because they don't want the furries to get too excited

because they don't want the furries to get too excited

I guess... but the point I'm making is, what's to stop people from getting "too excited" about some other topic there isn't a rule against, and why focus on why they got excited rather than who's responding that way to getting excited?

There isn't anything to stop anyone from getting overly excited about anything. It's just that some subjects - like this one where there is such a rule - did reach the point of ridiculousness, and therefore the administration has revoked the privilege of discussing character romantic relationships.

Rules are generally made because someone did something stupid, which was correct in this case.

I'm happy they implemented the "no relationship discussions" rule. It's nice to be able to go into the Knothole forum without having to wade through the war zones that such topics caused. Though they were a nice source of entertainment, if only to watch supposedly mature people arguing like five-years-olds.

Off topic, I had no idea you wore a monocle, Terg.

we all wear monocles in the staff forum

/me scoff

Neither did I until someone made that pic for me. 😛

I'm happy they implemented the "no relationship discussions" rule. It's nice to be able to go into the Knothole forum without having to wade through the war zones that such topics caused. Though they were a nice source of entertainment, if only to watch supposedly mature people arguing like five-years-olds.

Off topic, I had no idea you wore a monocle, Terg.

How is it the topics themselves that "caused" such flamewars, though? If the problem is in having to go through them all, why couldn't such topics be deleted or moved to the archives once problems start in them and/or have the standards be that "relationship thread" should be clearly stated in the subjectlines so that people could avoid those subjects if they wanted to?

"why couldn't such topics be deleted or moved to the archives once problems start in them and/or have the standards be that "relationship thread" should be clearly stated in the subjectlines so that people could avoid those subjects if they wanted to?"

Matt, by that logic we should re-allow unregistered posting and drop security. I mean after all, the porn pic and malware link infested posts could just be deleted.

Yes, it DID get that bad. Am I the only one left that remembers all the pointless hatefilled rants in knothole over which anatomically incorrect collection of ink or pixels should be banging which anatomically incorrect collection of ink or pixels?

It's unfair of you to ask our staff to spend all their time having to read 30 page posts and deleting rabid fanboy/girl posts about sonic and mina or whatever. THEN spend the next 24 to 72 hours arguing with their hard headed idiot friends why they are banned. I'm sure I can get backup here. Just a second...

HEY DUBS! SHORTY-CHAN! MIKO! SHORTY-CHAN! MIKO! SHORTY-CHAN! MIKO! SHORTY-CHAN! MIKO!

Ok, that should do.

Anyway, even AFTER you'd gotten rid of the idiot and their friends the REST of the sonic boards on "the series of tubes" would have to deal with them doing their crap ON TOP of trying to incite boardwars. As well some are smart enough to know how to force their IP's to change and for us to either ban whole subnets and possible other users or sit around and ban whatever IP they happen to be on on that day. You are asking us to create more work for ourselves at a job we already do for free. In essence, your post is falling on ears and the above is WHY.

~Tobe

Rico summed it up way more accurately than I ever could. For those that do not know, the rule came about during my tenure as admin. The relationship topic is the only such "broad discussion ban" rule ever implemented on SHQ and it came about as a part of a general concensus of all the admins and mods at the time who were absolutely and positively SICK of dealing with it. The names mentioned above were a key reason for this and after they were all banned from the board one by one they went to other boards and did the same things before they wound up being banned from many of those.

And though they were the catalysts, I say with all honestly that one topic tends to bring out some of the biggest streams of idiots this fandom as a whole has ever seen, so it wasn't JUST them. That topic tends to turn otherwise sane and reasonable people into dithering gibbering asinine single minded morons.

The Knothole Village Board was arguably the worst place on Sonic HQ to visit for almost a year and a half because of it - anyone that was around back then will tell you that. There were days where you couldn't have a single conversation in any thread that had nothing to do with that topic at all before somebody with shipping on the brain and no life outside of a computer monitor would derail it into becoming as such, and if you let it get out of control it would wind up on South Island or the General Board too.

THE TOPIC IS AN AMOEBA. IT IS AN OCTOPUS. IT DESERVED TO DIE AND DESERVES TO STAY DEAD.

^__^

Having said that, after the implementation of the rule Knothole - and the MoFO as a whole - became a much more tolerable place to visit because of it. Furthermore, I don't see the need for whining about it as there are plenty of other Sonic boards out there should you want to discuss it that have not issued moratoriums on such things, so unless the law here gets another consensus for it to be repealed - which I don't see happening AT ALL so might as well not bother - you may as well forget it and move on sir.

....

Anyone for cupcakes? <83

Yes, it DID get that bad. Am I the only one left that remembers all the pointless hatefilled rants in knothole over which anatomically incorrect collection of ink or pixels should be banging which anatomically incorrect collection of ink or pixels?

I don't think you're the only one though I don't recall it myself; guess I probably never saw it.

It's unfair of you to ask our staff to spend all their time having to read 30 page posts and deleting rabid fanboy/girl posts about sonic and mina or whatever.

I don't know much about moderation, actually, but I thought there were enough staffers that topics could easily be watched as they moved along without taking too much time per staffer...

And I don't know much about IP adresses either, so these factors never occured to me... thanks for clarifying and explaining them though...

And WB, I find it the idea that it's "whining" a little condescending when the point wasn't so much to complain about it as to ask why and discuss the reasons. But yeah, I could discuss it on other sites, I'm not sure which ones allow it but I could find out for myself I guess. Anyway, if this topic deserves to die and stay dead I guess it might as well be locked... though I'd like to see the same explanation from you and Rico posted somewhere and sticked (or maybe linked to in the rules) so that for other people the reasons would be right in front of them...

Dude. When you're personally butthurt over whether a fictional squirrel should be going out with a fictional hedgehog and you feel the need to let everybody under the sun know this whether they want to hear it or not in every place you go - it is TOTALLY whining. There is no way to justify it *not* being that.

As a side note Matt - while you do have a point about there being a note - there actually used to be a notice up on Knothole for YEARS after it was implemented. Someone must have taken it down at some point because I didn't even realize it was gone. Perhaps someone should put it back up but that's a call for current staff to make. As a sidenote, it seems like it should be one of those things most everybody here knows anyway as - whenever the topic comes up - most everybody here is hyper quick to jump on the person doing it. Just pointing that out.

I think Matt and WB are a bit confused as to what it is being called the whining here: Matt thinks WB is calling his request for info whining, while I believe that WB is calling the relationship discussing stuff whining. Hope that helps clarify things.

Even if there were enough staffers, do you really want to subject them to reading 4 pages about sonic's loin urges? lol

~Tobe

I think Matt and WB are a bit confused as to what it is being called the whining here: Matt thinks WB is calling his request for info whining, while I believe that WB is calling the relationship discussing stuff whining. Hope that helps clarify things.

Kinda... it seemed to me like WB was calling my questioning of the rule whining... it wasn't even so much for personally discussing it myself (though I guess it was obvious that I was thinking of doing such... in the Amy vs. Mina topic I'd already called out things I thought of as double standards, like the "this is a children's comic" thing) so much as questioning why the target of the rule is the subject itself rather than people who react a certain way to it. Rico's point that if you ban people from one site they could just as easily go to another clarified that one for me.

It's the same reasoning as to why they just ban a drug altogether instead of just dealing with the repercussions of it. Why would you deal with the results of Meth or Crack when you can just make them illegal and only have to deal with the people that purposefully want to break the rules.

A lock keeps an honest man honest and a forum rule keeps a intelligent forumer intelligent.

~Tobe

there actually used to be a notice up on Knothole for YEARS after it was implemented. Someone must have taken it down at some point because I didn't even realize it was gone.

---

No, it's not gone. It's in the same place it's always been: the Knothole Topic List, which has a note to read before posting.

THE TOPIC IS AN AMOEBA.

Did somebody call my name?

Anyhow.

Personally, I think all of the meta-discussion (ie, discussions about relationship discussion) is getting a little tiresome. Am I wrong, or doesn't someone bring it up every couple of months or so, either here or in knothole itself, or in creepy youtube videos recorded in one's own bedroom while pacing around and mumbling about the right to free speech about Sonic characters having sex while melting or something like that?

But still, it's definitely preferable to the alternative. There's no denying that Knothole is a less hostile place because of it and if you don't like it, go to another forum. Basically I'm echoing what everyone else has said about it.

However, I do think the rule needs to be clarified so as to deal with the SonMina(comic)/SonAmy(game) topic that appeared in MFC, which, in my opinion, was the correct place for it, since it was a cross-universe topic, but it was clearly an attempt to work around the Knothole relationship rule so the topic should never have existed in the first place. Maybe the rule should be made forum-wide? I know it's never been a huge problem anywhere else, but it might be a good idea so as to prevent such a problem from ever coming about, particularly as a result of rules lawyering.

I have to be honest that I often feel the need to discuss these relationship issues but I wake up sweating and feel rather disoriented and afraid.