Durf’s Ban (and other related topics)

[Ratchet]

The devs will either lock or not lock this thread. It was more pointing out to the community what the implications of locking the thread were.

Rather, what you WANT the implications of locking the thread to be.

Ill assume you haven't had time to read my actual argument, but Ill say it again. Don't respond to a single piece of my argument and feel like you've "won". My argument stands until someone can invalidate the entire thing.

I'm gay and I have the world's smallest penis. Can you call me gay until you've verified that I have the world's smallest penis? Dumb argument, isn't it?

Durf hacked the forums? I would love it if you showed me how/where/when. Ill talk about how his "hacking" threat later, when people actually address that part of my argument.

But, didn't you just say we can't address part of your argument? I'm confused.

[Word]

Durf hacked the forums?

Yes, Freud at work. I edited that by now. The point remains though. Why do we have to prove what is going on in Durf's mind?

I assume you have proof that Durf purposefully misunderstood others arguments

Durf is the offender, not the victim. You're now employing Durf's tactic and ask people to prove his bad intentions. We can't see in his head. But someone as tolerant as Tank felt threatened, and Durf knew that. Durf wouldn't have acted the way he did if he had been able to convince people in a civil way. He failed because what he said lacked substance. Note how many of us came out in support of him when he was attacked by Liz. Durf didn't apologize, ever, to anyone.

[D33P]

In response to Ratchet's first post:

In what way did I say that they were wrong and I was right? First of all, the condition of them locking the post wasn't even met at the time of that post, so if anything, I said "if you do this, you would be wrong". And wrong in the moral sense, not in the true/false sense. Also not I said potential wrong-doing.

Completely invalidated my argument? Even if it was true, it was only a logical fallacy at best, and its a logical fallacy to say someones entire argument is invalid because they used a logical fallacy.

I wrote my intro post separate to my argument post so that people would see very clearly what the devs actions would mean.

And I don't even need to say much about that last part. You yourself said that they treat people differently, and run this forum with emotions (btw, law enforcement/the justice system isn't supposed to involve emotions. There's a reason that juries are instructed to convict people of crimes when its "beyond a reasonable doubt" and not because they don't like the person.)

He got his own version of the rules tagged to him

[Word]

(btw, law enforcement/the justice system isn't supposed to involve emotions. There's a reason that juries are instructed to convict people of crimes when its "beyond a reasonable doubt" and not because they don't like the person.)

I'm an emotion-free armagetron bot and I say Durf is guilty.

[Ratchet]

And I don't even need to say much about that last part. You yourself said that they treat people differently, and run this forum with emotions (btw, law enforcement/the justice system isn't supposed to involve emotions. There's a reason that juries are instructed to convict people of crimes when its "beyond a reasonable doubt" and not because they don't like the person.)

He got his own version of the rules tagged to him

Don't you see that this is the ONLY PART THAT MATTERS? This isn't a damn country being run by King Tank and his Knighted Moderators. This is a FORUM for a GAME being moderated by the people who PAY to bring the game to you. You have no rights here. None. Zero. Neither does Durf. You have privileges. It just so happens that Durf's were revoked.

Do I think he should never be allowed back? No, I don't think that. But, if he were to be allowed back, it wouldn't be because he was unjustly banned and DESERVES to be allowed back. It would be because the moderators decide to use their discretion and allow him to come back. Because, you see, that's how this works.

[D33P]

In response to Ratchet's 2nd post:

They are the implications that I believe are accurate. You can disagree, and we can have a discussion about it if you want.

I'm gay and I have the world's smallest penis. Can you call me gay until you've verified that I have the world's smallest penis? Dumb argument, isn't it?

Poor analogy. Those are two completely separate arguments. The 1-4 points I made are all sub arguments of my main argument that said that Durf didn't deserve to be banned. A better analogy would be "I have the smallest penis in the world for a gay person. My sub arguments are that I am gay and I have the worlds smallest penis." In which case, yes, I would have to "verify" that you had the worlds smallest penis (or at least smaller than any other gay persons) to believe your argument.

But, didn't you just say we can't address part of your argument? I'm confused.

No, I said you can't address part of my argument and ignore the other parts. You can address all of the argument in small parts if you wish.

[D33P]

In response to Word:

Why do we have to prove what is going on in Durf's mind?

You're now employing Durf's tactic and ask people to prove his bad intentions.

You're saying you don't have evidence? Then why did you make the claim? If you don't have evidence to support your claim, then your claim can't be used in the argument. That's how evidence based arguments work.

Ill agree that Durf could have been more effective in his arguments. But that doesn't mean he did anything morally "wrong".

In response to Ratchet:

Did I ever say the mods had to legally let Durf back on the forums, or not be unfair to Durf? Of course not. The devs can choose to do what they do. I'm talking about what they should do/should have done, as that's pretty much what any discussion about actions is about.

So the real question is, why should the moderators be unfair? Wouldn't it be better for everyone if they were fair and just, and properly and objectively enforced concise rules, instead of winging it and letting their personal biases impede what is "right"?

[Word]

You're saying you don't have evidence? Then why did you make the claim?

Now you're just insane. The PMs I and the others got are more than plenty of evidence, especially that PM with the threat itself, and how Durf later reacted to it. Hell, look at all of Durf's posts, if you want to stare into an abyss. But you already don't get what is bad about it, so this discussion is pointless. It doesn't matter whether Durf actually planned to visit Disneyland or to become a buddhist while he threatened the forums and called everyone names, either in public or via PM. Perhaps you and a minority of crackpots doesn't feel that way, but we others do. Who says decisions aren't fair once they are biased? Where do you think does the bias come from?

[D33P]

I read every thread about Durf's ban, and not once did I see any evidence where he purposefully misunderstood someone.

If you have plenty of evidence, why don't you share it? If its in "all of Durf's posts", then it should be easy for you to find specifically where he purposefully misunderstood what someone was saying.

Edit response to Words edit:

Who says decisions aren't fair once they are biased? Where do you think does the bias come from?

The definition of bias is to show prejudice in favor of or against something. The definition of prejudice is a preconviced opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. So you're asking why it's unfair for a decision to be made that affects someone, where that decision was made using preconceived opinions instead of reason? >.>

[Word]

That's an easy task, the whole "moderator abuse" topic started out as a misunderstanding on purpose to feed Durf's ego. Anyway:

The gun analogy. "Pointing a gun to your head" = not a threat, says durf.
http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... un#p292321

He dismisses what Lucifer and others said because he thinks Lucifer/other people just harass him, then asks them to post all of that stuff again. "I know for a fact that what you say is illogical", no reasons given whatsoever.
http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... 16#p291416

Durf says he can't be banned because it will destroy the community. "I am barely reacting at all".
http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... 30#p291130

And finally: Durf says he doesn't accept anyone else's conditions after trying to have it his way.
http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... 38#p291038

[compguygene]

Ok, you demand a detailed response? Here is one! Prepare for the wall of text!

Now for the actual discussion.

TL;DR

These are the main reasons as to why Durfs current ban is unjustified. If you don’t feel like getting involved, you can read these and move on. However, if you are planning on responding to my argument(s), you should read the explanations below, otherwise you won’t even know what my argument is about.

1. The rules at the time of Durf's ban are vague, subjective, arbitrary, and contradictory. They also make no mention of what results in a ban/perma ban.
2. All of the reasons Tank gave Durf for the ban (those are below) are invalid reasons to perma ban someone.
3. Even if Durf made a “hacking threat” (he didn’t), banning him doesn’t help forum security at all (he could easily change IP and get back on).
4. Other people have done “worse” things than Durf and never received bans/perma bans.

END: TL;DR

- - -
1. This is going to be too authoritarian of an answer for you, but you are just going to have to find a way to live with it. The mods and admin have decided to band Durf, for reasons they have exposed to the community, and a significant majority of the community support. Call it "tyranny of the Mods". Hate the outcome. This is not a democracy. Quite frankly, it is disputes like this that have caused people to fork a project or create their own, which is apparently what Durf is planning to do at this point. This is not neccesarily a bad outcome at all.

2. First, I am going to refer back to my explanation above. If the mods here want to perma-ban me for having the name compguygene, they can do it. The only things that stop them are their basic morals, a desire on their part to have some sort of consensus in the community, and an ability to justify it. You are challenging their ability to justify it. Well, let's not fiddle around the details of what Durf did or did not do. Two things that Durf did had the community calling for him to be banned:
1. He effectively took over the forums with so many long posts that everything else here was completely drowned out. Even when he was asked to tone this down, he wouldn't. It made the forums practically unusable for several months and took so much of the devs time that any time they might have spent on the game fixing stuff and getting .4 done just didn't happen.

2. He was warned that his continuing actions would lead to a ban. He, in Tank's words, was cyberbullying. Personally, I think a better way to put it, is Durf that Durf had to prove that he was right and everyone else was wrong, no matter what, no matter who's time he wasted, no matter what the cost. Sometimes in life, even if we think we are right, even if we are totally right and everyone else is totally wrong, we have to allow ourselves to "agree to disagree". Durf never allowed this simple compromise to keep the peace. Go back far enough and you will see debates I have had with the mods and others on Political stances, for instance, that I agree to disagree with most of the population on.

3. He never made a hacking threat? This is from the PM's that were published

Judging by your overall incompetence and the rate of development being done, chances are you haven't updated phpBB in a while. Which means (most likely) there are vulnerabilities that allow me to gain control of the founding administrator accounts (ID: 0 - probably Tank's account). Even if this exploit has been fixed, there's plenty more at my disposal that grant me just as much.

My overall point: I'm not threatening you, this is assurance. Don't abuse your moderator status on me, ever. If you or Lucifer do something that stupid again, I will not hold back at all next time (you will see just how much I gave to you this time around in retrospect).

This is the classic "I am not threatening you, I am promising you I will do this if you do that" aka a threat. And Tank's response was appropriate:

Durf, I know you may not consider your statements to be threatening, but I kind of do. I was hoping they were a misunderstanding, but I can't risk that they aren't.

To be clear to everyone, any access to any part of these forums must be authorized. Authorized means that you have at the very least implicit approval from myself to do so. For anyone not specifically banned (in which case they are not authorized), this takes the form of guest access. For a registered user, you can additional access according to your user permissions; for most users this takes the form of being able to submit content (posts, attachments) to the forums. For moderators, their authorization includes additionally access to moderation tools for banning, editing posts, etc.. Only one user has access to the administration tools, e.g. editing user names, creating new forums, or any other access directly to the PHP files or MySQL database. This is myself. No other user has this authorization, and any attempts to access (or otherwise sucessfully access even if not "caught") the administration tools (or any tools or spaces on this site that a user is not authorized to access) counts as unauthorized access and will be followed up on. This is non-negotiable. Any access through software exploits while technically "authorized" in the sense that the software let you do it, is hacking.

Durf, any further statements on your part which I feel risk the safety of the forums through hacking will result in a permanent ban. This is your only warning in this regard.

(Post 1 of 2.)

So, to summarize, Durf felt that the mods were persecuting him. To end said perceived persecution, he specifically pm'd Z-Man a threat to take over Tank Program's admin account or at least create an account with said priveledges. Tank, when this was later exposed to him and referecenced by Durf let Durf know that he perceived this as a threat and the actions, if taken to be hacking of an unauthorized nature, that would result in a ban.
As to your final arguement, this action not improving computer security: no argument there. Durf could evade the ban and yes, it is appreciated that he is respecting the ban.

Now for the explanations. I will most likely go into more detail with some of these as people respond, but I dont want this one post to be unreadably long, so Im going to be as concise as possible.

1. If you aren’t familiar with the rules, they are posted here. You can ignore the last post on that thread, as it was made after Durf was banned.

Their first 2 rules, which are supposed to be the axioms of all the other rules, already show how useless the rules are. What, specifically, is an idiot? The general definition is someone who lacks intelligence, but that could mean many things. Am I not allowed to be on the forums if I don’t know something specific, or am generally uneducated, or lack the ability to learn well? The second rule says to treat others with respect, as human beings. Showing someone respect can mean many different things to different people, and is a vague and subjective term. Also, I suspect how you would treat someone would change depending on what they did, even though everyone you talk to is a human being.

The rest of the rules are similar to the first 2 in vagueness and subjectivity, and there is no mention of what the consequences are for breaking them. And the last rule basically confirms what I said, in that these rules are utterly useless. No rule lawyering? Meaning you can’t actually point to a rule and enforce it? This removes any point of the rule in the first place.

Now, you are probably thinking “D33P is an idiot. The rules are supposed to give you a jist of what is expected of you” But rules shouldn’t be giving you the “jist” of what to do. People can get different jists of what the rules mean, which makes it unfair to punish someone for breaking a rule they didn’t know they broke because they didn’t get the proper jist of what the author of the rule meant. Rules should be clear and concise, and be as objective, not subjective, as possible, so that people know exactly what they can and can’t do. Durf didn’t have these clear and concise rules to refer to, so its unfair to ban him for something he couldn’t have known was a bannable offense.

2. There are a lot of subtopics in this one, so I'm going to try to be even more to the point and not expand on much. I can explain certain points in more detail if needed.

Here is the email that Tank sent Durf (part of a long chain of emails between the two) explaining specifically why he banned Durf from the forums:

*note that the list Tank emailed was originally not numbered, but had *s instead. I numbered it so it was easier to refer back to.

It's my responsibility you're banned. It's both of our faults though.
You were banned ultimately for several reasons:

1. You appear to be unwilling to leave Lucifer and Z-man alone, and
unwilling to wait for there to be a better moderation framework in
place.
2. The only time you've actually apologized for anything wasn't until you
were actually banned. Example: even if your "threat" was a
mis-understanding, you could have apologized for that mis-understanding.
3. You argued that utilizing an exploit was legal. This did not give me a
nice feeling, as it felt like justifying an action.
4. Your legal threat effectively forced me to take action to prevent
cyber-bullying. The most effective way to prevent it in your case was to
remove you from the forums.
5. You've been causing a lot of tension on the forums for quite a while
now which I feel has been detrimental all around. Overall, you're being
more trouble than help.
6. A lot of your e-mails, posts, and PMs are browbeating. That is to say,
since you're so fond of "abuse", that's what your communications are
starting to feel like.
7. You don't know when to let go.
8. You were eating into my work time.

All of this added up that I felt (and still feel) a practically
resolution can't be achieved, so a ban. It buys me time to at least put
better rules in place. After that I can consider unbanning you because
in the future I'll be able to point to them. Without them I don't feel
like we can make any progress. So yes, I want you gone now.

Here's why each reason doesn’t justify a perma ban:

1. Durf never pressed Lucifer or Z-man to do anything they didn’t want to do. I recall Lucifer told Durf to stop PMing him about the topic, and Durf stopped PMing him. In fact, Z-man pressed Durf to accept his guidelines for posting the PMs, which means that it would be hypocritical for Durf to face punishment for this and Z-man to not. Also, even if this was true, how does this justify a perma ban?

2. Durf never apologized for anything, and what should he apologize for? Lucifer hasn’t apologized for unjustly (refer to this link) banning Durf for a day (and then having that ban magically extended to a week >.>), and Vogue hasn’t apologized to Durf for the cruel things she’s said to him and others in the past. And neither of them were perma banned. Again: how does not apologizing for something justify a perma ban?

3. This ties into Durf and Tank’s previous email exchange. Durf only talked about how using an exploit was legal to contrast it to hacking, which is illegal. I can go into more detail later about how what Durf said was technically a threat but it means absolutely nothing regarding whether he should be banned or not. Again: how does someone wrongly assuming this as justifying an action, justify a perma ban?

4. This also ties into previous emails. Durf only brought up how he was technically being cyber bullied to show the hypocrisy of going after Durf and not those cyber bullying him. Durf never felt bullied or planned on pursuing legal action for it. Besides that, this reason is utterly ridiculous. Think about it. Someone is being bullied, and instead of punishing the bully, you punish the person being bullied. Tank said that he wanted to remove Durf from that situation. Wouldn’t it make more sense to ban the bully? Or to forbid this bullying on the forums and enforce this? It like if a kid is being bullied in school, and the principal decides to kick the student out of the school to protect him from the bully. Makes no sense.

5. This tension would have never existed if 1. there were good rules in place 2. the moderators were fair to Durf from the beginning (I can show how they haven’t been fair in future posts) 3. they did their job as moderators instead of letting topics get off topic. And none of these things are Durf’s fault. Also, how is causing tension reason for a perma ban?

6. Durf is the kind of person that gives how much respect he receives. Durf felt he was being disrespected (part of this was the mod unfairness), and let people know that the level of respect he showed them would go down if they continued to not be respectful towards him. Also, Durf will tell you himself that he’s not the best communicator in the world. So he should be perma banned because he doesn’t talk/write like most people and sounds like he’s browbeating to some people (which many others on this forum also do)?

7. This is similar to the first reason. You could easily argue Z-man didn’t know when to let go by pressing for the PMs to be released. Again, this could have been quickly resolved (or never have happened in the first place) if the things that I mentioned in #5 had happened. And if you were in Durf’s position, why would you not stand up for yourself. For a moment, pretend that you are in Durf’s shoes, and you have just been banned for what you feel is an unjust reason. Wouldn’t you like to know why you were banned? Wouldn’t you like to clear things up so that future issues/bans can be prevented? Again: how does this justify a perma ban?

8. This seems to be like the only actual reason for the ban. And it’s not a very good one. If Tank didn’t have the time to deal with Durf, shouldn’t he have put another mod in place to handle it? If he doesn’t have time to moderate, why is he even a moderator? As a member of a forum, don’t you want your moderators to moderate? Tank could have also just called for a total ban on discussing anything related to Durf’s ban, which would have been just as effective. Again, refer to my points in #5 as to how this taking so long is not Durf’s fault.

So when you add up all of these reasons together, you get “You deserved a perma ban because I don’t like the way you talk and I’m not going to take responsibility for the mess that I’ve let happen” Doesn’t sound like solid reasoning to me.

3. This one is pretty simple. As I said before, I can go into how what Durf said about using an exploit isn’t anything serious. But that doesn’t even matter for this point. Even if Durf wanted to hack the forums, banning him does absolutely nothing to prevent that. Changing IPs is one of the easiest things you can do, and I’m not even sure you have to be on the website itself to perform the exploit that Durf mentioned. So you can’t say Durf should have been banned for security reasons.

4. This one is also pretty simple. Even if you think Durf is an asshole, how can you say what he has done deserves a perma ban, but what other people on this forum have done does not? Vogue (not trying to pick on her specifically, she just happens to be the case I’m most familiar with) has said cruel things to people in the past, worse than anything Durf has said in the past. No perma ban. Lucifer banned Durf for misinterpreting his posts as sexist, and then extended his ban to a week because he was still mad at Durf. No perma ban. These kinds of things really make me question what the moderators care about: the game/community or themselves.

- - -

If you are going to respond to this, please use evidence and reasoning, not emotion and hate.

TLDR; Durf was Perma-Banned for a combination of reasons that include not just the reasons above listed by D33P, but because he kinda took over the forums in a bad way and the community agreed it was needed. Yes, Durf can easily get back on if he wanted to evade the ban, it is appreciated that he is not doing so.

[Word]

The definition of bias is to show prejudice in favor of or against something. The definition of prejudice is a preconviced opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. So you're asking why it's unfair for a decision to be made that affects someone, where that decision was made using preconceived opinions instead of reason? >.>

Perhaps I don't like Durf for what he has actually put us through? Am I not allowed to act accordingly? Also, like Durf, you're clinging to dictionary definitions of words but don't seem to understand what their purpose is. What is the "prejudice"? He did what he was accused of, no conspiracy there.

[compguygene]

The arguement that the mods are being unfair is based in the idea that the world and the mods need to be fair. Time for a reality check. The world is UNFAIR! You don't want it to be fully fair. Nobody wants the world to be fully fair, trust me. If any of us got what we fully deserve, not what we think we deserve, but what we fully deserve, we would get rewarded for every bad and good thing we have ever done. Trust me, think about it. Think about every bad thing you have ever done. Every one. Do you want to be rewarded for that? I don't! I think the mods were rather unfair with Durf at times too, but in quite another manner. For over 3 months, they let the whole thing escalate to the point that the majority of quality posters here literally left the forums and/or stopped posting. So, for over 3 months, this was pretty much Durf's place. That is pretty unfair to me. Of course, if that is what Durf actually wants, he is certainly free to start his own forum/game/servers which he may be putting together. I wish him the best. I may even try his game.

[Word]

Thanks for finding that post compguy. I spent way too much time looking for it...

[Ratchet]

The arguement that the mods are being unfair is based in the idea that the world and the mods need to be fair. Time for a reality check. The world is UNFAIR! You don't want it to be fully fair. Nobody wants the world to be fully fair, trust me. If any of us got what we fully deserve, not what we think we deserve, but what we fully deserve, we would get rewarded for every bad and good thing we have ever done. Trust me, think about it. Think about every bad thing you have ever done. Every one. Do you want to be rewarded for that? I don't! I think the mods were rather unfair with Durf at times too, but in quite another manner. For over 3 months, they let the whole thing escalate to the point that the majority of quality posters here literally left the forums and/or stopped posting. So, for over 3 months, this was pretty much Durf's place. That is pretty unfair to me. Of course, if that is what Durf actually wants, he is certainly free to start his own forum/game/servers which he may be putting together. I wish him the best. I may even try his game.

That is the golden nugget that needs to be taken away from this. These forums aren't about political correctness, they're about common sense.

I wonder if there's a correlation between Durf and D33P's attitude of entitlement and the way America in general feels entitled to have everything their way. Maybe it's Burger King's fault.