MS Update Mod Squad Update (06 June -> 13 June)

So I'm in Vegas and the way the cards are dropping at the poker table, I feel like this:

[image=http://imagesource.allposters.com/images/pic/MMPH/211414~Rain-Man-Posters.jpg]

Ten minutes to Wapner. We're definitely locked in this box with no TV.

• Well, I'm still on vacation. I'm in Vegas where sadly the weather is hot and the cards are cold. I will be back in New York later this week.


• rhonderoo took last weekend off for a weekend of pleasure. We don't know necessarily where, with whom or what happened, but we did notice Grand_Admiral_Grant walking around the JCC with a grin the size of Los Angeles for some reason...


• NYCitygurl is on a family vacation to Wally World. Hopefully the grandmother will be okay and her dad won't run into Christie Brinkley.


• PulsarSkate was promoted to JCC Sheila.

I get my boxer shorts at K-Mart in Cincinnati.

As a general reminder to people, PMs are subject to the same rules as posts and you shouldn't spam PMs. You especially shouldn't spam solicitation PMs. Triple especially if you're trying to get people to come to your off-shoot board because, as farraday might say, we're jackbooted Nazi mods.

Raymond, what are you looking at? The ducks are over here. What are you looking at?

There's a lot coming with Indiana Jones 4 Coverage and Activities via Gobi-1:

• Indiana Jones.com Updates Discussion Thread - A thread devoted to discussing all updates, articles, videos and any information regarding the production of the new film released through the official website or Starwars.com.


• Photo Thread - Not sure if this should be two separate threads. One thread for photos officially released by LucasFilm/Paramount and another thread for unofficial, paparazzi, spy, and spoiler photos.


• Spoiler Thread - A thread where spoilers can be discussed openly. In addition, some joking and some theory was started regarding a spoiler policy for the forum as well.


• Cast and Crew Thread - A thread listing the cast and crew of the new film. Will be continually updated as information becomes available.


• A Weekly Re-Cap of the Previous Week of Production


• New Banner Contest


• Fan Art Contest


• Fan Video Contest

I'm an excellent driver.

College World Series icons have been approved to be uploaded to the icon section by DVeditor, pending submissions. Having watched some of the games in the poker rooms during the day, all I can say is: damn, Oregon State has some quality pitching!

Ray, all airlines have crashed at one time or another, that doesn't mean that they are not safe.

A reminder on Literature spoilers. As we near the end of the spoiler period for Legacy of the Force: Sacrifice, different forums may have differing rules on how spoilers are handled. As a general guideline, no spoilers are allowed outside of the two threads (official thread and review thread) in Literature, though your mileage may vary in other forums so please mind your location.

K-Mart sucks.

Also in Literature-related news, a reminder to users that bashing of authors, artists, actors, etc. isn't allowed. Always try and confine your criticism to the work at hand and not the personality behind said work. If you get personal, you will likely be banned.

Ray, do you want to stay and live with Charlie?

Discussion begun on starting up a new Big Brother game. It's preliminary at the moment, but very likely to have more information either next week or two weeks and signs are positive towards a new game starting in the near future.

That's it. You blew it. You don't get to see your program. Finished.

• Problem users were sent to a psychiatric facility for autism treatment.

 

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

I'm well aware that you had a Rain Man theme, but that's just not okay.

 

It was likely an honest mistake, KW.

E_S

 

My last five "problem user" reports, in reverse-chronological order:

Problem users were erased from our consciousness. (Memento)
Problem users were strapped to fireworks and launched at 12:00 am on 01-Jan-2007. Happy New Year everyone! (Three's Company/New Year's)
Problem users were fed to the bore worms and then impaled by the War Rocket Ajax. (Flash Gordon)
Problem users were raked by the house. (Rounders)
Problem users were caught, skinned, deep fried in a vat of oil and will be served to our first 100 posters in this Mod Squad Update. (Empire Records reference)

Considering that we didn't kill them or cannibalize them this week, I'd say they made out okay.

 

Great update. Hope lady luck shines on you in vegas.

 

i think kw's point was that it's offensive to people who struggle with autism, not the problem users.

 

deltron's got it.

Equating autism to problem users is rather offensive, and I don't understand the point of it.

 

It was meant to be a joke in the theme of every other ModSquad update whereby Mods try and add flavour to the "Problem users were discussed" segment.

Now, I would say it was an innocent but unfortunate mistake to paint autism as a generic psychiatric illness, but I refuse for a second to accept that you are concerned that a MSU paints problem users "unfairly."

Literally every themed MSU makes a joke about the "problem users were discussed" section and there have been suggestions that problem users were killed, maimed, tortured, mocked, eaten by cannibals, eaten by animals and possibly even subjected to Celine Dion. They have always been done from the perspective of a tongue wedged firmly in cheek and this is not something that started in MS after you left the administration.

Not one of those situations involving problem users was ever intended to be a literal representation of administration policies nor were they ever intended as an accurate reflection of administration views of problem users. We have always tried to be humourous when using the statement "problem users were discussed."

Again, from your experience, you must know this.

For my part, for clarity, I think it was an unfortunate mistake, and one I suspect dp regrets. I don't want to speak for him but it would be highly uncharacteristic for him to intentionally misrepresent something like autism.

E_S

 

Ender, this really isn't all that complicated. No MS joke that I can remember (and I've been reading them since early 2002, when they started) has compared problem users to a group of people who suffer from an actual disease/mental illness through no fault of their own.

That's really all it's about. I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but the thoughtlessness of it bothers me, along with the "joke" itself.

 

I understand this.

However, you're assuming it was thoughtless. You don't know that it wasn't entirely innocent.

E_S

 

I don't know that it was thoughtless. However, it would be better for it to have been thoughtless than to think about it and actively decide that it was okay.

At any rate, I've made my point. No need to drag this out more.

 

We're wrong, you guys are right and we can see how it could be construed as insensitive. dp4m honestly was using it in the Rain Man movie context and didn't mean to cause harm. We're sorry. Let's move on. Thank you. I meant that. Let's move on.

 

Already moved on .

 

Great! We're all fine here, then.

 

What do you mean by "spam PMs"? I thought the purpose of sending PMs was not to clutter up the boards with personal things that nobody else wants/needs to see and are none of their business anyway. I s it now against the rules to invite users of the JC Forums to other sites? If so, why?

BTW, one of my brothers is autistic. I never saw "Rain Man"; I never needed to.

FWIW, I don't think it's necessary for problem users to be ridiculed.

 

Spam PMs aren't allowed. You can put a link of a site in your sig, but no one wants to get unwanted PMs and this constitutes that. If you put a site in your sig and people want to go to it and do, then great. They've made their choice.

And regarding the rest of your post, we've moved on.

 

Yep, a while back I got a PM on both this name and my sock advertising another site. I didn't know the person who sent it, so it was pretty annoying.

 

We do not allow unsolicited advertising as posts - and spam is defined by the key concept of "unsolicited advertising." PMs are bound by the same rules as posts.

E_S

 

So spam = posts/PMs containing advertising/soliciting?
If that is the case, then how are non-advertising/soliciting posts concidered spam? By that definition, they can not be called spam then and I've seen many cases where regular posts were called that.

 

They can be posts that are off topic, repeatedly derailing in a thread that should have moved on, or even derailing in itself. They can be threads that have no topic or real subject to discuss. Redundant threads can fall under this definition. And it varies in different forums, meaning the JCC has an abundance of threads that would be considered spam in other forums. Movie, Literature and many other forums have more dedicated threads and the redundancy is much less. In the Community forums, it's harder to corral all the different topics into a few threads. In addition, the forum tends to be a bit more laid back due to the community nature and threads move faster, thus allowing them to die quicker and move down the page.

 

I have seen what DG is talking about, too. And I've been known to PM certain users several times a day. I was afraid that I would be accused of spamming due to the number/frequency of those PMs, even though the only things I was advertising in them were my presense at the boards and my opinions/feelings.

 

As long as you're not soliciting, it should be fine. If it's to continue a discussion that should be taken out of thread due to derailment or something of that nature, it's fine. The caveat is that they don't mind. When someone says they'd rather not hear from you or tells you to stop, it should stop. It's at that time they can report someone for PM harassment. This also applies to someone sending inappropriate images or flaming someone in a PM, as it applies to the TOS just the same.

 

This goes back to over a year ago but what I was talking about is a pillowfight thread. There is no topic, just beating people with pillows. Several of us were called spammers because the mod and thread author didn't like how we were pillowfighting even though pillows were being swung, thrown, ect. and everyone was pummling each other with pillows and none of us were advertising anything.

 

Boring conversation anyway.

 

I'm not sure about the details of that thread, but sometimes repeated posts by two users over a small frame of time my warrant a nudge, although it may not REALLY be that big a deal. Although you sometimes can't help how often someone answers in a thread, repeated posts like that tend to look like it could be a PM conversation instead or a chatroom conversation and can derail a thread or make others feel like they aren't part of the conversation. My suggestion in any case like that where you're not sure what happened is ask the mod that said something to you.

Edit: And I totally forgot to shoot the console, Dani.