It will open a wormhole which will transport you to an infinite number of alternate universes.

Also, I like how you post in the thread that no one has posted anything close to disrespectful even though you can't see the stuff that's been deleted.

How about maybe you just trust that there's been some stuff in there that needs to stop?

RIP threads are traditionally ONLY for expressions of condolences. I've let some minor comments about the article in question go because it seems appropriate under the circumstances, but there have been people crossing the line arguing about Black Friday, so rather than just shutting down the thread, I ask people to stop.

And then I get people telling me that I'm being disrespectful.

Yeah, this is fine.

Derp, posted that like 5 hours before you deleted anything... So no idea what you're talking about there.... And I never said you were being disrespectful... If I did please point out where so I can apologize.

Um.....there are plenty of posts that were deleted long before you posted that. Like, days before.

And you didn't say I was being disrespectful. That post was deleted as well.

Of course you don't know what's been deleted, that's sort of the point.

OK.

Obv I don't watch the thread like a hawk. I was referring to the deleted ones between me and another poster. But it seems you have more complete information than I do here, so you're prolly right.

Yes, I understand that is what you specifically were referring to, but there were other issues/deletions prior to that, which is why I asked people to stop arguing about BF in that thread.

No harm done, but yeah there's a lot more stuff deleted in there than what you are probably aware of.

Reading the RIP thread, I was taken aback by your clamp down on it, SGT. I respectfully disagree with your opinion that BF or issues surrounding this suicide should not be discussed. My view is that a forum is primarily for discussion, not condolences to families/friends; Black Friday, medication, the mental health of poker players: all of these issues should be discussed openly in a thread with the news of someone's poker-, black-friday-related suicide. As a point of illustration, when a notable person dies unexpectedly and a news organization covers it, the ins and outs of why it might have happened and how it might be prevented in the future are discussed at length by panels, etc. This kind of discussion is healthy for all involved, and for those lurking/reading in the forum.

I also found the threat of banning people to be too severe. An infraction and deletion of offensive posts will certainly get the job done. When you threaten to ban people in a thread like that, you effectively eliminate discussion altogether because posters don't want to risk being banned for expressing an opinion. As a corollary, don't you think -- to be consistent with yourself -- it would be perfectly acceptable to have another thread about this person's suicide where real discussion might take place? I mean, if you want to create a wall of "RIP" that has no discussion, that's fine, but you should also have a thread where members can freely discuss these issues.

In general, I think it is very unhealthy for a forum to have a boot on the necks of those who want to freely express their opinions, even on such sensitive matters like suicide. By allowing free discussion and expression, yes, you may have inappropriate posts, but the benefit of free discussion far outweighs the tastelessness of rude posters whose posts can easily be deleted, and for whom moderate punishment would suffice (banning for tastelessness and rudeness is like the death penalty for jaywalking). For people suffering from depression or considering suicide, reading a thread with real, open and honest discussion about all of the related issues would be beneficial, and a breaking story in NVG is the right place and opportunity for such discussion.

It would have been a temp ban, not a full ban, but I don't know if that was clear.

And I respectfully disagree with your assessment that allowing people to joke about who else should do the world a favor and commit suicide or making jokes about people losing to bullets shouldn't be cracked down on fairly harshly.

In the one thread, comments about BF or medication or mental illness HAVE been allowed; I only deleted stuff that was way over the line or discussions that had the likelihood of resulting in a major derail.

There's a fine line in situations like this as to what constitutes a derail. My only goal is keeping the threads generally on track and stamping out offensive bull****. Please note that nothing Go Get It posted was offensive (since he also asked about one of those threads).

No one who isn't trying to troll or derail has nothing to worry about. No one has been banned or even infracted for a single post in either of the recent threads that deal with suicide. Worst case scenario, if I think the discussion has gone too far off topic, it'll get deleted.

But there are plenty of places to just discuss Black Friday. I'm not going to allow a thread about some poor guy who killed himself turn into a retread of the standard complaints (lol us government, I lost all my money, whatever).

I really don't know who to believe...

What happened to the thread about the guy losing $2600 at a carnival ball toss game? That thread had some good potential.

I didn't delete it but it is not poker. Maybe OOT material.

I deleted it and yeah, it's not poker related. Otherwise every time there was some story about some idiot blowing a ton of money on X it would be in here and the forum would be unreadable.

I didn't move it to OOT because I'm afraid Dids will yell at me for moving our "garbage" to his forum.

lol you should do that next time just for the luls, it's not like he can ban you

But he is a mean yeller.

BREAKING

I just found out the thread has self ressurected to 4L

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/62...nival-1327184/

It certainly wasn't clear what kind of ban it would be. You've since deleted the particular post, but your admonition was "will be banned."

Hmmm, then why did you post this in that thread?

Again, I respectfully disagree with your opinion that Black Friday or psychiatric medication or USGov, etc., should be discussed elsewhere. All are clearly within the purview of this young man's tragic death. It's worth noting that it becomes rather pointless for a mod to try and parse every black-friday-related post in an NVG thread about a suicide to determine its precise signal/noise content. And your prevailing posture was to use a chainsaw where you needed a scalpel. My point is you should err on the side of free expression, and your constant threats of banning, etc. hamper the free exchange of thoughts and ideas. I, for one, did not post in that thread for fear my ideas may be misconstrued by you -- once banned (again, you didn't make it clear you meant temp ban), what then?

In response to this specific piece of rhetoric of yours:

-- here's what I said:

That you would insinuate I am in favor of cruel posts is unfair, and speaks to your general unwillingness to respect the opinions of others. My point is that rude posts are easily taken care of: you simply delete them and mete out appropriate punishment. Taunting and threatening readers of a thread from its outset in an attempt to preempt idiocy is idiocy in itself.

It's worth noting that most people do not know the kid who died even remotely, so its only pertinence in a general gossip/news/VIEWS forum is for the general poker public to discuss those aspects of the death that pertain to them. If anything, the thread should have been moved, not micro-managed and suppressed with threats from an angry mod. That you are unnecessarily quoting the content you deleted, the inappropriate jokes and cruel words, undermines your argument altogether. Who exactly are you protecting by deleting such posts, anyway, if you're just going to restate the words for everyone to see?

I was one of those a couple of years ago who rallied and petitioned for you to become a mod, if you'll recall, and was delighted when you became one, but your actions in this thread and others show an ugliness I find regrettable.

I agree with PromethEV+s(very well written post). Perhaps you have an emotional attachment to the story Sgt. RJ and that is why you overreacted? I think you need to swallow your pride and admit you made a mistake.

Did you consider clicking it as an alternative to posting the question?

lol, ship it all over there

Is that your way of asking if someone I know/love has committed suicide?

Because the answer to that would be no, I have no specific "attachment" to suicide related stories.

I've been asked by users in the past to post warnings in threads when they are derailing rather than just deleting/infracting/banning. That's what those post are. Warnings to not make suicide jokes and not derail by just talking about Black Friday (which some people were doing, or just discussing psychiatric medication).

You think those things are fine. I think they are derails from the original point of the thread, and that we have plenty of other places to discuss Black Friday (my God, do we have plenty of places to discuss that) or debate psychiatric medication. Comments on those topics as they applied specifically to the story at hand were allowed, you can still see them. Comments that started to turn the thread away from the story at hand constitute a derail (IMO) and that's what I was trying to stop.

I didn't overreact, and given the fact that no one here (except other mods) can see what was deleted, you saying that I'm overreacting is pretty funny. I also take issue with the statement that I was "taunting and threatening readers". I was warning them, plain and simple. Warning the type of people that enjoy posting offensive bull**** that I was watching and they would be dealt with if they wanted to do so again.

I'm certainly willing to admit that I might not have taken the time to word my warning in the optimal way - if I led people to believe that any tiny comment that wasn't "RIP X" was going to result in a permaban, that wasn't my intent, and I'm sorry for that. But I do not believe I made a mistake in trying to ensure those threads stayed relatively "serious" and on topic.

You lose a lot of credibility when you ascribe motives to me that I don't have and don't even seem to realize that you can't really comment on posts you can't see that prompted me to issue those warnings. You can't "respectfully disagree" with me then in the next breath accuse me of taunting readers and expect me to believe you want to talk to me in a constructive manner. You claim to fear that I would ban you for comments in a thread where you yourself posted my first warning in that thread, which mentioned nothing about a ban, temp or otherwise:

The "ban post", which as far as I know is still there (I didn't delete it), was in a completely different thread. I never mentioned banning anyone in the Black Friday suicide thread.

Sgt. RJ, I was going to make a long post in that thread because I was very saddened by his death and felt compelled to speak about a couple aspects of the circumstances. However, when I saw your post saying "expressions of condolences only", I decided not to post because I couldn't say what I wanted to say and I didn't want to just say "RIP".
I can't believe that you don't see how LOL that is to tell people the thread is only for condolences. This is a discussion forum for chrissakes; it's not China.

I think you're a good mod but this time you made a boo boo.

I just said that I maybe didn't word that as well as I could have. Feel free to speak about some of the circumstances. You can see IN THE THREAD that people have done so and the posts are still there.

What you CAN'T see anymore are the posts where people were starting to JUST argue about medication, or Black Friday, or the one person who used this event to rail against the US government and the DOJ.

My "boo boo" was in my wording, not in my intent.

I don't want to make a clarifying post because most people in NVG appear to not understand "discuss mod issues in the mod issue thread" and use mod posts as another reason to derail. But I've explained myself very clearly here. If you still feel intimidated or oppressed then I don't know what to tell you.

I don't still feel intimidated(well maybe a little) but the result of your post was me leaving the thread and not going back. I assumed it was for condolences only so I never went back. If you think along those lines, how many other people bailed the thread because of your post? Sometimes when you overmoderate a thread you actually discourage people from posting, the net result is reduced traffic on 2+2. I'm pretty sure you don't want that.

I HIGHLY doubt that 2p2 suffered a traffic reduction because of a single thread.

And I also think that since plenty of people made posts that included some comments about the relevant issues (but didn't try to start a conversation solely about off topic issues), that at least some people felt comfortable posting.

I'm legitimately sorry that I wasn't clearer and you felt like you couldn't say what you wanted to say. That was not my intent. My intent was only to stop derails and the type of people who use threads like that to make inappropriate jokes. You can call that "overmoderation" if you wish.

However, if you still choose not to go back to that thread, that is completely on you, now that I've (I assume) clarified the issue for you.

I agree SGT. I don't think 2+2 traffic suffers from overmoderation of 1 thread. But overmoderation at 2+2 period causes reduced traffic. If people don't feel free to express themselves they won't hang around. Of course this is only my opinion.

That's a valid opinion.

But since you don't seem to be saying I overmoderate in general, just in that one thread (in your opinion), I'm not sure how you think that could cause a drop off in traffic.

NVG is the busiest forum on 2p2, and I doubt even 1% of posts are moderated in any way.