand their ground, and under no circumstances to give into your demands.

My final thought is maybe it'd be better if the rhetoric was turned down to minimum by all concerned in this discussion and maybe try getting along rather than having pathetic arguments about nonsense, when truly nobody is actually complete right about any of this, in my opinion.


----------------------------
[1] community intentions are stated here viewtopic.php?t=520&p=8987#p8987

[IAHM-COL]

Thanks Richard.
you've worded perfectly well exactly what I needed to say.

Now, onto specifics:

1. About the 72h ban period.

I am very sorry JWocky, but I am going to make you loose face on this one.
As the Free Flight Free Speech admin I do not endorse that.

In other words, get your dragon hands off the Thermonuke.

I guess this is an executive order, based on alternative facts. Very fashionable. But it is what it is.

Secondly: Bomber

The fact that we are even discuss this is absurdity.
First of all, Bomber has not even been moderated on this board for anything at all. Not even a single one time.

Bomber and Vincent had clashes on this very same thread. Many people on this board had had clashes in the past, so nothing new under the sun.

We can see this as Bomber challenging authority. But 1) Challenging of authority is what made this forum in the first place. 2) Per our forum methods, Moderation does not spontaneously happen, and therefore, Vincent has been acting on "normal user" mode here. Not in category of Moderator. In fact clearly instead of Moderating, Vincent had been unmoderating this discussion with the goal of bringing some problems on the fore-front.

I can see why JWocky jumped harsh to defend Vincent. But unfortunately it was 1) uncalled for [Vincent never asked moderation to be taken place] and 2) utterly an excess, and 3) Unilaterally decided.

Now JWocky. Let me remind you of something a bit of an irony here.

Bomber is exactly in your sit.

Look. I was banned from Curtis' Forum because I dared to challenge authority (as Lydiot did to you here). Then you put yourself in the line of fire, and defended me very strongly, just as bomber had defended Lydiot in this thread. And as a consequence you were banned off Curtis' forum just because you've done what you considered loyal, friendly, and ultimately right.

I hated Curtis' for that, and I'd hate seeing my friend repeating such misdemeanor.

Now: Let's put things in perspective: How to manage a forum? My answer always is: When in doubt, figure out what Curtis would do. Execute the opposite and you would be Golden.

So, simply put: No. You are not endorsed to ban bomber here, and in the total absence of the Moderation team input.

Thirdly: Lydiot

This one is a difficult one, indeed.

Now,
1) Lydiot had not violated any of this forum rules by writing such ludicrous signature
2) Banning lydiot would make his signature visionary and the act of banning him Ludicrous. Which I hate
3) We recently had moderated Lydiot per your request and we had specifically outrule against a ban that time. Thus It is not acceptable that you jump out on this thread to press the Thermonuke while ignoring the rest of your moderation team. ---yeah! I know your hand tickles on that button right now, but No. It is not proper to do it.
4) In defense of Lydiot, he has followed our recommendations to the letter we sent. The only interaction he actually had with Jwocky in this thread was

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=971&start=120#p19080

@The Lydiot:

Do you really want to have that conversation?

Which actually stands as honoring our PM petition of NOT HAVING that conversation. Regardless that it can in fact infridge Lydiot's liberty of using speech on his defense.

In other words, we stand on a situation in which we cannot morally limit Lydiot to Curtis' jail.


Now, onto the problem.

Lydiot's actions and behavior have repercursions that exceed the realm of this forum and even the internet realm. I would open a moderation conversation into how to address this more effectively.

Fourthly: Bomber again


I think bomber has made very valuable points accross this thread in general.
And I find very empathetic to his actions of principle in his defense and Lydiots.

But we are still going to be needing to address the problem on hand. And Bomber can't be left unpunished.

So, bomber's punishment is compulsory service. I am hereby by another executive order based upon alternative facts (very fashionable) endowing Simon Marley's (bomber) as a Free Flight Free Speech Moderator for a period of 1 month.
(how is this a punishment? Well for those that do not understand he is in a lil bit of a trouble because his first task is helping us figure out how to address the Lydiot+JWocky romance to a better resolution. One in which Lydiot does not feel ill treated by the Moderation team such that he needs a signature protest, and one in which JWocky feels safer in his own home)

Secondly, I want to extend my invitation to all the admin team of this forum to consider this as a permanent measure, pending Bomber's accepting of the candidancy to Moderator, and the rest of the team voicing the support.

Free Speech Rules

We had reached a point on which we would need to talk about free speech boundaries. Clearly Libel, and cyber bullying must be considered. But other boundaries may need to be considered. For this I preffer to have full community input.


On this direction, particularly, I found interesting a comment made by bomber somewhere in this thread. Particularly, whether we could enforce stronger regulations in the general fora, while keeping our "Unrelated non-sense" a completely unmoderated section. In this sense anyone that engages in that section does so on his own risk and need to understand the Admin team will not intercede. In addition the more sensitive topics such as politics and religion must remain quarrelled to that section. Finally, cyberbullying and Libel would be not tolerated in the whole board.

That's kind of the general of my initial proposal in the sense of "New rules"...


Best Regards to all,
IAHM-COL

PS: @JWocky. I want you to recall when I remove Josh's full priviledges to FGMEMBERS because he persisted to push force the repositories. And how Skyboat and You talked me out of that.

I, hereby, talking you out of banning anyone this 2nd February is basically the same situation of a balance of power.

Remember I would not be any happy to get a shit-cake for my birthday. I prefer chocolate-cake.

[SHM]

I didn't comment in this thread yet because I didn't want to get amidst the flame war.

But what you've written above is perfect and I stand with you.

And an advance happy b'day to you.

[jwocky]

Well, executive orders ... on someone else's board ... oookaaaay, very well! For the time being, I have removed admin and mod rights from everybody. I suggest, you people get yourself an own domain, you can have the database of the forum, no problem, regular forum activity is still working till then. So it should be no big problem to get your own forum going.
I am not available for the next few hours, I have to find a doctor to pull the dagger out of my back.

[bomber]

Secondly, I want to extend my invitation to all the admin team of this forum to consider this as a permanent measure, pending Bomber's accepting of the candidancy to Moderator, and the rest of the team voicing the support.

First off well manoeuvred I didn't see that coming, and memo to self: don't play chess with this chap.

Secondly I'm not prepared to accept any permanent arrangement, that way leads to madness and cliche clubs with moderators and Admin backing moderators because we're all lovely friends and should respect each other.... blah blah blah .... vomit !

I also need to say that I'm not Lydiots friend, I don't care a shit about him, he's just someone that posts on a forum about a hobby that I we both share, the same with all you chaps. The forum's integrity, it's founding principles I do care about and I entered into this topic because of it, and If I see this forums integrity being brought into disrepute tomorrow or the next day by either an ordinary member, a moderator, Admin or owner, I'll make a stand, and I don't need the green to do that.

As I said..... it's a no to permanent.

I suggest however that I accept a 6 month tenure-ship, after which the community can offer up the name of someone else to go head to head against and vote me out.... If by a fecking miracle I'm voted to do the role for another 6 months I'll do so.... BUT once that time has done I will not be eligible for re-election until another 6 months has past. This community has to take some responsiblity with the battern being past.

Now I think these are reasonable suggestions.... if you don't accept them I'll ban myself for the period of my one month punishment...

Simon

[p.s. I've not read any of the post subsequent to Israel's so I don't know if there's any fall out from it, and frankly didn't want it to alter what I wanted to write]

[bomber]

oh wow I've read the post now... nothing much I feel I can say.