So, for a mild dose of necromancy I wanted to address this here:
@tempest said in Fixing United Heroes- Too bad we cannot talk about it on the game:
I would like to report @Ganymede for moving this thread and committing treachery most foul. She has let the nazis win.
@Arkandel, don't let this injustice stand!
I know you're half joking but to give a quick answer, which can cover others' concerns as well. Please keep in mind I'm tired, and my ideal evening does not include MSB. It's the time I can actually play games or watch some basketball on TV, so if it doesn't make sense I'll go over this again in the morning.
The concern here seems to be that if a thread is in the Hog Pit it's 'hidden' behind the opt-in wall, and thus invisible to casual viewers. That makes our system prone to being played by malevolent posters who want to hide their dirty laundry from those viewers.
However MSB isn't a court of public opinion. It's not wikileaks for MU*. That's one of the roles we serve, and I think we've done pretty damn well in that way for a long time, but it's not our goal. Its purpose is not, to coin a term I never agreed with but have often seen, there to 'shut down games'. Not only does it not have that power, it shouldn't.
MSB is here for the MU* community, all of it or as much as we can have, and not just for the popcorn-and-lolz masses hoping to see someone burn a bit more in the court of public opinion. There are those - there are many - who don't want to read massive flamewars, fuck-you memes and personal attacks; that's precisely what the Hog Pit is there to do, it's a compromise between the two crowds.
So to actually address your issue (generic 'you' now, since it's not just you voicing it), if you think a thread ought to stay out of the Hog Pit then don't turn it into a dumpster fire. It will stay out of there, then.
The poster we all know was a staff alt/friend from UH didn't foul the thread up. Sure, he/she stirred the pot, but I didn't see any particular foul language in there. We stooped to that level ourselves - we did that - and in doing so, the thread went away.
So can someone play us like that? Use the system to hide their dirty laundry? Yes - by design. And yes - if we allow them to. We don't have to. If this guy had started shouting profanities that novelty account would have been banned within minutes, believe me. So ... take some responsibility as well here, please. If you want a thread to stay out of the Hog Pit, don't make sure it ends up exactly there.
Now, having said aaaaall that.... someone pointed out to me we could have split the thread better. We could have not moved the entire thing but only select posts.
I think that's something we can improve on, yes. It's just a matter of every admin figuring out this forum's ins and outs, not to mention having the time to do so. So to address @Tempest's actual complaint, I back Gany 100% here - it was objectively the right call to make - but I'll also see that we all us admins get some practice using our vast powers for which you hate and fear us , since we could have split up the nasty parts of the thread and left the rest up for public consumption.
If you have thoughts to share please do so. I actually felt we had been doing something good here - there were two cases of games lately where staff abused its own players and protected themselves which we didn't allow it to happen. That is a healthy sign.
Thanks for reading. I'll catch up on y'all tomorrow, my Tauren paladin needs some new boots.