It's not an isolated incident though. This has happened multiple times across multiple users over the time I've been on this site.

There needs to be a way to stop deliberate attempts to cause trouble, even if they aren't technically breaking CoC. E.g.: mods need to be able to act proactively and put out fires in advance of full raging infernos.

In other words we need a solution that can be implemented over and over again, not just in this one instance. There needs to be a way to give offenders a chance to change their ways, but once that chance has been given (once maybe twice), things need to be handled quickly.

What about my suggestion? Do not post about other posters, post about issues. What "infernos" could come out of people being forced by forum rules to suck it up if another person bugs them?

Wow, I didn't even know that (derp). Thanks for letting me know there was a "foes" box. Fixed

If posters find ways to skirt the rules and break their spirit, then without people addressing the issue they simply get away with it. In essence the bullies win. It will not create a welcoming environment to people that don't want be annoyed by the site itself. It's just not fun. This is where moderation has to step in. Fwiw, I want this to be the most welcoming environment it can be. I want it to be open to various personalities, and opinions. But, people that insist on causing strife, or in your version would be causing strife but now no one can respond, should be left out of the environment IMHO, rather than allowed to get away with it.

Back then, I honestly cared about what other people on the suforum thought. I was not directly trying to troll anyone, and the vast majority of "arguments" I got into were started by other people directly saying my opinions were stupid and wrong.

Why did I stop?

Two things:

1) I decided that if I feel my breath is wasted on you, then you are a complete and utter waste of my time that doesn't deserve a response from me past putting out what I think and letting people lurking, who might actually care about what I have to say, read it.

A major problem right now is that people in the subforum feel the need to get the last word. While this is human nature, it usually just leads to pissing contests where people are reading things to respond, not to digest what was written.


2) Miss_Bun threatened to permaban me, despite the COC saying I had done nothing wrong, because I was an unpopular poster she felt was intentionally trolling people without breaking the COC and that she would rather I go away then people like Hakeem, who were blatantly breaking the COC on a regular basis, going away.


BTW I'm sure 2) would work. "I know you've done nothing wrong by COC standards but you are annoying enough people that we are going to permaban you anyways if you don't become a better poster" usually gets rid of unpopular posters one way or the other.

Under the COC, you are not allowed to insult another poster but you are allowed to insult their posts.

"You are dumb" - not allowed
"You are not dumb, but your current ideas on this topic are dumb" - technically allowed


A major problem with the Duels subforum, which was present on the Mothership as well, is that as soon as someone really doesn't like another poster they immediately jump to the 1st and not the 2nd, raising every situation to a much higher confrontational level than it needs.

For the love of Crowley, it's an internet message board about a card game. If someone is being intentionally, obviously, and vigorously disruptive, to the point where they are posting more than anyone else and creating new threads just for disruption, then who cares if they've "technically" violated the CoC? The judicial system isn't even that strict; juries can find someone "guilty" even if there is no proof they violated the letter of the law, and can also find people "not guilty" even if there is substantial proof that the letter, but not the spirit, of a law was broken.

So just IP ban the person doing it. In the meantime, everyone and I mean literally everyone needs to stop replying to the person. I said I'd stop replying to them weeks ago, and I actually did. You all should follow suit.

I recently signed up for an account here, just before the Hakeem incident, because this is essentially the only/best forum discussing deck lists for duels (I'm not a fan of the Reddit setup, this is a more traditional forum).

That said, my introduction here was immediately confrontational and not very welcoming. I don't post very frequently here, but I post multiple times per day to the other forums that I frequent. I imagine the majority of people who are new feel the same way, or don't even bother to sign up to begin with.

I like the comment earlier in the thread about the "spirit" of the CoC. Mods should be able to use discretion for both leniency and severity as appropriate. Some things are simply a judgement call, like the poster everyone is referencing. If someone is causing strife while technically inside the rules... Take action and solve the problem. Otherwise the community will cannibalize itself.

Well, for one, "don't intentionally be a dick" needs to apparently be part of the COC because we've had a couple of recent people do exactly that and wonder why they weren't the most popular people on the forum instantly. While I would scientifically like some insight into the thought process that goes "if I treat people like rubbish, they'll respect me and make me their adored sovereign", I do not think the results would be useful or logical, or even necessarily all that enlightening.

For two...I'm going to try to say this without offending the person on the receiving end. If they get offended, delete it. Fine. But the person that most of you are discussing are reminds me of (here it comes) mjack in his early days on the mothership. Both of them post/posted a LOT. Heck, mjack's broken 10k here. The difference is, mjack was unintentionally irritating. He at first at least did not understand why triple/quadruple posting was annoying, didn't multiquote, would debate people about how card X is better than card Y and then either have no statistical proof or fly in the face of established data, et cetera. But, like I said, most of it was either unintentional, or simply misguided.

That's one thing. That's fine. And from what I can tell he has mostly outgrown that stuff.

This other poster isn't unintentional. They've told us so. They like being abrasive, enjoy stirring stuff up, intentionally label themselves in a way that they know is controversial and unapologetically verbally assault people at the drop of a hat. Their presence on the forum is so pervasive that, even on ignore, half the topics on the first page show that person as the most recent replier, because they constantly generate more attention for themselves. They are loving - simply adoring - that at the moment, we're all sitting here worked up about them. They're getting everything they want, and they're just barely managing to do it within the rules.

I actually kind of hope it's really a reg in disguise showing us a hole in the rules that allows people to be like this, in the hopes that we'll close the loophole. I know I've recklessly lambasted decisions by Wizards to show them how bad the idea is. I'm not sure that it's ever worked. But the alternative is that we actually have someone who is, shall we say...outstanding in the wrong way, and that we're enabling the heck out of them.

I mean, if I saw some hope here? If I thought they might change or understand things from our perspective? Maybe. But this person isn't making a mistake. This isn't spilling the milk or burning the bacon. This is tearing the wings off flies, kicking dogs, and spitting in our faces. They know what they're doing is wrong - if not by the rules, then by the spirit of the rules - and they're enjoying doing it. This isn't ignorantly making mistakes, this is deliberately pissing in our faces and telling us to enjoy the taste. They need to decide - right now, if I had my say - if they're going to play ball or if they're going to sit on the bench.

I mean I'm not a model poster. I don't contribute any more since my contribution niche disappeared. I am borderline abrasive, highly opinionated, and often subtly passive aggressive. I quite frankly probably get away with more than I should between a combination of being grandfathered in and being amusing. But here as in at the motherboard and in most communities I'm in, I have chosen the role of "the troll that keeps all the other, worse trolls, away." It's not an enviable position, but it has historically been effective. I got rid of at least half a dozen or so at the mothership before my unrelenting rage at their complete self-destruction of what was previously an enjoyable forum by making changes no one wanted and refusing to revert back caused me to mouth off until they were forced to get rid of me before suffering some really bad PR. I at least have the phyrric victory of knowing their ship did eventually sink as I predicted. It, however, leaves me in a borderline tolerable position myself because I push the rules the same as the kind of people I try to keep out do, I just try to do it for the good of the community rather than to drag it down.

If I have to start reigning it in to keep situations like this from cropping up again, so be it. I may be discomfited by it some or post less to keep the edge off my words, but hey. For the team, right? This can't keep happening. We can't have a board full of back and forth with someone like this intentionally pissing on the rules and getting away with it because they're not *quite* breaking them, and having pages of this stuff visible whenever a potential new member comes floating in. We're not so big that we can't die out. This isn't the Something Awful forum. We need new people to keep the place going and as it's at least the best place to discuss Duels (and I'm sure some of the other subforums are good too), I'd really rather we kept it going. We've done a better job than Wizards did. Let's not let it burn because a couple of malcontents have the spare time to invest in doing so to amuse themselves. We can't scare off new people (especially if NecromanticElf wasn't Shadowcran), and nor can we be chasing off people like Hakeem and Mortivore, either as contributors or recognised pillars of our little coven here.

TL;DR - this needs fixing, both soon and permanently, or we all go down. I foresaw it happening to the mothership. Please, let's not let it happen here.

The biggest issue i see on this forum is people "taking the bait" and start replying to pretty much every topic/post made by people they don't like instead of just ignoring it or even blocking the person (that's a thing here right?) and this just leads to arguments from the same people spread across the first 5 topics which probably doesn't look enticing for new people to click on a thread called BFZ Speculation and just see a ****storm of insults nothing to do with BFZ. At the end of the day we all signed up because we like Duels, not because we want to bitch out at people online.

Like someone posts a poll you don't agree with because you think they're trolling? Replying is letting the "troll" get what they want.
Mind you i think most of this can be put down to frustration over BFZ, can't really keep much on topic (Although decklists have stayed on track most of the time) when the game has staled out and there is not much left to discuss.

I feel like I may have to step in for a second. I said I would not, but the direction things went in the past few hours were not what I hoped for.

While the current issue may revolve around DragonXXX and the way his posts are perceived or whatever, it is not a new problem. It happened in the past as well with other users.
DragonXXX, I'd like to remind you of this as well. You're also not being named by some people because this is nothing new. You're just the latest source apparently.

The intention for this topic (or at least, what I hoped when I asked DJ0045 to create this) is to figure out where exactly the loophole lies that allowed this to fester and how to attempt to change that for the better.

There are a few things that I would like to mention reading these past 40+ posts:

• A recurring theme seems to be conflicting opinions and saying that your opinion is better than others' without facts to back it up, leading to irritation. While there is nothing wrong with the first, the 2nd seems to be something that might need to be adressed.
• Slightly tying in to the above is the fact that some users know the remarks are intentional, but they react anyway. This leads to the vibe of other users that those type of reactions are normal. Not something we exactly want.
• Self-moderation.
  Razorborne pretty much nailed it. As a growing forum it's not good to take the work out of hands of the moderation team because new users can falsely be accused of being MuPs or they can miss unwritten rules from the community.
• Tying in to the above slightly, please make use of the report feature. It helps the 'rest of us' to see the problems earlier as well. If you feel like mods are not responding quick enough this could be one of the reasons.

This tactic is fine for isolated things, like person A doesn't like person B. If a single poster is such a presence that you can't even view the forum without being logged in so that they are blocked, this will not solve the problem. Many future members of a site start out as lurkers, and they don't have anyone blocked. You shouldn't need to use the block function on a user with such global impact.

So, why isn't this just in the Duels area of the forums? Why is it way out in Albuquerque where it basically had to be announced to be found?

The problems that are on the forum can be...well, my thoughts on it are counterproductive, though completely spot-on. And unless I have the keys to the kingdom, I can't fix it anymore than any other non-Mod.

Oh, and welcome to the discussion, Gobo-Scarlet. The wiffle bats are by the door.

To add to you, part of the issue is the lack of Mods until very recently. I think "uneven Moderation" is the word of the day.

Kryder this is a discussion about moderation in general while it may be about the duels forum ultimately this will impact the CoC in someway of course it'll be in the metaboard

I'm assuming it's not in Duels because there's already enough spam on the topic of general douchebaggery in the forum, which is exactly the problem we're trying to solve.



And I'm not being facetious here, but I think you're missing something I pointed out; don't intentionally be a dick. Although obviously you want to reword that to "don't intentionally cause trouble/start drama/provoke flame wars" or something along those lines. It isn't technically a rule (largely because it should be self-evident, if I were to wager a guess) but a lot of what has gone on in recent weeks has snuck in through that window. I also freely admit that some of the recent tension(s) are obviously due to the frustration of the missing expansion, but it's neither the entire problem nor the only symptom. If we had the expansion, a lot of this might still be happening, but we might be too busy playing it to let it go as far as it as.

Instead, we're sitting here, on-edge, probably checking to see mostly if it's out yet, and while our nerves are already frayed, we have people intentionally poking them with brands and going "Why don't you like this?" They know what they're doing, we know what they're doing, but it's not *technically* against the rules. It should be. It needs to be. The rules need to be changed in such a way as to close the loophole.

And just to be completely fair, we're all party to fraying the spirit of the rules by circumlocution of the naming-and-shaming edict. Although I'd argue in this case it's necessary. Maybe the more important rider to the rules is that the spirit, rather than the letter, of the forum rules comes first and foremost. If someone is doing everything they can to sow discontent while contributing nothing of value, it doesn't actually matter whether or not the letter of the rules is being followed. If they're generating negativity simply by being present, then the presence should be removed.

But then I may not be the voice of reason here. After all, my motto on the matter of trolls is "No rest. No mercy. No matter what."

I peruse from time to time, friend. I can't say I'm pleased with the state of our sub but there is no amount of my presence that would counteract the venom dripping off every post. Not to say I'm anything special

Hakeem specifically and regularly called out other users in as confrontational a way as possible on a repeated basis for quite a long period of time. He has since apologized for this behavior and said he regretted what he did back then.

It is inexcusable for anyone to start a thread saying "X poster is a cancer on this forum and I'm leaving if the mods don't ban X immediately." End of discussion. There are lots of other cases of other posters doing similar things, and then being surprised and pissed when they get moderated. There is not a mitigating factor where being a "Valuable Poster" is a free reign to demonize other people on the forums. Not back then, and not now the way a lot of people are doing to Dragon in the Duels subforum in every single thread he posts in. If you feel that this is okay because someone is good at making decks, then you and me have a fundamental disagreement Barnubas and we are just going to have to disagree on it.

It's the same way I remember another "valuable poster" calling me a ****** and a ****** on separate occasions. There's certain things you aren't allowed to get away with because people like you, and it severely bothers me that a large number of people in Duels feel that this should be the case.

As annoying as some people seem to be, from my point of view, I think one of the major problems is everyone else is quick to attack instead of just following along or reporting or whatever else may be required.
This is mostly in respect to swiftly labelling someone in this way and then jumping on everything they say and labelling it as bad and trying to fight back before it's something to fight back against, for example I have seen a few threads started where the immediate reaction from some people is to jump in and essentially be in combat mode creating "you are bad so this technically not bad thread is bad and I shall warn you that it is" type situations.

So in my view a big part of the problem may be people labelling others as bad (rightly or wrongly) and treating that as a sign to attack anything to they instead of directing discussion or outright reporting, though that doesn't excuse people purposefully trying to be bad on the fringe of breaking rules but not actually doing so.

I've literally been saying since these boards were founded that some people should be ban-on-sight and the mods should more actively curate who is or is not a part of the community.

I'm not going to pretend I didn't see something like this coming.

People should not be "ban-on-sight". That is a terrible way for boards to operate.