The banning of BAP

[Base groove]

I follow the evidence and right now, from what I have witnessed, BAP is just the victim of a witch hunt. I don't want to believe this as it would mean I have lost faith in this forum but I need evidence to the contrary that would shift my views.

BAP guessing your email is not that concerning to me. I find the idea of guessing your email kind of fun, personally. He has not shown any obsession in PMing me and guessing your email is not really a sign of stalking unless it is coupled with him contacting you even though you asked him not to.

Please evaluate the recent bannings of Variform + The Void so readers may rate/assess your neutrality.

 

[Grayman]

Please evaluate the recent bannings of Variform + The Void so readers may rate/assess your neutrality.

They were banned too?! I must have missed an important week...

What threads should I read to see the last moments? ?..and why the mass banning?

 

[Base groove]

They were banned too?! I must have missed an important week...

What threads should I read to see the last moments? ?..and why the mass banning?

Ok actually before I go ahead and claim you are lacking information (ignorant), able to identify the information you need but unable to locate it (incompetent), but still making conclusions... I should be fair....

Generally you can find the details of any random act of banning usually by reading the final posts of the banned member and whatever the person who banned them had to say about it in that particular thread as well as the ban thread.

This, by my estimate, will supply you with 60-70% of the relevant information, in other words: the publicly available information. It is highly unlikely one will access the mod-box although in your case (see paragraph 1), you just might make it.

 

[Base groove]

Oh that was a burn. I jest I jest.

Edit: BAP texted me and said keep 'em comin'

 

[walfin]

Wow, hard to believe.

Most bannees are not very much known except for a brief spell.

 

[Grayman]

Ok actually before I go ahead and claim you are lacking information (ignorant), able to identify the information you need but unable to locate it (incompetent), but still making conclusions... I should be fair....

Generally you can find the details of any random act of banning usually by reading the final posts of the banned member and whatever the person who banned them had to say about it in that particular thread as well as the ban thread.

This, by my estimate, will supply you with 60-70% of the relevant information, in other words: the publicly available information. It is highly unlikely one will access the mod-box although in your case (see paragraph 1), you just might make it.

I am here on a personality forum to explore personalities. The removal of certain people negates this. I find this irritating.

Variform had issues but banning him for being irrational is just stupid, dangerous and down right appalling. I have seen an equal amount of posts that misdirect him and target his belief structure that is based a few ideas that encompass many of his understandings. When many of your points of view are based on a concept that concept is bound to resurface in those various topics but in different forms. This is evident with religion. God can become a key aspect of any topic and by appearance it can seem as if the person only want to talk about God but to someone who also believes in God he is talking about another topic. This is usually fine unless the individual tries to convert people. Otherwise, this is okay because this is how they see the world. Variform never tried to convert people, he just expressed how he sees it. This is no crime. His greatest sin was not derailing but of having a point of view that everyone wanted to argue, criticize, and break down as being wrong, unhealthy, and irrational. He was overly defensive and sensitive to such criticism, he was always attacked at the root of his belief where the line that seperates personal attacks and topic debate becomes blurred. His personal attacks were likely defensive and not done with malice.

Part of the problem is who he is and the part is the fact thatpeople here cannot identify his sensitivities or do not refrain from triggering them. This forum is full of instigators who are equally responsible for whatbecame of Variform.

 

[Base groove]

I am here on a personality forum to explore personalities. The removal of certain people negates this. I find this irritating.

and what about The Void, Grayman?

 

[Cognisant]

Earlier in this thread:

Variform next plz

And just now:

Variform is perma banned for constant ad-hominem, personal insults to users, abuse of privacy, and self-professed desire to not be rational.

Muhhhahahaha

 

[Hawkeye]

Food for thought: Taking out all those who go against the grain will leave this place lifeless.

 

[Grayman]

and what about The Void, Grayman?

Sounded like that was just a result of him creating duplicate accounts. I am uncertain why a warning could just not have been made while only banning one of the accounts so that he only had one.

 

[Absurdity]

Food for thought: Taking out all those who go against the grain will leave this place lifeless.

You're still around, aren't you?

 

[Red myst]

I am here on a personality forum to explore personalities. The removal of certain people negates this. I find this irritating.

Variform had issues but banning him for being irrational is just stupid, dangerous and down right appalling. I have seen an equal amount of posts that misdirect him and target his belief structure that is based a few ideas that encompass many of his understandings. When many of your points of view are based on a concept that concept is bound to resurface in those various topics but in different forms. This is evident with religion. God can become a key aspect of any topic and by appearance it can seem as if the person only want to talk about God but to someone who also believes in God he is talking about another topic. This is usually fine unless the individual tries to convert people. Otherwise, this is okay because this is how they see the world. Variform never tried to convert people, he just expressed how he sees it. This is no crime. His greatest sin was not derailing but of having a point of view that everyone wanted to argue, criticize, and break down as being wrong, unhealthy, and irrational. He was overly defensive and sensitive to such criticism, he was always attacked at the root of his belief where the line that seperates personal attacks and topic debate becomes blurred. His personal attacks were likely defensive and not done with malice.

Part of the problem is who he is and the part is the fact thatpeople here cannot identify his sensitivities or do not refrain from triggering them. This forum is full of instigators who are equally responsible for whatbecame of Variform.

He never tried to convert people???? do you remember the "wrestler girl" thread? is this not trying to convert people?

He was an instigator, He often posted inflammatory remarks that he knew he would get flamed on. On his own admission.

He was not banned for being irrational, he was banned for personal attacks.

That being said, I found that once I sized him up, I found his irrationality interesting and often wondered if he were just joking? I have never seen anyone seem sound and rational one minute, then go off the deep end the next.

 

[Grayman]

He never tried to convert people???? do you remember the "wrestler girl" thread? is this not trying to convert people?

He was an instigator, He often posted inflammatory remarks that he knew he would get flamed on. On his own admission.

He was not banned for being irrational, he was banned for personal attacks.

That being said, I found that once I sized him up, I found his irrationality interesting and often wondered if he were just joking? I have never seen anyone seem sound and rational one minute, then go off the deep end the next.

Wrestler Girl and him dealt with that and wrestlergirl did a good job. He recanted and she forgave him. There is little point in us not doing so also. I know he admitted to being controversial but I know nothing of what you claim.

 

[Base groove]

Sounded like that was just a result of him creating duplicate accounts. I am uncertain why a warning could just not have been made while only banning one of the accounts so that he only had one.

He came out and openly admitted that The Void was also a duplicate account for he had been permanently banned in the past and demanded a ban as a result of this which was not awarded to him.

I believe the main reason was actually due to repeated attempts to break overt rules, and annoy people, by making a large number of "fluff" threads.

 

[Base groove]

Obviously it's a complicated thing they've got going on. This thread was intended to analyze BAP's case but first it's maybe necessary to ...........

 

[Cognisant]

BAP was a subjectivist, Variform was a subjectivist, Lyra was a subjectivist, Da Blob was a subjectivist, anyone who forgoes reason in favour of their beliefs has lost their mind and it's only a matter of time until the facade of sanity falls away.

 

[Hawkeye]

BAP was a subjectivist, Variform was a subjectivist, Lyra was a subjectivist, Da Blob was a subjectivist, anyone who forgoes reason in favour of their beliefs has lost their mind and it's only a matter of time until the facade of sanity falls away.

Everything is subjective... Your own schema is based on subjectivity

Who are you to judge?

 

[Grayman]

Everything is subjective... Your own schema is based on subjectivity

Who are you to judge?

Very true. People often mislabel a "shared accepted subjective standard or frame of mind(Fe)" as an objective standard. In reality they are adopting the insanity of society as their own instead of creating their own insanity.

Everyone is irrational and everyone is rational within their own frame of mind.

Objectivity must be the only irrational thing since it transcends judgment and meaning. Maybe it just transcends reason too.

 

[Grayman]

BAP was a subjectivist, Variform was a subjectivist, Lyra was a subjectivist, Da Blob was a subjectivist, anyone who forgoes reason in favour of their beliefs has lost their mind and it's only a matter of time until the facade of sanity falls away.

I think it is a matter of outspoken Fi and a Fe enviroment. Although I think BAP exists outside of that. I think he uses Fe but...

 

[Cognisant]

Who are you to judge?

I've been an admin and I've been banned, I've hosted dinner parties and watched "immortal" threads be created grow old and die; splitting the faith and philosophy boards was my idea.
If you still don't know who I am then go read the wiki.

That's who I am to judge, I'm Cognisant, remember it

 

[Rook]

Food for thought: Taking out all those who go against the grain will leave this place lifeless.

Interesting, perhaps true.

Maybe the forum needs more deviant behavior.
Not infringing deviance, just deviance for the sake of more diversity and mild controversy .

Who shall take this burden upon their shoulders?

 

[Cherry Cola]

Oh come on, Variform didn't get banned for being irrational, not even for being a dick. He got banned because of his high strung unrelenting idealistic fervor. Now I'm not sure if I agree on the decision of banning him, but you have to face the fact that his way of interacting (much more than what he actually said) instigated conflict and frustration.

It was tiring and it was in almost all his posts. Not to say me and others haven't done principally similar ad-homs and gotten away with them. Thing is you gotta consider dosage and ratio.

 

[Grayman]

Oh come on, Variform didn't get banned for being irrational, not even for being a dick. He got banned because of his high strung unrelenting idealistic fervor. Now I'm not sure if I agree on the decision of banning him, but you have to face the fact that his way of interacting (much more than what he actually said) instigated conflict and frustration.

It was tiring and it was in almost all his posts. Not to say me and others haven't done principally similar ad-homs and gotten away with them. Thing is you gotta consider dosage and ratio.

I was only addressing the official reason given by the mods. At first i thought the reason a joke. I had to go verify that Variform was banned.

Conflict that was easily avoided yet many did not avoid it and their frustration was a direct result of not ignoring him and in some cases I have noticed people grab onto obvious triggers. Their decisions to do this... a result of ignorance, enjoyment of conflict, or lack of concern for the conflict?

 

[Jennywocky]

Holy what the shizzle?? Variform is permabanned!!!?


.... I didn't even get to say goodbye.

[bimgx=450]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Crying-girl.jpg/800px-Crying-girl.jpg[/bimgx]









PS. Hey Variform? Goodbye.

 

[Cherry Cola]

I was only addressing the official reason given by the mods. At first i thought the reason a joke. I had to go verify that Variform was banned.

Conflict that was easily avoided yet many did not avoid it and their frustration was a direct result of not ignoring him and in some cases I have noticed people grab onto obvious triggers. Their decisions to do this... a result of ignorance, enjoyment of conflict, or lack of concern for the conflict?

Official reasons are always given in an official language, that's not the best language when it comes to accuracy but it gets the message across to everyone who reads it. Plus it ain't always so easy to pinpoint exactly why someone was detrimental.

People aren't perfect, you'd like to punish or forgive them all but that don't work so you gotta go for the instigator. If Variform had done the same thing but no one would've been bothered then it would've been fine.

 

[Jennywocky]

Variform never tried to convert people, he just expressed how he sees it. This is no crime. His greatest sin was not derailing but of having a point of view that everyone wanted to argue, criticize, and break down as being wrong, unhealthy, and irrational. He was overly defensive and sensitive to such criticism, he was always attacked at the root of his belief where the line that seperates personal attacks and topic debate becomes blurred. His personal attacks were likely defensive and not done with malice.

Part of the problem is who he is and the part is the fact that people here cannot identify his sensitivities or do not refrain from triggering them. This forum is full of instigators who are equally responsible for whatbecame of Variform.

if it matters, one reason my posting cut way back on this site is because I didn't feel like dealing with Variform. Every since that first time he and I went at it because the thread was talking about "beautiful people" and he decided to make it a scree on how stupid and awful Angelina Jolie was because she got a double mastectomy so that she'd be there for her kids, I realized the guy was emotionally abusive and not really open to his opinions adjusting.

Because I'm an open person, I did occasionally try to engage him (in non-controversial posts); but very often I just didn't even bother going into a thread that he was marked as having recently posted in. it was just too much of a hassle, and he typically would derail the topic in order to make it about him -- why invest my energy? He was a wounded guy emotionally who (from what I could tell) also was unwilling to let himself change to become unwounded, and he consistently made excuses for his own faults, which you seem to have bought into.

I don't really care why the dog bites someone. If he bites enough people or scares them off, then let the dogcatcher figure out what must be done.

I think I'm just kind of surprised he didn't get any tempbans first.
I figured he'd be given a few temps to deliver the message, then the final banhammer.
(or did I miss a tempban or three?)

 

[Cavallier]

Hello Grayman,

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this because I'm not going to try to change your mind on how you feel about BAP, Variform, or The Void. However, I don't want you to continue to misunderstand how the moderating team works on this forum.

We have had a long ongoing conversation with BAP over various issues for going on 1 and 1/2 years. We tried various forms of communication. We finally determined that it was time to permaban him. Some of the mod team personally regretted having to ban him after hours of discourse with him but we all agreed in the end that it was the best. Even Puffy who is at the end of the day the least likely to call for a banning. When I said that I regretted banning BAP I was not being fascetious. All his threads and comments are still here all over the forum for you to analyze. They won't be taken down and in fact will serve as a memorial to him as a member.

The same is true for Variform. He was warned for attacking members and ultimately he was permabanned because his attacks were becoming increasingly heated and he was releasing information from personal communications. Look at the things he said in his last few posts as BaseGroove suggested. That will give you the most information regarding why we banned him.

The Void is a more complicated case. He created, from what we know, 3 or 4 different dupe accounts. He asked to be permabanned, instead of simply having the will power to leave of his own accord, and finally made a nuisance of himself until we finally relented and banned him as he wished.

With almost every banning, not including spam bots and other immediately obvious malicious members, we discuss the ban at length in the mod box. We discuss alternative forms of reaching out to a member who is causing problems. We provide warnings, temp bans, and trips to Siberia to cool off. Ultimately, by the time we ban it is after weeks if not months of attempts to reach a mutually benefitial agreement with the member.

I won't rehash our reasoning for each banning because it is all in the public domain here on the forum.

I feel frustrated that not all members can take part in forum discussions without eventually devolving into personal attacks, ad-hominem laziness, and general idiocy. Sometimes I think the dream of creating a safe space where any idea can be discussed and a little quirky fun can be had is impossible.

Anyway, there you have it. We have banned these members and you can either agree with our decision and stay, disagree and stay, or disagree and leave. The choice is yours and I fully respect your decision whatever it may be.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

I wouldn't normally say something this defensive or obvious, but it seems that it is forgotten along the way:

Please, make an attempt at realising that moderation/admins, put their time and effort into maintaining what they consider a preferable enviroment here, which is a task that requires reading and writing posts and contacting the trash and not-so-nice members, which you can leisurely ignore and skip forward, at the end only remembering the nice side, or a small element of the puzzle.

It's their time and their worry and not only about you losing one possible partner to conversation, but also a possible relief for the victims, who may in fact become more active after refreshing the air.

Simple rational version:
Not your time
Not your money
Not your decision

How many times did you benefit?
How many times did you lose?

Anyway, there you have it. We have banned these members and you can either agree with our decision and stay, disagree and stay, or disagree and leave. The choice is yours and I fully respect your decision whatever it may be.

Not to mention the option of agreeing and leaving.
Don't apply it to me yet.

 

[Base groove]

I've been an admin and I've been banned, I've hosted dinner parties and watched "immortal" threads be created grow old and die; splitting the faith and philosophy boards was my idea.
If you still don't know who I am then go read the wiki.

That's who I am to judge, I'm Cognisant, remember it

Spoiler

 

[Grayman]

I don't really care why the dog bites someone. If he bites enough people or scares them off, then let the dogcatcher figure out what must be done.

Using your analogy it is more like a dog that bites when it is petted because it was abused in the past. The owner, the reasonable part of Variform, has notified others of this dogs limitations and the issues invovled so that others may act accordingly with the dog. Some people choose to interact with the dog and get bitten but realize that is the risk they took but some people interact and get bitten and then react to the dog in a negative fashion futher introducing issues with the dog. The dog becomes even less trusting and more violent.

I suffer seeing this and I am feel a loss when the dog finnally gets kicked to the curb because I was interacting with the dog in a healthy and productive way and felt that eventually the dog would have learned to trust someone.

When Variform notified people of his limitations and abilities to interact appropriatly they saw this as an indication that he planned to do this and enjoyed acting this way or was deliberate etc.. but it did not seem they saw it as the owner notfying you to beware and be gentle.

I feel as if the people in the forum, do to their inablity to handle such individuals as Variform, have made his issues become someting more than they needed to be. I suppose I have to accept the results of this... but I still cannot help but feel like things could have been different for Variform if we had handled them better.

 

[Cherry Cola]

The forum isn't a therapist.

 

[Cavallier]

Not to mention the option of agreeing and leaving.
Don't apply it to me yet.

LOL

I swear that wasn't a threat.

 

[Grayman]

We have had a long ongoing conversation with BAP over various issues for going on 1 and 1/2 years. We tried various forms of communication. We finally determined that it was time to permaban him. Some of the mod team personally regretted banning him after hours of discourse with him but we all agreed in the end that it was the best. Even Puffy who is at the end of the day the least likely to call for a banning. When I said that I regretted banning BAP I was not being fascetious. All his threads and comments are still here all over the forum for you to analyze. They won't be taken down and in fact will serve as a memorial to him as a member.

I can understand Variform even if I don't like the outcome. BAP eludes me. Are his attacks all PM? The past month he has been walking on egg shells and trying to understand the issues and the limitations of proper behavior on this forum. He was dealing with this while not trying to specifically attack anyone personally.

Anyway, thanks for the response. I don't expect you to get into this with me as you are likely frustrated with this ordeal enough after such length of time.

 

[Grayman]

The forum isn't a therapist.

You don't always find such people sitting on a couch. We would all be better off learning to deal with it properly and accepting the results of not dealing with it properly.

 

[Base groove]

When Variform notified people of his limitations and abilities to interact appropriatly they saw this as an indication that he planned to do this and enjoyed acting this way or was deliberate etc.. but it did not seem they saw it as the owner notfying you to beware and be gentle.

I feel as if the people in the forum, do to their inablity to handle such individuals as Variform, have made his issues become someting more than they needed to be. I suppose I have to accept the results of this... but I still cannot help but feel like things could have been different for Variform if we had handled them better.

The forum isn't a therapist.

Do you think therapy was good for him, Cerry? He had social anxiety and Schizotypal PD and was totally open about these things, as well as the fact that he didn't trust therapists because he felt they had an agenda, which he had experienced first hand. It was dehumanizing to him to be objectified like this which contributed to things like paranoia.

Doesn't mean I disagree with you or the banning or Grayman, but it's possible that a forum would be the best way for him to cope in the long run. Perhaps not this forum, but maybe one that had less emphasis on getting along and being nice as a fixed rule, and more emphasis on authentic expression...

 

[Cherry Cola]

I think it would probably have been good for him to stay on a forum for a longer period of time for the same reasons you gave. Hell it would probs have been good for him if he had stayed on this forum. But the forum isn't altruism reincarnated :P

 

[Base groove]

But the forum isn't altruism reincarnated :P

This argument falls under the same category as your last one (rhetorical/hyperbole) and it's also an example of moving the goalposts.

Is a therapist equivalent to altruism reincarnated?

Is it possible to broaden the definition of therapist in this case to incorporate an abstract entity such as a forum, if it happens to be an object which one might affiliate with therapy, whatever that may be?

 

[Cherry Cola]

Rhetorical/hyberbole it is. But meh, it feels cheap to point out that for a forum to function as intended it's functioning must take priority over the needs and issues of individual users. If there are rules and bans and shit then you can't just not ban people because they need the forum. That'd result in a bunch of crap. Imagine Wonka, BAP, Variform and 6 other highly active users running around fucking shit up. Shit would get fucked. Also moderators would be accused of favoritism.

 

[Base groove]

Rhetorical/hyberbole it is. But meh, it feels cheap to point out that for a forum to function as intended it's functioning must take priority over the needs and issues of individual users. If there are rules and bans and shit then you can't just not ban people because they need the forum. That'd result in a bunch of crap. Imagine Wonka, BAP, Variform and 6 other highly active users running around fucking shit up. Shit would get fucked. Also moderators would be accused of favoritism.

Yeh well maybe this isn't the right place for them which is what I said. I'm trying to analyze this issue from various angles including the one which acknowledges a forum is possibly the best place for people like this to seek "therapy", but it is not this forum as the rules here do not favor that degree of self-expression.

I'm doing this in part for Grayman's benefit as he obviously sees some implicit reward in helping characters like Variform.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

If there is one thing good about the administration, it's that the bans aren't immediate. A person has ample time to review and change their behavior. In that time, "therapy" is naturally provided but a person can't be made more important than the overall interests.

I can respect the decision to ban, it just didn't seem necessary in BAP's case.

I was not being fascetious.

Freudian slip?

 

[Grayman]

@Cherry and BaseGrove

I'm doing this in part for Grayman's benefit as he obviously sees some implicit reward in helping characters like Variform.

Perhaps I am too much an optimist but I do not see them as a negativity here on this forum. They are easily ignored if you chose to do so but most do not and that is their choice.

What is the purpose of this forum? I cannot find a statement of purpose...

This is not just a forum and it is not just any forum. It is an INTP forum.

Related words to INTP are Personality, MBTI, Psychology.

I don't see this place as just some social gathering like twitter or face book or any plain forum. This place is for INTP interaction. To help, understand, and learn about INTP's and eachother and ourselves. So yes, it is also about Therapy and Psychology. It is a place for us to grow as INTP and even get help from like minded individuals. What better to help us learn and grow as INTPs than someone who provides us with and contrasting personality and to be put in uncomfortable situations where we have a opportunity to grow and learn through INTP interaction with them. Variform and BAP provide us with new insights, indirectly or directly. Variform specifically gives us a package of issues that some INTP's face and can learn from.

There is everything to be gained from these individuals and the only negative side to having them here is that some people may have to choose to ignore them as they chose to do in real life and everyday with people they cannot seem to interact appropriately with. Unless Variform, and BAP continually seek out members who wish not to interact with them and post about them specifically and continually in the forum, they are harmless. They can be ignored by any member who does not want such interaction. If Admins are continually sought out by BAP that is not a bad thing. That is the job of being an admin to address these concerns or ignore them when it is inappropriate and notify that to the individual. As long as BAP is contacting the Admins about Forum and member issues and is not specifically harassing them as individuals I don't see how he has gone over the line.

 

[Jennywocky]

... it's possible that a forum would be the best way for him to cope in the long run. Perhaps not this forum, but maybe one that had less emphasis on getting along and being nice as a fixed rule, and more emphasis on authentic expression...

I don't disagree with that. There has to be an environment somewhere more appropriate to his current means of expression. I understand sometimes a person has to let go of everything and just express, and then eventually maybe once they work through everything they can shift gears again.

I went through a period like that with my therapist, who realized my personality was smothered and I had no place in my life where i could just speak without fear of being judged... so therapy amounted to me just being able to say anything that came to mind without fear of her judging me. But that was a closed environment -- just me and just her. That doesn't necessarily work with more public/communal venues.

@Grayman:

Spoiler

Using your analogy it is more like a dog that bites when it is petted because it was abused in the past. The owner, the reasonable part of Variform, has notified others of this dogs limitations and the issues invovled so that others may act accordingly with the dog. Some people choose to interact with the dog and get bitten but realize that is the risk they took but some people interact and get bitten and then react to the dog in a negative fashion futher introducing issues with the dog. The dog becomes even less trusting and more violent.

You seem to want to empathize SO much with the lost and hurt and suffering that you're forgetting this is not a hospital or a therapy room. This is a place where adults get together to hopefully relate in productive ways to each other, and adults adjust to each other in order to enable the most effective communication.

Again, it doesn't matter WHY the dog is biting people in terms of where you let him roam. Even if the dog was abused as a puppy, if he is going to bite people and does not respond to correction, you do not put him in the day care with the kids or free on the street. What you do is get him to an environment that will both protect him from others as well as protect them from him, and maybe offer the possibility of slow change.

I suffer seeing this and I am feel a loss when the dog finnally gets kicked to the curb because I was interacting with the dog in a healthy and productive way and felt that eventually the dog would have learned to trust someone.

If you would like to be Variform's friend and even invite him to stay with you at your house, you have that option. You have a good heart and apparently a lot of patience and the capability to suffer/ignore abuse. So you are free to befriend who you wish. But you don't get to decide how the entire community must respond. Note that why you are fretting so much about Variform, you don't seem over-concerned about the people who might have potentially have been wounded or driven off by his behavior. If you want to care about one dog, why aren't you caring for them all? That's why I see your affection here as a form of favoritism.

When Variform notified people of his limitations and abilities to interact appropriatly they saw this as an indication that he planned to do this and enjoyed acting this way or was deliberate etc.. but it did not seem they saw it as the owner notfying you to beware and be gentle.

Again, maybe it can be credited to Variform that he could notify others of this, but it doesn't exonerate him of his choices.

I am in my 40's. I think Variform is as well (isn't he)? I've suffered a lot of emotional abuse from family and religious groups over the years. There are behaviors of Variform's that I could identify with -- some ways he would talk about things that I could see in me, or did see in me in the past. But I made choices to not lash out at other people needlessly and try my best to respect them even when they hurt me or disagree with me; he has long made other choices and even when challenged, continued in that vein. I see him being where he is in part because he withdrew into himself, closed out people on the personal levels, and feels free to judge and criticize and impose his values without real consideration of others. He seems to have his own rules for himself and then the rules he expected others to follow.

I feel as if the people in the forum, do to their inablity to handle such individuals as Variform, have made his issues become someting more than they needed to be. I suppose I have to accept the results of this... but I still cannot help but feel like things could have been different for Variform if we had handled them better.

I am not sure how more reasonable people could have been with someone like that. Maybe this just wasn't the right environment for him. Again, this is not a therapy room centered about Variform, it's a discussion forum where there needs to be a modicum of give and take from everyone involved... including people like him. Maybe if everyone on this forum wanted to take him under their wings as their pet project, it could have worked... but that's not what this forum is about. It was pretty basic: he simply needed to stop attacking people (vs the argument) and yelling on soapboxes and actually engage in a discussion where he was open to learning something. The bar is pretty low. The huge majority of people do not get banned.

 

[redbaron]

Oh hey, these arguments are new and exciting!

 

[Pyropyro]

Aw not Variform too

He's a cool guy especially when talking about dreams. However, he simply won't budge and improve himself.

I don't know, perhaps he might have been a good friend IRL but I don't think the forum is the right place for him to help him grow.

 

[Kuu]

He's a fixture

Some fixtures get established in a place that makes the janitors trip all the time while on their day-to-day work. This makes their job more complicated, and much more unpleasant.

OK fair enough, I hadn't seen the Admin butt-hurt side of the equation.

You really don't get out of the Ask Architect thread much, do you? There's quite a handful of BAP vs Admins threads lying about. A good example here.

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE! Have I been asleep and missed everything or has the world going crazy?

You missed everything. The world's always been crazy.

I believe this inadequacy was mostly in the form of knowing boundaries in pursuit of understanding. When does the pursuit become inappropriate?

When you begin to badger people that have explicitly asked you not to message them, and continue to intrude in every moderating decision after the mods have explicitly and repeatedly asked you not to.

I follow the evidence and right now, from what I have witnessed, BAP is just the victim of a witch hunt.

BAP turned himself into a nuisance.

He was told many times, by many people, mods and non mods alike (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, (to provide a small sample)) that he would be better off chilling or his behaviour would get him banned.

I guess he finally got his closure on the moderator-BAP controversy.

BAP guessing your email is not that concerning to me. I find the idea of guessing your email kind of fun, personally. He has not shown any obsession in PMing me and guessing your email is not really a sign of stalking unless it is coupled with him contacting you even though you asked him not to.

Just because it didn't happen to you or you don't care about it doesn't mean it didn't happen to others or others don't care about it. (Hint: it did happen).

why the mass banning?

Two people were banned. That's not a mass banning. Their bannings aren't even related, they just decided to break the camel's back almost simultaneously.

I am here on a personality forum to explore personalities. The removal of certain people negates this. I find this irritating.

Certain people's presence drives much more people away. Mods find this irritating. People always complain about this kind of banning. The same happened with Blob, which made BAP turn his obnoxiousness to MAX and end up in the same situation...

A lot of people are driven away from participating in threads, and eventually the whole forum, by those few who exhibit this behaviour pattern and if preserving this irritating individual whose post quality exhibits a largely negative balance means it will alienate many others, then moderators chose the less damaging path which is removal of the individual. Why is such a simple concept so hard to understand for some?

Oh come on, Variform didn't get banned for being irrational, not even for being a dick. He got banned because of his high strung unrelenting idealistic fervor. Now I'm not sure if I agree on the decision of banning him, but you have to face the fact that his way of interacting (much more than what he actually said) instigated conflict and frustration.

He was an instigator, He often posted inflammatory remarks that he knew he would get flamed on. On his own admission.

He was not banned for being irrational, he was banned for personal attacks.

Indeed.

BAP was a subjectivist, Variform was a subjectivist, Lyra was a subjectivist, Da Blob was a subjectivist, anyone who forgoes reason in favour of their beliefs has lost their mind and it's only a matter of time until the facade of sanity falls away.

Anyone who forgoes reason in favour of their beliefs leaves no recourse to moderators but force, when it comes to the matter of resolving conflicts. If one doesn't provoke conflict, then there's no problem with holding strong opinions, but if one provokes conflict and is incapable of disagreeing peacefully and reasonably, what are mods to do?

A declaration of unwillingness to reason is a signal the pattern will be recurrent and damaging.

if it matters, one reason my posting cut way back on this site is because I didn't feel like dealing with Variform.

Like Blob. Like BAP. Though we cut this one short, months of that would have been really, really tedious.

 

[Grayman]

@Jenny

I need time to review some things that I missed...

 

[Hawkeye]

Did you know... that the FAQ section offers guidance on how to deal with troublesome members?

It says: Ignore them.

 

[Fukyo]

I have been mostly absent from the forum the last week and haven't been participating in any of the recent decisions, but these are my thoughts;



BAP's obsessive behavior started at the beginning of 2013 to put this in perspective. A year and a half years later, he was only worse and more insistent in obsessively questioning every administrator decision, no matter how trivial and turning it into an issue of human right's violation proportions.

Did he really try to get better? I think he got sneaky and passive aggressive, using sarcasm and less obvious terms to refer to what he wanted to say. He had a fixation on solving issues, many of which were minor or non-issues which nobody asked him to solve, in effect he became an obnoxious micro manager in the back seat, constantly nagging. He also had the habit of replying to moderators in passive aggressive, sarcastic ways when they'd make posts regarding administration, posts which did not even address him.

In his last posts he claimed all admins here are Js and had alluded more than once to his belief that this makes them unsuitable to moderate an INTPforum. He also made claims that moderators are Fs and majorly women as a way to disqualify in the past. The funny thing is that he got genders of some moderators wrong. BAP neglected to take into account that being in an executive role makes people behave in J like ways, because this is the nature of the work. BAP on the other hand favored an excessive "P" mindset of endless tangents, endless possibilities and never making any type of call, or ending anything at any point. It's ironic he was the one with a huge agenda.

Making yet another treatise about a fluff thread being closed was the breaking point here.



Regarding Variform, he seemed like he would be a promising, interesting member, but his emotional volatility soon made itself apparent. He had been lashing out at people who simply stated their opinions or beliefs without any reference or impact to him. This is ill advised behavior, but was tolerated for a while. To make matters worse, he was impossible to argue with because essentially all of his positions were emotional and values based and anything he'd say after was riddled with ad hominems, questionable assumptions about interlocutor's motives and psychiatric health, rants about his issues and worldview and poor attempts at argumentation.

The thing that broke the camel's back was using misconstrued information about the relationship of two members here to make someone whose sexual/romantic preference offended him seem like a vile, sick person.

 

[Grayman]

http://intpforum.com/showthread.php?t=20193&page=2

Thanks Jenny. It was obvious here. This episode did seem out of character of his normal insecurity issues.

...I'd imagine this was all a product of his idealization of a perfect woman/ soul mate. Redbarons stance on the issue was likely perceived as a threat by Veriform to his entire way of life and his assumed purpose in giving himself to a woman in some idealized and unexplainable fashion that transcends any normal love between people. A perfect love...in his eyes. I do not believe that Variform would have ever seen any of the reasonable arguments RedBaron made because it would be accepting some part of his 'life-view' as invalid.

Well case closed... on Variform. It was inexcusable. ... Back to topic at hand?



I read a thread: BAP vs RB

I am not sure if that was considered an issue by the mods. I imagine that not moving the argument to a new thread would have caused a derail in BAP's attempt at defense anyways but I don't like the idea of making an entire thread about someone else. The larger issue is that BAP made it more about RB and less about arguing the statement made about him. How could I cast blame on BAP for a personal attack when he was defending himself from a personal attack?

 

[Deleted member 1424]

I read a thread: BAP vs RB

I am not sure if that was considered an issue by the mods. I imagine that not moving the argument to a new thread would have caused a derail in BAP's attempt at defense anyways but I don't like the idea of making an entire thread about someone else. The larger issue is that BAP made it more about RB and less about arguing the statement made about him. How could I cast blame on BAP for a personal attack when he was defending himself from a personal attack?

Let dead things die.