Im not happy about the way the For Sale Board is being moderated....!

jd

"You have been temporairly banned for failing to adhere to the rules. Specifically, you broke rule XXX by doing YYY. As a result, you have recieved a 1 week ban. This ban will be lifted on DD/MM. We apologise if you are offended by recieving this ban, but we are rigid on the rules. Our aim is to make the boards a self policing society and to do so, we have to take a hard line."


Sure, it would be great to get a reply like that.

The admins have jobs..
boards <life-jobs.

If a particular board is getting out of order, a heavy hand may be needed to sort it out.

jd

Originally posted by jabaroon
It is not valid to say that it takes too long or too much effort to explain "why" to each user. It will certainly take less time for the admin to explain when enforcing the ban than when recieving a request for explanation at a later date, and being then required to look historically for justification.

I believe the above also explains my point around being required to send a PM to Vexorg to get an un-ban. Its not necessary if communication is concise and informative up-front. By removing redundancy, workload is reduced. [/B]

Are you in pr , marketing or sales?

jabaroon

I know that your not here to piss people off, but it seems like that is what is happening -- particularly around the classifieds forum. So lets try to fix it.

My point about competition is nothing more than -- thats what happens in general. Im not suggesting that it will or can, but the greater the level of dissatisfaction, the greater the appetite.

I dont view boards as some sort of dot com (its a dot IE !!). But Im not sure of the relevance or point. How are the suggestions that I am making negated or devalued?

I agree that the words inadequate or underperforming may be strong, but are no less powerfull than the counterparts that they intended to address. Using them is a demonstration of frustration on my behalf. However, my admittance of frustration should not detract from the point.

Ecksor, you comments are well thought out, informed and neutral. They are balanced and probing. I appreciate that, but you have not commented on the meat of the suggestions, only their delivery.

In reading this thread, I have not yet seen a firm resolve to deal with the issues -- moreover to just talk about them and argue about the language.

Can I be so bold as to say:
1) Can we admit that there is a problem
2) Can we resolve to correct it
3) Can we close this thread and start a new one that solicits positive solutions

jd

Jabaroon,
i did a quick search on your username-the vast majority of your posts are in the for sale boards.
Have you any interest in boards besides (perhaps commercially?) selling goods?

ecksor

Originally posted by jabaroon
I know that your not here to piss people off, but it seems like that is what is happening -- particularly around the classifieds forum. So lets try to fix it.

Sure. However pissing some people off is an unfortunate side effect that is unavoidable as far as I can see with the current way boards is run. We'll try to minimise that number of occasions where people get pissed off, but we're not really interested in changing how things work too much at this stage.

My point about competition is nothing more than -- thats what happens in general. Im not suggesting that it will or can, but the greater the level of dissatisfaction, the greater the appetite.

Yeah, I'm just trying to explain to you that we don't give a rats. We'll try to sort out complaints and offer a good service, but we don't have investors or a share price to worry about.

Ecksor, you comments are well thought out, informed and neutral. They are balanced and probing. I appreciate that, but you have not commented on the meat of the suggestions, only their delivery.

Vexorg is dealing with the meat of the issue here. I'm inclined to leave it to him and the For Sale mods. Your suggestions are appreciated I'm sure and you will no doubt get a response in the morning.

3) Can we close this thread and start a new one that solicits positive solutions

This thread is fine. We've asked for positive solutions on a few occasions on this thread and a few have been made.

Gordon

jabaroon - I really think that you should start thinking out of the box to be honest.

Vexorg

Jaberoon

Thanks for the feedback however my weak communication skills have meant you missed a point I have been trying to make time and time again

I too believe that the Classified boards are not being moderated correctly. Vexorg -- you are creating work for yourself and then complaining that you are too busy.

Quite the opposite in fact, for the last couple of year the approach has been softly softly... request that people stop and send a pm explaining what the problem is, and getting into long arguements while the offending post and or behavior continues.

This changed to : altering the post and explaining why and getting into long discussions with people yet they continued to...

This changed to banning and explaining why and getting into long discussions with people and yet they still continued to...

to where we are today, a couple of years down the line, a no explanation ban, no discussions, just read the rules.. short sweet and to the point... a lot less work.

The function of this approach is to bring it to everyone attention that there is now a zero tolerance for want of a better word approach in the for sale forums, the ultimate aim is to have the forum self policing, where the users prompt other users as to what the rules are and so no need for moderation....

So... how can reverting to an earlier method of moderating the forums result in a change in behavior, we know it doesnt work, we know this method seems to work but annoys a few people.

If I could ask you to re read the rules and the posts your thoughts again, I think you may be mis quoting a number of points to suit your final outcome... in doing so please realise that the work load has decreased radically as a result of the "ban" methodology in last couple of months, this was brought about to a) reduce the workload, and b) to bring attention to the rules.

The Muppet

This is a private web site and while it is open to the public, you do not have the same rights as a citizen of a country. Yes you can say what you like .... but the mods and admins and edit, delete and or ban if they feel it is needed...


Do you have anything constructive to say? Jaberoon is making an effort, even though he has not around long enough to see how the board was moderated over the last couple of years.

flav0rflav

zero tolerance ... to have the forum self policing

Here we see the birth of a new political dogma!

The Muppet

Devore Quote
"You have certain civil and human rights that are inalienable (like the right to life etc) but I'm curious which other rights you are refering to on a privately-owned website?"

---

Devore Where did i refer to Other Rights? Vexorg told me "I had absoloutly no rights here" as you point out above I do have rights. I work on a privately owned Radio Station that does not mean I can do and say as I like.

---

"Exactly what is your complaint as well? Were you not aware of that rule? Do you have a suggestion for a better way to mod beyond just disagreeing with Vex?"

---

If you have followed this thread from Its inception on the for sale board you should see my complaint but I will point it out to anyway.

A user of the for sale forum was banned for being helpful to me. He/She was banned for the for sending me a PM and VeX accused him of off board trading. When I pointed out openly on the forum that it was not off board trading insted of the ban being revoked by Vexorg I got a sarcastic reply telling us user that "we have absolutely no rights".
Just because you say it does not make it fact or correct. Users of this forum and any other public forum do indeed have rights weather the mods like it or not.

The solution you seek is simple , Do not to invoke stupid rules that in reality are unfair and uninforcable.

I also find it very wrong to accuse someone of "Jumping on the bandwagon" just because they expressed a differen opinion to the MODS and yet no criticism or action taken about the "shut the F**k Up Post above" .It says a lot about the quality of the Mods in this thread when a user is banned for sending a pm yet Ecksor can post Offensive Language with impunity.

As some one else has said why complain about the work load of modding the board. I Presume its a hooby so if the mods dont want to do it properly Ddnt do it at all. I,m Sure There are plenty of people here who would like to do it instead and do a better job at it.

ecksor

I was explaining your rights to you. What rights exactly are you talking about?

Vexorg

I feel that you are climbing onto the high moral ground here..

This is my position...

Someone on your thread posted "pm sent"... the rules clearly state that there is no off forum trading, and also that rules breaches will be met with a ban...

So "pm sent" gets a temporary ban, just like almost every other pm sent, pm me, email me @ phone me @ gets a ban, your pm person was treated like everyone else.

I even posted saying why the guy was banned.

You then posted saying it was unfair as he was being helpful, and "you are correct", however on a for sale forum you might that 99% of pm are bids the other 1% being excahnge of contact details at the end of a sale. Its would be highly unusual in my opinion for someone to send a pm about what sort of ram to buy on a for sale thread.....

howver the rules are clear, the rules were broken the guy was banned

You however added a few comments about my application of the rules, as if I banned the person knowing full well that the pm was not off topic trading, as opposed to banning him for the rule breach.

Regarding the rules... they also clearly state that of you dont like them, fell free to use other sales outlets.... so no apology is made for them... if you think they are stupid, fine... but they are there for a purpose...

Yet again you misquote... please understand since the rules are being strictly enforced, the workload has dramatically reduced... it has not increased... i repeat it has not increased, the rules enforcement has reduced the workload.

spongebob

soc.culture.irish is democratic.

go there instead.

The Muppet

Vexorg
I understand your position

I am not trying to take the high moral ground over the ecksor post in fact i found it humorous but it does break the board rules and if we are to have Zero Tolerance as the mods claim well then it is only fair that you are consistant in your action so i await your action against ecksor.

your stock answer to my criticism seems to be if i dont like it go somewhere else and my reply to that is that people react to situations in different ways. some people would have just accepted your initial action others would indeed have just gone elsewhere and then the ones like me will stand up and be counted thats just human nature.

I do accept that you thought there was off post trading which is a breach of the rules and as such deserves a ban but when i posted the facts about the pm you could have just revoked the ban insted of posting your sarcastic rant and saved us all this bother. I Now that you have appear accepted that the ban was unfair have you revoked it?

The rule about pms is flawed and uninforceable and shoule be revoked in my opinion.

finally i want to address you comment about your workload. If The government were to ban driving it would cut down the workload of a lot of people but would it be right and would we accept it for those reasons. If The mods dont have the time to mod properly then they should seek assistance or step down and let someone with more time on thier hands take over

Thorbar

Jesus someone should really introduce jabaroon and The Muppet to Radox they'd fit right in there with all this PR ****e.

jabaroon you're command of the English language is impressive and I'm sure when you stick in all fancy superlatives you turn a few heads in the board room but from the content of your posts its painfully obvious you have little understanding of how boards works. I suggest you take a step back for a while and see what the story is before you start talking from a high on how things can be improved.

Basically what it comes down to lads is that the admins of boards are going to run this community in a particular way which they think is best. They aren't going to fall over themselves trying change how the place is run if someone walks in here and starts sprouting opinions just because someone stood on his toes. So as has been said several times you can either lump it or leave it.

One of the reasons I've been coming back to this site for two and a half years is because the admins are brave enough to do things the way they know is best.

Vexorg

The Muppet..

Im sorry but you seem to have lost me somewhere...

What do you think i need to talk to ecksor about? I dont remember him ever posting in the for sale forum... have I missed something?

Feel free to misquote me anytime you fancy btw.... stock answers and all...

The ban has not been lifted, I have already tried to contact the banned individual to confirm.. i await their response....

Please explain how the pm rule is flawed and have alook in the sin bin and tell me how that it has been unenforcable....

I honestly believe you have no idea what you are talking about... you misquote me endlessy.. are you new to bulletin boards and the way they are run? please feel free to correct me....

Thx

Vex.

Thorbar

Originally posted by The Muppet
Vexorg
I understand your position

I am not trying to take the high moral ground over the ecksor post in fact i found it humorous but it does break the board rules and if we are to have Zero Tolerance as the mods claim well then it is only fair that you are consistant in your action so i await your action against ecksor.

There's a zero Tolerance policy on the For Sale board, there isn't one in affect on this board. I suggest you start reading the forum rules which can be found on the top of most forums.

your stock answer to my criticism seems to be if i dont like it go somewhere else and my reply to that is that people react to situations in different ways. some people would have just accepted your initial action others would indeed have just gone elsewhere and then the ones like me will stand up and be counted thats just human nature.

Nothing wrong with pointing out if you think something is wrong with the way boards is being run. But I'm pretty sure the lads have already said a few times that they don't have the time to address every individual issue. One thing that really pisses me off is when people who come onto this site and complain about not getting enough attention from the admins/mods. Do you have any idea of the time and money this people have put into this community of the years and have expected nothing in return.

I do accept that you thought there was off post trading which is a breach of the rules and as such deserves a ban but when i posted the facts about the pm you could have just revoked the ban insted of posting your sarcastic rant and saved us all this bother. I Now that you have appear accepted that the ban was unfair have you revoked it?

What's the point in having a zero tolerance policy if you're going to revoke it. You're not allowed to send pms, someone sent you a pm and got banned where's the problem here?

The rule about pms is flawed and uninforceable and shoule be revoked in my opinion.

How is it flawed? It makes sure that everyone has a fair chance of taking part in any deals made on the board and it also makes the whole process transparent so that if someone is ****ing about (ie claiming they got a certain offer in pm to push up the price) they will get called on it. I think vex has already proven that he is more then able to inforce this rule.

finally i want to address you comment about your workload. If The government were to ban driving it would cut down the workload of a lot of people but would it be right and would we accept it for those reasons. If The mods dont have the time to mod properly then they should seek assistance or step down and let someone with more time on thier hands take over [/B]

This would be a valid point if boards actually charged for its service and in turn paid its mods.

DeVore

Wooooaahh! Go Thorbar! Nail. Hammer. *thump*.


I have nothing more useful to add to this thread at this time but I am enjoying it thoroughly.

DeV (the slightly tipsie).

Gordon

The thing about boards is the fact that it is a community. The Muppet (unfortunately chosen name btw) seems to see this place as a way of increasing sales and furthering the holy grail of Free Trade to one and all. Such paybacks to a community in this sphere would lead to a heightened growth in the size of the community.

The unfortunate thing is that in the past the For Sale board has been a hive for serious chugnuts that fall through on their promise of meeting people after an agreement is made. In fact there has been at least one chugnut that has handed over illegal tender to pay for goods. This pisses me off as I'm sure it pisses off the Admins (who pay for this community).

To have a community that is happy to have goods traded at cheap prices is a great thing but what about the chugnuts that illegally trade stolen/bloated priced goods? Well they should be tracked shouldn't they? Don't you want to be protected in a sale? I see these new rules as a heavy handed approach to protecting the buyer and the seller from spurious offers/sales. It may be harsh but any information spoken in a pm is not trackable afaik. If anyone that is complaining about these rules ever got arsed over by some gimp with a dodgy bankers draft - was pm'd the details of the person with the bankers draft and promptly deleted the pm - what can you do? Nothing.

To be all marketingy about this issue - it is for your security.

Can I just say again - the Admins pay for this site. You do not.


/edit - didn't see Thorbars response

ecksor

Originally posted by The Muppet
I am not trying to take the high moral ground over the ecksor post in fact i found it humorous but it does break the board rules and if we are to have Zero Tolerance as the mods claim well then it is only fair that you are consistant in your action so i await your action against ecksor.

What rule did I break? What's an appropriate course of action? Why do you care?

You still haven't answered my question, what rights are you talking about? My post was phrased in a way that attempted to be humourous, but the basic message was genuine. Learn a bit about how boards works and then offer your advice on how to do things.

GuanYin

Guys don't discourage him.

This is internet entertainment at its best.....


<eats popcorn>
Munch, munch, munch
</eats popcorn>

Capt'n Midnight

In reply to

How would you feel if you were to call your PC supplier to complain that it was defective and were told that you had "absolutely no rights ... what-so-ever" (for whatever reason)? Such a response would clearly make you:

A) Happy, content, satisfied, empowered, motivated
Upset, angry, belittled, disabled

People do have one right that can never be 'banned'. That is the right to choose. How many services (and web sites) do you know of that have spawned through dissatisfaction with a compeditor? Just a thought.

in a single word Microsoft.

===================================
In China they have a saying - "the people in the free seats hiss loudest."
Just wondering what this thread would look like if - classifieds - was subscription or commission based...

DeVore

You do have one final complaint-system though. Its accessed through the [X] button top right.

We run this site as we see fit. We didnt ask you to come here and we arent being rude... we're just going for a ride on the internet and everyone is welcome to join us. It makes the trip more fun. But we're driving and you can ride with us as far as we are going the same direction.

I have a question for you though: if people were dissatisfied with us... why the hell is our bandwidth usage getting *scary*.

DeV.

Keeks

:rolleyes:

Thats All i really have to say on the matter.

I don't really see what the problem is. Peopl get banned for breaking the rules. If u read the rules and followed them then you won't get banned. Its that simple.

I went to a lot of trouble doing up the current set of rules. Original we only followed two, "No muppets" and "No ileggal stuff". i was grand and happy to leave it at that but we got complaints. Thats when I did up the big list. It covers almost everything. there is nearly a complete list of every item that is banned from the board in it. I've included some rules etiquette and on what to do when a deal is aggreed. From time to time the rules are updated, but we put the rule chnges in seperate thread and make them stickies, so everyone can see them.

Now the rules aren't perfect. And they are not going to agree with everyone. If you think there is a problem let me know.

I was grand and happy b4 letting people get away with small things. But not there is too much niggly ****. For now the Zero Tolerance approch will continue until EVERYONE reads the rules and toes the line. ANd I don't get a fiddlers **** who I piss off.



P.S. I will be updating the rules in the next day or two to include the latest additions

amp

This is.................... hardcore

DeVore

...and again with the pr0n. *sigh*

DeV.

sceptre

I know you all know how I hate poking my nose into these "I have rights, you know" threads with some Seamus rambling reasoning (cough) but here goes anyway

Originally posted by The Muppet
I do accept that you thought there was off post trading which is a breach of the rules and as such deserves a ban but when i posted the facts about the pm you could have just revoked the ban insted of posting your sarcastic rant and saved us all this bother. I Now that you have appear accepted that the ban was unfair have you revoked it?

The rule about pms is flawed and uninforceable and shoule be revoked in my opinion.

See, here's the thing. If the rule becomes "a PM sent will result in a banning unless you can later produce the PM to result in the banning being lifted early" rather than "send PMs and be banned" it would be very unworkable as Vexorg and the other mods would spend a silly amount of time reading PMs sent by people who didn't read the rules. Banning people for sending PMs (and announcing it) is extremely workable as well as treating all users the same. Any other system could be viewed as unfair and treating different users differently. This one isn't.

As Thorbar put it very well:

Originally posted by Thorbar
What's the point in having a zero tolerance policy if you're going to revoke it. You're not allowed to send pms, someone sent you a pm and got banned where's the problem here?

Originally posted by The Muppet If The government were to ban driving it would cut down the workload of a lot of people but would it be right and would we accept it for those reasons.

Back to the "boards is not a democratic state unlike the country you live in and get to vote in" argument. That's been very well addressed so I won't bother retreading the track. Additionally though, here's an analogy for you. Tax discs. You will be fined for not displaying your current tax disc even if you have in fact paid your car tax for the current period. That's to cut down on unnecessary bureaucracy, eliminate people going "but but" and treats everyone the same on the basis of freely available and publicly displayed rules. How relevant is that analogy? Probably not relevant at all but at least as relevant as "if the government were to ban driving"

Originally posted by The Muppet
Vexorg told me "I had absoloutly no rights here" as you point out above I do have rights. I work on a privately owned Radio Station that does not mean I can do and say as I like.

A number of things govern what you can say on the radio station you work for:

The law of the land (libel , slander etc) - You can say it but you may get sued for it. These rights also apply on boards.ie. They're not rights though, they're limits. They only become rights when other people say them about you.

What the owners want you to say or not to say - Here's the central argument. Again we're talking more about limits than rights. As a privately held organisation (could equally apply on RTE, I'm only using the word "privately" because you did) the owners of the mudium have the final say in what you can or can't say, when you can say it or whether you can even get in the door. Those are their rights, for you, they're limits.
(obviously you've got employment & contract rights at your place of work but you work there, not for boards.ie)

Freedom of speech - I'm guessing that this is what we're really talking about. To make it easy, I'll ignore the "I've got the right to be heard" argument as I'm going to address it using the last part (rights of the owners). If you want the right to be heard, you've got the right to do that on a street corner (actually there are quite a few limits there too but you work for a radio station so you probably know about them). You don't have the right to free speech in my back yard or anyone else's front room when using any communications medium unless the owner of that medium has given you permission, explicit or implied, to use that medium in that manner. By medium, I'm referring to the physical layer (the boards.ie server (also private property)) rather than referring to your right to communicate on the Internet.

So essentially, your posting on boards.ie is analagous to walking into a public house (private property but available to the public) and being told that you can't use a particular room available to other members of the public because last time you went in there you broke the rules that were available on leaflets as you walked in.

Those are your rights - as private property available to all by default invitation, you've got the right to enter if permitted, use the facilities that are allocated for your use, specifically the ones you are permitted to use - or to leave if that doesn't suit you. Those are your legal rights - just the rights that the property owners say you can have. That and nothing more.

(before someone points out the Equality Acts, I'm only using the public house analogy as just that - an analogy. In any case the Equality Acts make specific reference to reasons for refusal and doing an impression of a muppet (or being The Muppet:)) isn't a reason that would fall foul of the law)

Talliesin

Originally posted by The Muppet
…and then the ones like me will stand up and be counted…

1

flav0rflav

I'm surprised to see you're all such market controlling, anti-freedom of speech, law enforcing, police state-ers.

But hey if that's the way it is here, I'm sure the internet will find a route around it.

From someones sig http://www.politicalcompass.org

The Ritz

This is one of the best threads I've read this year, here or anywhere else.....

I'd like to return to the original "offence" which sparked off this thread - Why the f**k did the guy have to post "you've got PM"/whatever in the for sale forum ?? If you send someone PM they should get a pop-up the next time they logon.... The usual way (where it's allowed....) to indicate that you're "first in the queue" is to say "PM sent"/whtever..... perfectly understandable banning offence - only banned from For Sale... 1 week - no big deal....

The real issue here is whether For Sale has some level of predictability - transparent Sales, no scams. etc. The rules are so obvious that I reckon it's just a matter of time before they're bedded in - and it's the right way to go, imo.

As for the "free speech" democracy" stuff (and all that PR/Marketing/cowmanure stuff lol) .......... the following must be a classic - although I suspect it's not the first time it's been enunciated.......

We run this site as we see fit. We didnt ask you to come here and we arent being rude... we're just going for a ride on the internet and everyone is welcome to join us. It makes the trip more fun. But we're driving and you can ride with us as far as we are going the same direction.

/me goes to get my basket of rose-petals and tuck some soft towels beneath my pert..................... when I've finished with DeV I'll be along to tend to Vex (again !!)



The Ritzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

flav0rflav

windowlicker