Notice

[Demonic Attorney]

The issue of moderators posting flames and plagiarizing other forums' content is currently being reviewed by the staff, and some form of corrective action is planned.  However, allowing a thread to stay on the forums that was fomenting conflict would not help resolve the issue, so it was removed.  For future reference, the preferred course of action to take if you have a problem with moderation is to PM me or Godder.  Creating a fake account (which is against the rules) to post complaints about moderation (which is also against the rules) is not the way to do things.  

I know there's been some ambiguity to that lately, given the number of public discussions about TMD that have happened recently.  But, those same discussions, and how abjectly unproductive they were, should demonstrate well the reasons why those threads are discouraged.  Please don't post them.  I will update this thread when the staff has reached a decision on the issue of mods and flaming/plagiarism.

[Demonic Attorney]

As some of you may know, Marske recently posted a thread urging the community to make more of an effort to improve the quality of their contributions to the site.  Two problems have emerged as a result of that thread.  First, it's since come out that the majority of Marske's thread was copied from another forum, without attribution.  Some people on TMD have interpreted that as Marske trying to present others' work as his own, without giving them proper credit.  Others have taken a different view, that Marske simply followed a model that he thought was effective in dealing with a similar issue in a different community.  Second, in the course of Marske's thread, he posted flames directed at people who criticized his message.  He did that while a moderator for TMD, though he voluntarily stepped down from his station as a mod around that time for unrelated reasons.

As for Marske's thread itself, and other threads posted to discuss it, I removed them.  They generated nothing of value and were having a disruptive effect on the forums.  We've had too many discussions about what some people see as "what's wrong with" TMD, and they've typically led nowhere except to flamewars and unproductive discussion.  But that does not fully address what happened.  Marske's thread at least arguably fell short of TMD's standards for intellectual honesty.  While I personally don't view what he did as a major problem, because Marske was not trying to take credit for format-related content like an article or a decklist, the thread still was not an example of the commitment to intellectual honesty I expect from all Adepts, all the time.  More seriously, Marske flamed other site users, while a member of the site staff.  The job of a moderator is to reduce the number of flames and other rules violations on TMD, not increase it.  Compounding the issue is the fact that this is not the first time Marske has done this.

To remedy what's happened, Marske will be given a Full Warning and a demotion to Full Member.  This is his second Full Warning for flaming.  Further infractions will lead to Restricted Posting or more serious sanctions.  Aside from that, this thread will be left in Community for at least 2 weeks, so TMD's members can reach their own judgments about how to view Marske's future posts and his personal credibility, in light of what some people are calling plagiarism on his part.

As for the users who created fake accounts to post threads about this issue, they too violated TMD's rules.  The staff knows who they are and they will be dealt with in due course through the usual channels.  To reiterate one final time:  If you have complaints about moderation, the way to voice them is to PM myself or Godder.  We will respond promptly and make every effort to address your reasonable concerns.  Posting threads complaining about moderation is not allowed, and creating fake accounts to frustrate moderation is grounds for immediate banning. 

If you have any questions, PM me.