People who gets attacked on message boards

[powerboy]

I am a member of a lot of message boards. And one thing that they all have in common is that a member gets jumped on in a thread. And I want to know why? We all have different opinions. But no, someone will jump a poster about something stupid.

Half of the time, the mods or admins will not do anything to stop it, if their favorites are the ones that are doing the attacking. Sure you will get the good mods/admins that does try to stop it. I was one of those Mods and Admins.

My question is WHY? WHY does people do that?

[Lace Neil Singer]

Usually it's immaturity; on one board I frequent, a member was temp banned for a month cuz they kept on attacking the mods and admins. Why? For doing their job and telling her off every time she attacked another member. -.- And remember that age has nothing to do with maturity; there are mature 13 year olds online and immature 40 year olds.

[powerboy]

Do they think that it is fun or something? Or are they just plain stupid?

[Lace Neil Singer]

I wonder that myself sometimes. -.- I mean, after you've given a troublemaker several warnings, where you're telling them that their behaviour is unacceptable and that if they keep it up, they'll end up on a temp ban, and they keep on breaking rules and being rude... you end up wondering if they're completely dim. Especially if you do end up banning them; and they come back after their ban and whine about the injustice of their punishment even after they were warned several times. -.-

Example:

User: Spams in thread and attacks thread starter.
Mod: Deletes spam and warns user.
User: Smartmouths mod and spams some more, and attacks more people.
Mod: Tells admin about user and deletes more spam.
User: Spams board again, attacks more people.
Admin: Reads user riot act, basically, "Quit spamming and attacking people, or you will be temp banned".
User: Bitches at admin, ignores warning and spams/attacks some more.
Admin: Bans user for month.

*one month later*

User: First thing user posts on board is something along the lines of "Wah! Wah! I was banned unfairly! Boo hoo!"

[BroomJockey]

WHY does people do that?

Bad grammar?

[Greenday]

Lace, that sounds like the message boards on the game I play, Goalline Blitz. A thread will get closed by a mod for an obvious reason, then some moron starts another thread asking why the previous thread got locked, then it gets locked and then it continues on and on, and when the person finally gets banned for like a day or two, a "friend" will post about how unfair the ban is. Biggest group of whiners ever.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

Ordinary person + internet anonymity = moron.

They do it because, as immature morons, they find it fun/funny.

And, as illustrated above, they lack the mental capacity to follow instructions.

[joe hx]

so does that mean we're spoiled here and customersuck?

i notice that sometimes people here get a little offended at one another, but it never gets blaring. maybe we just have awesome mods??

[BroomJockey]

Ordinary person + internet anonymity = moron.

And as proof, I offer this.

i notice that sometimes people here get a little offended at one another, but it never gets blaring.

Bad grammar?

I was sorta being flip with this previous post, but at the same time, I meant it completely. It seems odd, but CS has a "no grammar flames" rule, and we have it for a reason. Some of the worst fights on CS that I've seen started over a grammar/spelling correction done in a rude manner. I've seen hundreds of posts on other boards go in to grammar-based flame wars. I think that the rules on CS really help to reign in most of the ill-will between members.

Now, between members and mods, you would not believe the shit people think it's appropriate to say.

[guywithashovel]

I may upset some people for saying this, but I actually stopped coming to CS for a while because things very much like this were going on. There were several times when I would post comments and people would zero in on something I wrote, blow it entirely out of proportion, and then use it to make me look like something worse than Hitler. Also, I observed a few times when a thread would get closed and members would get scolded because someone expressed disagreement with one of the more popular users of the forum. This doesn't seem to happen much these days, though. Then again, I don't hang out on the main site very often, since I don't presently work in customer service. However, that might change, because I am having trouble finding a job that pertains to my degree. I might end up having to break down and get a service job to tide myself over until something professional comes along.

I guess when you get down to it, message boards aren't that much different from real life.

[powerboy]

Bad grammar?

you had to point that out. Are you trying to start something.

But seriously, I am glad that on here and CS.com, that the crap has gone way down.

[Lace Neil Singer]

As regards favouritism, sometimes it's just all in the head of the troublemaker.

For example; on a Kiss fan forum where I am one of the admins, we permabanned two users. One user was repentant, expressed as much on another fan run forum that she was, and apologised for her behaviour. She also did not try to get on the board again, or bugged the admins to let her re-join. After a while, the admins of this forum grew to trust the user, and like her a lot; she was given a second chance and was even made a mod with time.

Second user spent most of his time on the other board bitching about our board, made new accounts to try and get on and was eventually IP banned, constantly bitched and acted as tho he was greatly wronged. When the first user's ban was revoked, he started whining about favouritism. -.- Eventually, the other forum got sick of his whining, not to mention his constant rulebreaking, including the crime he had been banned from our forum for; and he was permabanned.

[protege]

Somewhat along those lines... my favorite argument has to be the "freedom of speech" one that many idiots make when they've been either banned, or had their post deleted. Sorry Charlie, but freedom of speech does *not* apply to private message boards. Content is subject to owner control. It's even more hilarious when they try to claim that their Constitutional rights have been violated...on boards that aren't even based out of the US

Right now, we're dealing with some idiots on the model car site I help moderate. Specifically, the idiots who post shitty photos, posts calling out the mods or trying to start trouble, and then get pissy when their things get trashed. I have no sympathy for those fools. Everything is covered in the site rules...which everyone has to agree to when they become a member. Don't want to agree to our terms? Fine, get lost!

[MadMike]

I wonder that myself sometimes. -.- I mean, after you've given a troublemaker several warnings, where you're telling them that their behaviour is unacceptable and that if they keep it up, they'll end up on a temp ban, and they keep on breaking rules and being rude... you end up wondering if they're completely dim. Especially if you do end up banning them; and they come back after their ban and whine about the injustice of their punishment even after they were warned several times. -.-

We've had a few winners like that on CS as well. Sometimes it happens -- we get a new user that doesn't fully understand the rules, and steps over the line. Usually a friendly warning is enough, but every so often we get someone who pisses and moans about it, and we either keep them or put them back on moderation, temp ban them, or in extreme cases just perma-ban them and be done with it.

I got called a Nazi by one of those geniuses one time. While I was impressed that he somehow knew I'm of German descent, I figured it would be best for everyone if I showed him the door permanently.

We've also caught a few of them trying to sneak back in. Doesn't happen that often, but a lot of the time they find a way to give themselves away.

[Flyndaran]

I haven't been a common poster to this forum for very long. But I haven't seen any mod backed favoritism.
I got temp banned on another forum for daring to argue with a forum favorite.
At least here when I get temp banned, I know that I almost certainly deserved it. My first thought when seeing that I have a mod message is, "Oh great, what did I do know?" and not, "Oh great, who did I tick off now... with my well reasoned arguments?"