Moderation AMA

Ramshutu what are your views on who or what was behind 9/11?

How do you view Israel as well as the idea that there is an ethnicity known as Jew that you can be born into?

Bsh1, why did Mike trust a total stranger who he claims he's never met or observed socially before as he had zero prior interaction with those on DDO, with entire backdoor-access to users, IP, PM, email etc? What level fo insanity woukd it take to trust someone within a couple of weeks of website-lifespan who simply posted a few rule ideas with that degree of access and power? I think I know the answer, but I'm curious what you'll say.

That's a-ok. I've already backed up my entire consciousness onto the cloud ;)

King_8 was permanently banned for multi-accounting, and using those alts to vote for himself on his own debates as well as to circumvent temp-bans. Regarding Dr.Franklin, as the ban log states, "Moderation will not offer public comment on the reasons for temporary bans unless and until either (a) the banned user returns and raises the issue publicly or (b) public interest outweighs the banned user's privacy concerns." I will therefore not offer any comment on why Dr.Franklin has been banned. He will be back later today.

That is a question for Mike, not me.

Umm...What?

I am not a mind-reader. I represented myself to Mike as someone willing to do the job, who was familiar to and knowledgeable of the community, and who had served in elective office on DDO. Moreover, I don't think Mike was particularly worried, because he has the ultimate authority on whether to remove me or not from my office. If I conducted moderation business in an unsatisfactory manner, it would have been easy for him to replace me. Ultimately, you'll need to ask him what was going through his mind, though. Again, I am not a mind-reader.

Yes I agree. Please do as I commanded and ask him that

RM I think I know the answer to that as well. I am curious behind your theory because honestly it made no sense to assign bsh1 as a mod while barely knowing him. Less than 2 weeks like you said. 

Mike is clearly not who he said he is. We know that. His recent posts would make you think he was the o ly one maintaining code on this site, but in his early posts he claims there is an entire development team.

 Will you consider more mods or are you happy with the current number? How often do y'all get stressed with the load of work you have?

Mike is either Airmax1227, Bsh1 or YYW/Coal (even though the latter 2 have accounts here that claim to be them, he'd obviously use an alt for having opinions/debates).

As for 'but Airmax went by 'max'' well, it was a convenient pseudonym people gave him. He played along. Not sure if it's his name or not and won't help narrow down whether he's Max, Mike or neither but there's definitely one of the three Airmax/Bsh1/YYW scenarios going on. It could be Mikal, sure, but Mikal would have had a different leadership team and treated me personally differently (Mikal hates my guts). Mike didn't hate me on here, he even 'hired' me (for free) to his team on an official planning off-site thing for a while, he also trusted Ramshutu who I know he didn't do homework on to have trusted with that much access. So, it's not outrageous to assume that Mike is a trusting person in people he's not fully gotten to know but there was a massive time difference in proportion between how long he took to judge me and Ramshutu, as opposed to how long he took to judge Bsh1 and Virtuoso (and in turn to trust their judgements on Tejretics and Castin).

Whoever Mike is had many months at least to get to know Bsh1, if not years. This is based on the fact that he took many months to trust and like me and Ramshutu with that other stuff. He does indeed build trust faster than most and based on the fact that I think that Ramshutu and Virtuoso probably used VPNs and fake emails for the website, his degree of trust is stranger with them, that's not doxxing just based on speculation and what I know of both and their theories of privacy etc. 

As for why Mike let Bsh1 access so much so fast, it is true that overall there was an 'upgrade' in their (Bsh1's and Virtuoso's) access to the back-end of the site. After a few months, he allowed to them to see more and act more immediately on quite a few things, which was how finally they saw that Type1 was Sparrow in physical terms of analysis, I think (can't reveal specifics it was on PM). 

The reason why I think he is Airmax above the others is based on secret analysis that I don't want to fully reveal (as it involves hangouts that perhaps only ShabShoral knows most about other than Max and myself). I can tell you it includes who Mike silently has never liked, never favoured and never taken advice from. This temperament (show hatred passively but show love and amiability actively) is something Airmax1227 frequently, habitually did. The reason I think he isn't Mikal or Bluesteel is rooted in both temperamental differences and alliance-peculiarities that would never have added up. I don't think they would have not had Thett3 leading/modding, for example. Imabench would have got a much warmer welcome, as would the entire 'other side' of the original 'war against Bsh1's leadership' where I was actually on the pro-Bsh1 side. Mike stood by Bsh1 throughout and based on where I know Airmax and YYW stood on site members (secretly or publicly) I know for a fact that for Mikal or Bluesteel or any of that crowd to have masqueraded for that long as the opposition to their previous clique is nigh-impossible.

I also think Mike could be Bsh1, more so than YYW but less so than Airmax, because of some things that happened or didn't happen in private. Such as a group or 2 that Bsh1 never joined that Mike did, which would/could punish multi-accounters in ways he may not like. I'll not say anything more on the matter, this sums up what my conclusions are and the three people I believe it's plausible to say that Mike really is (from DDO, not IRL).

Nevermind.

the same reason I doubt it's Mikal's crew is why I doubt it's Shabshoral's crew. ShabShoral is probably the most 'capable' member of pulling off a false persona that intentionally speaks 'foreign sounding English' at times, since he has extreme attention to detail and would almost definitely set up a website with a Russian proxy or something... It's so 'his style'. Nonetheless, I stand by that the leadership and behaviour of Mike socially is too different to believe that he's anyone from that crew.

Another theory entirely is that it's askbob or izbo10 or something like that. This would be the best way for that type of troll to 'get revenge' and dox us all at once. They are hiding behind a Russian proxy for the website's 'whois' as a first sign of protection and fear of us realising who they are... That sounds like either they respect our privacy very much and don't want to make it easy for snoopers to pressure them into revealing info or that they want to use our info and have backlash on them be very improbable.

1.) Wut?

2.) The official narrative, corrected for face saving, protection of national secrets related to international diplomacy and complacency explains the evidence best.

3.) Israel doesn’t act as well as it probably should: but it’s largely understandable.

4.) Dunno; I have no axe to grind, or any particular knowledge either way on the subject.

The feeling that you have. The one from lying through your teeth/fingers and being forced to by my questions. That feeling is all the victory I need. :)

We are discussing the possibility of it. 

Do you have a workout regime Ramshutu?

Yeah, I can see that

If anyone is curious why I never assumed or concluded that Virtuoso was a viable candidate for who Mike/admin is, the interactions between them and fact he was put under Bsh1, with less access despite being more keen and far more contributive overall in the days where both were promoted. Also, there is an underlying 'I don't care what you say' coldness to Mike that I don't see in Virtuoso but is very quintessentially Bsh1-esque, or Airmax-esque. YYW has the coldness too, to be fair, but it's less quintessentially 'him' to stay so aloof for so long, even just in terms of 'talking to other users', it's not how he pulls off his accounts or personas in my eyes. He's either totally inactive or totally active in general, which isn't really seen in Mike, who is consistently aloof and spreads his energy out.

So yeah, I'd put money on it being Airmax or Bsh1 but it could indeed be a stranger/troll trying to dox us or data-harvest opinions attached to real identities for government research etc. After all, the symbol for 'religion' is Illuminati's occult eye and if you zoom in/out on the 'education' symbol on debates it becomes triangles/pyramids too at some point on Chrome browser.

I am hoping to add 1-2 more moderators to the team eventually. I don't get too stressed right now, but there are some days where the workload is daunting.

 Who are you considering? *stares intensely*

No comment.

If by no comment you mean me, YES and thank you

:P

would you say you average 3 hours a day?

he is considering blamonkey, oromagi and ragnar, in case there was any confusion.

You are not in a position to know who I am or am not considering, and, while I have given the matter some thought, it is not for me a matter of urgency. I will wait until the right candidate comes along.

You are in no position to know my position on your patterns of hiring and banning. Well, actually you have some position now, since I just showed you I know how you go about things.

If I am so wrong, why not tell us the fair approach you use to judge people, rather than keep it secret?

*COUGH*

I am certainly willing to tell you my approach. But I am not going to identify specific users as being under consideration. Fundamentally, I am looking for a user who is going to be consistently active, who has no history of COC violations, who is fair-minded, who is reasonably well-liked by the site usership, and who is willing and able to consistently do the work required of them with little prompting. I would prefer someone with experience in modding or site leadership, but I recognize that is difficult to get. I will come to my own decisions on which individuals, based on these criteria, are most suitable. I will then discuss those names with the moderation team, and, factoring in their input, make a decision. I will then clear my choice with Mike.