The "Toxic" Debacle

[roastnewt]

I don't understand why people are making the argument that it's an assumption. When players are thought of that way, it's due to their behaviour; it's not as though there's some kind of conspiracy to label anybody for no legitimate reason.

 

I wouldn't say it's a conspiracy, but there does seem to be an attitude of "you're either with us or against us."  If you criticise a certain policy, decision or behaviour on the part of staff, then you're grouped in as "one of those people."

[EeHee2000]

I did not write the following work of art. All credits go to some bloke named Nullsquare. 

So-called 'toxic influence' here. You might remember me from incidents such as "He's from #avo get him out of here", "Nullsquare Christ: Cyberbully Superstar", "Headham Feud: Lude Edition", "Headham Feud 2: Electric Boogaloo", and "The Cat in the (MCBouncer) Hack". My forum account got locked and quite frankly, I don't care enough to actually work out how to unlock it. I don't play Mineraft anymore, nor do I talk to anybody on these servers excluding those who transitioned into real-life friends.

I was sent this thread by three people on three separate occasions. One asked me to weigh in on it, one laughed while I explained in great detail exactly what process I wished I could take to cut the wires supplying electricity and telephone to tobylane's house, and the final one just kinda circlejerked about 'autism' or something for a little while.

Firstly, I'd like to address DarkElmo. I know who you are and the alias by which you used to go by. Let it be publicly known that it was me who verbally attacked you several times in Mumble. The justification was your blatant, disgusting, and patently immature sexism that ran rampant through the majority of things you said. While you may have taken offence (and honestly, I hope you did), I was privately thanked by several other occupants of the channels. Two of them were, at the time, volunteer staff of the community. While I didn't make comments pertaining to age (too low-hanging of a fruit for me), I'm sure it came up in other conversations where you demonstrated yourself incapable of handling a mature conversation. If you want pointers on that, contact cmdrtebok. He seems to be the single level-headed individual within the entirety of the nerd.nu community, staff and players alike.

Your poppycock about the "old times" of nerd.nu is not only completely incorrect and tainted with false nostalgia, but amusingly ironic. If nerd.nu of old was like that, you'd have found yourself banned a long time ago for your immature, unprovoked, baseless personal attacks.

---

I feel I should weigh in on this subject for two reasons:

a) I've been on both sides of the metaphorical fence; and
b) I no longer hold the nerd.nu community, or any of its members, as near and dear to me. Consequently, I can be objectively critical.

A thing that is toxic, by definition, is a thing that - when ingested - causes illness or death. It's also synonymous with poisonous; something extremely unpleasant or malicious. I'm going to run with that definition, based on the assumption that the staff and players actively assume that these "collusions" are created characterised by malice, and intending to do harm to the community.

NEWSFLASH: Amateur Armchair Psychologist Discovers You're Pretty Wrong

I started playing on the servers in 2010, five years ago. My tenure on the servers is older than that of any currently serving administrator excluding probably Deaygo. I actually see it the other way around. What has manifested over the last few years is an 'us-versus-them' mentality within the staff. This started with a small subset of the staff with the major JohnAdams1735 incident of 2013, but has metastasised across the majority of the staff base. Any who have managed to remain untainted by this view have been blocked from any form of staff-promotion (e.g., TornadoHorse for survival admin, an objectively better choice than some) and had any suggestions that they produce or champion absorbed into metaphorical memory holes.

I'd like to reiterate that for the most part, it's an 'us-versus-them' mentality between the staff and a portion of players, the majority of which are survival-major players. There's a small subset of this group that plays creative as well. I submit that the regular players that abide by the mentality are mostly just parroting what they've heard from those in positions of authority, whether for some strange hope of becoming a moderator, not having an authority figure in their life until now, or for fear of getting banned by association. Considering 80% of all conversation by these players is harmless banter in Mumble and game, I'm not really sure why there's any fear.

These people want two things that a lot of staff members appear to find uncomfortable. They want a say - they want some weight to their suggestions, and they want some change. The playerbase is an order of magnitude larger than the staff base. Not only are some of them guaranteed (by sheer statistics) to be better at public relations, programming, and event organising, but some are also guaranteed to have better ideas. Dismissing ideas left and right because of the trail it came from is a terrible, terrible approach to moderation. Your method of silently dismissing ideas if they don't fit your perfect plan was something I attacked a long time ago when ludeman84 was a head admin. If you explain, in detail, your reasons why not, a compromise could be made and it may end up even better than the original idea.

---

P.S. Magnyus, if your signature is an 'inside joke', keep it as an inside joke. Putting it on a public forum turns it, in this case, from an inside joke to making you look like a 3edgy5me moronic manchild. Same goes for Eehee (who probably posted this for me) and your location listing.

P.P.S. tobylane, you've made, at the time of writing, 262 posts on the nerd.nu forums. You've talked a lot but in the contents of these posts you have managed to actually say nothing. I'm sure you know the old adage "a wise man speaks because he has something to say, an idiot speaks because he has to say something."

Edited March 16, 2015 by EeHee2000

[Narissis]

What I'd like to know is why it's assumed that not implementing a player's ideas is the result of dismissing that player out-of-hand because of who they are.

 

Maybe the idea is simply not a good one, or a good one that can't be implemented for some reason or another.

 

This does raise the issue of how one can tell what reasons the staff have for turning down an idea. Maybe we should have an official suggestions forum where topics are held open until the staff can provide a specific response explaining whether or not the idea will be implemented, and why or why not.

 

I don't really see the "us vs. them". Maybe that's because I'm on the outside looking in, but from my perspective, without having taken a side, what I see is more like "a bunch of confrontational jerks vs. mods who are tired of their shit" with a light sprinkling of some staff unprofessionalism... which is to be expected when the staff is a volunteer force on an online gaming community.

 

Maybe the solution is to try to work with the staff instead of insulting, belittling, and discrediting them. I get that staff need to be called out for making mistakes, but there are tactful ways to do that.

Edited March 16, 2015 by Narissis

[tobylane]

This does raise the issue of how one can tell what reasons the staff have for turning down an idea. Maybe we should have an official suggestions forum where topics are held open until the staff can provide a specific response explaining whether or not the idea will be implemented, and why or why not.

 

Maybe the solution is to try to work with the staff instead of insulting, belittling, and discrediting them. I get that staff need to be called out for making mistakes, but there are tactful ways to do that.

 

The user-voices have been fairly successful, because they cut out most of the bullshit about 'sides'. There's still some things that get argued over, things that belong on the forum as a contentious discussion rather than a widely supported fresh idea.

[Darkelmo]

 

Nullsquare said:

Firstly, I'd like to address DarkElmo. I know who you are and the alias by which you used to go by. Let it be publicly known that it was me who verbally attacked you several times in Mumble. The justification was your blatant, disgusting, and patently immature sexism that ran rampant through the majority of things you said. While you may have taken offence (and honestly, I hope you did), I was privately thanked by several other occupants of the channels. Two of them were, at the time, volunteer staff of the community. While I didn't make comments pertaining to age (too low-hanging of a fruit for me), I'm sure it came up in other conversations where you demonstrated yourself incapable of handling a mature conversation. If you want pointers on that, contact cmdrtebok. He seems to be the single level-headed individual within the entirety of the nerd.nu community, staff and players alike.

Your poppycock about the "old times" of nerd.nu is not only completely incorrect and tainted with false nostalgia, but amusingly ironic. If nerd.nu of old was like that, you'd have found yourself banned a long time ago for your immature, unprovoked, baseless personal attacks.

 

 

While I am one more for private conversations when it comes to personal arguments and rebuttals, I am posting here in response to you only due to how you have expressed that you do not contact the community in other ways. 

 

 

 

For one, Your justification for verbally attacking me stemming from a 'blatant' undertone of sexism in the 'majority' of things that I said is a justification based on a complete and utter lie. I would like to have been known for the sake of this community who may easily fall victim to their minds over validating juicy gossip, that I in no way am a sexist individual and I don't believe any of the conversations that I have ever had on mumble were alluding to negativity towards either gender at any point. This is a misconstructed excuse for behavior exhibited towards me which quite frankly to others could be considered disgusting and patently immature but I have too much of a spine to let those kind of things get to me now. Know that I was a young, brash and outspoken individual when I started using mumble (I was a twelvie ffs) and I completely understand why many members (in their late teens and 20's) took to the classic internet troll, hate team attitude in relation to me. At age 13 when I first started using mumble and throughout my years using mumble, I have never had a sexist thought in my head while speaking to individuals. I spoke to males and females alike without any predispositions towards either gender. I have made plenty female friends on and away from the server and treat them with the same respect that I would treat any another human being with. I am learning the profession of teaching where there is an astounding ratio from females to males and i am surrounded by the lady pplz everyday without it being a bother at all. I attend a highly female focused university that has a strong advocacy for equal gender rights in the work place and other aspects of society and home-life. My mother was deeply and actively involved in interstate gender equality movements that span from workplace rights to public representation and such when she held me as an infant. 

 

Your allegation towards me while I don't give 2 shits whether it could be a justification for the way I was treated on mumble and such, is insulting and blatant evidence that you do not know a single fucking thing about me. 

 

2. You were not the one who verbally attacked me on mumble, you were one of many people who engaged in taunting me, intentionally describing me with the words 'retard' and 'autistic' because I once dared to suggest to the community that out policy of acceptance respect should extend to all appropriate minorities such as the disabled (being that I worked in a disabled school at the time) before the thread was quickly shut down by the moderators. Whatever verbal crusade you think you went on in response to the evil immature things I apparently said on mumble was not the full extent of the harassment I underwent and I certainly believe that some of the characters who engaged in that would never have attributed it to retaliation towards my 'sexism'. Many who I have spoken to after all of this have boiled it down to the fact that it was fun and they were just being a troll. And that, I am totally ok with now because they aren't lying fucking scumbags about why they did things such as linking me to pornographic material to hear my young shrieks. It's people like you who were on their fucking high horse all the time when they did shit like this as if it was justice.

 

Did I say mean personal shit to others during my time on mumble? Hell yeah I did, when I got older and wiser I made little effort out of making deserving people have a cry on mumble. Not with comments that were ban worthy but I just hit the personal nail on the head to give some of those fuckwits their own medicine. I just had to even mention the existence of a controversial topic only to see other people in the channel start arguments and break friendships due to their inability to respect an opinion without completely avoiding the subject in which the opinion was held. People's inability to handle adult concepts made for a ticking time bomb to a hilarious explosion of verbal conflict and incoherent juvenile babble. And I amused myself for a while, taking advantage of the community's tolerance for harassment that didn't fall into the categories of hatespeech, NSFW, or spam. But alas, I was made the enemy, for daring to become better at making others feel shit how they were able to make my younger self feel shit. I got muted and banned for 'interrupting people in mumble' (not my fault chat lag exists) and 'bringing up drama'. Along with a distasteful private message I sent to a particular moderator which merely held swearwords in it. That has been the only mumble ban I have ever been landed with and it had nothing to do with sexism. 

 

3. Those staff members who were personally thanking you for standing up to me, surely would have banned me if I was being blatantly sexist or sexist at all. Why were they all for you engaging in counter abuse towards me instead of banning me themselves. What was stopping them? You are describing your friends as shitty moderators/admins if you believe that their only defense against a sexist misogynistic evil like me was your distasteful comments in response. 

 

4. My former alias is not a former alias, I still use it

 

5. If I have ever made a remark that was sexist at all, it would never have been with any belief or emotional support behind the statement. If I ever did that, it would only be to offend a said individual who felt strongly about it and said person would have to had crossed every line to land themselves a statement like that from me. I am the kind of person who believes that just because it is widely unacceptable to have a certain view, it doesn't mean you get to hold invulnerability to any offence you may derive from it while expressing your own hateful view of something felt strongly by others. If someone has wronged me and the only way I can make them feel real shit is by saying something that is banned due how distasteful it is, I'm not pulling punches for the sake of this community's twisted, incomplete view of political correctness. I do not believe that allowing words to be uttered from my mouth that allude to sexism defines my stance on gender equality. While I do not recall and find it extremely unlikely that I would ever make a sexist comment around this kind of community, I'm not saying it is beyond me to say something like that in any given circumstance. I am saying this because I believe that you may have based your aforementioned justification on one comment that I may have made at one point which I am happy for you to share with me. Only for me to try to remember the circumstance and then explain the context in which it was delivered but I'll have you know that saying that this sexism was in the majority of my discussions is absolute horseshit.

 

If you wish to continue your discussion on this very forum feel free.

 

If I have Nullsquare, explained something poorly, please do ask for elaboration. I tend to forget that we all have different levels of literacy and I will often need to simplify my comments for the sake of public viewership.

 

I look forward to your reply, I am all for and always have been for mature topics. While I do have a temper and also a lack of tolerance for idiocy, I am happy to drop the passive aggressive comments I have made towards you (I won't deny that I do it) so that we can speak on an intellectual level ( Though I doubt you'll go for that, Its how most people convince themselves their winning an argument these days). Hopefully we can both give it a good go.

 

and cheers to eehee for relaying that message. 

 

 

Edit: typo fixing and grammatical rephrasing 

Edited March 18, 2015 by Darkelmo

[Ridiculous]

This thread is no longer going places. Can we sum up the discussion and pick out some conclusions to move forward with?

[tobylane]

Or a mod could move the off-topic comments to a new thread.

[Magnyus]

Or a mod could move the off-topic comments to a new thread.

And kill this thread in the process. Yeah, no.

[UNP]

And kill this thread in the process. Yeah, no.

 

Haven't you noticed there's been a less-than-subtle push to stifle conversation on this subject? Certain people don't want the status quo challenged because it currently works well for them.

[SwitchViewz]

Haven't you noticed there's been a less-than-subtle push to stifle conversation on this subject? Certain people don't want the status quo challenged because it currently works well for them.

If your going to make such accusations then you better have evidence to prove it. The fact that this thread is still going and that multiple staff members including head admins have commented on it proves otherwise.

[jchance]

We're reading it all, have no doubt. If I or any other head wanted this thread closed it would be closed.  I have nothing against open discussion about any topic, but if it continues to move toward personal attacks on people then I'll wrap it up.

 

Keep conversation going = thread stays open.  Nobody is trying to stifle that.

 

Start attacking each other = thread gets shut down.  Nobody wants to read that.

 

Pretty easy, eh?

[tobylane]

And kill this thread in the process. Yeah, no.

 

At the risk of going further off-topic, how would it kill it? The topic starters of this type of topic often ask for it to be closed because it's off topic. So.. by splitting the off topic into its own alive open thread, the original discussion can stay open longer? This sort of problem has come up before and will do so again, so it's probably good to get an answer on this.

[EeHee2000]

I'd like to request that this thread remains un-edited, actually. I don't plan to request for a close anytime soon, and the only reason I can see for there to be comments being hidden or deleted is if they break rules. 

Dividing these threads because people deem them "off-topic" either kills the conversation or complicates it. Quite frankly, these discussions aren't going to go anywhere if we keep cutting them short; we may as well run around in circles chasing our tail rather than have the same discussion 20 times over before we come to a conclusion. 

I rest my case in the two threads before this one, both of which were closed. 

Edited March 19, 2015 by EeHee2000

[d3north]

Or a mod could move the off-topic comments to a new thread.

Had that happen with a thread a while back, i said some hot stuff and people got uppity about it, so mods made a new thread and it pretty much died instantly

[tobylane]

Had that happen with a thread a while back, i said some hot stuff and people got uppity about it, so mods made a new thread and it pretty much died instantly

 

Which one died? Perhaps the tangent had a limited life anyway. For instance this tangent I'm making may die soon. I've been visited by so many wish-granting faries asking me to make sure it dies. Maybe by the time tangents get going like this has, it's because there's nothing left to discuss on the original topic.

[Mumberthrax]

To get back onto the original subject of the "toxic" problem, I'm going to put forth some conjecture and pseudo-intellectual rambling:

 

Some definitions:

 

A toxin is something that is relatively small compared to the normal inputs or to the scale of a system which can cause a breakdown in normal functioning, especially when it is a catastrophic breakdown leading to death when not treated. It is basically synonymous with poison.

 

Toxic actions and behaviors are similar. Prolonged exposure can cause a breakdown in normal functioning, and left unchecked can cause catastrophe in a relationship or in a community.

 

A toxic individual would be one who has a habit of or exhibits a pattern of performing toxic actions.

 

A toxic group would be more than one individual who exhibit a pattern of performing toxic actions, especially when they act in concert.

 

-----

 

Other terms related to toxic in the context of human actions or behaviors are:

destructive

disruptive

harmful

baleful
cancerous
detrimental

debilitating
damaging
evil
hurtful

diseased
noisome
pernicious
venemous
corrupting
corroding
malignant
sinister
subversive
unhealthy
foul
fetid
malevolent
wicked

 

----

 

Some thoughts and discussion topics:

 

1) how does one determine what is toxic and what is simply annoying or undesirable?

2) just because someone performs a toxic action does not mean that person is categorically bad or beyond redemption.

3) just because an action is disruptive does not mean that it is a threat to the stability of a system on the whole.

    (I am of the opinion that some apparently toxic behavior can actually be a good thing. See: immunotherapy, vaccines, discordianism, homeopathy)

4) It is not surprising or novel that being a dick is generally undesirable, and tends to engender dislike, distrust, or a reputation for being a dick

5) Understanding the underlying psychological motivations behind disruptive behavior may help in mitigating and managing it

[tobylane]

Nerd.nu, (2015). The "Toxic" Debacle - Page 5 - Minecraft Discussion - Reddit Public Forums. [online] Available at: https://nerd.nu/forums/topic/3164-the-toxic-debacle/?p=25380 [Accessed 21 Mar. 2015].

 

Just helping anyone in the future get started on that 250 words for toxic article I mentioned earlier. Harvard style.

[Mumberthrax]

Nerd.nu, (2015). The "Toxic" Debacle - Page 5 - Minecraft Discussion - Reddit Public Forums. [online] Available at: https://nerd.nu/forums/topic/3164-the-toxic-debacle/?p=25380 [Accessed 21 Mar. 2015].

 

Just helping anyone in the future get started on that 250 words for toxic article I mentioned earlier. Harvard style.

 

I am not sure if this is a joke or a jab but I think with the amount of silliness that has been demonstrated in this thread I'd be on the safe side to use this image:

 

Edited March 21, 2015 by Mumberthrax

[Aypop]

Some thoughts and discussion topics:

 

1) how does one determine what is toxic and what is simply annoying or undesirable?

2) just because someone performs a toxic action does not mean that person is categorically bad or beyond redemption.

3) just because an action is disruptive does not mean that it is a threat to the stability of a system on the whole.

    (I am of the opinion that some apparently toxic behavior can actually be a good thing. See: immunotherapy, vaccines, discordianism, homeopathy)

4) It is not surprising or novel that being a dick is generally undesirable, and tends to engender dislike, distrust, or a reputation for being a dick

5) Understanding the underlying psychological motivations behind disruptive behavior may help in mitigating and managing it

 

I don't particularly think defining, describing, or defining "toxic" in a painstaking way is going to help much. I would just characterize it as long-term calculated disruptiveness without a reasonable end (I would consider a reasonable end to be pointing out a flaw in a rule or mod decision). To be honest I've only rarely seen what I'd characterize as toxic behavior. 

 

I think one remedy to staff/player relations is to avoid overly professional stoic behavior and err on the side of informal sociable behavior. Staff should strive to be approachable so that players can address their concerns to them. This includes being receptive to new ideas and following up on conversations. If what some people have said in this thread is true about toxicity resulting from failure of the staff to talk with players and address concerns, then this would be an obvious solution.

 

On that note, from what I've seen within staff for the past few months, the admins have listened and responded plenty to player concerns. Are there things that we can improve? Sure. But you can't say efforts haven't been made to be accommodating. 

[Narissis]

I think one remedy to staff/player relations is to avoid overly professional stoic behavior and err on the side of informal sociable behavior.

This can't be stressed enough. I get the impression that some players want the staff to behave like lawyers, doing everything down to the letter of every rule every time and always being completely and utterly professional. Then, in the same breath, they advocate for a more relaxed community. These two things are at odds; the more rigid, formal, and uniform the staff become, the more stifling the community will become, and things would wind up even more tense because it would be like playing a game under a dictatorship.

 

I'm not saying that the staff shouldn't strive for objectivity and consistency in how they enforce the rules, but they should be friends and fellow players first, and staff second. That way, they remain part of the community instead of deepening a rift by which they isolate themselves into a staff clique, which is exactly what people keep complaining about.

[Mumberthrax]

I'm not saying that the staff shouldn't strive for objectivity and consistency in how they enforce the rules, but they should be friends and fellow players first, and staff second. That way, they remain part of the community instead of deepening a rift by which they isolate themselves into a staff clique, which is exactly what people keep complaining about.

 

I think this is nice on paper, but things don't always work out that way. When you are in a position of responsibility, sometimes you have to make decisions that upset some people because it is the right thing to do. When that happened to me as an admin, i made some very vocal members of the community very angry, and became one of the bad guys. I received regular harassment, and at least one serious borderline threat against my life outside of minecraft. The head admins would do nothing about it because most of them were inactive.

 

It would be nice if we could all get together and sing kumbayah and have a fun time playing blocks, but some people who skirt the rules and try to do all they can to cause others problems find infinite pleasure in doing shit to try and upset or piss people in admin positions off, taking advantage of good will as much as they can, crying oppression when they are finally held accountable. Or playing mind games, pretending to be contributing members of the community while trying to sabotage shit behind the scenes. You can go into this with an optimistic collaborative attitude, but as long as fucked up people like this are not excised from the community, you will have these trends of increased professionalism and distance.

 

We talk about power corrupting people in positions of influence in politics. I think that it is less-so that, and more that the relationship naturally brings out these conflicts that drive a wedge between the stewards of the medium we are enjoying and the people enjoying it.

 

Anyway, 98% of the players don't get involved in the drama bullshit. But its easy to lose sight of that when you have people who have a lot of practice in getting under your skin doing just that.

[SwitchViewz]

I think this is nice on paper, but things don't always work out that way. When you are in a position of responsibility, sometimes you have to make decisions that upset some people because it is the right thing to do. When that happened to me as an admin, i made some very vocal members of the community very angry, and became one of the bad guys. I received regular harassment, and at least one serious borderline threat against my life outside of minecraft. The head admins would do nothing about it because most of them were inactive.

 

It would be nice if we could all get together and sing kumbayah and have a fun time playing blocks, but some people who skirt the rules and try to do all they can to cause others problems find infinite pleasure in doing shit to try and upset or piss people in admin positions off, taking advantage of good will as much as they can, crying oppression when they are finally held accountable. Or playing mind games, pretending to be contributing members of the community while trying to sabotage shit behind the scenes. You can go into this with an optimistic collaborative attitude, but as long as fucked up people like this are not excised from the community, you will have these trends of increased professionalism and distance.

I have always advocated against rule lawyering and people that push the rules. We are here to play games together and have a good time, not sit here and figure out how far we can push and bend the rules. If someone breaks the rules ban them, if they try to rule lawyer and bend the rules tell them to bad. I do this to people all the time, follow the rules or get out. As harsh as that sounds I am here to play games, not bicker with you on what is what. Now don't get me wrong, I am all for threads like these where we can discuss rules and change them in a good manor, but the obvious trolls that go out of there way to cause trouble just need to be tossed out.

 

<text>

 

So this is a question directed at you Eehee: How comes it takes someone else writing a page long essay for you to change your signature? I told you and many other staff told you that it was offensive and why your not always taken seriously. Nothing ever changed no matter how much we pointed it out, yet when Nullsquare or whoever calls you out you change it? I'm curious on your reasoning for suddenly changing it.

[Mumberthrax]

I don't particularly think defining, describing, or defining "toxic" in a painstaking way is going to help much.

 

I disagree. I think that with such a dramatic discussion about the term and its usage, we need to come to a common agreement about what the fuck we're even talking about. Semantic differences in the use of a word can contribute to lots of misunderstanding and needless conflict.

 

 

I would just characterize it as long-term calculated disruptiveness without a reasonable end (I would consider a reasonable end to be pointing out a flaw in a rule or mod decision).

 

I think thats an ok definition too, though obviously not the same as the way that I normally understand the term. And I think that us using two different definitions like that could cause misunderstanding.

 

Lets say that I think a behavior can be toxic even if it isn't calculated. Or lets say that I think a behavior can be toxic even if it has a "reasonable" end.

 

Bob is being a dick on a regular basis, pissing people off and making people uncomfortable, and like they don't even want to play on the server because of his presence. He isn't always breaking the rules when he does this (maybe he's been banned a few times for it), but he's still not conducive to a fun place to play. He doesn't have any grand plan to disrupt the servers, he's just being an asshat and that naturally leads to disruption. By your definition he is not toxic. By mine, he might be.

 

So lets say that someone calls his behavior toxic. He cries oppression, saying oh woe is me the admins are against me and my friends who also happen to be asshats. If I say, well he is being toxic. He might adopt your definition and say, no he wasn't being toxic, i don't have some grand scheme to destroy the servers, i'm not working with my friends to make everyone leave, you're just a powermongering biased admin.

 

You see how the different definitions can cause problems on a topic as emotive as this one is for some people?

 

Ok other example. Lisa has a plan to be disruptive, to rabblerouse, to create conflict, because she has a reasonable objective in mind to promote an improvement to the servers. There is some problem, like biased admins, or a shitty arena selection process, and nobody will pay attention unless she manipulates the situation through disruptive and offensive behavior. She has reasonable and potentially good intentions, but her methodology is questionable. By my definition of the term, she would be exhibiting toxic behavior. By yours, and hers if she agreed with yours, she would not be. If someone calls her toxic and tries to excise her from the community, she raises hell saying the admins are biased and called her toxic when really she was just trying to improve the servers by trying to attack this or that admin who obviously don't deserve to be there because this biased action even proves it. They're slanderous and using toxic as a pejorative! They might not even use the word "toxic" but they're thinking it, they're all conspiring against us "toxc" players who just care enough to raise a little fuss.

 

You see how this makes a difference? If they had a common agreement on what the word means, or at the very least an understanding of what the other person means when they use the word, things would be easier.

 

Your definition is a decent one, it is reasonable. I don't think our two definitions are the only ones used by all of the people involved in all of this drama.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Mumberthrax

[EeHee2000]

>SwitchViewz <text>

I actually had a conversation with jchance about a week and a half ago, my reasoning for not changing it before then was the fact that I couldn't take people seriously when they said they were offended by it. Sure, it can be offensive in specific contexts, but I really doubt anyone here was actually disturbed by it. A lot of you got up in arms about it, crying all manner of things, but at the end of the day I can't take people seriously when they get offended at miniscule things like that on an obscure forum for a Minecraft server that's now half a decade old.
However, the side effect was that people apparently weren't able to take me or what I said seriously because of it, from what I interpreted from the conversation I had with jchance.
I decided to trust jchance's opinion and I changed it. 
I'm not really going to look for a fight about the words "allahu akbar you fucking twat", and if I were to be looking for that fight, I'd be causing yet more problems in our already critically wounded community.

Edited March 24, 2015 by EeHee2000

[UNP]

Alright, I think it's time I brought this to the attention of more people. Due to a few things that have been happening, on top of situations that other players have discussed with me in their frustration, I no longer see any reason to keep this particular part of the discussion confidential. I have blurred out identifying details though, and I won't mention names, because I know those players will unfairly face reprisal and backlash over this, which is altogether not right.

 

 

Salient points:

 

• Mods have "no real power"
• Discussing actually changing the rules gets shut down by higher-ups.
• Rules are selectively enforced, for unknown reasons.
• Admins can make choices unilaterally and ignore mod protest.
• A player who is actively trying to scam/steal from others is being allowed to continue doing so by the admin.

Edited March 24, 2015 by UNP