Message Board Moderates Who Aren't Consistent (not here or CS)

[MaggieTheCat]

So, there's this other forum that I go to that has a rule similar to CS about spoilers. Basically, if your thread has spoilers to a game/movie/book/whatever in it, you have to mark it in the topic title. They take it a step further, too, and state that if a specific post within a thread has a spoiler that pertains to a different topic than the one at hand, your post has to be marked with a giant "SPOILERS" tag along with a brief description of what the spoiler is about.

Example:
The thread title is "Luke Skywalker (spoilers)" in which the OP reveals who Luke's father is. If someone wants to comment further on Luke's father and reveal some other information on him -- say, for example, who his wife was -- they would have to start their post with "Luke's father & mother SPOILERS" or something similar followed by a bunch of blank lines to warn people that there are spoilers about Luke's parents coming.

Okay, I get it. There's bound to be someone who's reading a thread about Luke Skywalker and stumbles upon some info about him or his parents that they didn't want to know and they're going to get uppity about it.

I was part of a discussion about a certain video game on this other message board, in which the topic title clearly has a spoilers warning in it, but only about 2 particular characters. I made a post that spoiled something about a different character and the mods jumped all over me for it and deleted my post. The next day, someone else posted THE EXACT SAME SPOILER that I had posted, and their post didn't get deleted (I even marked it for moderation, since the mods generally don't look at most threads unless they get marked, so they can't use the excuse that they missed it.) Inconsistency, much?

Edit to add: I just want to say that this really makes me appreciate the mods here/on CS even more. You guys rock!

[Lace Neil Singer]

I have to say that the forums where I mod, I'm consistant; but sometimes that gets me yelled at. Once, a girl that I'd friended there started being horribly rude to a fellow staff member. I told her off and gave her a warning. She then started a campaign of nastiness, ending in her eventually bannage, just cuz the fact that she'd friended me didn't shield her from breaking the rules.

However, there are a lot of forum staff who go the other way and shield their friends from punishments, which might have been the case in your story; that person was a mod's friend and therefore excempt.

[guywithashovel]

I used to be a pretty regular participant on CS a few years ago, and I actually stopping using the boards for a long time because I had gotten irked with some of the mods. They weren't necessarily doing stuff like what you described, but I did notice that a few of them were letting their status as moderators go to their heads a bit. It was just two or three of them, though, and unless they have changed their names and their attitudes, they are not active on the boards anymore, because I haven't seen them around since I came back. However, I rarely ever use the CS boards these days since I don't work in customer service anymore, so maybe they stay there.

It had just gotten to a point where they were jumping all over the board's participants for petty reasons. It seemed like almost every other day one of them was posting a new sticky thread browbeating the members for minuscule things. This also happened in the threads. Several of my threads, as well as other people's threads, got edited down for petty reasons, and several people got chewed out for things that really didn't matter. And if any of the members questioned these moderators' actions, they (the mods) would get high and mighty and lecture about how "they had a responsibility to fulfill, and that the mods weren't just there to talk to and joke around with."

Eventually, I just gave up and left the board for a while. At the time, I was working in a really crappy job, and I was getting enough of that kind of garbage at work. I didn't need it at home in my down time, too.

And yes, the mods who are here now are pretty cool.

[Rapscallion]

From the perspective of having taken over some ... nearly four years back now. Blimey, time has flown! Anyway, generally speaking the average forum member is a fairly decent person.

Of the complaints we get involved with (and some we just ignore because the complaint is groundless), and I'm working from just memory here, approximately half involve the person involved holding up their hands and saying 'oops' or similar. About half involve some back and forth, but generally speaking the rules are there because it makes everyones' lives easier. That's usually forgotten about within a day or three, though. The remainder are the ones where we have to spend time arguing back and forth, pointing out that the first amendment doesn't apply, that they're ignoring exactly what they did etc.

We have an infraction system - we don't use it unless we have to. I'd far rather have a community where the moderators are there as members first and only act as moderators when they have to be. I'd also far rather have a group of members who act right because they want to work with the system rather than do it because of fear.

Rapscallion

[Flyndaran]

I frequent a forum with a particular mod that I dislike and who dislikes me. He reads my posts in the worst possible way. He got me banned a few times. Though one was so over the top the other mods overruled him.

[guywithashovel]

Several years ago, there was a mod here on CS who ended up getting himself banned because he abused his moderator status. He was really young when he become a mod, too. I think he was only 14 or 15. Greg was his name, I believe.

[MadMike]

Several years ago, there was a mod here on CS who ended up getting himself banned because he abused his moderator status. He was really young when he become a mod, too. I think he was only 14 or 15. Greg was his name, I believe.

Wow, that goes back a ways, before I was even a member, let alone a moderator. I was around for some of the aftermath, but none of the original incident.

If you're going back that far, then I'll agree there have been some moderators who should never have been given the position. Thankfully, they're all long gone.

[Flyndaran]

I like it here. If I get banned here, my first thought is, "Great! What did I do now?" and not, "Great! What valid statements ticked off the mods?"

[Rapscallion]

Of course, the trick to this is to think before posting about whether or not it would get someone banned

Rapscallion

[Lace Neil Singer]

On the forums where I admin, the youngest mod is seventeen. We never give kids mod jobs, cuz once there was a twelve year old mod who horribly abused her status. This was way way way back, when I wasn't on the forum staff.

[LewisLegion]

Can I ask you mods a question? Having never been banned from CS, when you ban someone do you email them or in another manner let them KNOW why they've been banned?

I've only been banned from a message board once. Well, twice, actually, but both from the same board. They posted a thread on the board as to WHY I had been banned (totally stupid reasons taken completely out of context) but since I was banned I couldn't access the boards at all even as read-only. No warning, no nothing, just a full IP ban. I had to get a friend in another state to pull up the boards to find out what I'd done. When I emailed the administrator my emails went ignored.

The first time I had gotten banned I'd been a member for two years. I posted a thread saying basically 'hey, look at this artwork I did' with a picture I had done of a couple characters in my online comic. No link to the comic, no mention of the comic, just 'look at my pretty'. I came back an hour later and found myself banned. They posted that I had been banned for 'soliciting an outside website'. That got my WORK IP banned for life.

My home IP still worked so I signed up under a new name and just stayed as a reader for a couple of years (I really liked the members and the information they shared was extremely helpful). I didn't post again at all for a few years and finally started getting back into discussions. I started doing some dream interpretations and it got out of hand...I was getting a hundred emails a day from people on the boards who wanted interpretations. I finally posted that I was sorry, I was getting overwhelmed and had to stop on the interpretations, there were just too many and it was starting to interfere with my work and income.

Next day, banned again. Friend went on the board and found out that I had been banned for 'soliciting' again, this time they said they had expected me to start charging for the interpretations from the beginning and now that I was I was banned for life (keep in mind, I can't access the boards at all now to read this explination). My email to the admin saying basically 'wtf? When did I ever say that I was going to charge for interps?) was completely ignored.

I was furious. Haven't been back to that board since and lost contact with a great number of people I was friends with because of it.

[Rapscallion]

Bans, when set correctly, display a reason for the ban on the screen when the person tries to log in. Spammers usually don't get that privelege, but they're expecting it anyway (most aren't spambots, but rather cube workers in China employed to get around human verification, from what I understand).

We ban rarely, and if someone is about to be banned they generally know it. We sometimes do it without warning, but that's generally reserved for trolls etc, and it's always done for the good of the board. Some people just dare us to ban them by their actions.

We prefer to step in and close threads with a divertory note to Fratching, or delete threads. Some of them seem innocent enough, but we've been down the road often enough to know that there is only one possible outcome to some topics, and that's a fratching-type encounter on the main board. Politics, religion, and so forth - including tipping, oddly enough.

The situation you describe sounds ludicrous - unless someone's got members they can throw away, then that's ridiculous. Links to non-profit personal sites, fine. Links to something funny or interesting, fine. We're not the only site around, and we get linked quite a bit as well - all's good, save for when someone only signs up to advertise their stuff. Continuously linking to the same site will get our attention - I don't put adverts on CS.com, so there's no way I'm letting anyone else do that. Slightly different on DP forum, but it's a different culture. We think it's a happy medium. Comments on this welcome.

It's rare we will make any comment about why someone was banned. As a general principle, that's between us and them. The Kayem saga (where we were maligned on PFB and it got linked three times on the PFB section) was one where we broke tradition as many people had seen it and were posting it, thinking they were the first. However, we appealed for calm and dignity in that one.

Of course, then I went on the rampage on PFB, but that's me paying for the privelege.

Interestingly, I found your last comment the most pertinent, but for different reasons. Many people don't realise how good a friend you can have on the Internet without having met the person. I regard quite a number of forumers as friends to a certain extent, several as really good friends, and it can be a blow to lose them.

Rapscallion

[Lace Neil Singer]

On the board I admin at, it takes a hell of a lot to get even just a temp ban of 48 hours. The forum staff give out warnings on profiles first, then PM warnings and infractions. If someone is just not listening, then little black marks are slowly notched up til they get too many and a ban is set. If, however, a user starts harrassing or abusing forum staff, then all bets are off; the banstick is applied. For some reason, a lot of people online seem to think that the forum staff are a) required to bend over backwards for them and take every bit abuse thrown, still smiling and being nice and b) not allowed to retaliate. Much the same as SCs, really.

[LewisLegion]

It was a fairly large board, the largest of its particular kind, I believe...with hundreds of members. I think I've been around long enough that you guys know I'm hardly abusive/spamming/trolling, etc.

Heck, it was a couple years ago and I'm STILL mad about it. To me that's a flagrant abuse of power when you simply don't take the time to do warnings, or even tell the person why they were banned when it's clear they're not a troll/bot/spammer.

[Rapscallion]

Actually, I remember that you used to post stories about a retail worker on CS.com way back before I took over. I'm right about that, yes?

Rapscallion