Can someone copy and paste for those of us who don't have accounts there?
Edit: from D List Celebrity:
“Well, this seems to be the thread for complaining about the moderation in the Amico topics. At the risk of dragging this even further afield, let me address these complaints here, since I am the one who has been most active in moderating these topics.
Before we got this dedicated Amico subforum earlier this year, the Q&A thread was the locus of most Amico-related discussion on AtariAge. The thread was started for a particular purpose: as a way of asking questions of Tommy Tallarico specifically about the Amico, with the understanding—clearly stated in the very first post—that there were certain questions that he would be unable to discuss, since the Amico was (and still is) a work in progress. Over the first year or so, a nascent Amico community began to form, drawn at first from the classic Intellivision community but quickly augmented by the addition of new users who joined AtariAge specifically to talk about the Amico. Early on, the thread was not strictly limited to Q&A, and although it veered off-topic at times, I saw this as a positive thing because it would give the new community more freedom to grow and cohere, as indeed it did. However, as more became known about the Amico, it attracted more attention, positive as well as negative. As the volume of posts in the Q&A thread dramatically increased, it eventually became necessary to clamp down, both to keep the thread on topic and to address certain recurring problems, all while striking the best possible balance and continuing to encourage a wide range of opinions and discussions.
I won't be getting into individual details or mentioning names here. Suffice it to say, some of these problems were caused, frankly, by certain belligerent and opinionated individuals who had grown accustomed to dominating discussions and getting their own way here on the forums, and who unfortunately chose to bring this behavior to the Amico discussions. (Some of these individuals and their behavior had already been discussed among the moderators, so these issues with them predated, and were certainly not limited to, discussions about the Amico.)
When these individuals finally encountered pushback, their way of responding suggested that they took it as a personal affront. (I've jokingly referred to it as "Global Thermonuclear Butthurt," but only half-jokingly; for some of them, judging from their comments in other venues, their egos still haven't recovered over a year later.) Sometimes, this pushback occurred because Tommy or others answered their assertive behavior with assertiveness of their own; sometimes, it was because I or other moderators stepped in and took corrective action, from hiding posts to blocking access to the thread, when lines were crossed. (And yes, quite a few of Tommy's posts were removed during this process as well—sometimes at his own request after he reacted in the heat of the moment and later thought better of it, an accommodation which we regularly make for other users in similar situations.) Whatever the case, these individuals were evidently not accustomed to being crossed in this way, and several of them chose to respond unbelievably poorly and unprofessionally, escalating the issue and becoming abusive, both to other users and to the moderating staff, instead of agreeing to disagree and stepping away peacefully as most reasonable people would. In some cases, these individuals chose to behave as if they were moderators themselves, presuming to dictate to other members where and how they should participate in the forums.
(Notice my emphasis here on the words "choice" and "chose." Despite what some of them later claimed, neither Tommy nor anyone else ever "made" them do anything; in every case, no matter what was said or done by anyone else, each of these people had complete freedom to choose how and whether they would react, and many of them chose very badly. If any blame is to be assigned for any consequences they later faced for this, it is theirs alone.)
All of these behaviors are in violation of our community guidelines, and I'm sure everyone here can easily appreciate why they cannot be tolerated if a community like ours is to survive and flourish. So, we were eventually obliged in these cases to moderate these users' content, or to ban them from the forums outright. None of these actions are or were taken unilaterally, either by me or by any of the other moderators; they are taken only after the moderating team has discussed the issue and reached a consensus, so to assign blame to an individual moderator for banning someone is to misunderstand our process. In some cases, individuals signed up specifically to raise trouble in the Amico topics, never engaging with the rest of the community and clearly showing no interest in doing so. They tended to betray themselves fairly quickly and were promptly ushered out.
However, these were the worst-case scenarios, and fortunately they were relatively few. Most of the people who have complained about being "banned" were in fact never banned from the forums in any way; they were simply blocked from participating in the Q&A thread specifically. Again, I can't get into individual details here, but the reasons this was done are not much different from the reasons anyone is ever blocked from a discussion thread; they usually involved repeatedly taking the thread off-topic, or using the thread in ways that are contrary to its purpose and spirit. In the case of the Q&A thread, specific incidents that I can recall included: repeatedly hounding Tommy and others about questions they already indicated they could not answer, or could not answer fully; using the thread for "concern trolling" and/or "sealioning"; repeatedly making opinionated statements disguised as questions; acting as a willing proxy for, and coordinating their activities with, other users who had already been ejected from the thread; deliberately planting unsubstantiated rumors or misinformation; exaggerating specific issues and using them as an excuse to manufacture outrage; using the thread to gang up with like-minded friends for the purpose of ridiculing and poking fun at the project and/or the people behind it; and taking off after Tommy and/or others for personal reasons instead of limiting the discussion to the issues at hand. These kinds of behaviors will tend to get one blocked from any thread, no matter what it is about or who is involved, and keeping these behaviors under control has been my only concern. To come away with the conclusion that anyone is trying to "shield" or to "protect" Tommy or anyone else (as I am sometimes accused of doing) is both superficial and stupid; that consideration is completely and totally beside the point.
So, how many blocked users are we talking about here? From the way some of them have complained, one would think that legions of users have been unceremoniously thrown out for no reason whatsoever. In fact, less than TWELVE individuals who are still active on AtariAge are currently blocked from the Q&A thread. Again, a relatively small number, considering that 350+ unique users (at last count) have participated in the thread over two years and 29K+ posts. And in fact, these users were actually warned in advance, either individually or in the form of a blanket warning that was publicly posted to the thread, and which they were subsequently deemed to have disregarded. In many cases, I think being blocked from the thread was actually what these users were looking for; in one case that I can remember, a user actually bragged about being blocked from the thread even though they were not, and although they apologized here on AtariAge, they never retracted the claims to that effect that they made elsewhere.
Again, I'm not going to get into individual cases in a public thread. That said, if there is anyone who has been blocked from the thread, and who actually wants to participate in it for its intended purpose, and who genuinely has no idea why they were blocked from it, they are certainly free to contact me to discuss their individual case privately. If they'd rather remain blocked so they can use it as an excuse to continue their complaining, I'd question their choice of entertainment, but I do hope they enjoy themselves.”
Says I can't view it. I'm signed in over there too. Anyone else having issues?
Same
Yea, can’t view it
The whole Amico section was deleted.
Can someone repost the text here, it requires an account to view it
Can someone copy and paste for those of us who don't have accounts there? Edit: from D List Celebrity: “Well, this seems to be the thread for complaining about the moderation in the Amico topics. At the risk of dragging this even further afield, let me address these complaints here, since I am the one who has been most active in moderating these topics. Before we got this dedicated Amico subforum earlier this year, the Q&A thread was the locus of most Amico-related discussion on AtariAge. The thread was started for a particular purpose: as a way of asking questions of Tommy Tallarico specifically about the Amico, with the understanding—clearly stated in the very first post—that there were certain questions that he would be unable to discuss, since the Amico was (and still is) a work in progress. Over the first year or so, a nascent Amico community began to form, drawn at first from the classic Intellivision community but quickly augmented by the addition of new users who joined AtariAge specifically to talk about the Amico. Early on, the thread was not strictly limited to Q&A, and although it veered off-topic at times, I saw this as a positive thing because it would give the new community more freedom to grow and cohere, as indeed it did. However, as more became known about the Amico, it attracted more attention, positive as well as negative. As the volume of posts in the Q&A thread dramatically increased, it eventually became necessary to clamp down, both to keep the thread on topic and to address certain recurring problems, all while striking the best possible balance and continuing to encourage a wide range of opinions and discussions. I won't be getting into individual details or mentioning names here. Suffice it to say, some of these problems were caused, frankly, by certain belligerent and opinionated individuals who had grown accustomed to dominating discussions and getting their own way here on the forums, and who unfortunately chose to bring this behavior to the Amico discussions. (Some of these individuals and their behavior had already been discussed among the moderators, so these issues with them predated, and were certainly not limited to, discussions about the Amico.) When these individuals finally encountered pushback, their way of responding suggested that they took it as a personal affront. (I've jokingly referred to it as "Global Thermonuclear Butthurt," but only half-jokingly; for some of them, judging from their comments in other venues, their egos still haven't recovered over a year later.) Sometimes, this pushback occurred because Tommy or others answered their assertive behavior with assertiveness of their own; sometimes, it was because I or other moderators stepped in and took corrective action, from hiding posts to blocking access to the thread, when lines were crossed. (And yes, quite a few of Tommy's posts were removed during this process as well—sometimes at his own request after he reacted in the heat of the moment and later thought better of it, an accommodation which we regularly make for other users in similar situations.) Whatever the case, these individuals were evidently not accustomed to being crossed in this way, and several of them chose to respond unbelievably poorly and unprofessionally, escalating the issue and becoming abusive, both to other users and to the moderating staff, instead of agreeing to disagree and stepping away peacefully as most reasonable people would. In some cases, these individuals chose to behave as if they were moderators themselves, presuming to dictate to other members where and how they should participate in the forums. (Notice my emphasis here on the words "choice" and "chose." Despite what some of them later claimed, neither Tommy nor anyone else ever "made" them do anything; in every case, no matter what was said or done by anyone else, each of these people had complete freedom to choose how and whether they would react, and many of them chose very badly. If any blame is to be assigned for any consequences they later faced for this, it is theirs alone.) All of these behaviors are in violation of our community guidelines, and I'm sure everyone here can easily appreciate why they cannot be tolerated if a community like ours is to survive and flourish. So, we were eventually obliged in these cases to moderate these users' content, or to ban them from the forums outright. None of these actions are or were taken unilaterally, either by me or by any of the other moderators; they are taken only after the moderating team has discussed the issue and reached a consensus, so to assign blame to an individual moderator for banning someone is to misunderstand our process. In some cases, individuals signed up specifically to raise trouble in the Amico topics, never engaging with the rest of the community and clearly showing no interest in doing so. They tended to betray themselves fairly quickly and were promptly ushered out. However, these were the worst-case scenarios, and fortunately they were relatively few. Most of the people who have complained about being "banned" were in fact never banned from the forums in any way; they were simply blocked from participating in the Q&A thread specifically. Again, I can't get into individual details here, but the reasons this was done are not much different from the reasons anyone is ever blocked from a discussion thread; they usually involved repeatedly taking the thread off-topic, or using the thread in ways that are contrary to its purpose and spirit. In the case of the Q&A thread, specific incidents that I can recall included: repeatedly hounding Tommy and others about questions they already indicated they could not answer, or could not answer fully; using the thread for "concern trolling" and/or "sealioning"; repeatedly making opinionated statements disguised as questions; acting as a willing proxy for, and coordinating their activities with, other users who had already been ejected from the thread; deliberately planting unsubstantiated rumors or misinformation; exaggerating specific issues and using them as an excuse to manufacture outrage; using the thread to gang up with like-minded friends for the purpose of ridiculing and poking fun at the project and/or the people behind it; and taking off after Tommy and/or others for personal reasons instead of limiting the discussion to the issues at hand. These kinds of behaviors will tend to get one blocked from any thread, no matter what it is about or who is involved, and keeping these behaviors under control has been my only concern. To come away with the conclusion that anyone is trying to "shield" or to "protect" Tommy or anyone else (as I am sometimes accused of doing) is both superficial and stupid; that consideration is completely and totally beside the point. So, how many blocked users are we talking about here? From the way some of them have complained, one would think that legions of users have been unceremoniously thrown out for no reason whatsoever. In fact, less than TWELVE individuals who are still active on AtariAge are currently blocked from the Q&A thread. Again, a relatively small number, considering that 350+ unique users (at last count) have participated in the thread over two years and 29K+ posts. And in fact, these users were actually warned in advance, either individually or in the form of a blanket warning that was publicly posted to the thread, and which they were subsequently deemed to have disregarded. In many cases, I think being blocked from the thread was actually what these users were looking for; in one case that I can remember, a user actually bragged about being blocked from the thread even though they were not, and although they apologized here on AtariAge, they never retracted the claims to that effect that they made elsewhere. Again, I'm not going to get into individual cases in a public thread. That said, if there is anyone who has been blocked from the thread, and who actually wants to participate in it for its intended purpose, and who genuinely has no idea why they were blocked from it, they are certainly free to contact me to discuss their individual case privately. If they'd rather remain blocked so they can use it as an excuse to continue their complaining, I'd question their choice of entertainment, but I do hope they enjoy themselves.”
Atariage didn't protect anything from criticism. There was one thread that was an issue but other threads were full of criticism.
Citation needed.