VintageComics

Meh, I have a saying that someone really close to me once taught me that rings true. "You don't remember what was said, but you always remember the way it made you feel." The point of this string of discussion from my end is to improve the morale and perception of this place. Not to make me personally feel better. I'm at a point in my life where I quite literally don't GAF. I wasn't always there in that place, but I have been there for many years now. But the damage done to the forums is openly apparent to everyone, and that really was the reason for my replies on this string of discussion. I think it's kind of cool that we had 3 knuckleheads from Toronto in this thread at once. It's been a while.

I haven't sung since before the pandemic except in a few friendly circles, but I am going to get back into it. It's just been a very busy few years. As I stated in a thread on here, I'm helping a good friend put on a charity fundraiser. It's basically a rock concert to raise money for the 100 year old Midnight Mission in Downtown LA and I've gotten quite a few people from the comic community involved including John Dolmayan from System of a Down (who is also famously Torpedo Comics) who helped by donating some great signed gifts for the raffle, Jim Halperin CEO of Heritage, who I got to sponsor the event and make a donation and I'm also donating a high grade copy of Marvel Super Special #1, the KISS issue to the raffle. So I get to mix 3 of the things I've always loved - comics, music and charity. I'm not good enough to be a session player. Music is just for fun.

As my good friend @davidpg like to put it: "Rollin' with the punches like Rocky!" I actually am. Life is great and I am blending comics and rock and roll in greater measure than ever before.

There's an oldie goldie!

Oh, tell me more. I want to hear the juicy details.

I agree with the part in bold. I think any reasonable person would agree that abuse needs to be addressed and stamped out. But because social interactions are complicated, you can't always neatly delineate these things. I knew we were close and glad we can finally meet on common ground. Following the string of conversation, we both agree that conflict is not desirable. So now, in regards to your quote which I bolded above, I agree with you that it's hard to 'delineate' or be 'black and white' about everything but again, on a spectrum, using extreme examples it's not THAT HARD to figure out when there's a clear pattern of behavior that rises above the noise, is it? And that's what I'm specifically addressing, because we were talking about Kav. (obviously, we started talking about Kav, but I can also speak from my own personal experience and I'd also add RMA into the mix) We're polarizing personalities that drew heat on us, were constrained or resisted in similar ways by turning down our ability to speak out, and I think 3 of us more or less generally agree that those ways weren't done objectively or fairly, in the sense that others were still allowed to carry on their end of the conversations. And I maintain that the better (and easier) way to turn down the heat is for moderation to focus on the obvious abuse "bad posting" rather than focus on the not so obvious "too much posting". Again, I just want to be frank that this genuinely was never originally meant to be a "personal proxy war" discussion on my part about why I was moderated. I've fully accepted responsibility for my own actions, believe I deserved the moderation I got (towards the end anyway), but I do believe it could have been done better in the middle stages and we could have avoided getting to that point in the first place. I genuinely just wanted discussion on why there is so much less posting traffic than there used to be but lots of people have openly stated that this is one of the main reasons they're either not returning or not posting as much. They felt they couldn't speak openly for fear of retaliation after seeing what people like Kav (or me, and I'll even add RMA) went through. I also think it's important to point out and commend the fact that Mike has changed how he moderates for the better in my books, learning from what I now call "The Great Covid Wars", from which MANY of us learned a lot the hard way. But, just as hindsight is 20/20 when analyzing foreign policy and how it affected war, I always felt that it could have been prevented as a community.

Hey, let me take pride in the fact that nobody was able to overturn the points I made before we sweep it all under the rug.

Fair. In social interactions it's tougher to be objective, but on a spectrum, it's much easier to weed out when someone has posted "too much abuse" than it is when someone has posted "too much content" and that really was my central point. I always tell my daughters, you don't have to be sure of what you like, but you absolutely have to be sure of what you DON'T LIKE. It's far easier to weed out "bad behavior" than "too much good behavior". The movie forums are a great example: If we were going to weed out "too much content" nobody posts more than Bosco. Not even me (and THAT's saying something). That's not a knock on Bosco at all, it's pointing out an extreme example. But because people find it entertaining...and PROFITABLE financially (because everyone here is now financially invested) it's allowed. But if someone abuses Bosco, they're gone pretty quickly. ----------------------------------- If Kav was giving financial advice that benefitted even just a small percentage of the forums, he'd be beloved. Same with me. It's no secret I'm disliked, but I have so much knowledge I could share that would benefit everyone, but because it's now a business I choose not to. So because I stick to other discussions, I'm no longer welcome by the people who aren't benefitted by it. VERY SUBJECTIVE. If I'd been showering people with advice that profited them, they'd overlook everything they disliked about me. ----------------------------------- The added benefit is that weeding out bad or abusive behavior is that it really does have a multiplied, net positive effect. It reduces the heat, it discourages additional abuse from bad actors AND it reduce the number of replies "good actors" will put out in combating the abuse. Weeding out "too much posting" just leads to more bad behavior IMO. It produces ill feelings from the person being moderated AND it empowers those who have been doing the attacking in the 1st place, turning up the heat - a net negative. Anyway, you and I are not far off. That's my nuanced reply.

It may have even been before your time as moderator, because there was definitely a time when board moderation was almost completely non-existent over the weekends. That's where the "Friday threads" title came from. Kav said he wasn't coming back, although I'd like to see him back too. When Mike started locking him out of specific threads just for respectfully disagreeing with people (who were allowed to disagree with Kav all they wanted BTW), Ithink that was the last straw. Me as well. I would politely disagree and would get dinged for it while certain boardies had free reign to disagree with anyone they wanted to. There is NO QUESTION moderation favored certain posters over others. Y'all even had a vote about it and over 40% of people who voted agreed. So it's not just one or two people that disagreed. It was many.

Do you remember that time when Greggy's Strawberry Shortcake quotes jammed the forums? Or when that boardie...oh God, who was it again? Every time he posted his post would multiply infinity times and jammed threads up?

I know you're quite a ways away, but it always struck me as strange how Eugene had such an incredible back issue market for such a long time.

Do they even have comic stores in the sticks where you live?

On a positive note, what this thread and Mike's charts seem to show is that there are a lot more lurkers but a lot less posters, so I'm sure your sales thread will get lots of eyes. As always, in the free market if you have the goods, they will come!

Then stop justifying it. "She shouldn't have dressed that way." You don't have a leg to stand on here. Abuse is a lack of control by the person dishing it out. It is a total lack of maturity. Stop normalizing it. Full stop. And addressing poor behavior in an objective manner, meaning everyone KNOWS where the line is, is far more equitable, easy, effective and FAIR than trying to subjectively figure out when someone has crossed a line too far. It's the "too far" part that is the problem because it's always different. Everyone knows what abuse looks like. If you start making everything subjective, a decision eventually and necessarily will start contradicting itself and be seen as unfair to some people. Additionally, there is always a spin-off effect. Some (agreeable) people when they feel wronged will just leave or quiet down, but if you're a disagreeable personality (like You, Kav and I are) we are obviously going to start trying to push back, raising the heat rather than lowering it. I can genuinely say my posting volume would have been reduced by 50% or more over the last few years, if I didn't have to constantly address poor behavior being thrown at me, and I think the same goes for many people who end up getting dinged. ------------ BTW, I read everything you wrote in both posts and agree with most of it, as I usually do. I understand the complexity involved. I grew up in a family with 50 1st cousins, I was the oldest of 8 and have 6 kids myself (4 biological and 2 step kids). Being fair is hard, but sticking to objective, simple principles generally rule out the majority of complexity. If you use subjective reasoning you end up complicating everything by a factor of a zillion. ------------- I'll finish by saying that it genuinely was not my intention to discuss this, I just "go where the ball is going" but it's a valid and worthwhile point worth discussing when discuss traffic on social media. I will say that I've seen a lot of benefits since Mike has started. His ability to discuss things with people has helped turn down the heat a lot around here. My post isn't a criticism of Mike per se, but rather a criticism of the guiding principles Mike operates under. I think abuse and bullying are far too common among some people.

So, hit the ignore feature, dork. Next time I see you I'm going to smack you in the back of the head and teach you how to ignore it. Then Kav's posts won't bother you as much. ps. Me and Beyonder have known each other personally for over 20 years. Relax, everyone.

I don't want to speak for Kav, but I've always defended Kav even if we disagree with each other at times, so I'm just going by my observations and defending him again. Like me, Kav is a voluminous poster. It irritates some people. Just look at the "meathead" comment on the previous page. That sort of shizzle SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED. Who wants to post here when stuff like that is said? And so, some people get piled on all the time (adamantium was one of them as well, IIRC). Kav, like me, from time to time would get piled on. Some people just didn't want to read posts, some people disagree with the ideas being discussed, but no matter what it was, it's on the individual READING to decide whether to ignore and walk away or engage. When moderation started to crack down on the open abuse, the abuse went underground and people started using the "notify moderator" feature. So over-notification became the new weapon and Kav started getting locked out of specific threads the way I was locked out of the Water Cooler. Now I will fully admit I pushed too hard against "forbidden topics" for a while, but I genuinely felt I was treated unfairly while those topics were allowed, so I was retaliating a bit and deserved to get stricken for my reltaliation. The root cause is the same, though. People can't ignore what they don't like. That is the reality of what happened and I don't think anyone can disagree with this. Diversity and inclusion is really just a grand illusion. And I'm going to write a song around that, so nobody else steal it! Called it, stamped it, no erasies!

I didn't mean to imply this forum isn't great. It's legacy value is absolutely priceless.

Actually, it's friends of mine in PMs that were making these observations. I just started a thread about it. Remember, over the last two years I've hardly been here for various reasons. So my experience is different than others who are here constantly, much like watching erosion of your favorite beach day and in day out, compared to coming to visit once a year. There is definitely much less conversation going on among boardies, and that is what I was referring to.

FedEx ground is so cheap (or at least used to be). Nobody uses it.

Kav was very generous here with his efforts but was driven out by haters. The majority of people here are "agreeable", which is a proper psychological definition. It means they're kind and easy going. Agreeable people don't like conflict and conflict drives people away. Nobody can dispute that there's a correlation between people who can't ignore what they don't like and driving those people away. Someone can only take so much before they've had enough and not come back and people complained about Kav all the time. They would constantly notify on Kav, and by weaponizing the notify button, it made him look like a nail that constantly needs a hammer to moderation's eyes. People often leave just because some boardies can't ignore what they don't like or use the ignore feature because they can't moderate themselves.

You're joking, but it's absolutely true. When I post everyone comes out to play. The haters and the lovers. Those peaks are probably during my peaks on the boards, no joke. Bots, more "activity" with the "like" features, but much fewer actual posts. This punctuates my point that long form communication is being taken over by other social media tools, which are NOT a good thing. It's actually quite bad. Proper communication is evolving out of the human race due to these digital tools.

I wasn't making a holiday weekend observation. This place has been a ghost zone for years now.

I actually find that younger generations don't communicate as much. Gen X and possibly Y (and possibly only X) are among the last generations that really enjoy longform communication. Newer generations are just about the "likes" and memes. I watch social media posts for this specifically and having people type their thoughts out is a lost art. Even worse, when they type them out they're usually rife with all sorts of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes (tho? wut? wya?). I know I make mistakes too, but I generally try to fix 99.9% of that stuff. Most online statements are atrocious. I think that people's communication skills and mental faculties are going to be a real problem moving forward. Shortening attention spans, illiteracy, lack of social will to engage (young people have record high anxiety levels and they don't even know why, but certainly answering a phone is problematic to them) and many other reasons are reducing true online social interaction and trading it for, again what I call the quick sugar / serotonin fix rather than the long form, complex carb serotonin fix. We're becoming a society of knee jerk reactions, incapable to communicate properly and therefore unable to problem solve. Are you guys aware that Tik Tok in China is completely different than Tik Tok in the USA? In the US Tik Tok is full of dumb stuff like Tide Pod Challenges. Apparently, in China Tik Tok is nothing like American Tik Tok. It's full of old fashioned communication and personal accomplishments. Almost something you'd read out of a Golden Age comic book.

In the spirit of thanksgiving, I'm thankful that I'm never as miserable as you are.

You couldn't pay me enough to be among the animals that are out there during this time of year. Consumer zombies that feel they're enriching their lives by acting like...well, zombies.