I believe Mahatma coat should resign

Time Magazine

(This thread relates to recent moderation on the Conspiracy Theories. Threads were started on Help Desk (here and here) on the topic and it was rightly pointed out that Hosted fora do not have the same rules as regular fora and so any conflicts should be decided within the community. Discussion was had there, primarily here, but miju locked that thread and referred the matter back to Feedback. There is a thread vaguely related to the topic here, but this has meandered into a (hopefully fruitful) general discussion on the future of the Hosted category. I do not want to veer that off-topic and so have started this thread.)

Hey all. I will try to keep this short.

Mahatma coat banned me from the Conspiracy Theories forum after I informed him that mods cannot infract other mods. I did so politely, in small text at the end of a post, but I can see how it could have been mis-interpreted as a two-finger salute. Mahatma coat has posited three reasons as to why he did this: first he claimed it was a direct challenge to his authority; second he claimed it was as a joke; third he claimed he was testing out modutils. It can't be all three.

I summarised my complaints here. I felt it was unacceptable but that Mahatma coat should hold his hands up, politely apologise to me and we'd all move on. I re-iterated that theme here.

However I feel Mahatma coat has behaved despicably since his return.

Rather than a gracious apology, he claimed I was being impatient in wanting an apology that night.

Mahatma coat wrote: »

I didnt refuse to apologise, you're just impatient, and as for defending my decision, well yes I defend my decision

As you can see, he went on to defend his decision. This would indicate, as seamus put it, that perhaps the ban wasn't quite as innocent as it is being made out to be. If it were tongue-in-cheek (reason two), or just a test gone wrong (reason three), surely he would apologise unreservedly? That leaves reason one - a supposed challenge to his authority - which, going by his subsequent apology, was mis-interpreted. Why would he continue to defend his own mis-interpretation?

He has also upset other members of the community since his return. In one epic post, he demeans the people who complained as "a little clique"; dismisses the serious backlash, finding it "funny that so many threads had been generated by one little fvckup"; and even threatens sitebans:

MC wrote: »

What is your Fvckin problem sunshine, I read the stuff you said about me in the helpdesk/feedback threads, be grateful I dont push to have you sitebanned for abusive comments. I fecked up while testing something out, something which BTW had nothing to do with you.

you and your little clique are skating on very thin ice, when I logged in this morning I thought it was funny that so many threads had been generated by one little fvckup which was meant as a harmless joke.

HOWEVER having read the threads I am deeply offended by the conduct and comments of you and one or two other posters.

I'll give you a chance to explain yourself and appologise.

Well, at least he gave those who complained a chance to apologise :pac:

Mahatma coat made a stupid mistake in banning me. It was not a particularly big deal. Myself and Mahatma have clashed several times before on many issues; there is a slight history there. I think I was reasonable in urging people to give him a second chance, allow him to learn from his mistake, and we'd all move on. Instead he continues to defend his decision, demeans those who complained and continues to threaten people with a ban-hammer. These aren't the actions of someone who made a boo-boo and has learned the error of his ways.

When this issue initially arose on Feedback, the SMods pointed out that the Hosted category doesn't fall under normal Boards rules and basically said "sort it out amongst yourselves." (For what it's worth, I'm not complaining about this. Obviously I would have appreciated some support but seamus et al were absolutely correct.) The amount of thanks received for these three posts by three separate authors leads me to believe the community are not very happy with their moderator. I feel it speaks that these thanks were given to people like me, generally seen as "anti-CT" types, who tend not to be very popular on the forum.

Despite this, miju has silenced the debate on the forum itself. No more discussion can be had on that forum. Consequently, I call on Mahatma coat to resign to regain some dignity for what I consider to be disgraceful moderation. Actions such as his devalue the goodwill of the boards.ie population towards mods. Hosted forum or not, it would be ridiculous to think mods could get away with such behaviour. I have often stated in Feedback before that mods are accountable for their actions. If nothing happens after this, I will not be so strong in my defence again.

Finally, if Mahatma coat refuses to resign, I believe the admins of this site should intervene. Your customers do not differentiate between a forum in the Hosted category or After Hours. The Conspiracy Theories forum is closer to the Paranormal forum than it is to Ireland Offline. You should not permit such abuse of moderation over a technicality.

Crash

I'd agree to be honest. I was quite disappointed to find this thread http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055429136 when I went looking for the thread it relates to. This thread, among other things, included Mahatma Coat labelling all Jews and Israelis as the most despicable people in the world (if he'd like to fix the phrasing, i'd be quite happy to hear the exact quote. I of course cannot check this thanks to his removal of said thread).

Hosted or not, we hear so many examples on a day to day basis of boards, and the image it supports - there are many things that have never been added, or posts that have been removed, simply because they're essentially unseemly for the public image of the site. and rightly so.

AND YET, seemingly, there is no issue with a poster who is blatantly, and obviously, openly and IMO disgustingly anti-semetic blaring their views on such across a forum, hosted or not, as a Mod, making inconsistent decisions, goading users (see Chapelle thread again).

Thats my .02 cent anyhow.

Mahatma coat

why cant It be all 3? I took your initial statement as you said yerself 'to be a two fingered salute''

I reacted to this by checkin to see if I really coulds Ban/infract you
I had no intention of makin the ban permanent
I arsed up by not knowing how to unbann you

as for the other points you raised

I am Deeply offended by som of the things that were said about me in the subsequent threads, and I'm not threatening to siteban people cos I's a mod witha Ban Hammer as you said, I am however a regular normal person who took deep offence at the BLATENT personal abuse leveled ast me by a few posters

its also worht noting that a lot of the Thanks recieved in those posts are not from regular posters in the community but just what I'd refer to as ****stirrers.

If I didnt know better Id think theree was a conspiracy against me

cHaTbOx

From reading all points that have been put forward and eveidence that has been used to back it up , all I think of is, how is he still a moderator?
Even a HMod
From my understanding a mod is there to moderate . To abuse that power is not on .

Mahatma coat wrote: »

why cant It be all 3? I took your initial statement as you said yerself 'to be a two fingered salute''

I reacted to this by checkin to see if I really coulds Ban/infract you
I had no intention of makin the ban permanent
I arsed up by not knowing how to unbann you

You are a mod, you reacted . You are not meant to react .You are meant to think rationally about the situation and think about the best course of action. He is a mod also . You could have dropped him a pm . It seems to me like you think everyone is out to get you.

Mahatma coat wrote: »

as for the other points you raised

I am Deeply offended by som of the things that were said about me in the subsequent threads, and I'm not threatening to siteban people cos I's a mod witha Ban Hammer as you said, I am however a regular normal person who took deep offence at the BLATENT personal abuse leveled ast me by a few posters

It seems to me you are taking feedback way to personally and have not been trying to use it to better yourself.All this malarky about site-banning is ridiculous. You don't have that power.Stop using it as a tool to fear monger. You are not a regular poster in the forum you moderate. Outside of it ,yes you are .But in that forum you are there to moderate.If you couldn't handle that fact you should have resigned.

Mahatma coat wrote: »

its also worht noting that a lot of the Thanks recieved in those posts are not from regular posters in the community but just what I'd refer to as ****stirrers.

If I didnt know better Id think theree was a conspiracy against me

You do not have to be a regular poster of anywhere to have you opinions of a forum and how it is run . Many people just read forums . I read a lot of forums that I do not post in at all. Tbh not many of the posters who did thank the post would be anywhere near what I would call a sh1t stirrer.

Well that is my opinion from the outside

billy the squid

Talk about trying to form a lynch mob.

What business is it of yours how a hosted moderator runs their forum , and why were you discussing what a hmod can or cannot do to a moderator in that forum. He tested to see if he could ban you and couldn't figure out to unban you. he screwed up, everybody screws up at one point or another. Get over yourself Economist.

Économiste Monétaire

billy the squid wrote: »

What business is it of yours how a hosted moderator runs their forum

I'd say it's someone's business when they are banned by that moderator. That's not particularly a difficult concept to grasp.

On a general note, and as I said in my help desk thread, this has gotten worse with a less than gracious return of Mahatma threatening this or that, proclaiming offence to a group of users. Only one of those probably went a bit far by the manner in which they phrased their criticism; namely the other help desk thread. But, that's not really the point of this seeing as it was not the OP who done so. A simple, "whoops, I'm sorry, I'll learn from this" to Economist, and myself seeing as there was a hefty sense of hypocrisy with what is civil, uncivil and conducive to discussion, would have been ample. However, I believe that Mahatma is incapable of doing that. I believe that to be self evident from reading the original thread, or by evidence of his deleting a thread to hide that which Going Forward stated above.

I don't really see how this could be dragged out. No one can defend what the mod did, I cannot see how someone could say it was in fact right, and the mod continues in a manner that is worse than before.

Hagar

I don't know the ins and outs of this but I can see it destroying the small bit of autonomy the Hmods enjoyed up to this. I hope we don't get an over-reaction to this on account of the alleged actions of an individual. IMHO this is something that should have been dealt with via PM, involving the powers that be in the PMs if required.

Wibbs

billy the squid wrote: »

What business is it of yours how a hosted moderator runs their forum , and why were you discussing what a hmod can or cannot do to a moderator in that forum.

IMHO how a hosted moderator runs their particular forum does have an effect on how boards in general may be perceived. Users or mods should be just as free to call muppetry out whether it's felt to come from another user or a mod. OK it's a hosted forum, but as The Economist points out for the most part users see it as part of boards and any shenanigans in any of those forums reflects on the rest of the community. As such it should be run along the same lines as any other forum, or make it clear you're entering a different world so to speak. If the hosted types don't like that well then maybe seek another arena to host their forum.

He tested to see if he could ban you and couldn't figure out to unban you. he screwed up, everybody screws up at one point or another. Get over yourself Economist.

Screwing up is fine. As you point out we all do it. I've stuck my head in the forum once or twice just to have a perusal and I would say the style difference between bonkey and MC is marked. That's fine. Personally I like people who get hackles up, if it's somewhat constructive, but MC has posted stuff that steers very close to the wind as a user(the thread Going Forward refers to) and as a mod has made decisions like this one that went over the line. To be fair to MC I've read stuff of his that informed me and I liked too. It would be silly to lose him.

OK so lets accept there was a screwup. Lets accept that and move on.

This can be very easily solved if both sides unclench. Both sides are right in their own way. The Minister had a valid point but has over reacted to the situation and it has escalated to this point. Sure it was a fúckup by MC. NO mistake there, but hardly the end of the world and further pushing of this is as billy the squid points out just bring out the lynch mob mentality. Or it becomes a popularity contest. Which serves no one and what will that result in? An empty victory if MC gets admonished or resigns. Kinda pointless for all concerned. MC needs to step back and breath and learn to use the mod tools at his disposal. He also needs to chill and not get the hump if disagreement kicks off. Part of being a mod/user(and in life). MC needs to see that as a mod is not an extension of being a user. It's separate. Both agree to disagree, acknowledge the other side and say fair enough. Both those things occur and problem solved. Not rocket science really.

In short relax the cacks and move on. Is this stuff really worth the hassle and the time to type in the scheme of things?

My 2 cents anyhoo.

RoundyMooney

@billythesquid; Are you for real, or do you actually believe that a moderator's forum is their own personal fiefdom? :rolleyes:

@mahatmacoat(I'm leaving?); I suppose you'll mark me down as a shitstirrer too for having the temerity for thanking a post or two that I agreed with. Oh shucks.

I read a lot more than I post here these days, and have my own opinions on many matters relating to things around here. Certainly I can't be accused of following the crowd, so you can take my view as an impartial one.

Moderators, be they of Hosted, Private or regular fora, should have the interests of the forum and the community as a cornerstone of what they do.

Issuing forum bans that you don't even know how to reverse, not knowing the parameters of your role, and a history of waving your cock about on the forum are all justifications for in part, concern over a mods position, and taken together, more than ample reason for either a review of that position, an undertaking to apply oneself to the role, or failing these, forced removal of said moderator from their position.

I hope we see (further) admin input on this tbh.

Beruthiel

Wibbs wrote: »

This can be very easily solved if both sides unclench. Both sides are right in their own way. The Minister had a valid point but has over reacted to the situation and it has escalated to this point. Sure it was a fúckup by MC. NO mistake there, but hardly the end of the world and further pushing of this is as billy the squid points out just bring out the lynch mob mentality. Or it becomes a popularity contest. Which serves no one and what will that result in? An empty victory if MC gets admonished or resigns. Kinda pointless for all concerned. MC needs to step back and breath and learn to use the mod tools at his disposal. He also needs to chill and not get the hump if disagreement kicks off. Part of being a mod/user(and in life). MC needs to see that as a mod is not an extension of being a user. It's separate. Both agree to disagree, acknowledge the other side and say fair enough. Both those things occur and problem solved. Not rocket science really.

Wibbs is spot on there.
Perhaps The Economist and MC could take this to PM and see if ye can resolve this issue before it gets out of hand?

MC you need to relax and not go around threatening to have people site banned for little things like this. It's not going to happen and doesn't help when interacting with the posters on your forum.
When a mistake is made, don't be afraid to hold your hands up and apologise, we all make mistakes, there's no shame in that.

billy the squid

Économiste Monétaire wrote: »

I'd say it's someone's business when they are banned by that moderator. That's not particularly a difficult concept to grasp.

The Economist received a ban due to MC testing if he could ban a moderator, when he couldn't unban him he stated that he "arsed up"

The Economist was out of line to be discussing how a moderator runs their forum in the forum itself. There is a feedback thread at the top of the CT forum for users who wish to raise issues and question moderator decisions. Why was this not used.

A simple, "whoops, I'm sorry, I'll learn from this" to Economist, and myself seeing as there was a hefty sense of hypocrisy with what is civil, uncivil and conducive to discussion, would have been ample.

By saying that he "arsed up" with the economists ban, it seems that is precisely what he did. What do you want him to do, take out an ad in the Irish Times?

However, I believe that Mahatma is incapable of doing that. I believe that to be self evident from reading the original thread, or by evidence of his deleting a thread to hide that which Going Forward stated above.

When a mod removes a thread, it isn't deleted, it is soft-deleted and the smods or admins can see it. Deleting something to "hide" it is pointless, so you cannot claim that was the motivation behind the thread being deleted.

I don't really see how this could be dragged out. No one can defend what the mod did, I cannot see how someone could say it was in fact right, and the mod continues in a manner that is worse than before.

Unless some serious boards.ie rule is broken, whether or not Mahatma Coat is removed as mod is for bonkey and miju to decide. Having modded the CT forum myself I have found that users attacking the mods is a regular occurrance there. So I can understand if users are dealt with sternly. Were I still there I would have banned the lot of ye for backseat modding, and my bans there were permenent ones,

billy the squid

RoundyMooney wrote: »

@billythesquid; Are you for real, or do you actually believe that a moderator's forum is their own personal fiefdom? :rolleyes:

No, but there is a feedback thread at the top of the Conspiracy Theories forum where mod decisions should be discussed. Taking threads off topic to question mod decisions is generally frowned upon in most forums.

Bubs101

Considering that a mod is meant to serve his forum and not the other way round (looks like you've been using it to pursue vendettas) I think that resigning should certainly be considered. You were only recently appointed and judging by the thread linked by the Economist you were clearly an unpopular decision.

billy the squid

Bubs101 wrote: »

Considering that a mod is meant to serve his forum and not the other way round (looks like you've been using it to pursue vendettas) I think that resigning should certainly be considered. You were only recently appointed and judging by the thread linked by the Economist you were clearly an unpopular decision.

Is that directed at me or MC.

Économiste Monétaire

billy the squid wrote: »

The Economist received a ban due to MC testing if he could ban a moderator, when he couldn't unban him he stated that he "arsed up"

The Economist was out of line to be discussing how a moderator runs their forum in the forum itself. There is a feedback thread at the top of the CT forum for users who wish to raise issues and question moderator decisions. Why was this not used.

He did not test the moderator to see if he could ban him. The reference was to a known VB issue where moderators cannot infract one-another. Kindly read that post again.

By saying that he "arsed up" with the economists ban, it seems that is precisely what he did. What do you want him to do, take out an ad in the Irish Times?

Saying that one 'arsed up' is not interchangeable to an apology. If it is to you, then I'm bemused, to be honest. To say one has arsed up, yet to continually defend why you did it is actually quite contradictory. It states that, faced with the same situation and the full knowledge of what will occur thereafter, one would in fact do it again. All that has really occurred is for the mod to return proclaiming imminent site bans.

When a mod removes a thread, it isn't deleted, it is soft-deleted and the smods or admins can see it. Deleting something to "hide" it is pointless, so you cannot claim that was the motivation behind the thread being deleted.

I believe it was removed to stop further reference to anti-somatic behaviour on the person in question's part. That is covering up something. It is a regular debate between MC and diogenes, that is evident by the fact diogenes started new thread looking for the old one.

Unless some serious boards.ie rule is broken, whether or not Mahatma Coat is removed as mod is for bonkey and miju to decide. Having modded the CT forum myself I have found that users attacking the mods is a regular occurrance there. So I can understand if users are dealt with sternly. Were I still there I would have banned the lot of ye for backseat modding, and my bans there were permenent ones,

I would contest that a boards rule was broken. That of abuse of moderator status in one's own interest. I'm uninterested in what you would have done and how you would have banned everyone.

Bubs101

billy the squid wrote: »

Is that directed at me or MC.

MC.

Wibbs

Beruthiel wrote: »

MC you need to relax and not go around threatening to have people site banned for little things like this. It's not going to happen and doesn't help when interacting with the posters on your forum.
When a mistake is made, don't be afraid to hold your hands up and apologise, we all make mistakes, there's no shame in that.

+1 in damn near every argument or disagreement both sides are right. Even if one is only 10% right. They're still right and will defend that 10% all the way and ignore anything else. Both sides are also wrong, even if it's only 10%. The problem is we're usually so concerned about pushing what we think is right that it escalates to this kinda thing. How to settle it? After the initial knee jerk reaction is gone, both sides accept that you're wrong in some way. As Beruthiel wrote, hold your hand up and admit that. When both stop pushing how right they are then the other person is free to realise where they may be wrong and then progress can be made. If that still doesn't work well then walk away from it.

Time Magazine

I don't want to whore this thread so I'll make a more general contribution when there are more replies, but I want to address one thing:

billy the squid wrote: »

Talk about trying to form a lynch mob.

That's extremely unfair, billy. I actively tried to keep the discussion civil and discouraged a lynch mob-style approach.

What business is it of yours how a hosted moderator runs their forum

Honest question: did you read my post? Miju directed us to continue discussing this in Feedback, twice.

billy the squid

I read all the posts economist, you got extremely presious about being banned after goading MC about infractions. you then proceeded to take the thread in question off topic by your getting all mouthy about it.

If you had read MCs posts before flipping your lid you would have realised that he wasn't going to ban you for any long time.

Wibbs

Ok so there seems to have been screwups/personality clashes/misunderstandings all around. Cool.

So in brass tacks terms where do people want to go from there?

What does MC want to happen?

What does TE want to happen?

What do interested parties who feel involved outside the previous two posters want to happen?

Is that where progress may be made? Maybe if we all figure out what we want to happen as much as what we want to say, it might move things on. My 2 cents anyhoo.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Going Forward wrote: »

Thats my .02 cent anyhow.

Wibbs wrote: »

My 2 cents anyhoo.

Wibbs wrote: »

My 2 cents anyhoo.

Keep at it lads, we'll be able to buy a coke by the end of the week.

billy the squid

billy the squid wrote: »

I read all the posts economist, you got extremely presious about being banned after goading MC about infractions. you then proceeded to take the thread in question off topic by your getting all mouthy about it.

If you had read MCs posts before flipping your lid you would have realised that he wasn't going to ban you for any long time.

Point is, he shouldn't have been banned in the first place.

Sherifu

Boards could recruit a mod trainer.

billy the squid

Deleted User wrote: »

Point is, he shouldn't have been banned in the first place.

If itr were me and he said "you cant infract me" in a forum i moderated his ban would have been longer than five minutes.

I don't believe there was any mal-intent behind this brief ban, and there was no need for the economist to get all snotty about it.

billy the squid

billy the squid wrote: »

If itr were me and he said "you cant infract me" in a forum i moderated his ban would have been longer than five minutes.
.

why?

billy the squid

billy the squid wrote: »

If itr were me and he said "you cant infract me" in a forum i moderated his ban would have been longer than five minutes.

I don't believe there was any mal-intent behind this brief ban, and there was no need for the economist to get all snotty about it.

You can't infract me either. Going to ban me now? Call in an Smod, why not make it a siteban?

billy the squid

Deleted User wrote: »

why?

I would se it as someone telling me how I should moderate when it is not their place to do so. I would also see someone with mod status as someone whose been around for a while and should know better, making an infraction insufficient anyway.

billy the squid

Deleted User wrote: »

You can't infract me either. Going to ban me now? Call in an Smod, why not make it a siteban?

I don't moderate feedback.

Just a point, Fairfilly is crossposting in Limerick / Equestrian.

You can infract her if you want, she isn't a mod.

Nevyn

Mahatma coat if you were not sure if you could or could not infract/ban a mod why didn't you ask in the Hmods forum ?

I have access there as I am also a hmod, and would have happily answered the query and any other you had about the technical tools and the new modutils.

Économiste Monétaire

Wibbs wrote: »

What do interested parties who feel involved outside the previous two posters want to happen?

Mahatma's moderator status removed.