Players who wave the Russian flag

Yes, click on “About” on the menu in the right on the left if you have the standard interface or under “Community” if you have the experimental interface. Then “Team”.

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Thanks again, Sofiam.

(Btw, it’s on the right :smile:)

(Actually, it’s on the left … on my phone, anyway).

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Not exactly, technically speaking. Trade between countries is not a standard, it is a privilege, which is hard to forget given the globalisation of the planet. The same holds for being able to cross borders. Revoking this privilege to a country therefore is not considered a collective punishment, as far as international conventions are concerned.

To this I’d reply:

(and I’d like to note the irony that you apparently don’t care about fact-checking your own damaging claim but get on the fence about unreliable information as soon as you found something that is against your view of the world)

Because it’s utter bollocks and I can’t even understand why or how you’d think such a thing could be true.

The site is open source, so you can check the contributors yourself and see that there are currently no Ukrainians (nor Russians) among the moderation team, and as far as I’m aware none among the many people that significantly contributed to the source code. Even then, all changes are approved by the site owners (US citizens), and all other code is contributed voluntarily (i.e. unpaid), thus there is not even a basis to “threaten” withdrawal of services: there are no non-voluntary services.


What @_Sofiam states is correct. To be a bit more precise, I believe I once photoshopped the logo into the Ukrainian flag colours as a kind of joke, after which another moderator submitted a change to the source code to actually change the logo, and anoek went right ahead and accepted the change the next day.

This is also how you can check what parts of the site are done by whom: it’s all on github for anyone to check.

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Should OGS give us the choice to fly the southern Stars and Bars flag?

??

I’ll beat you to the punch … if you say “no …they were for slavery” … here are some more flags of countries that were for slavery at that same time

If you argue that the stars and bars doesn't represent an active country ... then take all the other flags off of OGS that don't as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Look ... I am in no way advocating putting the f%cking Stars and Bars flag up as a choice.  It's offensive.  Just like the Russian flag is now!

I wouldn’t mind. Who cares? At worst, you’ll see it and decide “this is a person I don’t want to play against”.

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I’m sorry but I don’t fully understand your use of the words standard and privilege here. Are they special terms in some legal doctrine I am not aware of? You use the word “technically”, which suggests they may well have some very specific meaning relevant to the issue. I am by no means an expert in such matters and welcome your opinion if you do know a lot about them.

Concerning your ironic dismissal of the proposition I have already openly abandoned, I don’t think you give enough regard to the following words in my original post:

“I think” […] “as far as I can tell” […]. “I understand” […]. “I may be wrong about this, but I’m sure someone who reads this will be in a position to say whether or not that is fact.”

This is very far from publishing an untrue story as established fact. It’s more in the way of a wild stab in the dark with an invitation for anyone who has knowledge of the true facts to reveal them, something which appears to have happened in your statements and Sofiam’s. I also openly admitted, in reply to Leira, that I didn’t have evidence of what I suggested might have been the case, so I’m clearly not trying to bamboozle anyone.

I don’t think it’s beyond the bounds of possibility. You have to bear in mind, I have little knowledge of who’s who in the machinery of this site and how they interact (although I’m a little better informed now). Anyway, it doesn’t matter because we now know it’s not right and you and Sofiam have given us some information about how it really happened that the website started taking sides in an international conflict.

I wasn’t in a position to do that until Sofiam directed me to the relevant page, and even then it’s not totally clear what nationality a couple of them are.

I was actually imagining mods threatening to withdraw their services, not coders. Why can’t voluntary services be withdrawn?

So it all started as a “joke”?

[quote=“Vsotvep, post:64, topic:44754”] after which another moderator submitted a change to the source code to actually change the logo,
[/quote]

Someone who acts as both mod and coder, then

But Sofiam says:

but also that

so it’s still a little opaque. It doesn’t seem at all certain that Anoek would have, by his own motion alone, chosen to have the site visibly demonstrate support for Ukraine.

I think, in this case, the national flag really must mean the Government, mustn’t it, since it is a conflict between the Ukrainian government (with support and assistance from a number of NATO-member governments ) and the government of Russia (together with the de facto authorities of the breakaway regions).

Hmmmm that’s very interesting! Actually, that is a benefit!

“Hi … I’m a scumball”

I do that now, I guess. I like Germans. Commonly super sweet people. When I see their flag I feel good.

You totally changed my mind! Anyone who wants to identify with Russia right now … I really don’t want to play them.

I guess the rubber will meet the road is the next time a Russian is on the very broken 9x9 tournament table, if I’ll throw the match. Nah! I’ll just double down my efforts and really try to win!

thanks for the comment!

I am no expert on international law either, but it is a fact that noone has been prosecuted by the international court for imposing economic or diplomatic sanctions on another country.
But international sanctions, especially unilateral sanctions, are legally controversial, so perhaps there is no ground for claiming either position as fact.

What I meant with ‘standard’ and ‘privilege’ is perhaps better explained with an analogy.

If I were to invite some kids in my class to my birthday party, you could say that’s a reward for being friendly to me. If Jimmy, who bullies my little brother all the time, would not receive an invitation, that would not be punishment, but just the status quo of not being invited. It could be argued that it doesn’t matter whether the invited kids compose just 5 good friends, or the entire school class with the exception of Jimmy.

If a moderator tries to blackmail anoek into making a decision he doesn’t want to make, I’m pretty sure that moderator would not be a moderator anymore the day after.

Look: this site is owned by anoek (and matburt, who is generally inactive at the moment as far as I know), he is the only one of two people who has access to the server and can make changes, and he has every right and ability to make the decisions about what happens with the website.

Moderators are there to make sure that the users have a good experience playing on the server. In particular, moderators are there to resolve issues within games, conflicts between users, remove players who misbehave and keep chat and forums free of spam. They have nothing to do with maintenance to the server, and have little more decision power about the site than that you have. There are discussions among moderators about what should and should not be allowed, including about flags or symbols in profile pictures, but in case the team does not have a consensus, usually anoek decides what course of action should be taken, and the moderators follow that decision.

Anyone can contribute code through github, or suggest features on the forums. If it is a feature that anoek likes, he may accept the new code or implement it himself; there is no real democratic process where the community decides what should be worked on or what should be implemented. Occasionally anoek will ask the community about what they prefer or invites people to improve on a certain thing (for example, with the rating system, or with the overhaul of the UI), but it’s this way around, and not the community requesting something and anoek being obliged to do it.

I have stopped being a moderator a while back to concentrate on my offline life, so I cannot check the actual conversation anymore. But, yes, I don’t think I photoshopped the Ukrainian colours with the intention of publicly changing the logo. If I remember correctly, it was another moderator who suggested to make the change publicly, and there was little discussion between that moment and the point where anoek had accepted the changed logo.

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There are about 80 million Germans. Assuming what someone is like based on their country/flag makes about as much sense to me as assuming what they are like based on their hair colour.

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To paraphrase Inglorious Bastards

“I wanna know who the Nazi’s are” I say let them advertise the fact

Inglourious* Basterds* :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Heh :stuck_out_tongue: thanks :slightly_smiling_face: shoulda looked it up lol

That’s not how how I interpret it.

Putin sent the Russian army into Ukraine, a sovereign independent nation-state, trying to bring it under his control. The Ukranian flag in the OGS logo is there to express support for the Ukrainian people and the Ukranian OGS members who are falling victim to death and destruction.

That being said, many Russians are suffering too under this conflict and its consequences. OGS doesn’t hold the Russian people or Russian OGS members responsible for the death and destruction that Putin is causing in Ukraine, so there is no boycott of Russian players on OGS.
OGS considers members selecting the Russian flag on OGS to express their nationality or their main language, not Russian nationalism or support of Putin’s invasion in Ukraine, or animosity towards Ukrainians.

OGS is not a democratic organisation. Anoek decides on his own. But his decisions in this matter are supported unanimously by the OGS team (at least as far as I’m aware).

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Or even if they did, that’d be fine as well, right? People can use OGS to give their opinion.

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Indeed, within the general boundaries of discourse set by OGS’ Terms of Service.

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In this case, shouldn’t you go back and edit the post, adding a disclaimer and making it clear to a future reader of this topic that might read your post, but not the subsequent and very lengthy, discussion? :slight_smile:

Whenever you find the time, take your statement to your lawyer and show it to him. You might be surprised to learn that if you made a similar statement in real life (at work for example), you’d not be in the clear, as you seem to think.

“As far as I can tell” and “I understand” imply implicit real knowledge of facts. And when you are totally wrong about them, that’s a bad idea to use those phrases. For example:

In some laws that’s the legal definition of slander. I am just pointing it out because I like legal stuff.

Go to your job, stand in the middle of a company meeting and say: “As far as I can tell, John from accounting has a fake degree that he forged with his uncle and he can’t even count to one hundred. I understand that John has an affair with the CEO’s wife, but that’s not enough reason to keep him employed, come on!”

You can add as many “I may be wrong about this” you want after that statement, but you’d be in deep trouble. :stuck_out_tongue:

Again, you do not have to believe me, check this with your lawyer, but I am just pointing it out as a friendly observation.

That’s a very funny statement in a topic about flags, since there were flags beside their usernames.

You said it yourself. NATIONAL flag. Stop conflating things like that please.
This is like saying that the English NATIONAL football team represents the Tories (conservative party), just because they happen to govern at this time.

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That’s a rather simplistic view of a very complex situation, whereby history starts on 24 February 2022.

Anyone who has looked into it knows that there has been violent conflict within the internationally recognised borders of Ukraine since at least early 2014, that the present government was established following an armed coup and that parts of Ukraine resisted the coup, establishing de facto independent states which were assailed for eight years before the RF agreed to recognise them and support their ongoing resistance to Kiev.

What about the (currently) Ukrainian people who don’t recognise the Kiev regime and who continue to suffer bombardment from its forces?

Good. I am against punitive action against citizens of a country for the perceived sins of their governments.

By invading a sovereign independent nation-state, trying to bring it under his control.

I don’t see how the history changes that fact.

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Good idea. Done. Thanks for the suggestion.

I won’t be consulting lawyers. It’s not clear to me who you think has been defamed: the non-existent Ukrainian moderators, or Anoek, for allegedly allowing himself to be pressured by the non-existent Ukrainian moderators.

I got access to the usernames with their flags when @_Sofiam gave me the link.

Or perhaps it’s more like saying that the flag identifying speakers in meetings of the UN indicate the representatives of the current government of the nations?

That’s what you say “he” was trying to do.