My house, my rules. (RHJunior no longer mod)

[J4N1]

In almost every forum and bulletin board I'm a member of, from photography to programming, if they have an "off topic" forum, the rules specifically state "No Politics" and "No Religion". There's a reason for that.

Unfortunately, as the author of the comics himself insists on bringing both religion and politics into his strips, they must be fair game in the forums.

[Skull]

Indeed.

While Questor is the least overtly political, and it's references to religion have been mild and nonconfrontational, the other two quite regularly bring up topics both religious and political in nature, and last I read any of them, they'd been subverted entirely on at least two occasions with a strip based, composed and illustrated entirely as a confrontational political and religious argument.

Gosh, and the author wonders why people in the forums designated for discussion of those strips... discuss religion and politics.

A baffling mystery, that.

~fin.

[TMLutas]

Indeed.

While Questor is the least overtly political, and it's references to religion have been mild and nonconfrontational, the other two quite regularly bring up topics both religious and political in nature, and last I read any of them, they'd been subverted entirely on at least two occasions with a strip based, composed and illustrated entirely as a confrontational political and religious argument.

Gosh, and the author wonders why people in the forums designated for discussion of those strips... discuss religion and politics.

A baffling mystery, that.

~fin.

I've never had a thread locked because of my disagreements with Ralph and I do disagree with him, most recently about 5 minutes ago on the OT Iraq topic where I did it on explicitly religious grounds because he was being insufficiently christian in my opinion so as to render him a hazard to his own side. I believe there is a way to discuss religion and politics with even the most ardent of opponents without degenerating into flinging mud and other nastiness, though after two decades on the Internet I know how to do that too.

In short, it's not the simple fact of political/religious discussion that causes problem as I've done it without problems. It's the manner in which some approach it.

[Shyal_malkes]

if Ralph himself is going to say he should have done this a long time ago there is nothing for it but to admit that I must not have been paying attention because I thought everything was fine.

well, if we get a new mod I hope it's someone friendly and fun

[Troutnoodler]

I've never had a thread locked because of my disagreements with Ralph...

He locked mine rather abruptly. Under the auspices of everyone was being rude to each other.

The only person anyone else saw being rude was RH, storming in and nixing an uncomfortable thread.

I'm not sure if removing his Moderator status is the best option, since...well...they are his comics and that's what these forums are about. But in the end, he started "trolling" first.

The opening volley was HO, subverting all three comics with his own personal views. Myself and several others suggested that perhaps he should place them in their own strip, or perhaps in his journal, but those were met with either total disdain or open hostility in a few cases. One person even told me that if I didn't like the way things were going, I should "help" him by buying more of his work. And they didn't say it very nice, either.

On the surface, Ralph doesn't seem too angry about this. Privately, he's probably furious, cause' I sure as heck know that I would be, but I'm not Ralph. But as he says, he should have passed the reins over to someone else a long time ago.

Now Ralph can concentrate on what he needs to be doing, rather than trying to keep the peace in a warzone where, more often than not, he fired the first shot.

[Deckard Canine]

He locked mine rather abruptly. Under the auspices of everyone was being rude to each other.

The only person anyone else saw being rude was RH, storming in and nixing an uncomfortable thread.

If it's the thread I think you mean, then I disagree. Not everyone was rude, but there were definitely multiple people stepping on toes.

[TMLutas]

I'm not sure if removing his Moderator status is the best option, since...well...they are his comics and that's what these forums are about. But in the end, he started "trolling" first.

The opening volley was HO, subverting all three comics with his own personal views. Myself and several others suggested that perhaps he should place them in their own strip, or perhaps in his journal, but those were met with either total disdain or open hostility in a few cases. One person even told me that if I didn't like the way things were going, I should "help" him by buying more of his work. And they didn't say it very nice, either.

On the surface, Ralph doesn't seem too angry about this. Privately, he's probably furious, cause' I sure as heck know that I would be, but I'm not Ralph. But as he says, he should have passed the reins over to someone else a long time ago.

Now Ralph can concentrate on what he needs to be doing, rather than trying to keep the peace in a warzone where, more often than not, he fired the first shot.

Pray tell, whose ideas are in the comics if not Ralph Hayes' personal ones? I don't know which thread you're talking about so I won't comment specifically on it. I will say that I've stepped down from moderator status on a matter of principle and I got through my anger over the affair pretty quickly. Moderating is not very satisfying for me and it doesn't seem to be very satisfying for Ralph either (though you'd have to ask him to be sure). That kind of power is more attractive in the abstract.

[Trillan]

Congrats, RHJ, you offically abused your power. You claim to "own" this forum. Sorry, you rent it like you rent an apartment; you get to pay to repair any damage that I see, and you really screwed it up this time.

And with this post, you've very nicely demonstrated what a true abuse of power really looks like.

[Troutnoodler]

Congrats, RHJ, you offically abused your power. You claim to "own" this forum. Sorry, you rent it like you rent an apartment; you get to pay to repair any damage that I see, and you really screwed it up this time.

And with this post, you've very nicely demonstrated what a true abuse of power really looks like.

Uhm, if you look under STrRedWolf's user profile, you'll see this very interesting arrangement of English letters that spell out a word, and that word is "Sysadmin".

In computer circles, this equates to "god", with only a few people above them. Like the Board of Directors. Y'know, those spooky people in 3-piece suits and ties that drive expensive cars and say mystical phrases like "gross profit margin" and stuff?

Yeah. Only, those spooky people don't like to get their hands dirty, so they tell people like STrRedWolf to take care of things, just don't get them sued. Again, in computer circles, this means that the small g on the name god get upgraded to a Big G, as in they are God.

So keeping that in mind, along with the fact that Ralph broke the rules repeatedly despite being warned each time, AND the fact that this person could up and decide they're sick and tired of playing this game with we hoi polloi and delete all three forums and the accounts of anyone who pisses them off...

Do you really see this slap on Ralph's wrist as an abuse of power?

[Tom Mazanec]

The sysadmin can REMOVE all the forums AND the comics, as he said he would do if Ralph tried enough monkey business. He is a BOSS. He can fire someone, and that person has basically no recourse. In the poll, half of Ralph's FANS said they did not like how he was running the forums. While the announcement was admittedly worded in a harsher fashion than I would have done, he was quite within his rights.

[Steltek]

...this doesn't even compute. Ralph is the creator and artist of these comics -- how can they take the forums away from him, take away control of the main medium of communication between him and his readers? It makes no sense.

My question is would they have removed a liberal mod for closing threads they found offensive on different grounds? Suppose they thought things were becoming "racist", "sexists", "homophobic", or any of the other buzzwords people on that side of the isle get all flustered over? Somehow I doubt in that situation the outcome would have been the same.

[The JAM]

Ralph is not paying for the space for the forums nor the comics. He (and everyone else of Comic Genesis) is a GUEST here and the owner of the house can kick him out if he so wishes.

Does that compute now?

[Steltek]

I understand the basic property rights involved, JAM. I'm just saying that I've never heard of any thing like this happening on CG -- I was always given to understand that the hosting service and the forum service were kind of a package, apparently I was wrong.

[Skull]

Mr. Seltek: The politics involved had nothing to do with the ban. The primary difficulty stemmed from an overuse of the delete function, which, in this bulletin board system, tended to cause cascading errors in the system.

This and the other two comic boards are only three out of a couple of hundred on this system; Mr. Hayes deleting a post tended to cause disruptions throughout those other boards.

This was a known attribute, and therefore the proper recommended action is for a moderator to either "lock" a post or move it, not delete it.

Mr. Hayes, in his clear inability to accept any form of criticism, was not satisfied with simply locking "offending" posts, but would delete multiple replies (causing, according to Stredwolf, glitches through the system for upwards of five minutes after each deletion) and then post snarky comebacks, and finally locking the thread to prevent any further reply.

I don't know what sort of boards you frequent, but even Something Awful rarely stoops to that sort of childishness.

Mr. Hayes had been warned about such activities in the past, and upon a recent complaint, was found to be doing it still. Therefore he was removed as moderator of these boards; boards loaned to Mr. Hayes, just as the comics hosting is loaned to him.

And yes, typically one gets a forum along with one's comics hosting. It's part of the package. But, both are still only loans. Keenspot/ComicsGenesis allows people to use it's hosting (which costs Keen/CG actual money) in return for being able to place ads both here in the boards and on the comic strips.

Mr. Hayes doesn't pay anything for his hosting. This service is a loan with stipulations. Among those stipulations is that one follows the rules. Mr. Hayes didn't, and was stripped of his moderatorship because of it. It's as simple as that. Politics had nothing to do with it.

~fin.

[Wanderwolf]

An additional reply, Steltek: Yes, any moderator behaving in such a manner would be de-modded.

[Deckard Canine]

Whoa, I didn't know that thread deletions could have that kind of repercussion.

[The JAM]

Does this compute now?

[Tom Mazanec]

This used to happen to me...I would post something, get an error message, try again in a few moments, get same error message, try again...finally I would succeed, only to see ten identical posts over several minutes. Then I would delete nine of them. Finally I learned not to repost so fast, just go back, copy to paste my posting just in case, and wait some minutes doing something else. But a lot of people post to these forums (a couple hundred fora, remember) and there would always be people learning that lesson. Of course, all we were doing was prolonging the problem.