I was listening…and I concur on the very points you made. I am not sure how my disagreement on the idea/definition of “tenured” is someone a bone of contention; which is why I conceded it entirely.
And I have at times turned off DMs entirely…for all. I never stated I disagree it is not a full valid solution…it absolutely isn’t. Its just the solution we have, and I use it.
Hope your day is good. stay frosty.
I was the one who questioned “tenured”. To me the term implies a special status that makes someone harder to get rid of. If I post something offensive, I am subject to being flagged just as hard and banned just as permanently as anyone else, despite my greybeard status or Star Trek rank.
Can we compromise on “seniority”?
not a hill I care to die on, I agree with your statement “I’m only as acceptable as my last post”.
I’d like to offer my own musings on badges, etc., based on my own experiences on the BBS, so take or discard them as you please. 
Badges are fun! They’re shiny, and sometimes they make me feel like I’ve done a heckin’ good post here and there. Trust levels do grant the occasional bonus, such as more Likes or Flags with stronger weight, and that’s nice. And I enjoy seeing my “rank” increase with every year I stick around.
But I don’t feel like badges or trust levels make me, or my posts, any more special than anyone else or their output. If anything, as I’ve gone up the ladder of trust levels, I feel like the more trust I get, the more responsibility I incur to the site and the community, to make sure I keep following the rules, to contribute useful (or at least amusing) content, to utilize my Flags according to the Guidelines and not merely to express my own whims or annoyances. I may have “seniority,” but that in and of itself adds nothing to what I’m trying to say. My posts need to stand or fall on their own merit.
Sometimes I fail. I’m only human. I’ve lost plenty of posts to the memory hole. My Flags aren’t always agreed with. I’ve even picked up a Flag myself here and there. (Which is fine-- if I cross the line, I should be called on it.) My takeaway from that is, I need to keep trying to communicate myself better. It isn’t always easy, especially when my temper strains at its leash… but I think it’s worth it. I love this site, I really enjoy being a member of the Commentariat here, and I want to try to give it value in return… even if it’s only a silly gif or joke here and there.
Again, I’m not trying to bash anybody or point fingers or say “you should do this…” It’s just my opinion, based on my experiences, so feel free to tl;dr. Even I don’t always take myself too seriously. 
Moderators being gamed is not the same thing as moderators being complicit.
Denouncing the game is a good move. You’ll get some points for that.
This, in a nutshell, describes my general criteria (backed up by Discourse’s own stats system) for choosing our TL4 Leaders. Thank you for your willingness to contribute to this community in such a positive way.
I’ve said this before but the only reason the BBS works as a community is the involvement of community members in the moderation process. It allows the community to take on a majority of the process, and leaves moderators in place to make sure hard lines aren’t crossed when needed.
(Sorry, late to the party here.)
The funny thing is many of us here who are slinging around guillotine memes are also against capital punishment. I bet that cognitive dissonance must make them really confused.
I appreciate your take on things, it feels much more optimistic than my own. I don’t think there’s any special bias going on here, the moderation seems pretty fair, pretty clear… all the way up until something I post gets flagged and I feel like a failure for not seeing it coming.
I don’t know that those flags have really taught me anything, other than maybe not to get too invested in an online forum. No matter how warm and fuzzy one topic may feel, there’s always going to be another topic where my opinion is going to be deeply unwelcome.
My struggle is to make that be about the imperfection of online forums in general, and not the collective character defects of any particular audience. My own character defects are between me and my therapist, its not realistic to expect this group to tolerate them.
I get ya. There have been times when I’ve had a post moderated when I’ve started writing a response, only to actually read what I’ve written and had that moment of “Oh, yeah, that was a little over the top. Good point.”
Having a post moderated (whether by the community or by the mod team) is a great time for self-awareness and introspection. It’s telling when people either lash out in the same thread or come here to write a manifesto about their own unappreciated brilliance.
Even when my takeaway is, “Oh, right, this community is so not ready to have this conversation”, that’s still useful information, like when a standup comedian has a joke fall flat. “Read the room!” Is what we might implore that guy.
As an aside for this topic, I have suggested the idea of a allow-list-only PM option to the Discourse folks, however I do not believe that is currently on the roadmap (yet?).
However. they were able to confirm that in addition to Ignored users being unable to PM you, muted users are also unable to do so. So if there are specific users you want to be permanently unable to PM you, you can add them there.
This is obviously not ideal (since you have to already know a given user needs to be on the list), but I wanted to point it out as an additional option to users who do not wish to disable PMs entirely but may also wish to disable PMs from certain users without Ignoring them (or having to re-add them periodically).
And it has always worked this way, too – so there has been a way, since the existence of this feature (I think at least 2 years now) to prevent any specific person from sending you PMs.
I’ll see if I can edit the copy to make this more clear.
There doesn’t seem to be a “Griping About the Discourse Interface” topic that hasn’t auto-closed,
so I’ll just mention here that
when we get a notification that a post has been moved, like this one
and then we click on it, the clicking does not take us to the post.
It takes us to the old topic where the post used to be.
IMO clicking this notification should instead take us to the new topic where the post currently is.
I’m not sure if this was corrected or not but I brought it up to the Discourse folks.
ETA: This was confirmed and is on the list for a bugfix. Thanks!
As long as we’re discussing interface changes, I notice when we click on the “in reply to” indicator in the upper-right corner of a post? Whatever that’s called? Anyway when we click on it it used to display the post being replied to, and also the post that post replied to. Now it’s only one level instead of two.
I liked it at two levels, I thought that was a good feature
I’ve had a couple posts removed, including one yesterday, for violating “community standards” without specifying which standard I supposedly forked with. The most recent seems most improbable. Who did I abuse or offend by speculating that COVID is an extinction event?
I didn’t flag it, but a disease that usually does not cause death or sterility cannot make humanity extinct, and posting false information about the pandemic is frowned upon by responsible people
All flags, regardless of who threw them, are reviewed by moderators if they are upheld. I do not look at (nor care) who threw the flags. While users can choose to provide details as to why they flagged a post (and this is often invaluable, as I’m not aware of the subtleties of every topic or the dog-whistles of every bigoted community that may try to trolley here), ultimately, posts are removed or kept based on how much value they add to the conversation taking place.
The idea that a cabal of secret users has special authority here is preposterous. There are some highly valued Leaders in the community, chosen because moderators usually agree with their flags, who may be able to hide a post more easily (with fewer flags) than others, but these flags are still reviewed by moderators. And they don’t show up as special “This is an important flag!” to the moderators, either. Lastly, we literally did away with the invite-only, high user lounges (which anyone could obtain access to if you were enough of a Regular here in good standing) because we wanted to avoid even the appearance of a second-class member here. We are all mutants.
What you seem to fail to realize, even after a month away, is that your posts derail topics. You try to take the discussion in a different direction. I often use a cocktail party as a metaphor for our discussions, and walking into a group discussing Star Wars and saying “But what about how much better Star Trek is?” Or “I know you’re all talking about the races of Star Wars, but I think we should be discussing the ships as well” doesn’t help those discussions along - it attempts to end one line of conversation, to substitute your own.
This is why forums have topics, and why discourse has the ability to split off new topics from any post, by any user - it allows you to take a subgroup of that cocktail party that wants to discuss your interests into a separate area, and have that discussion, without causing the original discussion to end.
It’s clear, though, from your belief that 1) you were banned not because of your actions, but because of the actions of others, and 2) your complete failure to understand how your actions involve others that the very idea that other people may be having a conversation and don’t believe you should come in and disrupt it is foreign to you.
Because of this, I strongly suggest you find another community. Do, or do not, but you can’t come back here.
I did not claim to be informative. I speculated, and we don’t know the long-term effects of COVID, so I see that speculation as neither unreasonable nor fear-mongering. Many more fears are mongered here. Still, when a post is rejected, I’d like to know which guideline I’ve supposedly violated.
