The Rules: Official Discussion & Debate

[Guest Adam]

We could have a different forum that would contain a general banter with no rules. You would have to unlock it manually, under your own responsability and unregistered members could not see it. Like ltm, but reachable for everyone who wants to discuss anything without fear of touching a +18 subject or other things, we could have a new mod for that to not take any of your time, I'm sure there would be some volunteers in the community. This would shut down the complaints from most older members and new members that don't agree with WATMM adult content policy (there are some of these already as well) and the members that desire safe and more "mature" enviroment could enjoy it troughout the forum. :)

[KovalainenFanBoy]

 

We could have an alternate forum, managed by someone else, for everything nsfw(atmm). Like WAT(F)MM, which appears to be defunct now

I'm sure there are plenty of trashy forums out there if you're feeling alienated at this one. Joyrex just prefers a clean house, and expects his guests to keep it that way too.

 

 

Why'd you get so defensive? I'm just saying we could take the sexual and non-watmm friendly stuff to an unofficial "sister" forum.

[Joyrex]

 

 

When you are young and edgy and introverted and a bit pissed at the world and you are discovering idm music, the general banter of watmm (that used to be before the censorship) was the perfect place for you on the nets. It's becoming gray now, no contrasts, no edge. That can't be good for young upstart electronic musicians that should gather here.

 

I'm not kidding btw

Surely you don't think by asking people to operate within a set of guidelines while they participate on a forum is going to dull their creative tendencies? Are you honestly trying to convince me that unless somebody can post tits and talk about sharting they're not going to be as creative? Bollocks.

I for one am completely alright with not having nice tits/butts threads (gave the place a boy's club feel), and the fact that I can browse this forum at school without running the risk of NSFW content coming up on my computer is great.

 

However, the discussions being closed aren't all about "tits and sharting", nor are they NSFW. While Fred's feet licking topic may have apparently gone sour, there was nothing inherently wrong with it. Rather, it was members getting out of line that were the problem. Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to send members who were violating the rules a warning, versus closing down a perfectly decent thread?

 

Also, this forum not allowing NSFW mspaint drawings anymore is a shame. As long as NSFW content is in a spoiler tag who can complain?

 

While I support some of the censorship that you are doing, Joyrex, I think you are going overboard. This is a forum that celebrates a music genre whose featured artists sample porn and have a pretty left-of-field sense of humor, not a forum that celebrates Adult Contemporary.

 

LOL, everyone seems to equate the rules here with some personal edict I have or how I live my life - not the case whatsoever - recall I used to post that stuff too - I just realized there's no reason to have it here, on a forum primarily about electronic music.

 

What I've explained before about why things are removed or threads locked is that while the thread initially seemed harmless (or in Fred's case a bit weird, although I suspect that was just typical McGriff™ humour we all have enjoyed from time to time), it's what people did with the subject is why it was closed. Yes, I could have deleted the offending posts and/or warned all those who broke the rules, but it was the initial post that acted as the blue touch paper to ignite things and get out of hand. Fred knew better (I thought) and so far during his return things seemed fine and he was operating within the rules just fine. What I was not prepared for was his reaction to the whole incident, and our discussion about it is what led to his re-banning (and to be fair, Fred left, and returned voluntarily, with no prompting from me). If someone's going to give me that much grief over the way I run things, then obviously they're not a good fit anymore here and frankly I don't have the time to expend on this any more than I do already.

 

Joe Rogans forum has a unique feature where if someone breaks the rules or is being a shit they are restricted to posting in a sub forum for the unruly and through good behavior they can earn full forum rights after awhile. I wish watmm had that "rehabilitation sub forum" or something so we could still have Anonymstol and Sup and Fred.

While that sounds good on paper, I could see it potentially backfiring, where all the offenders create their own little corner where they can act as they wish, and then it would be more of a headache than just getting rid of elements like that to begin with. I don't see posting here as some right everyone has, especially if a total disregard for the rules is in play.

 

We could have an alternate forum, managed by someone else, for everything nsfw(atmm). Like WAT(F)MM, which appears to be defunct now

At first, I was going to delete this response, but I decided rather than ignore it, let me address that as an example that might help illustrate my point of view better.

 

Did any of you frequent that site? Sure, it was set up as an angry response to being banned from here and a way to thumb their collective noses at me/this site - but what happened?

• Hardly anyone joined or posted, and what they did post was meanless nonsense
• Most of the early posts were very offensive to me personally, talking about me, my family - even going as far as posting (thankfully) an old address I lived at, complete with a Google Street View of the front of my old home. A violation of privacy and slander would be understating it mildly.
• Rather than legitimately try and create a forum based around what they wanted to discuss, it ended up being a Joyrex Hate Fest™ and no real serious discussion came out of it - just uncontrolled bursts of porn, threads that went nowhere, etc.
• Finally the owner(s) decided to shut it down, probably because they got tired of paying and maintaining it, which despite their assertion it was easy to do, turned out not to be in the end.

Your suggestion of having a NSFW section may seem like a viable solution, but it goes against the whole point of why I changed the rules - I don't want WATMM seen as "Your Electronic Music Resource - And Tittys, Too" - there's simply no reason for such material here. And while I have seemingly been heavy-handed on seemingly innocent things, you have to understand I have to judge whether something truly is innocent and won't grow like a weed into a bigger problem, or worse, lower the bar for what's acceptable and encourage a gradual expansion of behaviour that leads us right back to being NSFW again. I don't think it's much to ask to operate within the rules while here, especially if you're coming here primarily for electronic music discussion.

[Friendly Foil]

This is just a silly suggestion, but how about hiding general banter for non-members?

[Joyrex]

People having a laugh at silly stuff does not make this a trashy forum. Stop acting like his lapdog.

Just because Ambermonk agrees with some of my viewpoints does not make him my 'lapdog' - are you my lapdog because I let you moderate the AE forum?

[Guest zaphod]

i really don't understand why it's so difficult to just not open a thread if the topic looks like it's going to offend you. if the discussion gets off course, well, welcome to the internet. i understand some of the rules here about not posting nsfw visual content or gore, not personally insulting members, but a thread relating to a sexual fetish, where everything is contained within the thread, is hardly offensive. i think the big problem here is a number of members, myself among them, don't know what kind of forum this is supposed to be anymore. if we're just supposed to sit here and talk about our boc related dreams, i think i might head for the door.

[KovalainenFanBoy]

Sorry Joyrex, I just used wat(f)mm to illustrate the example of an alternate forum, a container for the nsfwatmm stuff; an extraordinarily inadequate example as you pointed out, as I wasn't even aware of its anti-joyrex sentiment (I don't even remember reading a single topic in there)

[Joyrex]

This is just a silly suggestion, but how about hiding general banter for non-members?

While that is possible, that's not the point - as soon as someone joined, they'd see GB, and for those potentially offended by NSFW material (or worse, people thinking browsing WATMM is work-safe since they never saw GB when initially browsing the forum as a non-member), it would be deceptive unless we had some sort of warning about what GB contained.

 

However, that gets us back to the initial problem and what some of you aren't getting - it's not that I don't approve of NSFW material, it's the fact there is no place for it here on WATMM, period.

 

I'm enjoying this open discussion about these issues, and I do want to make the experience here as enjoyable as possible for as many people as possible, but I do want you all to understand the reasoning behind the rules, and perhaps see things from my perspective a bit more instead of just judging me based on my actions and assume I'm out to spoil everyone's fun - trust me, I'm not!

 

I'd welcome someone who wants to do so take a stab at writing a "code of conduct" or "acceptable behaviour" list, and let's see if there are any good ideas we can compromise on to make things as clear as possible, and ease tensions here so it's a better environment for everyone. I've been meaning to for ages, but my time is limited at the best of times.

 

Which reminds me... there's a TapaTalk update I have to install...

[Guest Adam]

What about my suggestion Joyrex? It seems beneficial for everyone since even with the current rules intact NSFW content gets posted in General Banter from time to time. It could save you a lot of trouble and give a lot of members a place to discuss whatever they desire and exchange fart jokes without harming the part of community that does not apreciatte such things.

[Guest uptown devil]

fred asked me to post one last thing for him:

 

Teh tragedy of watmm seems to be that the person who makes the rules and collects your donations does not acknowledge the enormous value in the interpersonal connections that are made in this extremely unique place because he himself is incapable of making such connections. Despite the metrics provided regarding membership and pageviews, the spirit that made watmm what it was to many of us has been dead for some time. What’s left is a generic, repressed, blue-gray webspace where the regurgitation of bland ideas, not the synthesis of unique ones that define a community, is celebrated. A simple glance at the pinned threads atop GenBan will illustrate my point. While “Discuss anything and everything here,” the subheading of GenBan on the main page serves as a wry reminder of how open-minded the place once was, it should be obvious to most of you that there is no love for GenBan coming from ownership anymore, and when you have a situation where “leadership” as ownership would like to describe itself is at odds with its guests, the party is indeed over. So here is the one thing I guess ownership and I finally agree on: if you don’t like watmm, then why are you still here? Is it the content? Or is it because there is literally no other alternative. It's tragic indeed that ownership has the monopoly on the very magic that it despises.

 

Back some 10 years ago when I joined, I found a community of funny, clever, opinionated, confident individuals who had great taste in music and seemed to be in a similar position of needing to pass some time at work, bounce philosophical ideas off of each other, have a laugh, and in general just feel comfortable being absurd and weird. We questioned the givens of society together, we figured out how to eliminate clean breaks together, we kept it real, we kept it silly, and the end sum was an outlet for art in the form of words, pictures and ideas that was genuinely one of a kind. In life, if you’re lucky, every once in a while you come across a true friend who accepts you for who you are and allows you to confide both the dark and the light from the deepest reaches of your mind because they understand what it means to seek truth and meaning in life. I am extremely thankful to be able to say that I’ve met several such friends on watmm, but it saddens me that I will no longer have the opportunity to make more, because ownership thinks trying to come to terms with one's desire to suck a toe is yucky. Thank you to everyone on here a million times over for making me laugh, cry, fart, question who I am, and get angry when I needed it most. I’m not exaggerating when I say some of my most cherished memories happened in this place.

 

Last post.

 

 

[Joyrex]

i really don't understand why it's so difficult to just not open a thread if the topic looks like it's going to offend you. if the discussion gets off course, well, welcome to the internet. i understand some of the rules here about not posting nsfw visual content or gore, not personally insulting members, but a thread relating to a sexual fetish, where everything is contained within the thread, is hardly offensive. i think the big problem here is a number of members, myself among them, don't know what kind of forum this is supposed to be anymore. if we're just supposed to sit here and talk about our boc related dreams, i think i might head for the door.

And what do you do when a thread entitled "Pictures of Kitties" contains an offensive post (hidden in a spoiler tag no less) with a vagina picture? Oh, you're browsing WATMM at work? Someone saw it over your shoulder at your cubicle? You closed it before anyone saw, but the image got cached on your work PC? Why's the building security heading this way? Why are they carrying brown boxes? Oh my...

 

And then Google indexes the site - now the vagina pic is associated with WATMM, since the poster decided to upload it to WATMM rather than hotlink it from some porn site - so now, when someone is doing a background check on you (remember, you lost your job for browsing porn at work) for a new job, they find your username associated with WATMM, which has pornographic images associated with it - guess you're not getting that job, you sick bastard.

 

Surely there is plenty of news, books, films, sport, games, etc. to discuss (besides why you should be here, electronic music) without having to resort to pornography or adult discussions? I mean, we don't allow discussions of how to chop up babies, but I don't see people complaining - why should adult themes be any different?

[goDel]

Good idea to create a new thread out of the old one.

 

About the policies: I think typical watmm-humor tends to ride the line of what is NSFW and what isn't. And it needs that tension to be funny, among other things. I mean, burlapped gifs with hairy ballsacks, are these still allowed under the current policies? What is watmm without an in your face batcock? Or oversexed mspaints? Juvenile? Well, yeah. But some of these things have become part of the watmm slang. And that's part of the point, isn't it? It's uniquely watmm. Throwing these away, is like throwing watmm out of the window.

 

Anyways, as already said, we've been through discussions like this a number of times. I hope this thread wont be deleted, because obviously, we'll be having a similar discussion somewhere in the future.

 

And I still think it's a horrible idea to keep these (and discussions about banned members) restricted to pm. It's the "please remember, this is not a democracy" thing which gets on my nerves. It basically makes this discussion useless. And I was thinking this place was about being able to have civilised discussions? Civilised non-democratic discussions? It's not that difficult to see how ridiculous this is, right? Sure it's interpreted more black/white than probably intended. But the principle behind a claim like that directly hits on the fundamentals of watmm, imo. The forum rules don't need statements like that.

[Guest iep]

 

Teh tragedy of watmm seems to be that the person who makes the rules and collects your donations does not acknowledge the enormous value in the interpersonal connections that are made in this extremely unique place because he himself is incapable of making such connections. Despite the metrics provided regarding membership and pageviews, the spirit that made watmm what it was to many of us has been dead for some time. What’s left is a generic, repressed, blue-gray webspace where the regurgitation of bland ideas, not the synthesis of unique ones that define a community, is celebrated. A simple glance at the pinned threads atop GenBan will illustrate my point. While “Discuss anything and everything here,” the subheading of GenBan on the main page serves as a wry reminder of how open-minded the place once was, it should be obvious to most of you that there is no love for GenBan coming from ownership anymore, and when you have a situation where “leadership” as ownership would like to describe itself is at odds with its guests, the party is indeed over. So here is the one thing I guess ownership and I finally agree on: if you don’t like watmm, then why are you still here? Is it the content? Or is it because there is literally no other alternative. It's tragic indeed that ownership has the monopoly on the very magic that it despises.

 

Back some 10 years ago when I joined, I found a community of funny, clever, opinionated, confident individuals who had great taste in music and seemed to be in a similar position of needing to pass some time at work, bounce philosophical ideas off of each other, have a laugh, and in general just feel comfortable being absurd and weird. We questioned the givens of society together, we figured out how to eliminate clean breaks together, we kept it real, we kept it silly, and the end sum was an outlet for art in the form of words, pictures and ideas that was genuinely one of a kind. In life, if you’re lucky, every once in a while you come across a true friend who accepts you for who you are and allows you to confide both the dark and the light from the deepest reaches of your mind because they understand what it means to seek truth and meaning in life. I am extremely thankful to be able to say that I’ve met several such friends on watmm, but it saddens me that I will no longer have the opportunity to make more, because ownership thinks trying to come to terms with one's desire to suck a toe is yucky. Thank you to everyone on here a million times over for making me laugh, cry, fart, question who I am, and get angry when I needed it most. I’m not exaggerating when I say some of my most cherished memories happened in this place.

 

Last post.

 

 

 

[Joyrex]

fred asked me to post one last thing for him:

 

Teh tragedy of watmm seems to be that the person who makes the rules and collects your donations does not acknowledge the enormous value in the interpersonal connections that are made in this extremely unique place because he himself is incapable of making such connections. Despite the metrics provided regarding membership and pageviews, the spirit that made watmm what it was to many of us has been dead for some time. What’s left is a generic, repressed, blue-gray webspace where the regurgitation of bland ideas, not the synthesis of unique ones that define a community, is celebrated. A simple glance at the pinned threads atop GenBan will illustrate my point. While “Discuss anything and everything here,” the subheading of GenBan on the main page serves as a wry reminder of how open-minded the place once was, it should be obvious to most of you that there is no love for GenBan coming from ownership anymore, and when you have a situation where “leadership” as ownership would like to describe itself is at odds with its guests, the party is indeed over. So here is the one thing I guess ownership and I finally agree on: if you don’t like watmm, then why are you still here? Is it the content? Or is it because there is literally no other alternative. It's tragic indeed that ownership has the monopoly on the very magic that it despises.

 

Back some 10 years ago when I joined, I found a community of funny, clever, opinionated, confident individuals who had great taste in music and seemed to be in a similar position of needing to pass some time at work, bounce philosophical ideas off of each other, have a laugh, and in general just feel comfortable being absurd and weird. We questioned the givens of society together, we figured out how to eliminate clean breaks together, we kept it real, we kept it silly, and the end sum was an outlet for art in the form of words, pictures and ideas that was genuinely one of a kind. In life, if you’re lucky, every once in a while you come across a true friend who accepts you for who you are and allows you to confide both the dark and the light from the deepest reaches of your mind because they understand what it means to seek truth and meaning in life. I am extremely thankful to be able to say that I’ve met several such friends on watmm, but it saddens me that I will no longer have the opportunity to make more, because ownership thinks trying to come to terms with one's desire to suck a toe is yucky. Thank you to everyone on here a million times over for making me laugh, cry, fart, question who I am, and get angry when I needed it most. I’m not exaggerating when I say some of my most cherished memories happened in this place.

 

Last post.

 

 

Damn, that's sad. And I still haven't mailed off that tube of butt cream to soothe poor McGriff's aching anus - he must have typed that standing up.

 

Sarcasm aside, McGriff is way off base with his assumption that what made WATMM great was the porn, scat, and other unsavoury aspects of our community in the past - what made it great (and still does) is exactly what he does point out:

 

 

 

I found a community of funny, clever, opinionated, confident individuals who had great taste in music and seemed to be in a similar position of needing to pass some time at work, bounce philosophical ideas off of each other, have a laugh, and in general just feel comfortable being absurd and weird.

 

That's all still here - all I've asked is keep the NSFW content off the site. I don't see how they must be intertwined in order to validate one another. Have I been heavy-handed in enforcing that policy - of course I have. I'm trying to be (more) lenient as possible, but sometimes I have to go with my gut and that won't always make everyone happy.

 

And again, it wasn't the thread that got you banned, Fred - it was your unwillingness to abide by my wishes for my forum, which is a reflection of me (out of touch, oh, yes, certainly - not), to be about what it always has been about first and foremost - electronic music.

[KovalainenFanBoy]

All this fuss will be over once Tomorrow's Harvest comes out. Maybe Aphex's waiting for watmm's fall to release his album. He's the savior we need

[ambermonk]

 

People having a laugh at silly stuff does not make this a trashy forum. Stop acting like his lapdog.

Just because Ambermonk agrees with some of my viewpoints does not make him my 'lapdog' - are you my lapdog because I let you moderate the AE forum?

 

Exactly. I apologise if I came across that way Obel. I'm in no way trying to scheme my way into the ranks of the Mod team or whatever. I'm just expressing that I understand where Joyrex is coming from, and appreciate his efforts in keeping WATMM from degenerating into some cesspool of 4Chan-style NSFW pics.

 

Besides Obel, I admire you as a member, believe it or not. Your posts in the Funny Pics Thread in particular continue to entertain me. Not bluffing.

 

 

fred asked me to post one last thing for him:

 

 

Quote

 

Teh tragedy of watmm seems to be that the person who makes the rules and collects your donations does not acknowledge the enormous value in the interpersonal connections that are made in this extremely unique place because he himself is incapable of making such connections. Despite the metrics provided regarding membership and pageviews, the spirit that made watmm what it was to many of us has been dead for some time. What’s left is a generic, repressed, blue-gray webspace where the regurgitation of bland ideas, not the synthesis of unique ones that define a community, is celebrated. A simple glance at the pinned threads atop GenBan will illustrate my point. While “Discuss anything and everything here,” the subheading of GenBan on the main page serves as a wry reminder of how open-minded the place once was, it should be obvious to most of you that there is no love for GenBan coming from ownership anymore, and when you have a situation where “leadership” as ownership would like to describe itself is at odds with its guests, the party is indeed over. So here is the one thing I guess ownership and I finally agree on: if you don’t like watmm, then why are you still here? Is it the content? Or is it because there is literally no other alternative. It's tragic indeed that ownership has the monopoly on the very magic that it despises.

 

Back some 10 years ago when I joined, I found a community of funny, clever, opinionated, confident individuals who had great taste in music and seemed to be in a similar position of needing to pass some time at work, bounce philosophical ideas off of each other, have a laugh, and in general just feel comfortable being absurd and weird. We questioned the givens of society together, we figured out how to eliminate clean breaks together, we kept it real, we kept it silly, and the end sum was an outlet for art in the form of words, pictures and ideas that was genuinely one of a kind. In life, if you’re lucky, every once in a while you come across a true friend who accepts you for who you are and allows you to confide both the dark and the light from the deepest reaches of your mind because they understand what it means to seek truth and meaning in life. I am extremely thankful to be able to say that I’ve met several such friends on watmm, but it saddens me that I will no longer have the opportunity to make more, because ownership thinks trying to come to terms with one's desire to suck a toe is yucky. Thank you to everyone on here a million times over for making me laugh, cry, fart, question who I am, and get angry when I needed it most. I’m not exaggerating when I say some of my most cherished memories happened in this place.

 

Last post.

 

 

I barely know Fred, but I understand some of you go back several years with him. My WATMM joined date below my avatar makes it evident that I don't know the history of how things were here in the past. But at the same time, I understand what Joyrex's expectations are, and can relate with Oscillik in leaving an IDM-oriented forum that degenerated into the type of cesspool that I mentioned above. I would hate to see WATMM suffer that same fate.

 

At least Fred is alive and well IRL though.

[Guest zaphod]

 

i really don't understand why it's so difficult to just not open a thread if the topic looks like it's going to offend you. if the discussion gets off course, well, welcome to the internet. i understand some of the rules here about not posting nsfw visual content or gore, not personally insulting members, but a thread relating to a sexual fetish, where everything is contained within the thread, is hardly offensive. i think the big problem here is a number of members, myself among them, don't know what kind of forum this is supposed to be anymore. if we're just supposed to sit here and talk about our boc related dreams, i think i might head for the door.

And what do you do when a thread entitled "Pictures of Kitties" contains an offensive post (hidden in a spoiler tag no less) with a vagina picture? Oh, you're browsing WATMM at work? Someone saw it over your shoulder at your cubicle? You closed it before anyone saw, but the image got cached on your work PC? Why's the building security heading this way? Why are they carrying brown boxes? Oh my...

 

And then Google indexes the site - now the vagina pic is associated with WATMM, since the poster decided to upload it to WATMM rather than hotlink it from some porn site - so now, when someone is doing a background check on you (remember, you lost your job for browsing porn at work) for a new job, they find your username associated with WATMM, which has pornographic images associated with it - guess you're not getting that job, you sick bastard.

 

Surely there is plenty of news, books, films, sport, games, etc. to discuss (besides why you should be here, electronic music) without having to resort to pornography or adult discussions? I mean, we don't allow discussions of how to chop up babies, but I don't see people complaining - why should adult themes be any different?

 

 

but your example isn't really fair. obviously you can't control people posting nsfw content. if someone posts a photo of a vagina in a thread about kittens, i support their being banned or warned and the post deleted. but discussion, in text, shouldn't really be an issue. and then as godel is pointing out, there are a number of watmmemes that skirt the line between nsfw and what is. i don't personally find all of those memes funny or entertaining, but a lot of members do. and the problem seems to be that people who've posted here for a long time (four or more years) can't reconcile the idea of a clean watmm because it also takes away a lot of the personality of this place. i'll be honest, if this was just electronic music discussion, i wouldn't post. the digressions in general banter are what make the fanboy music discussion tolerable, at least for me.

[Guest iep]

And again, it wasn't the thread that got you banned, Fred - it was your unwillingness to abide by my wishes

 

Papa you have a way with words

[Guest unteleportedman]

I am pretty sure that many employers don't approve of their employees surfing the internet for fun and reading forums etc. anyways. If you do decide to partake in that activity at the workplace you just have to use your own discretion in knowing that you may come across nsfw pictures accidentally. A good example I have is craigslist, where occasionally you might find yourself opening an extremely nsfw picture if you are just looking around maybe at the personals for a laugh (I sometimes do this).

[Joyrex]

Good idea to create a new thread out of the old one.

 

About the policies: I think typical watmm-humor tends to ride the line of what is NSFW and what isn't. And it needs that tension to be funny, among other things. I mean, burlapped gifs with hairy ballsacks, are these still allowed under the current policies? What is watmm without an in your face batcock? Or oversexed mspaints? Juvenile? Well, yeah. But some of these things have become part of the watmm slang. And that's part of the point, isn't it? It's uniquely watmm. Throwing these away, is like throwing watmm out of the window.

 

Anyways, as already said, we've been through discussions like this a number of times. I hope this thread wont be deleted, because obviously, we'll be having a similar discussion somewhere in the future.

 

And I still think it's a horrible idea to keep these (and discussions about banned members) restricted to pm. It's the "please remember, this is not a democracy" thing which gets on my nerves. It basically makes this discussion useless. And I was thinking this place was about being able to have civilised discussions? Civilised non-democratic discussions? It's not that difficult to see how ridiculous this is, right? Sure it's interpreted more black/white than probably intended. But the principle behind a claim like that directly hits on the fundamentals of watmm, imo. The forum rules don't need statements like that.

Well, as you can see, this is pinned, and "official", so see this as my olive branch towards the community to allow an open discussion about all this - I really do listen to everyone, but that doesn't always mean I'll act accordingly.

 

And, for the record: All the things you mentioned are in themselves not bad, but unfortunately there's no controls in place to ensure somebody doesn't go overboard with it (which in itself can lead to epic LOLs; trust me, I've been in tears of laughter while having to remove some things), and the marginalization of "the standard" starts to erode and before you know it, we're back to clearly NSFW and then what was the point to begin with?

 

While I prefer people come to me directly with PMs about banned members (frankly, I see it as nobody's business but mine and the banned member), perhaps this thread can serve that purpose if it's something that affects the community (like Fred's banning) versus some asshat that had it coming and nobody's sorry to see them go.

[LimpyLoo]

Damn, that's sad. And I still haven't mailed off that tube of butt cream to soothe poor McGriff's aching anus - he must have typed that standing up.

 

 

JR making 'aching anus' jokes after all of this talk of cleaning up the forum?

 

 

does not compute

 

 

bah...either way I love this forum

[goDel]

I am pretty sure that many employers don't approve of their employees surfing the internet for fun and reading forums etc. anyways. If you do decide to partake in that activity at the workplace you just have to use your own discretion in knowing that you may come across nsfw pictures accidentally. A good example I have is craigslist, where occasionally you might find yourself opening an extremely nsfw picture if you are just looking around maybe at the personals for a laugh (I sometimes do this).

 

This. Watmm is NSFW even in it's cleanest form, imo.

[YangYing]

 

 

bah...either way I love this forum

[Joyrex]

 

 

i really don't understand why it's so difficult to just not open a thread if the topic looks like it's going to offend you. if the discussion gets off course, well, welcome to the internet. i understand some of the rules here about not posting nsfw visual content or gore, not personally insulting members, but a thread relating to a sexual fetish, where everything is contained within the thread, is hardly offensive. i think the big problem here is a number of members, myself among them, don't know what kind of forum this is supposed to be anymore. if we're just supposed to sit here and talk about our boc related dreams, i think i might head for the door.

And what do you do when a thread entitled "Pictures of Kitties" contains an offensive post (hidden in a spoiler tag no less) with a vagina picture? Oh, you're browsing WATMM at work? Someone saw it over your shoulder at your cubicle? You closed it before anyone saw, but the image got cached on your work PC? Why's the building security heading this way? Why are they carrying brown boxes? Oh my...

 

And then Google indexes the site - now the vagina pic is associated with WATMM, since the poster decided to upload it to WATMM rather than hotlink it from some porn site - so now, when someone is doing a background check on you (remember, you lost your job for browsing porn at work) for a new job, they find your username associated with WATMM, which has pornographic images associated with it - guess you're not getting that job, you sick bastard.

 

Surely there is plenty of news, books, films, sport, games, etc. to discuss (besides why you should be here, electronic music) without having to resort to pornography or adult discussions? I mean, we don't allow discussions of how to chop up babies, but I don't see people complaining - why should adult themes be any different?

 

 

but your example isn't really fair. obviously you can't control people posting nsfw content. if someone posts a photo of a vagina in a thread about kittens, i support their being banned or warned and the post deleted. but discussion, in text, shouldn't really be an issue. and then as godel is pointing out, there are a number of watmmemes that skirt the line between nsfw and what is. i don't personally find all of those memes funny or entertaining, but a lot of members do. and the problem seems to be that people who've posted here for a long time (four or more years) can't reconcile the idea of a clean watmm because it also takes away a lot of the personality of this place. i'll be honest, if this was just electronic music discussion, i wouldn't post. the digressions in general banter are what make the fanboy music discussion tolerable, at least for me.

 

So then, what do I do? I can't (and the mods can't) patrol every thread making sure nobody gets out of line - and "just text" easily leads to being more than just text, etc. - you go back down that road again and again.

 

I think you're thinking I want to get rid of General Banter - for the umpteenth time, no, I do not want to get rid of GB - GB serves its purpose by keeping the non-music discussion segregated so people who want to focus on music discussion can do so and not wade through content they may not be interested in.

 

 

And again, it wasn't the thread that got you banned, Fred - it was your unwillingness to abide by my wishes

 

Papa you have a way with words

 

Well, to be fair, you weren't privy to our email exchange, so...

[Joyrex]

 

Damn, that's sad. And I still haven't mailed off that tube of butt cream to soothe poor McGriff's aching anus - he must have typed that standing up.

 

 

JR making 'aching anus' jokes after all of this talk of cleaning up the forum?

 

 

does not compute

 

 

bah...either way I love this forum

 

 

 

 

I am pretty sure that many employers don't approve of their employees surfing the internet for fun and reading forums etc. anyways. If you do decide to partake in that activity at the workplace you just have to use your own discretion in knowing that you may come across nsfw pictures accidentally. A good example I have is craigslist, where occasionally you might find yourself opening an extremely nsfw picture if you are just looking around maybe at the personals for a laugh (I sometimes do this).

 

This. Watmm is NSFW even in it's cleanest form, imo.

 

Again, I'm not out to make WATMM "squeaky clean" or something you'd read in your local church or synagogue or mosque after services, but people shouldn't have the fear of browsing here and be confronted with a crudely drawn penis strapped to a garbage bin repeatedly ramming an ATM machine.