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Complaint about EU forum moderation.
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What I have done is to post the opinions of others. it's not "my" case, but their opinions.
I think their issue, reading their opinions, is very much that the issue is the person.
In which case your arguement is "I/we don't like the person" to which my response is:
"I don't care".
My involvement in reviewing this issue or any issue of those mentioned is closed until they learn to approach the issues without taking personal shots.
Modding isn't a popularity contest. If it were, I wouldn't be a mod.0 -
In which case your arguement is "I/we don't like the person" to which my response is:
"I don't care".
My involvement in reviewing this issue or any issue of those mentioned is closed until they learn to approach the issues without taking personal shots.
Modding isn't a popularity contest. If it were, I wouldn't be a mod.
Speaking personally, my argument is emphatically not that I don't like the person. My argument is I don't like certain aspects of his behaviour.
Because the common theme among their opinions is that the issue is an individuals behaviour, it seems impossible to bring that up without mentioning certain personal aspects of his behaviour, as that is the very aspect which concerns them.
Having read the opinions, as written, of those which I quoted, many don't say that the reason they no longer post in the politics threads do so because they don't like the person, but say quite clearly they find aspects of his behaviour unacceptable.
With so many offering that opinion, there seems to be a pattern. Of course one can decide that we are all troublemakers and should be ignored.
Although with a number of threads in Feedback on the same issue, (and with the sheer volume of members contributing similar opinions to those threads), and also a number here in the Help Desk (where no one is allowed to add to the thread), and with a fairly constant number in the politics threads and with OB himself saying he is tired of dealing with number of similar complaints, it does seem to point to it being more than a couple of troublemakers.0 -
[/quote]CC Seamus (as Helpdesk SMOD who reviewed previous complaints).
Hi auerillo,
You have been banned from Politics for the following duration:
Indefinite.
for the following reason:
Unsolicited PMs/spamming Politics forum users about the forum moderation and the other reasons I outlined in the Infraction post.
You are unwilling to accept that there are proper channels involved in forum issues and indeed, you seem unwilling to accept the judgement passed in these channels.
It is my belief that you do not or will not accept forum moderation and believe your actions will only escalate to disrupt the forum. As such, your access ha sbeen removed until such time that my belief stated above is changed.
Providing your ban is not permanent, it will be lifted automatically after Permanent.
Also, please be aware that an abusive response to this automated message may result in an extension of your ban, or in extreme cases, being banned from the entire site.
Thanks,
- GuanYin.
Re: OB Help Desk and Feedback forums
As a post script to our correspondence, I've had a number of posts from members mentioning that OB has not been abusive, rude or nasty since the threads appeared in the Help Desk and Feedback forums. Whether its a coincidence, whether someone did have a word with him, or whether the sheer weight of the evidence made him stop and think, lets hope it will be a permanent chance for the better and lets hope the politics threads can become more interesting and welcoming places, and thanks again for your help.
I quote the above message from the member GuanYin, and, following it, the message, which I sent to some members, to thank them for their help, and with which he seems to find enough fault to ban a member from the politics threads, and let members come to their own conclusions about it. I am posting this in the helpdesk section and the feedback section.0 -
I received complaints from members about you spamming them.
You got banned.
Is there anything else that needs clarifying?0 -
I received complaints from members about you spamming them.
You got banned.
Is there anything else that needs clarifying?
I wasn't aware that sending one private message to some members, all of whom had expressed their views on the subject in question, thanking them for their help, was "spamming", and can only apologise for what must be such a serious breach of the rules to warrant an indefinite ban.0 -
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aurellio, for future reference, please don't post any PMs that you receive from people up on a public forum without checking with the user that sent you the PM. Thanks.0
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Gordon, I wasn't asked, but for the record I have no issue with autogenerated infraction or ban moderation PMs being posted, for the sake of clarity.
Auerillo, I have no problem with you communicating with people on the issue when they are willingly or knowingly involved, however here we have multiple instances of posters who neither agreed with your campaign nor wished nor consented to be contacted by you, yet who were spammed with PMs.
In any forum I moderate, such an act gets (and has gotten, you can check the record, particularly in soccer) a ban.
The fact that you seem to be attempting (despite your wording) to labor an issue which has been resolved by everyone but you sees this as an indefinite ban.
I am willing to remove the ban in the future with the proper assurances to conduct and behavior, but until I receive these, the ban will stay in place.
If the CMODs, SMODs or Admins take issue with my action, please let me know.0 -
OK thanks, I'll unedit it then. For future reference, I'll probably forget that you specifically don't mind this so I may edit future posts like this again.Gordon, I wasn't asked, but for the record I have no issue with autogenerated infraction or ban moderation PMs being posted, for the sake of clarity.0 -
Gordon, I wasn't asked, but for the record I have no issue with autogenerated infraction or ban moderation PMs being posted, for the sake of clarity.
Auerillo, I have no problem with you communicating with people on the issue when they are willingly or knowingly involved, however here we have multiple instances of posters who neither agreed with your campaign nor wished nor consented to be contacted by you, yet who were spammed with PMs.
In any forum I moderate, such an act gets (and has gotten, you can check the record, particularly in soccer) a ban.
The fact that you seem to be attempting (despite your wording) to labor an issue which has been resolved by everyone but you sees this as an indefinite ban.
I am willing to remove the ban in the future with the proper assurances to conduct and behavior, but until I receive these, the ban will stay in place.
If the CMODs, SMODs or Admins take issue with my action, please let me know.
It wasn't "PM's" plural, but one message to some who contributed to, and showed interest in, the topic, the text of which appears above. The one pm wasn't rude, pejorative, or inciting, it was a polite message of thanks, and a positive message, expressing a hope that things have improved.
It's hard to see why sending someone one message should provoke such a reaction, except in the circumstance where a member has expressed a wish to not receive messages. (One member did reply that he no longer wished to receive messages, and I replied politely, saying that I would no longer send him messages, except where he messaged me and specifically asked for a response).
I don't know what the definition of spamming, (the reason you banned me) is, although don't imagine that one polite private message, the text of which is above, can reasonably be defined as "spamming".
If you define spamming as sending one polite and relevant message, as above, to some members who had previously expressed an interest, to be "spamming", then so be it.0 -
It wasn't "PM's" plural, but one message to some who contributed to, and showed interest in, the topic, the text of which appears above. The one pm wasn't rude, pejorative, or inciting, it was a polite message of thanks, and a positive message, expressing a hope that things have improved.
It's hard to see why sending someone one message should provoke such a reaction, except in the circumstance where a member has expressed a wish to not receive messages. (One member did reply that he no longer wished to receive messages, and I replied politely, saying that I would no longer send him messages, except where he messaged me and specifically asked for a response).
I don't know what the definition of spamming, (the reason you banned me) is, although don't imagine that one polite private message, the text of which is above, can reasonably be defined as "spamming".
If you define spamming as sending one polite and relevant message, as above, to some members who had previously expressed an interest to be "spamming", then so be it.
I have two posters who are unhappy that they received your PM, didn't ask for a PM to be sent to them and did not feel your PM represented their views.
That is pretty much what I define as spam.
You seem to be unrepenting on this, so I don't really see much more to discuss. If you change your attitude and wish to enter into corresponence on the terms I outlined above or if a higher authority directs me to review the ban, please let me know.0 -
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I have two posters who are unhappy that they received your PM, didn't ask for a PM to be sent to them and did not feel your PM represented their views.
That is pretty much what I define as spam.
You seem to be unrepenting on this, so I don't really see much more to discuss. If you change your attitude and wish to enter into corresponence on the terms I outlined above or if a higher authority directs me to review the ban, please let me know.
You obviously feel strongly about sending private messages to members without them “wishing or consented to be contacted”. I’m not at all sure how one is expected to know if someone is “wishing” to be sent a private message, or how one knows, or can even find out, whether or not one wants to “be contacted”.
It seems hard to believe that all other members, when sending a private message, first find out if the recipient wants to receive it. Or even how the recipient knows if he wants to receive it without first knowing the content of the message.
Certainly, it has never occurred to me, when I have received a private message, to complain on either basis, even if I thought the message did, or didn’t, agree with my views.
It also never occurred to consider that one private message of thanks, regarding a subject on which one had previously expressed an interest, could be considered spam.
If the content of the message was rude, or aggressive, or was a personal attack, one can understand, but a polite message of thanks?
I’ve been contacted by a number of members who have juxtaposed your decision to ban one member for sending a polite message of thanks, the text of which is in a previous post above, with your decision to dismiss the expressed views of over 30 other members who have complained about another member, who they consider has been rude, aggressive, and bullying to them.
As mentioned earlier, it’s not going to affect my life much, or I imagine theirs, and, as usual, members will have to decide for themselves about the fairness of your decision to ban the former, and dismiss the latter.0 -
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While having a discussion about the helpdesk thread, we suddenly and without warning have the following input from OB.oscarBravo wrote: »Wow. I can't believe you're still making an issue about not getting your way.
You made a complaint, it was deemed to be unfounded. Get over it.
The post is irrelevant and has nothing to do with the subject under discussion, and the whole tone, and accusatory manner of the input, seems more designed just to inflame and bully and it is the first post he made in the thread.
It is yet more evidence why many guys on this site do not engage with or interact with OB, or rarely take part in the forums where he moderates.0 -
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How many feedback posters rushed to your support?
I was contacted by a number of members who asked me to stop posting there as it was pointless and was not going to go anywhere, and said they themselves did no contribute to such threads as they feared being labelled a troublemaker by some moderators. They also said that the replies to the points I was making were being met with, in the words of one correspondent "obtuse answers designed to avoid answering the point and deflecting away from the issue".
Some made the same observation that it's ok for a moderator (for example tbh) to hurl abuse and call another member a "bull****ter" with impunity, whereas another juxtaposed his recent banning from the politics forum for a "breach of the charter", saying "it seems ok for moderators to use foul language directed at members".
As has been said before, many members now feel that it's pointless discussing these issues as they feel that the moderators will not take their views seriously, and some hold the view, rightly or wrongly, that in these helpdesk threads a number of mods etc will gang up on a single complaining member.
Many members vote with their feet and no longer contribute to the sort of threads, for example politics, where moderators are thought to over-moderate and treat adults with contempt and with a lack of respect.
Looking at the politics threads now, I can't help noticing how little posting goes on there, with only one thread under the "European union" section having any activity at all today, and all the other threads in that section having no activity whatever today.
Not having read the threads there for a long time, and reading the threads now, it's also evident that newcomers do try to post there, but for reasons they don't explain give up posting very quickly and stop posting after a short while.
It's been said before that the politics threads seem, to an onlooker, to be a shadow of their former selves. Certainly the many members listed elsewhere in this thread no longer post there, and most have not done so for some time. The evidence upon reading the threads seems to suggest that new posters cease to post after quite a short time, and seems to be a consistent pattern.
If boards.ie wanted to find out why these new posters do that, they could always message them and ask why they stopped posting. I hope they do that to find out why the politics forum is so moribund, but suspect that it will not happen because they are afraid of the answer. I hope I am wrong and look forward to a time when the politics forums here thrive again, as I know boards.ie is full of mainly wonderful people, both mods and members.0 -
Hi auerillo
A few things, in split order.
Firstly, in this thread it looks as though you're trying to drag up an old argument, months after it was effectively ruled on. You even posted it in the same thread.
Secondly, providing a link to the thread you're referring to three posts up would help greatly, I went through seven threads looking for the thread you're referring to. Eventually I got a little more wise and just searched through your posts alone but links make it easier for all concerned.
Thirdly, making reference to "a number of members" that have contacted you is a bit of a fudge. Having worked in the journalism sphere as a press officer, a journalist and an editor of a small circulation newspaper covering a population of a medium-sized town, I've been in the spin game enough for the phrase "a number" to jump out at me. I don't have a problem with all or any of that number PMing me to verify your claims. I'm only interested in your personal experiences in the absence of that as hearsay isn't a kind of evidence. Ditto with the three "many members" paragraphs.
Fourthly, while the politics subforums go through ebbs and flows depending on the news cycle and interest (it's part of the reason they exist as subforums), the politics forum as a whole is far busier now than it has ever been. While there's always room for improvement, like everything else that exists, and that's something the politics mods are always actively considering in some way, it's never been anywhere near as busy as it has been for the past few months. New users often tend to drop in to make a comment in a thread because it's just appeared on the front page when they've logged on to boards. That's the way boards.ie works. You're placing an emphasis on the one-time posters that doesn't correlate with the way the site works and how casual users use the site.
Fifthly, dealing with the substance of your recent complaint, the moderator in question (with whom I've not had a conversation since before both your complaint and the subject of your complaint), it rather appears on the Feedback thread that you are trying to drag up an old argument that had been ruled on. I'm perfectly willing to state that in my opinion that's what you were doing.
Sixthly, the "bull****ter" comment you're referring to was made by another mod. And was commented on by an admin in the Feedback thread. That's rather more important than what some said. It's one of the last posts in that thread.
Seventhly, you obviously have an issue with oB or the way he moderates. You've objected to that before. I've noted your objections. I don't agree with them.0 -
I have no idea what "it was ruled on" means, and I have never sought some sort of judicial ruling.
On a boards forum such as this, members vote with their feet, and the fact that someone somewhere might have decided that they are wrong or right really has no bearing on them or the issue. I started this thread to draw attention to the fact that many members cite OB's behaviour as the reason that they no longer post in politics, and to suggest that someone somewhere can make a ruling which means that they are all wrong, seems reminiscent of the politburo ruling that the recently failed harvest was a great success!
I added to this thread after OB made unkind, irrelevant and personal remarks at me in another thread, which prompted me to have another look at politics to see what's happened since I added my name to those who no longer post there.
I'm not really going to go into the pantomime of "oh yes he did oh no he didn't", and again leave it to members to decide for themselves whether, for example, that newcomers do try to post there, but for reasons they don't explain give up posting very quickly and stop posting after a short while.
As we know from their own words, and quoted above, in addition to the new members mentioned above, many members previously have cited OB's behaviour as the reason they no longer post in the politics forum, and politics is a poorer place for that.0 -
Politburo comment aside, one of the primary purposes of the Help Desk is to make a call or ruling on whether a complaint has merit.
I've made reference to the rest of your comments in my last post.0 -
Politburo comment aside, one of the primary purposes of the Help Desk is to make a call or ruling on whether a complaint has merit.
I've made reference to the rest of your comments in my last post.
The point is that every member who contemplates it makes their own "ruling".
It is a fact that many have cited OB's behaviour as the reason they no longer take part in politics, and no amount of rulings by anyone else can deny that or affect that. (If you want to see the evidence of which members have cited OB's behaviour, many are named and quoted earlier in this thread).
Simply by saying someone somewhere has made a "ruling" doesn't address that fact, and all the while it appears, from observation, the same pattern continues in politics.0 -
Having not been on boards for a while, I an sad to see that OB is still being cited by members as the reason they no longer take part in the Politics forums.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055659498
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055653881
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055576099&highlight=oscar+bravo
It is sad that members are still treated as children by the moderator, and sadder that boards.ie still seems to prefer to back up a moderator at the expense of interesting debate.
How many other members have decided to vote with their feet, and avoid the politics forums for fear of being treated in the same manner, is not known. What is certain is that many members (over 50 members as evidenced by this thread) no longer contribute to the politics forums due to the behaviour of this moderator, many of whom are intelligent, interesting and polite, and have decided to no longer participate in the politics forums and cite the reason, in their own words (see previous posts in this thread) as the behaviour of Oscar Bravo.0 -
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..and how many have stayed because of it being well moderated? I'm sure you have some anecdotal evidence for that, too?
To be honest, this thread doesn't need a resurrection from the dead.0
This discussion has been closed.
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