OSDev.org

Brendan wrote:If you think you can do a better job than me, consistently, for as long as I have; then Chase has said that he's happy to appoint additional mods if anyone with a history of positive contributions and interactions is up for the task (and I've believed you qualify for years, which is why I offered you the role several years ago).

At the risk of a ban, I think you are mistaken.

As far as I can recall I have never been offered a role a moderator on this forum. I would refuse any such offer as I recognise that I suffer from the same hubris that you do and would find it difficult to fairly moderate discussions that I was involved in. But there are others who are, no doubt, more detached than either of us.

Again, Brendan, you refuse to be held to *basic* discussion etiquette.

You accused me of a "vendetta". Provide references for your POV. Let it be biased, but tell me at least exactly what you are accusing me of, so I can respond, explain, provide alternate POV, or admit guilt.

Right now you're just slandering me.

Hi,

iansjack wrote:

I wanted to highlight where the slippery slope leads.

It's a pity that you don't see fit to consider where the slippery slope of banning people because of personal antipathy leads.

You are basically saying that no-one can disagree with you - not in your role as a moderator, but in your role as a poster. That is an obvious abuse of your moderator position. You then further the abuse by saying that you can overrule all of the other moderators as you are "the chosen one".

Perhaps we need an FBI investigation.

I've considered dual membership in the past, to make it easier for people to distinguish between "me as poster" and "me as moderator". I've mostly avoided it due to the inconvenience (having to log in each time I switch roles and not being able to set the "auto-login cookie").

Note that if you review the conversation you'll see that "me as a poster" was fine with being disagreed with, right up until Solar said "Your post has been reported, and honestly, you should consider stepping back from your moderator status voluntarily at this point". That's the comment where I ceased being treated as a person and started being treated as a moderator, and that's the point where I switched from "me as poster" to "me as moderator".


Cheers,

Brendan

Hi,

Solar wrote:Again, Brendan, you refuse to be held to *basic* discussion etiquette.

You accused me of a "vendetta". Provide references for your POV. Let it be biased, but tell me at least exactly what you are accusing me of, so I can respond, explain, provide alternate POV, or admit guilt.

Right now you're just slandering me.

If you didn't get the hint before I'll explain it to you.

I have played this game before. There is no end. The only winning move is not to play (don't feed the troll).

More specifically, if I wanted I could probably search through thousands of posts and pick out any/all that make you look bad. This would probably take me several hours to do. The worst result I can expect is that you pick through everything and we spend 10 days arguing about it. The best result I can expect is that it changes nothing. The best result that I don't expect is that I gain more free time to work on the next version of my OS. The only way I can lose is by pandering to a person I believe deserves to be banned.


Cheers,

Brendan

Brendan wrote: Note that if you review the conversation you'll see that "me as a poster" was fine with being disagreed with, right up until Solar said "Your post has been reported, and honestly, you should consider stepping back from your moderator status voluntarily at this point". That's the comment where I ceased being treated as a person and started being treated as a moderator, and that's the point where I switched from "me as poster" to "me as moderator".

As I tried to tell you, by that point you were not "being disagreed with" but being called out for bullying, and victim shaming. It had ceased being a "discussion" by that point (a couple of postings before, actually) and turned into a violation of conduct. I would not have called for moderator attention over a disagreement.

Your reaction -- banning -- was to prove that you were, indeed, in a position of strength, capable of offending and transgressing without myself having any respite because you're a moderator and I am not. You said as much. Indeed, you threatened all other moderators to not get in your way (which was why I notified every one of them of this thread).

Stop painting yourself as the victim.

You might have a point that we clashed before; proof of that is still pending. As there are no rules for moderation on this board (yet), I cannot say you transgressed those, although I (and apparently others as well) feel that your interpretation of what is "par for the course" seems to be a bit different from what is perceived "common".

But as far as that thread is concerned, you have been a textbook bullly. I was offended from the very beginning, but spoke up on general principles. By now this has escalated so far down the road of you strongarming everybody (including co-moderarors) that the accusation does not even need me anymore to stand on its own.

And yes, somebody who cannot exercise his privileges with moderation should have those privileges revoked. I guess that alleged "vendetta" of mine was nothing but me standing up to your bullying tactics in the past; I am certainly lobbying for your demotion now.

Brendan wrote:The only way I can lose is by pandering to a person I believe deserves to be banned.

For what, exactly? Questioning your right to be rude and unapologetic "because you can"? Putting your authority into question? Not the technical authority, you doubtlessly have that. But your moral high ground.

Demanding proof of non-existence and argueing from (questionable) authority? Really?

Hi,

Solar wrote:

Brendan wrote:The only way I can lose is by pandering to a person I believe deserves to be banned.

For what, exactly? Questioning your right to be rude and unapologetic "because you can"? Putting your authority into question? Not the technical authority, you doubtlessly have that. But your moral high ground.

Demanding proof of non-existence and argueing from (questionable) authority? Really?

Where, exactly, do you think this conversion is going to go?

I get trolled into repeating and expanding on what I've already said, you find more to argue about, I respond, and it goes back and forth like this until... when? Until one of us dies of old age in 50 years? Until Chase realises that I am the only moderator who is willing to risk being disliked for actually doing their job?

We are in a stalemate. Either you go away forever, I go away forever, or we avoid each other. Avoiding each other is the "least worst" option. I've suggested it twice, but you're not interested in doing anything except causing and then continuing problems (which is why you deserved to be banned and still deserve to be banned).


Cheers,

Brendan

Hi,

Brendan wrote:We are in a stalemate. Either you go away forever, I go away forever, or we avoid each other. Avoiding each other is the "least worst" option. I've suggested it twice, but you're not interested in doing anything except causing and then continuing problems (which is why you deserved to be banned and still deserve to be banned).

Actually, I have a better (more entertaining and more decisive) idea - let's play chicken!

@Chase: Permanently ban Brendan or Solar. It doesn't matter who. Flip a coin if you like.


Cheers,

Brendan

This is not the situation I was expecting to be called back to this forum, but I have something that I feel I must add. Feel free to call me biased, as I will not pretend I do not have a personal issue with Brendan.

The facts:
Let the record show that Brendan "monopolised" the admin account after I, personally, accused him of being out of line as a moderator and officially considered him a threat to the well-being of this forum.
Brendan deleted my posts that showed dissenting opinions. I requested that he followed official staff policy and instead move them just as everyone else did. Let the record show that I did not return the favour.
Brendan edited my posts, for similar reasons. Let the record show that I did not humour him by doing the same thing.
Brendan threatened me in PM as follows, CCed to the then-active moderators:

Finally; please consider this conversation an official warning, and be advised that any further trolling from you will have permanent consequences.

After that I created a thread in the moderator forum asking for a external opinion regarding what could be seen as my words versus Brendan's, and then mostly ceased activity here - after all anything I might say could be taken as an escalation and any technical authority was already removed. That thread remained for at least a few months of lurking, but now it shows that it too was deleted.


Most of the falsehoods from Brendan in this specific thread have been addressed. I like to add one: until my exit happened, I would like to contest the fact that Brendan has the right to consider himself sole moderator. I would even contest for the fact that I was actually the more active moderator in that period.


_________________



Some afterthoughts;
In a sense, I see this thread as a sort of vindication, that after two years my moderator peers put Brendan, and not me, in the wrong.

Also, since Iansjack rejected up front, I no longer see a reason to keep it a secret that he was in fact nominated for moderator at one point.


#metoo

I'll have to own that your memory is better than mine.

I apologize to Brendan for implying that, in this detail, he was mistaken.

Brendan wrote:Actually, I have a better (more entertaining and more decisive) idea - let's play chicken!
@Chase: Permanently ban Brendan or Solar. It doesn't matter who. Flip a coin if you like.

This isn't behavior suitable of a moderator. Moderation/Administration should not be done at whim. Moderating other moderators is also not appropriate. While moderators don't have to agree on osdev topics, they do have to agree on moderation policy and application.

I've banned Brendan. It doesn't make me happy, he has been a member for 13+ years.

Hi,

chase wrote:Moderating other moderators is also not appropriate.

chase wrote:I've banned Brendan. It doesn't make me happy, he has been a member for 13+ years.

The situation wasn't sustainable, and pushing it under the rug was not a viable option. Until it was resolved it would have been like a poison cloud hanging over this community. For the good of everyone, swift, decisive and authoritative action was necessary; but nobody understood this. You needed to learn.

However, I don't want you to feel bad or unhappy.

The fact is that effective moderation requires the ability to choose between 2 bad choices and accept that people will be hurt, people will criticise, and you won't like it. That is merely the price of being in a position of power. You needed to learn this too.

That was my plan - to make sure you learned both of these things, to make sure the situation actually was resolved, and to reduce the price you pay by becoming the person people will blame for forcing you to do your job. My plan succeeded.

On a more practical matter; Klange has always conducted himself admirably, his OS project is impressive, and he seems willing. He would be an excellent and obvious choice; but even with Klange, once things calm down and return to normal (and people like yourself start paying less attention) you may need at least one more.


Goodbye & good luck,

Brendan

I'm information overloaded here. It feels like the end of an era.

I'll try and return to the forums for a while and moderate it. The remaining moderators should probably get together agree on how we moderate the forums.

Chase, if I understand correctly, only you have admin access right now? That's fine. Now and then people need to get their account activated or other requests that needs admin access, I guess we'll forward the request to you over PM. The admin account has also been somewhat useful when dealing with abuse as it lets us look up the email addresses, which can be useful to avoid ban evasion E.g. I used the account for a while to ban temporary email address services that were used to quickly get many email addresses to register with.

I think the moderator actions should be reviewable by other moderators, so we can make second opinions about what happens and provide transparency and accountability. It's e.g. why I ask moderators not to delete posts, but to move them to a hidden place, so they still can be read. Of course, moderators should be trusted people, but a little oversight does help.

For what it's worth, I have faith in klange as a moderator.

Hello,


It's a very sad day for the OSDev.org forums today. One of the most knowledgeable contributors of the OSDev.org community has abused his moderator privileges (not for the first time IMO) and got banned by the administrator himself. I got really shocked at first but, after reading the relevant threads, I can understand the decision. And I agree.

I agree with many of Brendan's points concerning OS development. For example, writing an OS doesn't mean we should do what other OSes already do; it gives us the possibility to do things differently: possibly better, possibly worse or a mixture of better and worse. And this is the fun of OS development, experimenting with various approaches, designing new ones and joining them together into a working (or not) OS.

I think Brendan's contributions, both to the wiki (in the form of e.g. guides) and to the forums (in the form of answering questions), are invaluable to the OSDev.org community. Some of his best forum answers made their way as guides on the wiki, e.g. his Memory Management Guide and his Multitasking Tutorial.

Now, on the other side, like regular users and other moderators have pointed out already, Brendan has repeatedly ridiculed other forum members. No one will probably forget the 20-page-long flamewars. But that's probably not the worst. The worst is abusing his moderator privileges. Most of the abuse has been reported in this thread. But I'd also want to mention once again the incident of banning bzt. Like almost every time, the truth is somewhere in the middle. I don't recall the specifics and I can't even read the relevant threads since Brendan has deleted them. However, the action of deleting these threads actually gives bzt a big benefit of doubt, thus I think bzt should be unbanned. I don't know if there were any other similar incidents before I joined these forums but maybe, back then, moderation wasn't vastly monopolised by Brendan.

I'll continue lurking and occasionally posting in these forums and contributing to the wiki. But, like sortie said, it's the end of an era (2008 to present IIRC).


Regards,
glauxosdever

chase wrote:

Brendan wrote:Actually, I have a better (more entertaining and more decisive) idea - let's play chicken!
@Chase: Permanently ban Brendan or Solar. It doesn't matter who. Flip a coin if you like.

This isn't behavior suitable of a moderator. Moderation/Administration should not be done at whim. Moderating other moderators is also not appropriate. While moderators don't have to agree on osdev topics, they do have to agree on moderation policy and application.

I've banned Brendan. It doesn't make me happy, he has been a member for 13+ years.

glauxosdever wrote:Hello,


It's a very sad day for the OSDev.org forums today. One of the most knowledgeable contributors of the OSDev.org community has abused his moderator privileges (not for the first time IMO) and got banned by the administrator himself. I got really shocked at first but, after reading the relevant threads, I can understand the decision. And I agree.



I'll continue lurking and occasionally posting in these forums and contributing to the wiki. But, like sortie said, it's the end of an era (2008 to present IIRC).


Regards,
glauxosdever

I did not create the topic Esoteric programming languages for confusion.

I created the topic Esoteric programming languages to hear of users' experiences (good or bad).

References:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=33224

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteri ... g_language

http://esoteric.codes/blog/a-programmin ... ommand-and