I would appreciate an SMod or admin to review this

Économiste Monétaire

Greetings.

I would refer you to this thread in the Conspiracy Theories forum, in an evolving situation that has lead to this (although, I believe it is better to use help desk rather than a poll). The moderator whose actions I question are that of Mahatma Coat. In my opinion, he has not discharged his role in any reasonably objective manner, and abusing his position by banning someone to 'prove a point.' The point being, he simply could and took it as a challenge. I would not agree with his contention that I, or the economics mod (the person whom he banned), were the one who were uncivil. Especially relative to Mr. Incognito's posts that were at times quite unnecessarily personal, and petty. Also, he has yet to even apologise for banning someone without merit, and doing so without even knowing how to unban someone, instead simply implying "what did you expect?"

If, after reading through the linked thread, you are unable to see my point of view I would be happy to expand on that--I would rather let it speak for itself. Thanks for reading.

Edit: I have just become aware of another thread created in help desk about this, done while I was writing this. I would prefer that this remain open as I was actually involved in the thread.

seamus

Please see my last post in this thread:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055439900

Économiste Monétaire

seamus wrote: »

Please see my last post in this thread:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055439900

That is completely insufficient for me. It is quite clear that his is incapable of discharging a role as a moderator when: A) there was a complete lack of moderation of personal and petty comments by Mr. Incognito, yet to apply a double standard to what he perceived to be uncivil; his inability to differentiate between a ban and an infraction; C) to ban someone and to then find amusement in, and gloat about, that when the ban was completely without merit; D) to not even apologise for such an action, yet to state "what did you expect?"; E) to assert a view that either I, or the Economist, were not conducive to discussion yet to say this: "I had some questions I also wanted to ask our esteemed 'Economic Experts' about the Bailout/shoreup but I can see I wont get a civil or straight answer."

seamus

It's worth pointing out that Conspiracy Theories is a Hosted Forum of boards.ie. This basically means that while they have to maintain the overall content standards of the rest of the site, they're not held to the same rules and are treated as something of a separated community who have a playground area and can state their own rules.

Mahatma is not a "moderator" in the normal sense of the word and is therefore not required to stick with the same standards we might expect on other non-Hosted forums.

I do now realise that it was none of my business to close that thread, I keep forgetting that CT isn't a real forum.
See, we all make mistakes

My suggestion is to PM one of the other moderators of Conspiracy Theories and see if you can work something out.

Économiste Monétaire

seamus wrote: »

It's worth pointing out that Conspiracy Theories is a Hosted Forum of boards.ie. This basically means that while they have to maintain the overall content standards of the rest of the site, they're not held to the same rules and are treated as something of a separated community who have a playground area and can state their own rules.

Mahatma is not a "moderator" in the normal sense of the word and is therefore not required to stick with the same standards we might expect on other non-Hosted forums.

I do now realise that it was none of my business to close that thread, I keep forgetting that CT isn't a real forum.
See, we all make mistakes

My suggestion is to PM one of the other moderators of Conspiracy Theories and see if you can work something out.

Your response leaves me quite bemused, Seamus. How banning someone on a whim, and then gloating about that action, is keeping to the same content standards I cannot comprehend. There are no standards. I'm also confused by the suggestion of PMing another CT mod. Is it a collective CT mod view of who should or should not be a moderator? Mahatma's actions aren't in any way conducive to anything, except for situations that the car crash picture at the end of the thread illustrates.

Basically it's anything goes in hosted forums; got that. Also, I don't agree with your attempt to dismiss the H-Mod's actions and poor judgement with a ubiquitous "we all make mistakes." Fair enough if that is your view.

seamus

Économiste Monétaire wrote: »

Your response leaves me quite bemused, Seamus. How banning someone on a whim, and then gloating about that action, is keeping to the same content standards I cannot comprehend. There are no standards.

Content standards as in: "No porn, no adverts, nothing that could get boards.ie in trouble". Other than that, yes pretty much anything goes.

I'm also confused by the suggestion of PMing another CT mod. Is it a collective CT mod view of who should or should not be a moderator? Mahatma's actions aren't in any way conducive to anything, except for situations that the car crash picture at the end of the thread illustrates.

Agreed, but because CT is essentially a separate community from boards, this is for them to sort out. If the community really wants, we can make a ruling/judgement, but we'd prefer not to get involved because it's essentially outside of our remit.

Also, I don't agree with your attempt to dismiss the H-Mod's actions and poor judgement with a ubiquitous "we all make mistakes." Fair enough if that is your view.

I do think overall that it was just a mistake, though I am in agreement that there's something a little less innocent in it than I first made out.

But again, it's up to the forum/community itself to decide.

Économiste Monétaire

Thanks for your replies, Seamus. I now understand the predicament the quasi-applicability of rules have for hosted forums. I would hold the view that this problem will get worse, especially if the only solution is for the collective H-mods to confer. Mahatma's lack of maturity, and understanding of basic objectivity, seems too difficult for him to rectify--which is evident to me from recent experiences. A start would be an apology, and that really shouldn't need to be explicitly, or implicitly, forced...

Anyway, thanks--much appreciated.