So I have bid my farewell of the EUOT.

[Admiral Yi]

Good:
Superman
Chuck Norris
The guy at the deli who sold Ludwig von Mises his schnitzels

Bad:
Eugen vom Bohm-Bawerk
Thomas Jonathan Jackson

* discussion comes screeching to a halt *

[Ed Anger]

A subtle civil war hijack. bravo. BRAVO.

[sbr]

. Which is not true: Religion, as a subject, is banned.

This is untrue, FWIW.

[Pat]

. Which is not true: Religion, as a subject, is banned.

This is untrue, FWIW.

I know. This is what the "***** OFF-TOPIC FORUM RULES AND REGULATIONS *****"-thread says:



*** Off-Topic Forum Rules and Regulations - READ THIS BEFORE POSTING ***
This thread will be a repository for all OT specific rules and regulations. These general rules have been taken from the threads that used to be stickied in this forum. Links to those threads and discussions are linked below.

General Rules and Procedures for OT

1. The Moderators of this Forum are experienced and have the faith of the Administrators. However, if you disagree with a Moderators decision then you may PM him to elaborate further. If you are still not satisfied then please e-mail an Administrator, BiB, Castellon, or Havard. Do *not* use insults in your PM to the Moderator concerned or you will further compound the original offence. Do *not* question the moderator decision publicly. There is a PM system and a chain of command in place for a reason. Use it.

2. That Thread will be updated from time to time by the Moderators of this Forum. It is your responsibility to know which subject is banned and refrain from posting on that subject. Any Topic that is restricted will be posted in the Banned and Restricted Topics portion of this thread.


Off-Topic Moderators

The OT forum is moderated by the following forum members:

Blade!
Drakken
Lethke
OHgamer
Stonewall

When one of these members posts using colored text, this is a clear indicator they are speaking as a moderator, not just a regular forum member. When they don't use the colored text, use your judgment as to whether they are "moderating" or not. Usually, its quite clear, colored text or not. Regardless, it is your responsibility to conform to the Forum Rules and User Agreement. If there is any doubt whether the Moderator is moderating, err on the side of listening to him.

OHgamer and Lethke are what are known as "Demi-Mods." This does *not* mean that you can ignore them. On the contrary, for purposes of the OT forum, a directive from one of them is the same as if it were coming from Blade!, Drakken, or myself. Failure to follow their directions will be treated exactly as if you disregarded Blade!, Drakken or myself. Suffice it to say, disregarding them will negatively impact your posting privileges.


Banned and Restricted Topics

1. Israel - Palestine Threads, or anything remotely linked to Arab-Jews relationship.
2. Abortion or anything related.
3. Advocating the murder, or celebration thereof of any individual, ethnic/religious/social group, etc.
4. Pure Spam Threads.
5. Psycho/sick related crimes such as rape, deliberate child abuse etc.
6. Threads discussing the legalization of drugs.
7. Posting Pics of people in states of undress, underwear or eroticism (including masturbation) not appropriate for the home or office space.
8. Threads about the potential suicide of posters.
9. Threads regarding 9/11 Conspiracy Theories
10. Discussing masturbation and its results

Elaboration on rule 7 is as follows:


    Rule #1: The person must be clothed as Blade! would not mind seeing his grandma or grandpa.

    Rule #2: If you feel that the pic you want to share, may not fit with Rule #1, you may still post a link to it. Unless of course it violates Rule #3.....

    Rule #3: No linking to ****ography, or sites displaying ****ography, as this is a site many people view from work and home.

    Rule #4: No pics or linking to girls under sixteen.

    Lethke's translation of rule #1: Do not post Bikini/bathingsuit pics, do not post underwear pics. Do not post pics with seetrough clothing.


Vulgarity

The language being used in OT has become increasingly foul and vulgar. I would request that we OT'ers please make an effort to clean up our language. Remember, this forum is frequented by minors and people who view the site from work.


Threadjacking and Spamming

This is an Off Topic forum for discussions, not a spam-free zone where you can hijack/spam away as you feel free!

    Spamming is unneeded, noncontributing posts, esp, of an empty nature like pure emoticon posts.

    Spamming is superflous posts, like four posts in a row on the same subject, and within the same time frame.. I know it can not always be avoided, answering multiple questions, but done on the same subject that easily could have been done with an edit is spamming.

    Spamming is superflous comments in numerous threads right after each other in order to up postcount.

    Spamming in OT is a little less obvious, but would be threads with no meaning, no topic, no subject to discuss or form an opinion on.

    Hijacking is turning a thread into a completely different topic all together, rendering the original topic helpless... like the mutant powers thread

    Hijacking is NOT if the thread by natural means offers up a related discussion that is spunoff from the original, like a discussion of LoTR includes a discussion of Guy Gavriel Kay

    Hijacking is the purposeful attempt to change a topic, made worse if the topic makes no sense to the original one.


Consolidation of Certain Thread Topics

Certain subjects repeatedly come up and are rehashed ad infinitum. In an effort to streamline our ability to moderate potentially inflammatory subject matter threads, threads dealing with the following subjects have been consolidated into "Uberthreads" where all posts on that subject will now go. To assist forum members in finding those threads, and with the absence of a working search function, the consolidated "Uberthreads" will be linked below. Please check back here for updates to the consolidated uberthreads.

North Korea Uberthread - All Posts Regarding North Korea Should Go Here
Iraq Uberthread - All Posts Regarding Iraq and the Iraq War Should Go Here
Horn of Africa official Thread
Iran Megathread
US Elections '08 Megathread II - The Primaries And Caucuses (Now closed)
The Economic Crisis Of 2008 Megathread
US Elections '08 Megathread III - Super Duper Tsunami Tuesday and Beyond (Now Closed)
US Elections '08 Megathread IV - The March Primaries

Miscellaneous Rules and Regulations

Be advised that you are not to direct link to another unknown forum. Direct linking allows the forum you are directed to to see what site you are coming from. If you go to these sites to flame or troll them, they will know where you came from. That gives a bad reputation to the Paradox forums, which are an extension of the Paradox Interactive Company. Its bad for business. Additionally, it gives us moderators a headache when the members of that forum then try and hack this one and come over here to start trouble.

What's the lesson we've learned today? Do not direct link to another unknown forum. Don't link in PM's either. The link on their end will still point to Paradox Interactive Forums. We don't want trouble with these people, especially the militant nazi types.

For an example of a forum wide trolling gone bad, I refer you to the Languish invasion of the commie forum. The result was a series of hacks that brought the Languish forum to a standstill. How did this happen? They direct linked. Don't do that here. Please.


Useful Links

User Agreement
General Forum Rules
Last edited by Blade!; 13-11-2009 at 18:31."



Is religion mentioned anywhere? If so, I can't see it. There's a list of banned subjects. Religion is not included.


This is what my warning says:



"Dear PatMaster,

You have received an infraction at Paradox Interactive Forums.

Reason: Breach of Rules
-------
Warned for trolling. Remarks like that are why religion, as a subject, was banned not too long ago.

If you can't discuss something without insulting people, then please refrain from discussing it at all.
-------

This infraction is worth 1 point(s) and may result in restricted access until it expires. Serious infractions will never expire.

Original Post:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?p=10477324
Quote:
And this is why I don't like libertarianism. They construct an entire intellecual edifice on phony premises. It is akin to religion.
All the best,
Paradox Interactive Forums "

[Admiral Yi]

No discussion of masturbation?

[Ed Anger]

[Pat]

Though now that I think of it, maybe what it means is that "and this is why religion as a subject was banned not too long ago", but no longer is. But if religion isn't banned, which I thought, in which case I would have found a warning to be fair, then why the hell was I warned? It's not like I *was* trolling. As I write in my PM to Stonewall, I wrote that in the middle of a very heated discussion with much reaction and counter-reaction as it was already, and if I was in the business of trolling for reaction I'd very much be in the business of knocking in open doors.

[Pat]

Though I guess it's not very nice to religious people to liken them to libertarians

[Capetan Mihali]

New Topic -- "Masturbation:  what *are* its results?"   

[Neil]

Drakken is an asshole too?  That's a shame.  He always seemed alright, even if the seduction stuff was a bit creepy.

[MadImmortalMan]

Meh. Lots of ideologies tend to become religions to their adherents, not just libertarians. Environmentalists, commies, and especially objectivists are consistently guilty of it.

That said, Stonewall never really struck me as such, though I'm not sure the comments in question were directed at him at the time.

[Jaron]

I wonder if miglia expected thunderous applause for his anti OT exploits? We were exiles once, but now we are our OWN nation. The Languish nation.

We even have our own pantheon. Every day people on this forum offer me their praises, and of course, Neils ass is probably drenched from being kissed so much.

[Ed Anger]

I wonder if miglia expected thunderous applause for his anti OT exploits? We were exiles once, but now we are our OWN nation. The Languish nation.

That, and he is whining about being banned over religion. Big whoop.

[Pat]

Syt, do you know who Otto Bauer was? While we're on the subject of Austrians.

Marxist dude, AFAIK. There's the Otto-Bauer-Gasse off the main shopping street (Mariahilfer Straße). Not too well versed in 1920s/30s Austrian history. I'm better with Hanseatic/Holsteinian history. :PFunny thing about Vienna: some places are named after noted antisemites (Dr Karl Lueger, former mayor) and lefts alike (Friedrich Engels Square, Karl-Marx-Hof [public funded housing from the 1930s]).

Between the wars Vienna acquired the nick "Red Vienna" and there's been social democrats ruling the city since, oh, almost always.

Hehe yeah, the reason I'm asking is that he's my grandmothers grandfather. She had to escape Austria as a child along with her family in the 30s because she was related to him. He had been foreign minister for a while after WW1 and was one of the leaders of the social democrats. While he's one of the founders of austromarxism, that's not a variety of marxism akin to communism but more like social democracy (and has had a great influence on social democracy, to my understanding); and since Sweden was social democratic it was a natural place to escape to. Which is why I have a hard time to take the trolling of Nazi collaborating Sweden seriously: I know for a fact the Swedish government saw nazis as their ideological enemies and welcomed the ideological enemies of nazism with open arms. Because that's the reason my father was born, and why I was born.

My grandmother's father, who was a lawyer, and her uncle, who was a judge, stayed behind in Austria because their knowledge of the law would be useless in a new country with a different legal system. Her father was killed by the Gestapo and her uncle died in concentration camp.

My grandmother very much wanted me to learn german and took me to Vienna several times when I was a child. She showed me the city and told me a lot of stories about the Vienna from her childhood, and of the Vienna after the war when she returned to work there as a volunteer for the red cross. Like how after the war they had to put up big security fences at the towers of the Stephansdom because so many people commited suicide by jumping from it after the war was lost. Or how before the war she was quite adamant, when asked "What does the peasant (Bauer = peasant)?" that "He writes books" and they called from the kindergarten to talk to her parents about it and they were afraid they'd figure out they were related to him. Despite the best efforts of my grandmother I never quite learned german though, even though she also took me to stay with a family in southern germany three summers. I always thought the germans should learn english.

She also created a small bank book in my name while telling me about Austrian banking secrecy. It's one of those where you have to go to bank in person to retrieve the money. She said that having something left behind the city, I would return later in life. I think I would have returned to Vienna anyway. I've always had special bond to the city.

Funny you should mention Otto-Bauer-Gasse. We were able to borrow an apartment on Otto-Bauer-Gasse, actually, from someone in the social democratic party, where we could stay. I think the Social Democratic Party HQ is on the same street.

[Pat]

I wonder if miglia expected thunderous applause for his anti OT exploits? We were exiles once, but now we are our OWN nation. The Languish nation.

That, and he is whining about being banned over religion. Big whoop.

Do you have reading comprehension problems? I wasn't banned. I left of my free will. I've said that like 5 times now, you fool.