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Whilst I'm here I will be away for a few days from tomorrow .
‘Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.
Where there is error, may we bring truth.
Where there is doubt, may we bring faith.
And where there is despair, may we bring hope’
Well are all friends here, chap.
1) Scaramanga12 had been a member of this forum before. He used a double account back then which is in direct violation of our forum rules. The mod team did not ban him for that but rather offered him a chance to eliminate one account and continue with the other.
"Strong opinions" and such are not an issue. Opinions which differ from the majority opinion and tend to be somewhat provocative for that reason are not an issue. Attacking other members in a vile and personal way, never letting the argument go, even after having been asked politely, never letting the argument go even after having been asked a second time and less politely, now THAT is an issue. Understand please that many of you don't get to read the whole story because some posts are so caustic, we remove them at once. When a member is banned, however, he is banned for a good reason. Many of us have stepped over the line more than once. Many are politely asked never to do so again. You're not banned for stealing purses or even for statutory rape. When we ban you, you went above and beyond what is acceptable; you at least stabbed down half a dozen people so to speak.
Even then, Scaramanga12 was allowed to return after a personal plea. We believe in giving second chances. However, he did not start anew as our equal. He did not immediately share our privileges. He first had to humbly prove himself prepared to be decent and non-aggressive. Over time, he might have shown a bit of that stronger side again and, if in sufficiently small doses, we would have easily tolerated that, as we're known to do. But his first act after being welcomed back by us was to give a fellow mod the finger and subsequently lash out against members who ventured an opinion he didn't agree with. Yet we stayed cool. Even though he was on a zero-tolerance kind of probation, we tolerated a LOT. Some of Scaramanga12's posts were indeed very interesting, well-written and so forth.
His FYEO thread was an instant hit and reminded us again why a second chance could be more than justified. We even chose his side when other members questioned the thread for spreading negativity about a Bond film. This forum is not meant to slavishly worship and defend all Bond films and hide their many flaws in obscurity. No! In fact, pointing out the flaws in a Bond film can result in some of the best and most interesting threads around here. When a certain member decided to take a leave of absence over this issue, we kept defending Scaramanga12's thread when it was probably expected that we should drop on our knees and beg the member to please come back. That is not what we do. Whether we personally like you or not is absolutely irrelevant when it comes to taking sides in a conflict.
But then Scaramanga12 insisted on dropping a few "subtle" comments regarding said member, like that kid in school who hears the teacher reprimand a classmate and decides to also reprimand the classmate; naturally the teacher must now reprimand him too. A childish parallel, I know, but since many good members seem concerned with the general negativity here - more about that in a minute - this is precisely what we wish to avoid. We're not your gods or fascist rulers, by all means, friends, we're NOT. But when we step in and diplomatically try to stop a conflict immediately and work something out that's to the benefit of all involved, the last thing we need is someone getting worked up and keeping the conflict going. That was where Scaramanga12 stepped over the line. And not just once. Reread some of the posts above. We still tried to calm him, you know, give him his saying, ask him to drop it, and be cool with it. But he kept going at it, ironically enough right before he himself decided it's impolite to talk behind someone's back so to speak. Subsequent vitriol emissions, some public, some we immediately erased, forced us to rethink the very generous doses of tolerance that we had indulged him with and, against our will, make good on our promise that one strike - and this was hardly his first - would be enough to be shown the door, for good.
We all visit this forum occasionally during the day and we sleep at night. Sometimes, a lot can happen within half an hour, things you'll never know about. Posts that are immediately deleted, PM's that, luckily, are never made public. Based on some of those things, members whom you might have thought were only mildly offensive if offensive at all, are suddenly gone and you're left wondering what for. Trust me when I say that we don't ban for fun, that we don't ban after one or two or even three slip-ups, no matter how serious, and, contrary to popular belief, that we don't ban simply because a beloved veteran member demands it. We have actually alienated some of our beloved veteran members by not giving in to ban requests. Mods ban when mods, in absolute consensus (!), feel like a ban is justified. You can point our attention to a potential need for a ban, but we are never motivated to ban simply because that appears to be the general demand of the forum.
Whether or not @Thunderpussy is an appreciated member is actually beside the point. Had Scaramanga12 been kicking some newbie in the dumper, the same would have happened. But the fact that Thunderpussy is a valued member matters at least in one respect; it allows us to demonstrate that accusations of all sorts contradict the general friendliness he receives from this community. Scaramanga12 was not banned because for a little while he targeted Thunderpussy and not someone else. Thunderpussy was not begged to return with the promise that Scaramanga12 would be banned as a welcome-back gift. Thunderpussy himself never asked for anything remotely like that. Thunderpussy was publicly told that there was absolutely nothing wrong with Scaramanga12's thread and that said thread was not merely allowed to remain open but in fact strongly endorsed. Thunderpussy never made a point of it anymore; Scaramanga12, ironically enough, did. And wouldn't let go.
2) The general negativity on these forums is not the big problem many seem to think it is. But then folks, friends, fellow Bond fans, you need to re-learn a couple of things:
A - People are allowed to criticize a Bond film. People are allowed to verbally 'destroy' a Bond film. People are allowed to point out the flaws in Bond films. Nowhere is it written that they can't. I've been seeing this issue rise since SkyFall. Some people hated the movie and others were so appalled by that, they practically demanded that we should ban the "SF bashers", which of course we didn't. On top of that, others who were also critical of SF, felt cornered and were forced to give the film some backhanded compliments lest they end up hanged for heresy. With Spectre, this was repeated. Understand that we do not appreciate that! It's great if we can apologize a Bond film for its errors and if we love every output in the series unconditionally. But it's neither mandatory to do that to be allowed here as a member, nor to feel welcome in our midst.
Only if a "basher" starts bashing in multiple threads, especially the ones that have nothing to do with the film in question, and gets personal, and never - never - never lets go, constantly refueling the fires after we have labored hard to extinguish them, might we consider to ban the basher. But not because he dislikes a Bond film. That's ridiculous, yet sometimes members actually ask that of us. Think about this for a moment, people. Being annoyed by someone else's opinion is not a valid reason to ban that someone else.
B - This is a community of people, many people, who can have a bad day sometimes, conflicting natures, that sort of things. Like in any togetherness situation, some are integrated very fast, others are left out. Some attract people, others repel them. The fact that someone drops a poor or even insulting comment here and there is, first of all, inevitable when so many gather in so "small" a place and second, not something to get worked up over. If the comment is truly too harsh, flag and we'll take action.
But one thing you should try to avoid, friends, is to point out that "ooh, this place is getting so negative lately!" because such sentiments spread like a virus and make others think that you're right. You may find that things are much worse on other forums, unless you're part of a forum with only a handful of members who rarely contribute. We remove troublemakers, try to straighten things out... and the fact that we have to comes with the nature of the beast. This is an Internet forum after all, deal with it. But this forum isn't dowsed in negativity because you say so, however if you keep repeating it, others may actually believe you and make dramatic decisions that are unnecessary. It's like one of those "we're living in the most violent of times" kind of sentiments, when sociologists will tell you we're living in anything but the most violent of times. Yet these words are spoken by some people more frequently than their own name and so the phrase catches on and even we tend to use it when another news reel has hit our soft spot. Same with the forum. One member says that things have been so negative lately. Another two repeat that the next day. And before you know it, folks drop out because they need "a break" from all of this alleged negativity.
Here's a few things that you can do: avoid certain threads when you know they'll just assault your feelings (e.g. the president thread), avoid certain members if you feel like they're getting on your nerves (just read passed their posts) and bring a smile yourself. It'll catch on, don't worry. And when others deliberately thwart your attempts to spread happiness, we'll step in and cut their influence short.
C - Be a little tolerant, folks, and a little less sensitive. We often speak against the PC world, well, why don't we set a fine example ourselves? There are worse things than a member who drops an s- or f- or whatever bomb every now and then. A joke referring to genitalia, religion, your favorite politician, ... is not the worst thing that can happen. If it's a joke, laugh with it! Comedy has an unmatched power in terms of keeping a forum running strong. If well-intended or even slightly offensive material makes you unload your bowels in your pants, you're probably not the right person to visit an Internet forum. Understand that we do not condone harsh, brutal, aggressive and highly personal comments. But a lot of that so-called "negativity of late" originates in a couple of members using a different ruler to measure what is just plain, naughty fun and what is absolutely obnoxious, horrific, beyond-the-acceptable insult. We can't be expected to keep this place cleaner than real-life social situations. You don't fart in church but when you do, laugh with it. Same here. You don't need to get ostensibly racist, sexist, ... but there are times when we're "in a meeting" and there are times when we're sitting down for a drink, if you catch my drift. If this place is getting too negative, well, allow it to regain some fun by growing a pair.
No kids allowed on our forum. I guess that can cut us some slack, right? The mods will judge soon enough if someone is taking this too far. I bet your neighbors, colleagues, relatives, friends, ... can upset you too sometimes. And you let them because, hey, why not and what are you going to do about it anyway? Well, on our forum too, why not? And don't worry. There's still that virtual line and we're guarding it day and night.
3 - This isn't Facebook! And thank Cthulhu for that. Maybe the reason things have changed here, or so some say (wow, quite the alliteration there), is that they mistake this forum for that awful medium that purely exists in the cross section between narcissism, stalking and ADHD. What little rules FB has, don't bring them here. We're so much better than FB. Here you make friends, good friends, a couple of them. Over there you post like a crazy person so that you get enough likes to sleep tight tonight, knowing that those 10 000 "friends" really "like" you. You can have your saying here, but don't demand others to agree with you. Asking a mod to ban someone is not our MI6 equivalent of the "unfriend" button. You don't make contributions here to be "liked". You make your contributions and, depending on what they're worth, you may be liked. Your general conduct will get you to be liked. Your tolerance towards a whole lot of things will get you to be liked. Your tendency not to personally assault someone, will get you to be liked. The sheer volume of your output, however, has nothing to do with whether or not you are liked. The MI6Community isn't Facebook. Understanding that simple fact will get you very far in battling those feelings about negativity on the forum too. Some folks expect to be showered with compliments and comments after a post, as a token of being taken seriously, and cry rivers when the responses are very few and very thin. They keep popping up more, and more, and more threads and are devastated when a mod closes half of them for being absolutely redundant. This attitude is purely FB. Well, take it there, don't bring it here. You're here to make friends, not to have fans. FB is meant to allow every regular John Doe his five minutes of fame; MI6Community is meant to talk Bond and a few other things, but mostly Bond. So perhaps it's going to sink in if I say it a third time: this isn't FB, no matter how much you want it to be. Some can't live outside the FB mentality anymore or speak in hash-tags instead of in plain English. That's a social illness this forum will not be infected with.
Thank you for taking all of the above into consideration.
DarthDimi
I felt that the forum was getting better, tbh. We all know post Bond film, this place can get a little crazy. Not helped by the uncertainty surrounding the franchise.
Oh, and @DarthDimi - #MI6Rules!
<:-P
Alright an emoticon in a party hat. Good to see you bazza.
And welcome back @barryt007!
@royale65, we should go to church sometime. I'd love to know how you Mod edit, @DarthDimi, you have been warned!
@barryt007
Dear friend, so good to have you back! How's Jade? Please drop me a PM.
@DarthDimi, that's probably one of the greatest comments I've read on here in the last five years. I tip my hat to you, good sir, and I do hope that everyone here took a couple of minutes to read it in its entirety.
The mids, are they the ones above the mods?
Must be the drugs.
I told you about those, @Thunderfinger.
The mids are like the Illuminati. They keep the Nikki Van der Zyl case silent.