Being banned

cleareyed

I can find no guidelines or policy statements regarding bans by mods. Some suggestions: banning people without warning and without giving them a chance to know their offence violates natural justice. It is unlikely that anyone would be bothered to sue you but if they did they would win.
I ask you to put a clear policy in place that applies to all boards and that gives people a chance to defend themselves. The current arbitrary practice is a throwback to an authoritarianism that is long since dead. Whatever happened to the spirit of the net?

BuffyBot

Whatever happened to the spirit of the net?

It got smothered under the weight of people whining.

tuxy

well reading the charter if the forums has one helps understand the rules

seamus

Originally posted by cleareyed
I can find no guidelines or policy statements regarding bans by mods. Some suggestions: banning people without warning and without giving them a chance to know their offence violates natural justice. It is unlikely that anyone would be bothered to sue you but if they did they would win.

Win what? What have they to sue over? There's no violation of any "natural justice". The term "offence" doesn't apply here. You have zero rights here. Mods have the right to ban you from whatever board for whatever reason they wish, and there's nothing you can do about it.
But we don't, because we have no wish to see boards go down that kind of road any more than you do. The mods are probably the most active users of the community, and the ones who benefit from it the most, so transparency and co-operation are as much in our own interests as anyone else's.

As for your ban, well irrespective of the fact that you reposted something which was quite obviously deleted for a reason, that thread clearly states that anyone that posts there a second time will be banned without warning. You got off lightly in that I unbanned you when you contacted me, instead of enforcing the permanent ban that I set out in that thread.

Lump

As my charter in College work says, "Don't be a mong, banning is at the moderators discreation" it seems to have worked, haven't had to warn/ban anyone yet.


John

therecklessone

Originally posted by BuffyBot
It got smothered under the weight of people whining.

Post of the year, nay, the decade.

amp

Originally posted by cleareyed
I can find no guidelines or policy statements regarding bans by mods. Some suggestions: banning people without warning and without giving them a chance to know their offence violates natural justice. It is unlikely that anyone would be bothered to sue you but if they did they would win.
I ask you to put a clear policy in place that applies to all boards and that gives people a chance to defend themselves. The current arbitrary practice is a throwback to an authoritarianism that is long since dead. Whatever happened to the spirit of the net?

Funniest post evar.

CuLT

The popular "spirit of the net" is embodied in the grossly exaggerated, but highly entertaining film "Hackers".

What happen was that the internet became usable by people who would otherwise look at a computer and try to put toast in it.

CuLT's History of the Internet

In the beginning there was nerd.

The CIA looked at this and saw that it was good. But soon the nerd tired of talking to himself all night long and drinking jolt cola.
The CIA saw this and decided to allow nerd the ability to develop a 'network'.

And lo, for a while nerd was happy. But alas he had a bitch of a time talking to other people in very much the same way Morpheus first communicates with Neo in the matrix, but without Roger Wilco.

So, nerd was allowed to expand his network and make it easier to access.
Thus a light shone unto the network and people who were 'quite clever' were able to use this Network.

But nerd was insatiable, he wanted more and more people to talk to, and thus created an even easier method by which to use the Network.
Thus it became accessible to geeks and the Internet was spawned in the blaze of the new morning standard CET.

But now the Internet began to expand itself, nerd could not contain it, it was made DEAD EASY to use and a sheaf of morons known as 'the rest of the world' got "Online" to "Surf" and use buzzwords and talk about cool stuff like Nerf balls.

Taking torch in hand, nerd set about creating a hierarchy, taking the place of CIA itself.
And "Admins" were born unto the net as more than just 'a guy with a website'.
And usenet became bulletin boards, black background became white backgrounds, hypertext markup language became a mystical thing, :) became and all changed.

Many of the geeks lived through the 'end of the refuge for computer people' and were given magical powers to edit stuff and make stickies in forums.

Thus, the mod was born.

mr_angry

Originally posted by tuxy
well reading the charter if the forums has one helps understand the rules

Exactly. If you wish to understand the rules, you have to go to the trouble of reading them. Most people never take the time (I know I didn't), and only realise the purpose of the charter after they've been banned, or at least got in trouble.

Big Ears

Originally posted by tuxy
well reading the charter if the forums has one helps understand the rules

oh Mr.High Horse who got his own brother banned from the soccer forum .

and then got himself banned :rolleyes:

cleareyed

To avoid confusion: I am making a suggestion for the entire boards website, not commenting on a particular case. I offered the reasoning behind my suggestions. To those who know nothing of how people can seek legal redress (amp, therecklessone, seamus) it is news, but to anyone who has met it before it is all too familiar.
I also said, and I repeat here for the lazy, that I doubt if anyone would ever be arsed to go down the legal route but if they did I am confident that they would win. Simply put, you have to be reasonable in dealing with people and reasonable means warning people and giving them a chance to defend themselves. That is the natural justice I referred to; it is well established in Irish legal case history. There is of course another time-honoured response to banning which is to have multiple usernames; it makes a nonsense of the claim “that there is nothing you can do about it.”
I hope any fair minded person reading this contribution will agree that the tone is reasonable: classifying it as a whine shows an inability to consider issues at anything beyond surface level and reveals more about the poster than it does about this contribution.
Finally amp may wish to know that “ever” is spelt with a final “e”, not an “a”.
Signed: Well, I used to be cleareyed, :cool:

ecksor

Would you have sued us if you hadn't been unbanned? I'm tempted to ban you again just to watch what you do.

cleareyed

Dont be afraid to criticise, if you are civil and backup your point with a reasonable argument you'll find us reasonable people.

No I would not. I couldn't be arsed. I don't have the money. I don't have the time. I would have signed up with other names.
I offer the above quote from somewhere or other. It's nonsense isn't it?

ecksor

Your argument isn't actually reasonable though, is it? You're not inclined to sue us and we have every right to ban you from posting so I don't see what grounds you would sue us on. How is that reasonable?

Did you not get a reasonable outcome from seamus when you started PMing him? It looked reasonable to me.

cleareyed

I repeat. I would not. I am making a suggestion for the boards' policy on banning. I am not talking about my case. It is not personal.

I don't see what grounds you would sue us on.

Unreasonable policy: no chance to defend, no warnings.
If you deny someone the right to post you must do so reasonably. Hence my references to natural justice.

I was reasonably happy with the outcome of my own case with seamus.

On the other hand you threatened a ban "just to watch what you do". Do you think that would have been fair? Reasonable? In keeping with the advertised policy of this forum which I quoted above?

Final question; have the ppl who run this website ever got legal advice on the various issues which may arise from running it? On my short travels through the site I have come across a few things which strike me (but I am no expert) as leaving ppl open to some grief. It might be worth your while.

ecksor

Originally posted by cleareyed
I repeat. I would not. I am making a suggestion for the boards' policy on banning. I am not talking about my case. It is not personal.

So what?

Unreasonable policy: no chance to defend, no warnings.
If you deny someone the right to post you must do so reasonably. Hence my references to natural justice.

You keep referring to it, but it's still irrelevant. I ban many users without warning and will continue to do so as I see fit. Similarly I warn many users that they're walking on the line. There's a judgement call to be made that gets made by the moderators every day.

On the other hand you threatened a ban "just to watch what you do". Do you think that would have been fair? Reasonable? In keeping with the advertised policy of this forum which I quoted above?

We don't have a policy, you quoted some advice on how to proceed with complaints on these forums. I don't believe you have any grounds to start talking about legal machinery in this case, so I don't find your argument reasonable at all. Do you have anything other than your belief that it's true with which to argue that it is true?

Your responses on this thread have been to point out how everyone disagreeing with you is wrong and you're right, which doesn't strike me as reasonable either, but I'm biased because I think you're wrong.

Final question; have the ppl who run this website ever got legal advice on the various issues which may arise from running it?

No, we've been waiting patiently for you to happen along and tell us how to do things after your first 5 minutes of posting.

On my short travels through the site I have come across a few things which strike me (but I am no expert) as leaving ppl open to some grief. It might be worth your while.

That's a risk of doing this sort of thing. Overall the moderators keep a very good eye on things.

By the way, seamus didn't deny you the "right to post", he denied you the privilege of posting, I'd appreciate it if people got that right.

cleareyed

No, we've been waiting patiently for you to happen along and tell us how to do things after your first 5 minutes of posting.

That's a "yes" then.
If that advice has been that the ppl who ban posters do not have to worry about a challenge to their procedures on the basis that they do not allow people a chance to defend themselves, well and good. That advice contradicts what I know about fair procedures. What I have posted here was simply a suggestion based on my knowledge of fair procedures as they apply to me every day of my working life.

The policy I quoted was "Don't be afraid to criticise, if you are civil and backup your point with a reasonable argument you'll find us reasonable people." It may have been unclear that I was referring to the Feedback forum which said it welcomed criticism. My point was that you threatened a ban "just to watch what you do" which is a contradiction of that policy of welcoming reasonable and civil criticism. It is also provocative and uncivil. If you expect civility from others shouldn't you set an example? Am I being unreasonable?

I will not add further to this thread until I see what outcome, if any, there is.

BuffyBot

That's a "yes" then.

Yes :rolleyes:

Am I being unreasonable?

Yes :rolleyes:

I will not add further to this thread until I see what outcome, if any, there is.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!

ecksor

Originally posted by cleareyed
What I have posted here was simply a suggestion based on my knowledge of fair procedures as they apply to me every day of my working life.

Then call it that, don't insist that it is a legal problem when it isn't, that just gets my back up.

For the record, banning without warning is often justified when people cross the line, and you always have a facility to find out what your offence was, either on the admin forums or the prison forum.

The policy I quoted was "Don't be afraid to criticise, if you are civil and backup your point with a reasonable argument you'll find us reasonable people."

That isn't a policy and your argument wasn't reasonable anyway.

My point was that you threatened a ban "just to watch what you do" which is a contradiction of that policy of welcoming reasonable and civil criticism. It is also provocative and uncivil. If you expect civility from others shouldn't you set an example? Am I being unreasonable?

I was trying to make a point to you which has flown far over your head.

I will not add further to this thread until I see what outcome, if any, there is.

At this point I feel confident that there will not be any outcome.

Victor

Originally posted by cleareyed
Some suggestions: banning people without warning and without giving them a chance to know their offence violates natural justice.

Sorry, Darwin says natural justice violates natural selection. Yes, some people are just too stupid.

therecklessone

Originally posted by cleareyed

Finally amp may wish to know that “ever” is spelt with a final “e”, not an “a”.

See, even if everything else you said was fair and reasoned, all I'm seeing is

SPELLING NAZI!

Gordon

Godwin you say?

Personally I would say that your quote "banning people without warning and without giving them a chance to know their offence violates natural justice" is incorrect. It would be more correct to say "banning people without warning and without giving them a chance to know their offence offends preferred social etiquette." I think that natural justice most definately occurs when one is banned for no apparent reason and no clue is given to the reasons behind such banning. This is the way of the world we live in - hence is very natural the justice given.

Lump

Ban I say.



John

BuffyBot

I need to lay off using Herbal Essences while reading these boards...

Big Ears

do new users not know that boards isnt a democracy , and that the mods/Admins are the law ? .........im gonna answer my own question and so no .

Admins have the right to ban people at their own discretion , without explanation because they own the place .

and if things wearnt like this , it would be much worse , democracy dosent work on internet sites .

sceptre

Originally posted by cleareyed
To those who know nothing of how people can seek legal redress (amp, therecklessone, seamus) it is news, but to anyone who has met it before it is all too familiar.
I also said, and I repeat here for the lazy, that I doubt if anyone would ever be arsed to go down the legal route but if they did I am confident that they would win.

OK, as someone who does know something of how people can and do seek legal redress, I'll bite.

First of all, this isn't a public park - it's a privately run website and I don't own any of it[1]. I don't know anything of your particular case but you didn't pay any money to post here. Everyone receives an email after they sign up and there are a number of interesting and relevant items in there. Each board has a charter and there are rules laid out in there. All available before a single post is made. If you're thinking libel please say so as it's long-winded enough that it'd be handy to know in advance if you're thinking along those lines but frankly you'd be lucky there too unless specific allegations are being made (putting a real name in there would help as well).

I can't see anything unless really specific things are done so get a bit more specific than "to those who have no idea about..." wouldya? "Natural justice" doesn't cut it I'm afraid.


[1]There are various things I retain even after using this site. I retain the copyright to my own babblings. I still don't own any of the site though.

ozt9vdujny3srf

Thing i find funny about this is how this user that is so miffed about how some banning works is so naive of how practically every private entity in the world operates..
"The management reserve the right to refuse access" ring any bells?

Victor

Originally posted by Truckle
"The management reserve the right to refuse access" ring any bells?

OPPRESSOR!

The Clown Man

Originally posted by sceptre
[1]There are various things I retain even after using this site. I retain the copyright to my own babblings.

Not really. You retain the right to challenge on the grounds of plagierism.

Copyright or IP rights need to be sought and affirmed.



Actually, ingnore this post.

Ta.

sceptre

Originally posted by The Clown Man
Actually, ingnore this post.

Might be best:)
<cough, US site obviously but good for reference>

UnrealQueen

I alwayz find these threads amusing. Someone starts on complaining about mod abuse which is rampant in this place, and straight away all the mods start shooting the original poster down! Pity it wasn't so true.