OFFICIAL SPA MOD DEBATE

[The Lady Shael]

Rules:

1. Candidates must reply within 24 hours before I move onto the next question.

2. Candidates must remain civil and respectful in their replies.

3. Candidates are allowed one rebuttal per question (may reply to any candidate) before the 24 hours are up. If you have any questions, ask them in the commentary topic.

4. ONLY CANDIDATES ARE ALLOWED TO REPLY IN THIS TOPIC. Posts by anyone else will be DELETED. To discuss the debate, please comment in the debate commentary topic.


Current Candidates:
-Blobfish
-Neobaron
-Ungatt Trunn II
-Night Wolf
-Dark Claws
-Krowdon



First question...


What does the Spa Room mean to you?

[Dark Claws]

The Spa room is a place to get out of all the seriousness of the normal forums, kick back, and casually spam. It's the kind of place where you can say whatever you want and not be judged, cause everything in here is spam. It's a sanctuary for some people, and should be treated as such by a good Spa mod and have a good government to keep it well spamming.

[Neobaron]

YES WE CAN.

YES WE SPAM.

[Ungatt Trunn II]

Spa Room belongs to the masterposter, the spammer.

It is our oasis in this storm of seriousness and net-egos.

No on. NO ONE. Will take this great board away from us! We shall defend it to our last. That is why we call this Spa Room our home. Because it is the only one to welcome us with open arms.

And we welcomed it back. I love you, Spa Room.

[The Lady Shael]

Next question!

How will you help the Spa Room if you are voted Spa Mod?

[Dark Claws]

As Ungatt has stated before, the Federation is, imperfect. However, it is still a system of government that controls the spam and rules over the authority of everyone. I don't really want to unleash my full plan if I do become Spa mod, but it will bring a golden age of spam to this board. I do promise to put in all the time and effort required to keep this board alive and thriving, because as I said, this is a sanctuary for some. And should be defended and monitored as such to give what the people want and need. 

[Neobaron]

I will bring pride and quality back to SPA.

[Ungatt Trunn II]

If voted as Spa of Mod(intentional), I shall use my new found/regained powers to continue with my original plan. Only now instead of having to oppress the spammers, I shall be working with them. As is intended.

We will unite together, a supreme order under Spam, to push forward a new age that will last an eternity. Where the spammers are given their birthright, and nonspammers shall be forced to assimilate or face the firing squad.
Or stay out of Spa, I don't really care.

The days of RSL are coming back with a vengeance, and a professional Iron Fist at the helm to boot. Even I didn't see us coming. And I planned this out 49,000 years ago!

[The Lady Shael]

Good answers. :) Moving on....



What is your stance on kyro-posting? The definition of "kyro-posting" being: the act of posting in every topic to get one's name on the end of every topic, sometimes for multiple pages back.

[Ungatt Trunn II]

While I think Kyro should return...
The act is simply destructive, contributes nothing, annoys others, kills threads, and halts potential activity as a whole. If it is something which someone does say... right before they log off, on simply the FIRST page, and only on rare occasions, fine. But when someone routinely attempts to post in every thread just to have their name for pages, it is harmful to everyone in Spa. Especially if they are always on and their posts are mundane and make it a chore to respond.

Which is why we must improve the general posting quality. Kyro-posting hasn't been a real problem since Kyro left, so I don't think we have to worry about that in paticular. And while others may say we need more activity, we need more activity AND higher quality both. With only one, regardless of which it is, we would eventually be back at square one and forced to restart. But the two combined at the same time and actively enforced by a united people, could save us from another Spam dark age. And it will.

[Neobaron]

What is your stance on kyro-posting? The definition of "kyro-posting" being: the act of posting in every topic to get one's name on the end of every topic, sometimes for multiple pages back.

Despite the uproar Kyro caused in other forums with his absolute judgements on topics despite his questionable understanding of life in general, I feel that kyroposting - as defined in the question - has its place. Granted that place is very minimal in the grand scheme of things, and no matter how that place is defined there will always be people who are annoyed by it, but nevertheless, it certainly has a place.

When certain individuals post more than others ot the point that they are posting in literally every topic, it can be viewed in two ways. The general concensus will necessarily depend on the general populations view of the poster in question, but more often than not said poster is either seeking to annoy his peers or actually attempt to contribute - in their own way - to every topic. If one views the older posts by Kyro, one finds that he made a genuine effort towards the beginning to actually contribute - at least in spirit - to the topics he was posting in. Whether he was making a near unintelligible response to something someone else said or posting single words as part of a continued chain, he was contributing. It was only after others began to criticize his posting habits that he went out of his way to post nonsense in every single thread.

However, I think those who would find this behaviour unacceptable forget an important fact; Spam is defined in different ways.

On other boards, spam is defined as anything that is not related to the principal focus of the board. For example, in other communities i've run where a certain game was the focus of the community, all topics not relating to the game, or topics relating to other games (even in the same genre) were considered spam no matter how interesting or intelligent the discussion was. On the RWL forums, spam has a much more fluid definition. Since RWL has public discussion of all topics of general interest in the general dicsussion board, it means that spam is defined as anything that is below the level of general discussion, which in turn means that the scope of things which may be defined as spam is very, very wide. So looking at spam from this perspective, it is perfectly fair to say that Kyros posts were no less infuriating or contributed no less than the one you are reading at this very moment (though I doubt I have any audience this far into the post) as the definition of spam on RWL is not clearly defined. Basically, in RWL, any post can be considered spam, and since the definition of spam is not clearly set here, it means that any and every post on any part of this board is, in a sense, spam.

Back to the main topic at hand;

As stated previously, it was only after Kyro began to be called out for his continued insistence to post in every thread that the quality of his posts (again, by the standard of spam as defined in the previous paragraph) diminished significantly. It is my conclusion that those indidivuals who are active enough to keep that many threads active at a time should be encouraged in their practices rather than harried for them, as they are the model for the ideal spammer; The individual who stands at the front lines of the spam denizens and proudly attaches his name to each and every thread, thereby ensureing that the next batch of people to log on in a given day will have dozens of "unread" topics to read through and further contribute to.

[Ungatt Trunn II]

As stated previously, it was only after Kyro began to be called out for his continued insistence to post in every thread that the quality of his posts (again, by the standard of spam as defined in the previous paragraph) diminished significantly. It is my conclusion that those indidivuals who are active enough to keep that many threads active at a time should be encouraged in their practices rather than harried for them, as they are the model for the ideal spammer; The individual who stands at the front lines of the spam denizens and proudly attaches his name to each and every thread, thereby ensureing that the next batch of people to log on in a given day will have dozens of "unread" topics to read through and further contribute to.

He was called out because of diminished quality. Any downgrade from there is hardly significant. The fact is over 10 pages with your name on it means more than being an active spammer. It means that you actually made someone else avoid posting. And the sheer scale of his thread-killing was a threat to Spa activity.

[Neobaron]

He was called out because of diminished quality. Any downgrade from there is hardly significant. The fact is over 10 pages with your name on it means more than being an active spammer. It means that you actually made someone else avoid posting. And the sheer scale of his thread-killing was a threat to Spa activity.

That is certainly one way to look at it.

Another way is just the acceptance of the fact that all things die, and someone must inevitably have the last word. While you can make a fair case for saying that someone killed a topic, I can make a case of equal quality in saying that the individual was simply the last person to have enough genuine interest in the topic to post, and if their activity level is such that they are following dozens of threads at a time, then they will inevitably be the last to post in a substantial number of topics.

Lets be honest here; It is easy to find fault in an easy target, and Kyro did a lot to make himself a target, and it wasnt exactly difficult to crack him. I can see no real fault in his habits up to the point that he began to receive criticism from several sources.

As I stated previously, active posters need to be encouraged and not picked on.

Quality is something that comes from passive learning - not from exclusion and harassment.

---

This has been my rebuttal for this question, I am done until the next question is presented.

[Dark Claws]

During the entire federation-RSL war, I was kryoposting in hopes of halting the spa federation and showing I meant buisness. I did this because I knew that it seemed like it could drop the importance of a topic due to the fact that it was no longer on the first page. If this continues (someone kryo-posting) it could lead to the inactivity of a topic due to the fact people don't usually stray away from the first couple pages. If someone is kryo-posting just to get their names on the list as people who were the last posters, it is usually made possible through lower quality spam. Now, if a person is kryo-posting and actually is usuing good quality spam which does contribute to the discussion (as much as it can with spam) then the means, while not exucusable, is possibly justifiable. I would call this an unitentional infraction and inform the perpetrator that it is looked down on. It can possibly be used as a way of reviving long dead topics, but would still have to kill off other topics that still are thriving. It really finds itself as a military tactic when many strategic options have been exhausted. When I realized RSL could not defeat the federation with traditional fighting I heavily relied on the use of kryo-posting. It is destructive, powerful, and like raw material. Basically, it can lead to destruction and it can kill off topics and it can do many other things. I will leave my arguement with this: The Spa at this state is growing rapidly, gaining new members and producing higher quality items. However, it still isn't realistic to keep 10 pages of topics alive, especially to meet the growing demand of the constant supply of new topics. If someone does have their signature on the last 10 pages, they can make their case and argue to us and choose what they want. But they are a suspect of kryo-posting, which, as Ungatt stated, isn't much of a real problem, but still is a serious threat to the death of thriving topics and must be dealt with appropirately.

[Shadow]

Since Shael is not around, next question:

What is your opinion of the various cliques that have sprung up in spa over the last little while? Are organizations like RSL, The Federation, and others good for spa?