An Open Letter to Management

[Caged Rage]

Dear Starmade Staff,

It's come to my attention that there's some serious censorship problems with the forum. There's no recognition of art, satire, or honest opinions. This has led to a problem where only posts that adhere to the general opinions held by the community are accepted on the forum. This form of hive-mindedness has lead to a state of stagnation, in which there is no critique of the community allowed. When you deny people the right to state their opinion public, you deny people the right to express themselves.

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The internet has long been a place of free, and open information sharing. While the internet has its pitfalls and legal issues, it is still a place of open opinions and general freedom from censorship. Most places allow critique, and debate to be engaged in, but not the forums here on the dock. Why is this? Because YOU, the members are afraid of inciting a flame war, and don't know how to put out the ensuing wildfire.

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The main reason I'm writing this letter, is to notify the staff (As well as the community) that the forums are on a dangerous path towards over sensitivity. Look, I don't want to wage war on the Moderators, I just want reasonable critique to be allowed on the forum.

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Much Love, (But less than on the first post)
Caged Rage

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Edit: My post has been edited in accordance to moderator request. The poll hasn't been though, I am unable to edit it. I know that this post has been "Polarizing" to say the least, and apologize to anyone who was offended, or felt targeted by remarks made within it. I feel that the discussion it resulted in were positive, and I think this has been a positive thing.

Any questions or comments regarding the post, or the claims within its text can be resolved by contacting me directly. My PM box is always open, and we can pursue other options for continued discussion.

 

[Will2brown]

both of your polls are very biased :P

 

[Caged Rage]

both of your polls are very biased :p

That's the whole point, they're satirical.

 

[MrFURB]

Hmmmm... Attempting to raise a point but not shoving it and it's fault into people's faces. I'll have to take you up on this and leave this, no rules broken. Just make sure the resultant discussion doesn't end up blowing up someone's fridge.

 

[jstenholt]

I'm not the nicest guy. Honestly, every time I look at a post where somebody is suggesting an already existent or already planned feature, I want to rip their fucking head off through text. However, I am generally able to contain myself, but I will not here.

Quit your damned whining and act like an adult.

This is not your website, the owners and operators are allowed to dictate how you may or may not express your opinion.

Also, I don't think you know what satire is.

 

[Caged Rage]

I don't think you know what satire is.

I don't think you know what "an opinion" or "a critique" is.

 

[starhaiden]

The cage might break soon

 

[Zeno9141]

This is not your website, the owners and operators are allowed to dictate how you may or may not express your opinion.

Sounds like you'd love to live in North Korea.

 

[Comr4de]

I will not deny my post, which was deleted on the 15th at 1:30ish AM EST, was polarizing. But it followed the rules and trolling/baiting was NOT the express purpose of that post. Any comments which may be misconstrued as confession, were made in jest. The post itself was a satire on the way that people care-bear on servers, and in factions.

What was the post? I'm legitimately curious. People have been banned before and had posts deleted for criticizing certain players/servers/youtube channels.
[DOUBLEPOST=1426406868,1426406715][/DOUBLEPOST]

I'm not the nicest guy. Honestly, every time I look at a post where somebody is suggesting an already existent or already planned feature, I want to rip their fucking head off through text. However, I am generally able to contain myself, but I will not here.

Quit your damned whining and act like an adult.

This is not your website, the owners and operators are allowed to dictate how you may or may not express your opinion.

Oh, shut up. You're the one kissing up to authority figures.

While you have about half of a valid point, it doesn't stand. If the post was not in violation of any rules, it becomes an issue for the entire community. If a moderator isn't acting in accordance with the rules set out, it will shake confidence people had in the developers, the web staff, and the game eventually.

 

[starhaiden]

What was the post? I'm legitimately curious. People have been banned before and had posts deleted for criticizing certain players/servers/youtube channels.
]
Mushroom fleets sucks they haven't posted anything on this website in a while

 

[aceface]

it's their website, they can do what they want. if you dont like it leave

 

[Megacrafter127]

I think I know what could ease the severety of the issue of having posts deleted without a way of "undeleting" them, in case the post turned out to not be violating the rules.

Instead of directly deleting the post, the post should be made undisplayable, except for the moderators and the one originally posting it.[if it is displayed, it should be indicated that the post is not viewable by everyone.
The user can then (privatly) object to that on the basis of the post, and if the process(which ends when either both the moderators and the user agree on a conclusion, or a set time passes[I suggest a week]), concludes with the post violating the rules severely enough for a deletion, the post is deleted, if the post only contains minor violations to the rules, the user is given the ability to remove those minor violations, and after a backcheck from the moderators the post is made displayable again. In the case the process concludes with there being no violations of the rules in the post, the post is immedeatly made displayable again, and any strike the post may have caused is removed from the account of the user.​

Weither or not this system can be implemented on these forums is a completely different story.

 

[Kojinus]

Instead of directly deleting the post, the post should be made undisplayable, except for the moderators and the one originally posting it.[if it is displayed, it should be indicated that the post is not viewable by everyone.​

This is actually what we do. Very little actually gets completely deleted. We just remove it from public view.​

 

[Saxopi]

When you join the forums, you accept the terms and conduct within the website here.

I've no idea what post you're referring to but try glossing through the rules and see if you broke any of them. If you did, then there's your problem.

There is a bold line between critique and calumny, after all.

 

[Mariux]

I might have missed something... But what deleted thread exactly are we talking about?

 

[karkinosz]

I might have missed something... But what deleted thread exactly are we talking about?

I'm not sure either. But typically after this we get a "Refugees of ******* group" threads. Not sure how that'll work for the dock though.

 

[Aynslei]

Dear Starmade Staff
I will not deny my post, which was deleted on the 15th at 1:30ish AM EST, was polarizing. But it followed the rules and trolling/baiting was NOT the express purpose of that post. Any comments which may be misconstrued as confession, were made in jest. The post itself was a satire on the way that people care-bear on servers, and in factions

Yet I fail to believe any of this.
I think this entire post was pointless, the mods spanked you a bit get over it.

 

[Will2brown]

So basically a flame war has started, which is against the rules ,because there is a dispute about the rules of the forums on a thread that supposedly does not abide by the rules
Wow
I really don't know what I just said

 

[Snk]

Didn't this guy join 3 days ago? You're a joke and your poll is crap. Calm down, dude. I've never felt censored.

Personally, I think we need the disagree button back. We should make a group pact to designate any neutral rating that clearing does not relate to the post a "disagree" button.

 

[Lecic]

I'm not aware of what post was removed, so I'm going to make this brief.

They own the website. If you don't like what they do with their website, you can leave. There are other SM communities out there. The mods have VERY rarely removed a post for not being flamebaiting, trolling, or something that eventually resulted in a massive flamewar.

Because YOU, the members are afraid of inciting a flamewar, and don't know how to put out the ensuing wildfire.

Uh, yeah. We don't like flamewars. Shockingly enough, we don't like threads that are 10 pages long and consist of two or more people screaming back and forth at eachother.