When someone rebels against Fluther's authority, does that person get put under a microscope?

No, @SmashTheState, I don’t think that happens. It might feel that way if a number of your posts are moderated over a short period of time, but I don’t think the moderators are deliberately targeting individuals. Even if one of them had a grudge against an individual member, I’d hope other members of the group, or even one of them, would speak up and say the moderation activity was unfair.

Since the group is a collective we are all scrutinizing each other – no one is above or under the law. :-P

When I first joined along with droves of AB expatriots, we were used to a much more lenient let your hair down atmosphere we got modded all the time. Some members were modded quite a bit and put in the “penalty box”. Many really fun Jellies left because of that. Auggie ran a pretty tight ship and IMO was pretty fair about things and always let you know what she felt was inappropriate and why. I also remember you could make comments and jokes on a general question if the question had a few or more answers that directly answered the question and if you whispered your comment. Something I found out yesterday you apparently can no longer do. I am sure I am not alone in this…we are here because we like to express ourselves and to continually have your participation neutered over and over becomes frustrating and again people leave the site. I will never ever understand why an owner(s) of a site like this would support stifling the very assets that make a site successful?? Plus not promoting it in anyway is frankly bizarre. I know this sounds petty and there are plenty of other places to hang out at and I do.

@Cruiser The owners have moved on and are not looking to monetize Fluther any more; they are paying the server fees out of benevolence.

I think standards on individual modding vary a bit now depending on which mod is on. There are very few of them and they are stretched thinly.

Are you, @SmashTheState, under the microscope? Are your comments constantly “flushed”?
I honestly don’t know, not being a mod or privy to the inner workings.

Just curious.

@canidmajor I’ve just noticed that there appears to be a definite difference in the amount of freedom different people have to comment on Fluther. How far off topic one must be to trigger censorship seems to vary quite a bit from case to case, and my experience is that those who push hardest at the envelope are given the shortest amount of leash on Fluther. I wondered if anyone else had noticed the same.

It happens. It’s unavoidable. My stuff vanishes all the time. But it’s pointless to bemoan the fact, because even objectivity is relative. The mods are every bit as flawed as the rest of us. Yes, even the gods are never neutral.

Are we starting this stuff again?

What stuff? The mods do a credible job, and as I said it’s pointless to complain. Unless you can demonstrate that they are unnecessary, they must remain omnipotent.

It is what it is and while, on occasion, I may feel a slight annoyance, the over all experience here remains a good one for me.
No offense intended @SmashTheState but, it is no secret that you are extremely anti-authoritarian, and while that is a good thing, at times, under certain circumstances, making a career out of it, is less than healthy. One must be discerning and pick their battles carefully, otherwise you are just setting yourself up to feel constantly angry and done wrong by.

@Coloma But the argument that one of us should be “censored for our own good” is not going to fly with me, and you shouldn’t tolerate it either. People passionate or even obsessed with their beliefs should by all means go at it. Obnoxious is also insufficient justification for censorship. And while I’m at the pulpit, who gives a damn about grammatical correctness in the struggle over ideas?

If that does happen, I’m pretty sure it’s in relation to the rules and not much else. Someone keeps breaking the rules, they are warned and eventually banned. They won’t be allowed to stay. I know of two members who were banned for different rule breaking.
I also do know that some members will receive different punishments/treatment. For example, there are two members here who were, in the past, told to stop speaking to each other and avoid one another’s threads because they generally just got on each other’s tits. It’s a bit weird when you think about it, but this was done as an alternative to harsher punishment. It must be said, the effort was done to keep both guys here. (don’t know that said particular decision still stands, this was back when we still had a community manager)

So yes, people might be treated differently depending on what’s going on. Or might have been, as I say, this kind of stuff probably doesn’t happen much anymore. We’re a small ass community now, and most people behave.

As for scrutinizing members and all, well let’s not go too far. I like this place, but it is just a site on the internet, what big truths do you tihink people might even have? Also back when Auggie was running this gig, she was getting paid for it, it was her job. Had she fucked up and done whatever she wanted, she would have lost what was, back then, pretty much her only source of income. (seriously, people sent her shit because she was lacking) If Fluther IS a cesspool of conspiracy and dudes in black shades and stuff, Ben and Andrew are the head guys, so it would ultimately be their fault if shit was going down. If they let it happen, or indirectly their fault if they’re not aware of it. Which I suppose could be the case, seeing as they have no more involvement here, besides paying the rent and fixing shit when it breaks.

With only mods running the scene now, it does give Fluther a type of freedom that can be dangerous to the community; next to no management means both members and mods can do whatever they want. They don’t, (so far as I can see anyways) people want to keep this place, but they could. I think this comes as close to what you’re talking about as it can get; there isn’t enough organization or power here for conspiracies.

Or that’s how I’m seeing it. I could be wrong. I was once told that Auggie, Ben and Andrew looked at people’s private messages and laughed at them. I find that very hard to believe about Auggie, and I don’t know a damn thing about Ben and Andrew. I highly doubt this ever happened, but they did have the power to do it. Anything is possible, I just hope it’s wrong.

@Symbeline Years ago I was told the same thing about the reading of PM’s and I stopped using that feature that day on.

@stanleybmanly I agree, but, there is no way to prove one is being singled out. Obviously the mods all have a different take on what needs to be modded, beyond the basic guidelines. Some will be more lenient and others more heavy handed with the axe.
As you said, it is pointless to bemoan the fact. Bottom line, if one is that bothered it s best to just move on. All in all I think things are handled pretty fairly here in fluther town.

The sort of censorship when discussion leaves the track of dispute among participants and descends to perceived flaws and defects of those arguing SHOULD be shutdown. It may be permissible to describe an argument as boneheaded as long as one is prepared to demonstrate why. But no one must be allowed to label his or her opponent a bonehead while arguing, and as far as I’m concerned the first one to slip in that direction LOSES automatically for allowing emotion to get the better of them.

@stanleybmanly But…isn’t emotion passion? ;-)
I try to avoid getting riled up and am successful 95% of the time. It takes a lot to get my hackles up and for me to start baring my teeth.
I was suspended for 2 weeks the first few months I was here for going off topic and having a go round with another “obnoxious” type.

I took my lumps and came back more aware of the limits and so far, have yet to be banned again. Being more of an abstract and theoretical thinking type I can sometimes go off topic by default, just the way my brain works, a lot of free association, one thing leads to another and another. haha
The getting pissy with others is something that only occurs if I have been provoked long enough by someone, who is clearly, a first class weenie. Not a subjective weenie, a fully stuffed intestinal membrane. lol

@Coloma I do remember the great goose persecution. And the 2 things that surprised me were first of all that the individual doing the teasing would not see the meanness in picking on such an obvious vulnerability, and secondly that the victim couldn’t recognize that her reaction merely fed the sadistic pleasure of her tormentor.

@Coloma a fully stuffed intestinal membrane…~and I bet the stuffing you are referring to is not gourmet prepared sausage!

@stanleybmanly Oh, I was well aware that my reaction fueled the fires of insanity, however….as you point out, one that is passionate or even obsessed with their beliefs should never bow down. I was passionate about having my pets identity stolen and obsessed with bringing that jackass down. Touche ey?
That’s the thing about me, I am super easy going, humorous, don’t hold grudges, fair minded and even tempered, but…mess with something dear to my heat and I will filet you like a Halibut. haha

See? See! I was able to post a joke, and it was not modded for being off topic!!!

(I love it when we all get excited even if the subject doesn’t warrant it. It happens so rarely now.)

@janbb Yeah. I haven’t seen three people crafting responses at once since…the last time we discussed this l0lz.

But, @SmashTheState, Unless you are on the site all the time, how would one know who the regular flushees are? If these things are of concern to you, I would recommend that you vote with your keyboard and boycott. Remember that this site is private, and therefore enjoys some privileges of choosing the behavior of its patrons, what you would call “censorship”.
If this were a totally publically-funded site, I believe your concerns would not only be valid, but I would support them 100%. As it is, I am free to go elsewhere if I choose.
I don’t want people on a soapbox in my living room, but I will support their rights to be on my street corner.

The microscope thing Is the wrong way of looking at it. If something or someone is a problem, what fool is not going to keep an eye on it?

@canidmajor I’ve written three responses to you and deleted them all. I don’t think I’m capable of addressing you in any way which is likely to survive censorship. The irony is rich. I think instead I will let Thoreau answer for me:

“Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me, “Your money or your life,” why should I be in haste to give it my money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.”

@SmashTheState This is slightly irrelevant but not completely. Just want to say that you are a great member of Fluther – both for your vast practical knowledge and your beliefs. Please don’t leave in a huff – or even a minute and a huff.

@SmashTheState I agree with @janbb you and I have had our moments but..you do bring a lot of spice and diversity to this site. You certainly are in a league of your own, an army of one you are.

@SmashTheState The thing that always irritated me about Thoreau is my inability to isolate myself (as he apparently strove) from the battlefield. It is a near impossibility to escape interactions with the state and my fellow flawed human beings. Even existence as a hermit or beggar guarantees no respite from the intrusions of the state and fellow man. Despite his protestations, Thoreau, for all his eloquence, was at the mercy of the same forces confronting us all, and his solution for dealing with them grow either more or less relevant in a world of 8 billion people. I for one cannot determine which.

Wow, I don’t even know where to start here…

It always surprises and amuses me to hear how some users imagine the mods operate. Frankly, we’ve got neither the time nor the appetite for messing with microscopes.

Instead, imagine something far less complicated: A comment gets posted to a question in the General section; we ask ourselves the same old question that mods have been asking ever since the General section was instituted, namely, “Does this comment provide a helpful answer to the question as written?”. If so, it stays. If the comment is about something else, not applicable to the situation described in the question, or just an attempt to be clever, it goes. Who posted it doesn’t enter into the decision at all.

We have these two sections for a reason: to let the asker choose how targeted they want the replies to be. If they want people to share interesting asides and get playful with the question, they can put it in Social. If they want to-the-point, no nonsense answers, they can put it in General. So if a question is in General, it’s the mods’ responsibility to strip out the off-topic, unhelpful stuff, even if we find it interesting or clever or like the poster. If we didn’t, there’d be no distinction between the sections at all. You can feel about the whole “sections” system as you like, but that’s how it works. General section: lots of rules, tightly modded. Social section: say what you like, just try not to be an asshole. Meta section rolls by the same rules as Social

Usual disclaimer: We don’t always do a perfect job at this, but if we don’t, it’s absolutely not because of who posted it.

@thorninmud We don’t always do a perfect job at this humanity being what it is…

@stanleybmanly i was amused and delighted to learn a few years ago that Thoreau walked back into Concord from Walden Pond weekly to have lunch with his mother – and do his laundry.

No, they are subjected to the Peine Forte et Dure until they confess their sins although sometimes they use the Intestinal Crank.

Oh, @SmashTheState, such a lofty and impressive response to my simple query!
I live in a universe where there is a lot of stuff that I get to choose, (contrary to your oft-stated tenets) and I choose to not really sweat every single small thing. I enjoy Fluther, but it is, in my estimation, a small thing. I have been an activist, now in later years, I support various levels of activism.
I pick my battles as I cannot put real, valuable energy into every battle.
I don’t see Fluther as a battle worth fighting. I mean no disrespect to Fluther, I like Fluther, but I don’t think that some modded posts are indicative of a huge bigger picture.

There are always shades of gray, my energies will go to things of greater import.

@canidmajor Fifty?

Save taking a bow @Yetanotheruser when you can get away with that in General Section. @stanleybmanly and I were fed through the wood chipper by thems mods in General for attempting to put a little personal observation spin on the subject matter at hand and the result is his question here.

Most questions in General really only have one good substantive answer that very often will yield other members saying the same thing over and over. In years gone by once the question had a few substantive answers we were allowed a bit of wiggle room to inject a little personal observations that today are now modded as off topic. :(

Oh, @janbb, spare me the reference to some Twilight fan fiction! Ack!!! ;-)

@Cruiser Back when you joined, there were no General and Social sections. The rule was that, as you say, a question had to receive at least one helpful response before silly stuff was allowed. But because this was so hard to police and because users wanted a less restrictive option, the flutherverse split in two. That allowed tighter and less ambiguous control over some questions while opening things up with others. The idea was to give people a choice which sandbox they wanted to play in.

@Cruiser I think there is a validity to the use of sarcasm and humor in even the most serious discussions. Even in the holy text of Christianity, Jesus says I paraphrase here that in order to remove a splinter from another’s eye, you must first remove the log from your own. That’s a pretty sarcastic simile, if you ask me!

Yeah, just to clarify, humor is absolutely permissible in General as long as it comes along with a helpful answer.

@janbb yep he was in fact quite the moocher, a fact which his genius with words should not be allowed to obscure. But then again, I suppose all great writers are at bottom dependent one way or another on ” the kindness of strangers”.

@longgone appears to be living up to her name.

I’m notoriously bad with names and faces avatars. I could not tell you which posts I modded last week if my life depended on it.

Yes, losing your carefully considered words is frustrating. I’ve been modded, and I dislike modding decisions at times. I am often sorry to see a funny quip or interesting side-discussion disappear. I GA both, and we very regularly ask for permission to move a thread to Social. If the OP does not want us to do this, we have to respect their decision. That’s what the sections are there for. If General did not appeal to anyone, it would have died out by now.

Of course our personalities play into decisions, and I bet I am subconsciously more inclined to agree with my Fluther friends. I am not the only mod, though, and I think we do a good job at keeping each other in check. We all get notified when one of us removes a quip, and if we don’t agree, we discuss it. We take things ridiculously serious, our mod mails are very boring for the most part. I mean, we discuss comma placements. We are not likely to spend hours on @stanleybmanly‘s new garden gnome or @janbb‘s ridiculous need to start annoying threads about books. Though we do discuss the latter fairly often, because it’s just weird and slightly worrying.

mea culpa

I think it is more true to say that those trying to apply Fluther’s authority are put under the microscope by the rest of us.

Fluther has authority? Who, why, what, where, when?? :D

@janbb Agreed. Smash kicks ass. I remember a former user said that he didn’t believe @SmashTheState was who he said he was. But he has recently provided links to stuff he does, and he’s in a bunch of online articles and news archives. So he’s for real.
But I thought he was cool long before any of this was proven.

@ucme Precisely what I’m saying lol.

Since when does Fluther have authority?

I thought it was a collective?

Fuck. Sloppy seconds to @ucme.

@Symbeline Me too. I always thought @SmashTheState was cool, even before it was cool to think so!

@SmashTheState is so super cool he’s like authoritative.

@Yetanotheruser Aww – you’re just a cool person wannabe jumping on the @SmashtheState bandwagon.

@janbb I usually go in cycles. I use Fluther for a while until my level of annoyance with the authoritarianism and toadying to authority exceeds my tolerance level, then I just leave for a year or two. I don’t post a “you all suck” message, I don’t flame out, I just walk away. Then someone I know online will post a link to some Fluther question or answer which is especially insightful, stupid, or obnoxious, and I’ll spot a question on Fluther I have the expertise to answer. Then I’ll end up being active for a few months again.

Rest assured that I will get fed up and leave again at some point. And will no doubt end up coming back again – assuming there’s a Fluther to come back to – for the same reason one’s tongue is inexorably drawn to probe a painful tooth again and again.

@SmashTheState Ca marche. Chacun a son goute. I’ve always been a sucker for constantly probing that sore tooth.

@stanleybmanly The point of what Thoreau did wasn’t to isolate himself from humanity. He was well aware that isn’t possible: “Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.”

Thoreau himself said that he would be very disappointed if he saw a bunch of people out living in the woods the way he did, since it would mean they hadn’t understood what he was actually trying to communicate. His experiment at Walden was about seeing how simple he could make his life, and what effect that had on his thoughts and happiness. What he was teaching is not that we should live apart from the world like hermits, but that we should simplify our lives to whatever point produces the most satisfaction. Or, as the Taoists put it, “Never pick up anything you can’t put down.”

I live a very simple life. My total possessions other than my computer can fit in a backpack. I have no car, no mortgage, no family, no spouse, no children, no insurance, no savings, no pension, no pets, no houseplants, no car, no refrigerator, no stove, and until a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t even have a bed. (I decided that I’m just too fucking old to sleep in a chair now. I ended up acquiring an old foam mattress, the same way Thoreau decided coming into town to do his laundry was a totally acceptable luxury. Neither he nor I are hypocrites.)

@SmashTheState Are you homeless by choice?
I’m all for living simply and was able to do that for many years on my little property with a minimum of obligation and responsibility other than to my pets and plants and basic daily living tasks.A very blissful and relatively uncluttered lifestyle that I loved. I even called my place my little Walden Pond zone.

Some basics are just a necessity in our world though and there is nothing wrong with enjoying some comforts either, like a decent bed or attractive artwork and other aesthetically pleasing objects.
What are you going to do when you need medical care and help in your older age? One can only sustain the life of a nomad for just so long. Will you end up in a county hospital or on the streets, if you aren’t already?

Being aged and down and out is not something most aspire too.
Living simply yes, being homeless and destitute no

@Coloma What makes you think I’m homeless? That I don’t need the same luxuries you do? Currently, I am living in the bare, concrete basement of the union hall I have been renovating for the last four months. I knew nothing about renovation when I started, and this place had been abandoned for more than eight years. I have to take sponge baths in the sink and there’s no fridge or stove. The basement was full of toxic mold and I had to bleach the whole place top to bottom repeatedly. I now have a dehumidifier and small HEPA air filter running 24/7. All the renovations have been paid for out of my own pocket, which means I am totally broke. But what I do is important and this place will provide an opportunity for the people I unionize – buskers, panhandlers, street vendors, craftspeople, and hobos – to have a storefront where they can make money, a meeting space, and somewhere to call their own.

I have no idea how any of this is related to dying in a hospital. Presumably if I don’t sleep in a featherdown bed and raise ravening flocks of geese I’m a homeless drifter with dementia, drinking highballs of Aqua Velva and hand sanitizer.

@SmashTheState Yes, you presumed as I did.
I simply inquired, going off of what you have shared, that you have no car, fridge, stove or insurance and that all your worldly goods can fit in a backpack, soooo…it seemed you might be homeless from that description and I wondered, without insurance, what you would do if you became ill or disabled as you mentioned you were getting too old to sleep in a chair. It sounded like you might be homeless or couch surfing, that’s all.
The insurance comment made me wonder how you’d handle a serious injury or illness, that’s all.

So you are working towards some sort of community and collective endeavor, cool.
Hey, I’ve been wiped out from this recession and have under gone many hardships this past few years, I am not now, nor was I ever, what you once accused me of, being ” bourgeois.” lol

@janbb Ca marche. Chacun a son goute.

Ça marche. À chacun son goût.

sorry, pulled a gailcalled

@Symbeline Thanks. I don’t know how to put the diacritical marks on my keyboard but thanks for the corrections.

I want to join the @SmashTheState fan club. Can I get a bumper sticker?

Bumper stickers are 2 for $6.00. Refrigerator magnets are $4.00/ea

Wonderful! I’m sure @SmashTheState is just tickled pink at the idea of being exploited for commercial purposes. I’ll take a dozen of each, preferably the ones manufactured from toxic materials in sweat shops staffed with 6 year olds. I have just the use for the stickers Time to remedy all that pristine dullness defining our national parks.

You want toxic shit? Well, good thing you mentioned it. Toxic bumper stickers are $12.00/ea plus a fully refundable disposal deposit of $35.00/ea. It includes a self addressed stamped envelope. Once you mail the toxic sticker back to us, we refund the deposit.

Disclaimer: Our sweat shops are manned (and I use the term loosely) by eight year olds. We found that with six year olds too much time was lost wiping the feces off their little anuses.

Before you ask, no, you cannot get a cut @SmashTheState. The price of the stickers barely covers the cost of production.

Eight year olds don’t come cheap ya know!
.

@dammitjanetfromvegas I already have a fan club. These posters of me were put up all over the city by… someone. Smelling strongly of pork, we suspect. (The guy smiling in the background is the mayor.)

@SmashTheState You are sui generis in our age (and on Fluther) but have strong antecedents in Emma Goldman and AlexanderBerkman, etc.

@janbb Oh, I think you’ll find there’s quite a few folks like me out there, but most of them work quietly behind the scenes. It just so happens that among my particular set of talents is the capacity for handling massive amounts of ridicule and persecution. I was blessed with skin like a rhinoceros, inside and out. When the corporate media calls me an extortionist or an organized crime figure or simply crazy (and they have), it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. That means I can benefit the organizations I work with by standing in the spotlight with a giant target painted on my ample, hairy ass to protect the people doing the heavy lifting quietly and without fanfare.