Yes there is. It's called picking the most obvious target and firing a warning shot across its bow.
The target either realises, "hey I'm being fired at here. I should go in another direction if I don't want to be hit" or the target continues and enters combat - where it fights, at which point it either wins or loses on a more permanent basis.
Only truly obtuse morons would struggle to grasp the implications. Implications that have already, quite rightfully, been pointed out by everyone against this.
The fact we're sticking to just this one, tiny little word, is our way of acknowledging this. And saying, "we don't really want to go down this path. In fact, we'd like to avoid it. But unfortunately, some people here are forcing our hand".
It's not going to be a good idea to force our hand.
This is us saying: "Hey guys, it's been fun, but tone it the fuck down a notch would you?" In the exact same way that you might see a video of a certain type of individual assaulting someone on the street and think, "those types of people need to be given a bit of authority, so that they learn that's not how to behave".
We're doing the exact same thing, only to certain people here.
You just happen to disagree. Which is fine. But at the end of the day, this is our website, not yours.
I recognize that, at some point, it becomes difficult to treat everyone on the board as adults when we all, without exception, act like children sometimes (some more often then others). The tenor of your posts lately make me think you're getting deathly tired of trying to hold everything together, and you feel alone in your work. I sympathize. Maybe I'm misreading you, feel free to correct me.
I think one thing that would help members of good faith a lot would be telling us what you're trying to do at this point. I know it would help me at least. Would you tell us what your desired end state looks like given the environment you find yourself in? What's your goal regarding the Codex right now?
Is it preservation at all costs, slowly jettisoning your admin/moderating principles to keep the site alive? I don't mean that at all pejoratively. Think the captain of a ship under boarding action, slowly giving up bulkheads to keep it in the fight, hoping for a miracle or with some plan in mind. Perhaps you're thinking of shuttering the site or selling it? Trying to build money/support and put up a credible resistance to the pressure you're facing? I don't mean this as a multiple choice btw, just using examples. I think I speak for all of us when I say we want to know what you want from this mess.
I can tell you, unequivocally, that what you're doing now is not going to help no matter what. In the past (what little past I have with this site) you've always come across as capricious and cheerfully malicious, in the same way a well-loved cat will sometimes give you a walloping swipe that draws blood. I've always found it endearing and comfortable. More importantly you also come across as an unbudging, mule-headed cunt on the issue of Free Speech, which I have admired deeply. But right now you're coming across as scared shitless and unsure what to do. All of this stuff, the petty (in the sense of small, and temporary, not in the sense of nasty or malicious) bans, the REEra ban explanations, don't feel like the fun of playing with live grenades and laughing at the people who get blown up anymore. It feels like a death spiral.
I'm not sure I'm explaining myself well here. I guess what it comes down to is, the tone of the site - YOUR tone - has changed in a way that's making a lot of us uneasy. Remember when you yanked the reins away from VD over his bans and basically told him to fuck right off with that shit, people get to talk the way they want? It feels like that "you" is going away.
I want to address this because you've raised it a few times.
Name a single member of the Codex moderation team who is a US citizen. User's that come to mind: Saint_Proverbius. Has anyone seen him lately? He was presumed dead for years. VaultDweller (Canadian but close enough). Take a look into our history to see what VD wanted to do to the userbase. Crispy. You want me to give the Codex to Crispy? Calis. Also presumed dead. Has also actively said he didn't want to run the forum side of things.
I've been here for 20 years. In that time, which is an eternity on the internet, how many other administrators have you seen who you'd like to take over from me? Name one. Infinitron?
In that 20 years, how many coders and server technicians have you seen willing to step up and actually do something, physical things, that ensure this website remains online and functioning?
You say there's some "easy" decision here but I've been looking for 20 years.
If you want help, I volunteer. I said it in the other thread, and I meant it. I'll get in harness. If the Codex needs money I'll give it, within my limited abilities. I have approximately zero coding experience to deal with back-end programming and database management, but if you'll be patient, I'm willing to put in the time to learn. In the meantime I'm fine doing scut-work (think of tasks you'd ideally want to automate but just never have the time to do it) and anything else on the site that requires time and effort but not necessarily comp sci expertise, such as news-posting, while I start teaching myself.
DarkUnderlord
My interpretation here is simple:
This is what you get when you refuse to flush for fucking decades.
First thing first:
There is no such thing as "free speech website". Unless you count 4chan or somesuch - a perpetual dumpster fire randos can throw shit into.
Furthermore, free speech is never the right rationale for saying anything. It can be invoked as protection (in places where such thing is enshrined), after you have said something - for whatever actual reason - that made someone angry. The bottom line is that saying something - anything - because "muh free speech" merely makes you a dumbass and asshole.
Now, what Codex has always been, is an RPG website - one with free speech as its key feature - and the lack of understanding of the distinction between RPG forum (featuring free speech) and nebulous "free speech forum" (in practice "obnoxious fuckwad arena") is what made the place the massive turd swirly it is now.
The former means that this is a safe spot for anyone, no matter what awful and wrong views they espouse*, to talk about RPG related issues.
The latter means this is is an obnoxious fuckwads and basket cases arena, and, as I suspect, rapidly stinking up liability of some sort.
*) Including ones they should be shot in front of a ditch for**.
**) Irrespective of what, if anything, you think would be grounds for shooting people in front of a ditch.
The problem is that you don't fix this issue by introducing a technical solution like word filter, then banning people for circumventing that.
Because the issue has never been people using this word or that word - this is what makes any attempts at political correctness so misguided and in the end harmful.
The problem is that you're now dealing with deeply entrenched culture of obnoxious fuckwads and basket cases dominating what this site has become.
Most people (including those loudly proclaiming that there are not, curiously enough) are sheep.
Edgy, fucked-up sheep merely form an edgy, fucked up herd.
/gd/ conformity is still conformity, imagine that.
And this culture means that any technical means will likely result in people just skirting the lines you draw and doing the same shit they did before - because this culture establishes basket cases and fuckwads as normalcy all users are immersed in. Banning people for not jumping through the hoops you have set up merely creates the culture of fear and mediocrity - the thing we, and I think I can speak for everyone here, universally loathe.
If you are *unexpectedly* successful, you will merely get people - and not just fuckwads and basket cases - to leave.
what you do need to do is drain this fucking abscess of a forum, leaving the healthy, if inflamed tissue - so to speak - to heal.
Basically you need to get rid of culture of fucktardry by identifying and getting rid of fucktards - those who come here for "free speech" specifically, rather than for the comfort of discussing their fairly specific hobby under protection of free speech.
Get rid of fuckwads and basket cases and you get rid of the cesspit of fucktardry everyone is currently marinating in.
Let somewhere else be internet's basket case arena where the believers in reptillians bent on enslaving the mankind can play out their conflicts between those who adhere to the interpretation that the reptilians are semitic-illuminati and come from within hollow earth and those more in favour of sino-african reptilians from flat earth's underside.
And let those who come here for that GTFO to that other place.
