Banned from mobiles and PDAs

Danbo!

so i was banned for a week from mobiles and PDAs by "sarge".Now i can assume it was because of my unhelpful post that was making a joke the OP seemed to find funny. anywho, I accept the banning but im not on the banlist and was just wondering exactly why i was banned? Offtopic? unhelpful? just wondering the reason.

This is the thread

Karl Hungus

The banlist is only for people who are sitebanned.

Doesn't really seem to be any justification given. It's definitely not something I would've banned anyone for.

Faith

It's an extremely harsh ban, IMO, but I guess it was seen as spamming/useless/off-topic etc.

faceman

Very harsh ban

Very harsh ban - take it it to helpdesk, you have a good case.

It will just descend into Cat pictures and a polarised debate here.

Karl Hungus

Deleted User wrote: »

It will just descend into Cat pictures and a polarised debate here.

I disagree. Cat pictures are usually used to convey a certain ridiculousness with a issue taken, or how a person's complaints are a mere chariacture. This thread has a valid issue, and shall be treated as such.

RoundyMooney

Ridiculous ban.

I trust you won't find any cat pics here OP;)

Ruu_Old

A bit harsh alright and probably for going off topic or unhelpful but probably should have just been a warning, have you sent a PM to Sarge regarding the ban?

Danbo!

no, didnt get a Pm and the post said - banned, PM me in a week. glad you think its harsh, but ill just wait the week i suppose

Sam Vimes

tbh, the modding of the mobiles forum has got a bit ridiculous in the past few weeks. people are getting banned for asking legitimate questions. its getting to the stage where i worry about responding to any threads in case i get banned for some reason

last week i was helping somebody with gprs settings which can be very difficult even for myself who has done it dozens of times on dozens of different phones. i went back to the thread later after asking him for some clarifying info and half the threads on the first page were locked and he had told the OP to use the (inadequate and confusing) sticky on the forum. completely unnecessary tbh. i was willing to help the guy and anyone who doesn't want to read the thread doesn't have to.

Silverfish

Way too harsh. Infraction at the most there, but I wouldn't even have done that if it was me.

Snake Plisken

Yur man is gone ban mad, frightened to even post a querie on that forum in case he bans me or closes it before its answered, Can some of you decent mods who can see what he is doing is wrong, have a word with him? Any guff from him and he should get banned for a week see how he likes it

Sully

Perhaps the OP has a habbit of being off-topic, so sarge took out the ban stick?

Silverfish

Sully wrote: »

Perhaps the OP has a habbit of being off-topic, so sarge took out the ban stick?

Doesn't look like it, all his previous posts in Mobiles & PDA's are on-topic and helpful, unless some were deleted or something.

Vexorg

Aye the punishment does not seem to fit the crime, but as Sully says there may be more to it than meets the eye.

Added to the fact that the reason for the ban is still there.

I have asked Sarge to take a look at this, may just have been a bad day.

V.

ziggy

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abcxyz123

what a stupid ban!!!

jhegarty

With this type of modding (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=54543001#post54543001) why even have a forum ?

Vexorg

Can we call off the witch hunt:) and see how this pans out...

Vex,

Danbo!

Silverfish wrote: »

Doesn't look like it, all his previous posts in Mobiles & PDA's are on-topic and helpful, unless some were deleted or something.

Nope, none of my posts have been deleted from the Mobiles and PDAs forum, ive never been warned about previous posts etc.. its the forum i visit most and have good knowledge of the subject so I check it for news and to answer questions people have.

When i started this thread I just wanted to know why I was banned exactly as its my first banning ( not that I intend to be banned on a regular basis ) and not to start a "witch-hunt". Its not like ive been sitebanned or banned from Mobiles and PDAs forever, so i dont mind waiting the week, but im glad to see the other mods thoughts (i.e. that it was a bit harsh)

Vexorg

noblestee wrote: »

When i started this thread I just wanted to know why I was banned exactly as its my first banning ( not that I intend to be banned on a regular basis ) and not to start a "witch-hunt".

Was not suggesting you were starting a witch hunt, it just seemed to be going that way.

It is refreshing to see a feedback thread started that does not demand the head of the mod on a silver platter, with fries and a salad on the side, and an overhaul of the current corrupt system.

ziggy

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BuffyBot

people are getting banned for asking legitimate questions

Most of which should be directed towards their operators customer care team, as per part of the charter http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=50765369&postcount=6

leninbenjamin

BuffyBot wrote: »

Most of which should be directed towards their operators customer care team, as per part of the charter http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=50765369&postcount=6

as a non mobile and PDA frequenter having read that and just glanced at the forum and the stickies i can safely say that they are quite confusing.

suggestions i'd have for that forum would be: an overall FAQ thread. there sort of seems to be one or two information threads but it's not really clear what they are at first glance. and secondly a most frequently used threads list, instead of having the likes of the iPhone thread stickied and sort of cluttering the top of the forum.

I just find that the more cluttered a forum's stickies and announcements are the more crap it attracts. if users don't get their information at a glance they're much more likely to just start a thread regardless of whether it's a common question or not.

20 Times 20 Times

Guys , For a start I'm more then happy to hold my hand up and say that the ban was unjustified, for that I'm sorry and Noblestee you have my apologies . I shall lift the ban for you now.


Regarding other banning on the mobiles and Pda forum as a another user pointed out , the forum has been taking a twist in direction lately and my fellow moderators and I have spent a fair amount of time discussing how to get the forum back on track and away from the whole customer care / consumer issues that have been taken place lately.Now we have all agreed to take a more firm view on moderating the forum.The Forum is a VERY busy forum , and i do my best to read EVERY post and judge fairly but obviously my judgment was completely wrong here.

I have never had a issue with the way i moderate before and i have no problem with discussing it with anyone that wants to , feel free to PM me.

Back to the point noblestee , sorry for the banning and also for not Pm'ing you about the ban , it was laziness on my behalf.

Karl Hungus

Sarge wrote: »

Guys , For a start I'm more then happy to hold my hand up and say that the ban was unjustified, for that I'm sorry and Noblestee you have my apologies . I shall lift the ban for you now.

Played.

Sarge wrote: »

Regarding other banning on the mobiles and Pda forum as a another user pointed out , the forum has been taking a twist in direction lately and my fellow moderators and I have spent a fair amount of time discussing how to get the forum back on track and away from the whole customer care / consumer issues that have been taken place lately.Now we have all agreed to take a more firm view on moderating the forum.The Forum is a VERY busy forum , and i do my best to read EVERY post and judge fairly but obviously my judgment was completely wrong here.

I have never had a issue with the way i moderate before and i have no problem with discussing it with anyone that wants to , feel free to PM me.

Back to the point noblestee , sorry for the banning and also for not Pm'ing you about the ban , it was laziness on my behalf.

I know what you mean Sarge, it can be a headache to mod sometimes, but looking at the forum in question, the stickies are incredibly messy, the rules on it's own is a disaster, you should have one post with all relevant rules highlight in clean manner. It's a mess to read.

Draw up a new charter, clean up some of the stickes. I see a few stickes that could all be compiled into a comprehensive FAQ thread, and others that don't really need to be stuck, like the Apple iPhone thread which would probably be constantly on the first page under it's own steam. People aren't going to read a dozen stickies tbh, and the messiness is just completely offputting, as well as making it hard to find specific rules.

If you still find people are constantly breaking a specific rule, then maybe you should go to your moderator control panel, and use the announcement function to draw attention to that specific rule. The announcement can stay for a limited amount of time, and could give you a clearer way of telling people what is and isn't allowed. For example, you've problems with people using your board as a customer support, make an announcement telling everyone that it isn't.

Lastly, all the stickies in the world aren't going to stop people breaking rules out of sheer ignorance, so you have to be patient with posters.

Hope that helps.

tech77

noblestee wrote: »

so i was banned for a week from mobiles and PDAs by "sarge".Now i can assume it was because of my unhelpful post that was making a joke the OP seemed to find funny. anywho, I accept the banning but im not on the banlist and was just wondering exactly why i was banned? Offtopic? unhelpful? just wondering the reason. This is the thread

Read that a few days ago and for the life of me couldn't understand why the guy was banned. Weird.
Edit: Just saw Sarge's reply so that kinda explains it I guess.

20 Times 20 Times

Just another thing that I'd like to make people aware of , I'm going to tidy up the forum and the Stickies as there seems to be too much confusion at the moment , now more then likely it will take a couple of hours.So please bear with me.

Karl thanks for the advice , We have been talking about cleaning up the stickies for a bit of time now , so now seems to be a good time to start.

If anyone is interested to adding anything to the stickies in relation to settings , networks and general help for people, please don't hesitate to PM me.

Sam Vimes

BuffyBot wrote: »

Most of which should be directed towards their operators customer care team, as per part of the charter http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=50765369&postcount=6

tbh, pretty much any question that has ever been asked in the thread could have been directed at customer care. if we're going to lock any threads like that we might as well just put up contact info for the networks and close the forum

parsi

I can see the validity of directing people to the relevant Customer Care teams but as we have all experienced they often don't know their cocyx from their humerus and folk end up none the wiser after calling them especially for non-normal queries such as Internet settings and the like which seem to confuse most CS reps.

edit: However all that being said the Modding does appear to be consistent and there aren't a whole lot of users complaining in Feedback.

ziggy

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