It Gets Even f**king Worse!

[adj]

Aye then. So it would be good now for *that human* to speak up and get this over with.

Personally, I was hoping it was the jaaathmaster Grlz, bloody useless blodger, so he'd get busted out and have more time to spend on our collab...

Cheers,
Alex

[Sascha Franck]

Aye then. So it would be good now for *that human* to speak up and get this over with.

This is exactly what I expected. And I'd easily forgive him in that case.
I won't let him get away with not saying anything though.

[adj]

Well, Ben[KVR] is back and on the scene, so mayhaps we'll get this settled.

That said, I am a wee bit uncomfortable with all this. Perhaps a few PMs would have sufficed to solve this problem or mediate it... No? I may be wrong about that...

But ain't that life?

Cheers,
Alex

[89]

Hi all, I just wanted to quote what I think it's the biggest issue here:

A newbie comes to KVR to get some information on which software ROMpler he should buy. He looks all over to find information and discovers quite a few topics about Ravity, WusikStation, ManyStation and Nexus, the plugins he is considering. Whilst all the products have a lot of nice things said about them, there are also quite a few negatives about all of them, except one. Now Nexus costs more so maybe the reason for that is that its perfect, otherwise in a place like KVR there would have to be some negative comments about it from somewhere, wouldn't there? The same could happen with any or all of reFX's products if the mods get all 1984 on the archives and excise anything negative about any of their products. Sure, that's an extreme case and perhaps unlikely but if you had told me two days ago that a legitimate thread on a pertinent topic would be completely removed from teh forum before the originator had the opportunity to read even one reply, I would have said "that would never happen here".

I'm kinda newb here and I lurk a lot, but when I came here was for that (kinda) exact reason, finding a good new host to produce my music on. I read KVR for months, trying to form an idea on it, and then I decided and bought what I felt was the right choice.

The good thing about this forum was that everything is under the public eye. Pros, cons, everything I needed to know about the products was easily reachable in each section of the forum. But now what?
Theres a product that can't have bad reviews?

That doesn't hurt just the loyal users of KVR, trying to voice their legitimate opinion, but most of all hurts the whole frikkin purpose of the forum per se.

I kinda understand giving a dedicated section on the forum for a product, and then I understand that certain section to have its policy (I understand it, not saying that I like it or anything.. in fact it pretty sucks imo) but this can't affect also other places, like "instruments", where many of us come to express opinions and read other's opinion on different subjects.

Every voice should have its space (being it non-offensive, well thought and argumented) and even more if this voice becomes a choir.

This is just my opinion, I don't want to point any finger, just state hereby that this situation sucks. I will enjoy this forums anyway but THINK OF THE NOOBS

[ctmg]

89, +1

[runagate]

That's utterly absurd.

BONES has attacked, unprovoked, and for that matter told to kill themselves, more newbies than anyone else.

That's some go out and fire into a crowd irony there, hypocritical spoiled momma's boy.

[Ben [KVR]]

It seems you guys had a fun few days. We have hadn't a bit of controversy of this calibre for a while so I guess we were due!

I don't know who deleted it (them?); speculation and assumption points to Kev (and Bluedad?).

I wasn't keeping up with all the Nexus threads, I locked one (and got called a dickhead) that had got out of hand (again) but I have been away since Friday (which was my Birthday) so I missed the main meltdown.

The main problem appears to be that several topics were moved and one (or more) topic was deleted and not just locked, which was an error in judgement in my opinion but not the huge censorship issue that it appears to have become. I have been known to delete a whole topic when it really is a mess, this is not censorship it just needs doing sometimes. Mods have to make tough calls and can just snap - I can only assume that Kev felt this way when he did this, I know he is concerned about the level of aggressiveness and manipulation from some forum members, and he has a very valid point. Some members feel they have the right to shout, be heard, and be seen to be right to the level of persecution of some other members. This can be riling. I think deleting a topic is a bit heavy handed but when you are incensed...

Did the mod(s) over-step the mark? Perhaps, but they have to deal with members over stepping the mark every day, they have to put up with abuse for no reason and attempt to manage some very infantile behaviour. I (as in KVR) encourage light moderation - mostly moving topics to the correct forums, deleting spam, deleting double posts, etc. Ideally I don't require moderators to get too involved in discussions because I dream of members being able to discuss things sensibly themselves and to enforce some kind of self moderation. I now this is not a realistic dream which is why we have situation such as this from time to time.

It seems that KVR is used as a playground by some. Some even admit they troll. Which is a shame. Should we be harder on the more aggressive members here. My inclination is yes (cue accusations of censorship, fascist, dictatorship, I'm leaving, etc.). If you tell someone to f**k off or call them a f**king idiot you should probably get a temp ban. I shall consider this, and giving mods the power to enforce these temporary bans (currently I am the only moderator with the ability to ban).

Anyway, This is more than I intended to write on this matter; I'm rambling a bit, so there you go. If anyone feels the need to leave over this then that's your call. We try to make KVR a good place to be but it gets harder and harder with every new member and every new "issue".

Mods get fed up with the tedious arguments and counter arguments that often occur. It is rare for a whole topic to get pulled but sometimes it happens. Muff Wiggler makes a good post here, so I'll quote him (I know it was about a topic move and not specifically the deletion but still...):

1-2-Many, I think you are being a little naive about this all. It's pretty obvious to me why you aren't getting any help moving that thread.

1) Who cares? There's a bunch of Nexus threads in Instruments now.

2) Your behaviour - you (and others) have jumped in and started out slagging off the modS quite viciously, and acting like KVR is some corrupt cesspool of censorship and fascism. Then when one of the mods involved admitted it, suddenly it's "oh you guys all do a great job". Rolling Eyes give me a break. I came into the thread originally to simply say "i've had nothing to do with this" and was accused and tarnished for no reason other than that I tried to give what little information I have. Not pleasent to say the least. Sad (many thanks to the couple of members who stood up for me and other mods). When I received your PM asking for help I almost choked on the irony. Now you have this infantile thread that you keep bumping that is adding nothing to the conversation here. Enough. I'm locking it.

3) Finally, the mods are all basically equal, and dislike having to second-guess each other. Since the mod responsibile for moving threads has made himself known, it's up to him to move them back. I'm not going to second-guess his decision, much as I wouldn't like another mod second-guessing mine. If he moves them back, that's fine with me, but I'm not going to do it. Perhaps I would have more sympathy but this entire eposide has been utterly disgusting and frustrating to me, seeing all the KVR mods painted with the same pathetic brush as people make mindless accusations and assumptions, and it's hardly the first time. Not a way to get help or make friends. Sorry. I'm sick of seeing all the abuse the mods take around here, and this episode pretty much made me bottom out in terms of patience for this sort of crap. We work hard to give you guys a great forum and take nothing but grief for it 99% of the time.

So as this thread has more than run its couse and its adding nothing to the conversation I'm locking it. Cry censorship all you'd like. You've made it very clear you know who deleted the threads. The mod who moved the threads has made himself known. You know who to talk to if you want these resolved, and if they don't have much sympathy at this point I guess I can only say that I understand and I'm definately feeling pretty frustrated at the way people carry on here sometimes myself. As the old saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. An adage worth keeping in mind.

[laputa_sync]

happy birthday! for fri.

[ctmg]

Happy Birthday, Ben (well, 2 days late, but still)

If you tell someone to f**k off or call them a f**king idiot you should probably get a temp ban. I shall consider this, and giving mods the power to enforce these temporary bans (currently I am the only moderator with the ability to ban).

I don't mind if some other moderators have ban powers as well (one could almost say its overdue?), but I think you'll get quite a large uproar about it. Best to do it quietly, I think.

[Ben [KVR]]

I'm, not particularly bothered about uproar. I run KVR the way I think it should be run. It isn't run by committee.

Happy Birthday, Ben (well, 2 days late, but still)

If you tell someone to f**k off or call them a f**king idiot you should probably get a temp ban. I shall consider this, and giving mods the power to enforce these temporary bans (currently I am the only moderator with the ability to ban).

I don't mind if some other moderators have ban powers as well (one could almost say its overdue?), but I think you'll get quite a large uproar about it. Best to do it quietly, I think.

[ctmg]

I'm, not particularly bothered about uproar. I run KVR the way I think it should be run. It isn't run by committee.

And thats respectable. I can't imagine it being very easy to stand your ground with such a large user pressure (tens of thousands of members! )

[Voidoid Surrealist]

A berated slappy girthday to ya, sorry you had to come back to such a shite prezzie.

[Muff Wiggler]

happy birthday Ben

sorry you had to come back to such a mess, we did our best to keep it sane

cheers

[Sascha Franck]

Excellent posts, Ben and Muff (haven't seen that one yet).

And, you're probably right in that we shouldn't continue in making an elephant out of a mosquito (as we say in germany).

Also, I do absolutely agree on some actions towards personal insultments that are getting dirty.
I must say that I really can't stand it anymore when new members get flamed for asking the same old questions again. Why would one feel inclined to jump onto them, telling them tarnce is entirely useless anyways, they'd be dickheads/c**ts/losers for thinking anything else and should finally use their retarded brains to get to the search function?
And yes, this is happening every day and I could easily name a few regulars taking part in those newbie bashing sports all the time.
I really don't understand what weird sort of satisfaction said persons get from such actions, instead of just leaving those threads alone.

Add to this that sometimes there's a whole truckload of nonsense threads are started in non-appropriate forums. IMO they should all belong in OT, even if the thread starter finds them to be music related. That way people quickly looking to the latest threads wouldn't even have to see stupid "hiphop must die" and whatever threads on the right. This defenitely isn't the kind of information you'd expect from KVR.

To me it quite often seems as if some regulars sort of define KVR as their personal playground, with only their opinions and moral standards being valid, and as soon as you don't agree with them you're called a f**king moron or whatever.

Yet, having said that, I still think censorship is an entirely different issue.
Given the "average thread value" and "average amount of flames happening in all sorts of threads", the deletion of the original Nexus thread was making no sense at all. And while my rubber doll pic probably hasn't been all that much of a great joke for some, while the discussion was pretty much going OT after that - all that still didn't justify locking that thread either. You can see way, way, worse threads going on happily for days and weeks.
Both these actions were simply not within the guidelines of KVR.

Now, as said in the beginning, all this probably wasn't worth all the fuzz we made about it - but had the moderator in question stood up and apologized or at least explained himself, I'm sure this thread (and some other threads) would've vanished more or less quickly.
Doing something wrong is one thing. Just human nature. Trying to make it look right or completely ignoring your mistakes is another. Doing the latter when you're a mod smells like censorship.

Anyways, I think that for me the case is closed.

Ah, and happy birthday, Ben.

[diverdee]

Happy Birthday Ben dude.
It's your Forum, so you do what you thinks best.
The fact that people get so emotionally involved with issues here, to the point of taking offense & being offensive even, is a testament to how successful it is.
Just my opinion, but I believe that when certain threads have gotten out of hand your Mods have done a pretty damn good job of locking, moving & pressing the pause button on said threads.
Maybe the threat of temp bans etc. would indeed give hot-tempered individuals pause for thought before they type.
I've been temp banned from forums before (a big brother forum to my shame) & on reflection I understood the reason why & was a little more careful/thoughtful with how I expressed myself thereafter.