Breach of charter?

Lenny Lovett

I have been banned for seven days from the radio forum for posting this:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056018247

The moderator, bbability, says I am in breach of the charter as follows:

Once again you have started a thread on one topic but reverts back to RTE and Salaries (in big bold Writing).
I warned you last night that if you stepped across the line you would face a ban.
You have so now your banned for 1 week.

If you question or indeed respond in any manner to this ban or breech the conditions below I will extend the ban.

So why is it such a taboo to discuss RTE salaries on a Radio forum? I believe the post and thread is very valid. Why, also, is it policy that to question or respond to this will result in a longer ban? Another example of stifling debate on the Radio board.

Regards,
LL

oscarBravo

Please report the PM using the button, thanks.

Lenny Lovett

I have done now. Thanks.

oscarBravo

I've checked with bbability who has confirmed that there was no intention to prevent you from appealing the ban.

Lenny Lovett

oscarBravo wrote: »

I've checked with bbability who has confirmed that there was no intention to prevent you from appealing the ban.

So why did he PM me this?:

If you question or indeed respond in any manner to this ban or breech the conditions below I will extend the ban.

If not intimidation, what was his motive?

Also, Why is it taboo to discuss salaries in RTE on the radio forum? That's the nub of the reason I've been banned twice! Other posters have been banned too for the same topic. It smacks of Soviet era censorship. I know Bbability is paying back for me p1ssing off a previous moderator which is extremely childish and petty. The Mods and Cmods on the Radio forum seem to have an issue with free speech especially when it comes to questioning how our taxes are spent by RTE. If you read the post that I got banned for it is in no way a breach of the charter but if you believe it is (as an Independent eye) perhaps you would show me how it is.

Also, they relegated the news articles I was posting to a sticky on top of the board which very few people read. For example the sticky is up over a week now and has had around 350 views in total, whereas an average thread on the forum would have that number in less than 24 hours. This is another reason I believe they have an agenda to stifle debate and discussion.

Lenny Lovett

Here's the thread in question:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056018247

As I said earlier I can see no part of the charter that I have breached but would welcome someone to show me where I am incorrect in this assertion.

oscarBravo

Lenny Lovett wrote: »

So why did he PM me this?:

If not intimidation, what was his motive?

He didn't want to discuss the issue any further with you. I've already explained that you have access to the dispute resolution procedure, and that the PM wasn't intended to indicate otherwise. I will acknowledge that it could have been worded better.

Also, Why is it taboo to discuss salaries in RTE on the radio forum? That's the nub of the reason I've been banned twice! Other posters have been banned too for the same topic. It smacks of Soviet era censorship. I know Bbability is paying back for me p1ssing off a previous moderator which is extremely childish and petty. The Mods and Cmods on the Radio forum seem to have an issue with free speech especially when it comes to questioning how our taxes are spent by RTE. If you read the post that I got banned for it is in no way a breach of the charter but if you believe it is (as an Independent eye) perhaps you would show me how it is.

If you're unhappy with a moderator's decision, the next step is to discuss it with the category moderators.

I will say this: your approach to the issue is extremely confrontational. Respect is a two-way street.

Also, they relegated the news articles I was posting to a sticky on top of the board which very few people read. For example the sticky is up over a week now and has had around 350 views in total, whereas an average thread on the forum would have that number in less than 24 hours. This is another reason I believe they have an agenda to stifle debate and discussion.

See above.

Lenny Lovett wrote: »

Here's the thread in question:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056018247

As I said earlier I can see no part of the charter that I have breached but would welcome someone to show me where I am incorrect in this assertion.

Again, your next step is the category moderators.

Lenny Lovett

I did refer it to the Category Mods (will and ancatdubh) yesterday but no reply. I did ask you for an independent view on the posting and whether it is in breach of the charter. What do you think? Or if do you not want to rock the boat with your colleagues by commenting I understand.

Lenny Lovett

oscarBravo wrote: »

I will say this: your approach to the issue is extremely confrontational. Respect is a two-way street. See above.

But in light of the facts as you can see, how else do you expect me to react? I was confronted and banned by the mod (not for the first time) over this issue with no good reason. My attitude is always thrown back as the reason. It's hard not to get vexed when this kind of silliness is practiced and I am provoked to respond such. My post was and is still a fair and valid debate topic and there is no charter rule that says otherwise... Or is there? If so, as I requested earlier could you please show me? As you say, he did not mean it they way it sounded. Well if I used that excuse would it get the ban lifted? No chance! So it's one rule for one etc?

oscarBravo

Lenny Lovett wrote: »

I did refer it to the Category Mods (will and ancatdubh) yesterday but no reply. I did ask you for an independent view on the posting and whether it is in breach of the charter. What do you think? Or if do you not want to rock the boat with your colleagues by commenting I understand.

I'm an admin - I'll get involved if/when the category moderators pass it upstream.

Lenny Lovett wrote: »

But in light of the facts as you can see, how else do you expect me to react? I was confronted and banned by the mod (not for the first time) over this issue with no good reason. My attitude is always thrown back as the reason. It's hard not to get vexed when this kind of silliness is practiced and I am provoked to respond such. My post was and is still a fair and valid debate topic and there is no charter rule that says otherwise... Or is there? If so, as I requested earlier could you please show me? As you say, he did not mean it they way it sounded. Well if I used that excuse would it get the ban lifted? No chance! So it's one rule for one etc?

Again - and I intend this entirely as constructive feedback - you're coming across as rather confrontational. Present your case calmly and rationally, follow the procedure, and be prepared for the possibility that you're not necessarily going to get your way.

I'll check in with the category moderators.

Lenny Lovett

oscarBravo wrote: »

I'm an admin - I'll get involved if/when the category moderators pass it upstream.

Again - and I intend this entirely as constructive feedback - you're coming across as rather confrontational. Present your case calmly and rationally, follow the procedure, and be prepared for the possibility that you're not necessarily going to get your way.

I'll check in with the category moderators.

I apologise if I come across as confrontational. That is certainly not my intention. I'm puzzled you can make that judgement from these posts.
Anyway, as I asked earlier, maybe you would give a personal, independent opinion on whether the post I posted is in breach and if so how/why? Nobody else seems to be able/willing to which implies that it's not.

oscarBravo

Lenny Lovett wrote: »

I apologise if I come across as confrontational. That is certainly not my intention. I'm puzzled you can make that judgement from these posts.
Anyway, as I asked earlier, maybe you would give a personal, independent opinion on whether the post I posted is in breach and if so how/why? Nobody else seems to be able/willing to which implies that it's not.

Yet again, as an administrator - and therefore the last stage in the dispute resolution process - I'll get involved if and when you fail to reach a satisfactory conclusion with the category moderators.

As for you coming across as confrontational, perhaps a more apt word would be "argumentative".

I've said I'll check in with the category moderators. They are volunteers; we don't expect them to make themselves available 24/7 to deal with issues like this. Please bear with us as we move the process forward.

Lenny Lovett

How long does it normally take? It's been three days now...

oscarBravo

We're working on it. We're volunteers with lives and jobs. Please bear with us.

Lenny Lovett

I absoultely respect they you are a volunteer but you must admit that the system operated by boards.ie is seriously flawed given that a ban can take days and days to be appealed. What's the point of the appeal system if nobody has the time to deal with it? It's a very "Civil Service" type operation.

oscarBravo

Based on my conversation with the category moderator, I'm upholding the ban. It appears that you have an axe to grind over RTE and licence fees, and insist on bringing it up at every opportunity. In the Politics forum we call that "soapboxing" and there's an explicit rule against it; there may not be a similar rule against it in the Radio forum, but the principle holds.

The role of the moderators is to ensure that a discussion forum remains a positive and welcoming place for people to have conversations. If an individual poster is soapboxing, that effectively lowers the signal-to-noise ratio in a forum, and the moderators are within their rights in asking that you desist from doing so.

Lenny Lovett

So the discussion of RTE and how we fund it is not a topic for discussion on a forum for radio? That, with respect Sir, is just ridiculous. You can dress it up as soabboxing or whatever other silly title you choose. It's plain censorship and plainly wrong! You say I have an axe to grind about RTE? Not true. I have an axe to grind about how my and your money is spent wasted. I also have an axe to grind about free speech which, from your comments, is not high on the priority of your forum.

Furthermore, if you cared to read a cross section of my posts you will see that a great deal more of my posts have nothing to do with RTE and it's funding than do.

oscarBravo

Lenny Lovett wrote: »

So the discussion of RTE and how we fund it is not a topic for discussion on a forum for radio? That, with respect Sir, is just ridiculous. You can dress it up as soabboxing or whatever other silly title you choose. It's plain censorship and plainly wrong! You say I have an axe to grind about RTE? Not true. I have an axe to grind about how my and your money is spent wasted. I also have an axe to grind about free speech which, from your comments, is not high on the priority of your forum.

Furthermore, if you cared to read a cross section of my posts you will see that a great deal more of my posts have nothing to do with RTE and it's funding than do.

You asked for a summary judgement; you got it. If you want a detailed exploration of the issues, including having the administrators as impartial adjudicators, you're going to have to (a) wait for us to establish the full facts of the matter, and (b) stop insulting this website, its moderators and administrators at every turn.

I strongly suspect that you will not be satisfied with any outcome other than one which allows you to post whatever you want, whenever you want. If that's what you're looking for: sorry, boards.ie is not for you.

If, on the other hand, you are genuinely seeking to arrive at a consensus that will allow you to continue posting in the Radio forum without censure from the moderators, I'm afraid you're going to have to wait for the process to reach its conclusion.

At your request, I brought it to a speedy conclusion. It seems you're not happy with that - are you asking me to re-open the process? If so, are you prepared to patiently engage in that process without any continuing to cast aspersions on the volunteers who help run this site?

Lenny Lovett

oscarBravo wrote: »

You asked for a summary judgement; you got it. If you want a detailed exploration of the issues, including having the administrators as impartial adjudicators, you're going to have to (a) wait for us to establish the full facts of the matter, and (b) stop insulting this website, its moderators and administrators at every turn.

I strongly suspect that you will not be satisfied with any outcome other than one which allows you to post whatever you want, whenever you want. If that's what you're looking for: sorry, boards.ie is not for you.

If, on the other hand, you are genuinely seeking to arrive at a consensus that will allow you to continue posting in the Radio forum without censure from the moderators, I'm afraid you're going to have to wait for the process to reach its conclusion.

At your request, I brought it to a speedy conclusion. It seems you're not happy with that - are you asking me to re-open the process? If so, are you prepared to patiently engage in that process without any continuing to cast aspersions on the volunteers who help run this site?

Well if a summary judgement (God are we in Court??) takes four days how long does a full adjudication take? I have been impatient and annoyed because the procedure for dealing with my complaint as set down in the charter was clearly not adhered to by any of the people concerned.

And as regards the "continuing to cast aspersions on the volunteers who help run this site". I would be quite prepared to back up everything I said in a proper court (not a kangaroo version) if it was required..... All of what I have said is fact. Can you say the same? Would the "Volunteers" be able to back up their assertions? ? I very much doubt it! If they were so sure they would have been honest from the start and this whole process would have been concluded by now.

oscarBravo

I'll take that as a "no".

Lenny Lovett

oscarBravo wrote: »

I'll take that as a "no".

You can take it whatever way you like. I never expected to get my own way. I did expect the facts to be checked properly. I expected fair play. I expected when I joined boards.ie that free speech would be encouraged. I don't mean freedom to spew vitriol. I mean freedom to discuss fairly the topics I post on i.e Radio. That is clearly not permitted as you have a clear policy that certain subjects pertaining to RTE are taboo. FACT
Albeit selectively moderated FACT
Your own charter and recourse to reviews, appeals etc are not followed uniformly FACT.
Your rules are applied selectively FACT
So in short I don't really care if you review it or not. There's no point if honesty and integrity are not applied is there?

Lenny Lovett

Furthermore there's at least two posts this morning on this thread:http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055952094&page=8
that are guilty ( if that's how you guys term it) of exactly what I did. No bans or infractions though... So maybe now you understand why I feel aggrieved at the 'randomness'of your moderation/adjudication. Just blatantly two faced.

oscarBravo

I'm going to be completely straight with you here: all I've seen from you, on this thread, or on Feedback, or by PM, is bitching. You are demanding to be allowed to express yourself in any way you like on this privately owned website, while showing no interest in understanding the community ethos, or accepting that there's any possibility of a valid point of view other than your own.

I see no evidence whatsoever that you're remotely open to persuasion that the conclusions to which you have jumped are not necessarily accurate, despite the fact that you haven't troubled to ascertain any other side to the story.

In short: I'm not prepared to waste any more time on you. If you want to express your personal views unchallenged, start a blog.

I'll continue to approve your posts on this thread, despite your utterly unfounded assumption by PM that I wouldn't (I don't remember seeing a contrite "looks like I was wrong about that" message, either). But it's unlikely that I'll bother responding again, because you seem a lot more interested in talking than listening, and that's not how a discussion forum rolls.

Lenny Lovett

oscarBravo wrote: »

I'm going to be completely straight with you here: all I've seen from you, on this thread, or on Feedback, or by PM, is bitching.

Well then you are misreading my posts. All I ask is an even and fair implimentation of the charters. Is that too hard to comprehend. Again you completely dodged my point about the breach I am supposed to have prepetrated while the same rule has been breached several times since with no action taken by you the mods. Again and agin you avoid that point!

oscarBravo wrote: »

You are demanding to be allowed to express yourself in any way you like on this privately owned website, while showing no interest in understanding the community ethos, or accepting that there's any possibility of a valid point of view other than your own.

Now that is just untrue! I merely expect a fair and equal opportunity to express myself as indeed everyone should have on boards otherwise wht's the point of it?

oscarBravo wrote: »

I see no evidence whatsoever that you're remotely open to persuasion that the conclusions to which you have jumped are not necessarily accurate, despite the fact that you haven't troubled to ascertain any other side to the story.

Nobody has tried to persudae me. You guys issue decrees with no credible argument to back up such decrees.

oscarBravo wrote: »

In short: I'm not prepared to waste any more time on you. If you want to express your personal views unchallenged, start a blog.

Yeah. You take the easy way out instead of explaining why you came to the original conclusion. An easy way to end the discussion. All I asked originally and still ask is A. Why I was banned when I started the thread, and the supposedly offending words were the basis of the thread and how said post breaches the charter. Neither you nor anyone else has explained that. And ye still are all dodging that fact! Getting miffed with me is no way out. Have the courage of your convictions and explain why/ how I breached the ban considering that several other posts by others since in an identical vein are deemed not to.

oscarBravo wrote: »

I'll continue to approve your posts on this thread, despite your utterly unfounded assumption by PM that I wouldn't

Please post up where exactly I said that and I will happily be contrite.

oscarBravo wrote: »

But it's unlikely that I'll bother responding again, because you seem a lot more interested in talking than listening, and that's not how a discussion forum rolls.

Yeah. Take the easy way out!

oscarBravo

Lenny Lovett wrote: »

Please post up where exactly I said that and I will happily be contrite.

Sure:

Lenny Lovett wrote:

And I have replied, although I notice that forum is censored (surprise surprise) prior to the post showing and given your judgement, I expect my response to be blocked as free speech is obviously actively discouraged here. Honesty and integrity don't count for much on boards.ie. If you feel the urge you can crack on and ban me across the boards as I have little appetite to contribute to such a heavily censored and patently dishonest forum. Did you know that a forum was another word for a circus?

Lenny Lovett

oscarBravo wrote: »

Sure:

And it took 24 hours for my response to be cleared by you. So in a sense it was blocked. Anyway you want contrition? OK. I am sorry. I accused you of blocking my post and you didn't. I was wrong. It eventually made it up here...

Anyway, now you have my apology. Maybe now you'll address the rest of my points on my last posting or are you just selecting portions that make me look bad again? Again is that fair?????

Lenny Lovett

You see, again, another few examples of the same 'so called' breach again today by different posters. Here's an example:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056022269
So again, I can say you guys are so selective in your application of the rules. (By the way there's at least two breaches in that thread!!!)

Gordon

Lenny Lovett wrote: »

And it took 24 hours for my response to be cleared by you. So in a sense it was blocked.

Just popping in to say that this is normal. In the stickied thread at the top of the forum: €€€€€€€ - BEFORE YOU START A NEW THREAD - READ THIS - €€€€€€€€ the seventh General Note says -

All posts in this forum are now premoderated, meaning that there will be some delay between posting and your query appearing. We will approve every post. Posts are premoderated for technical reasons.

Lenny Lovett

Gordon wrote: »

Just popping in to say that this is normal. In the stickied thread at the top of the forum: €€€€€€€ - BEFORE YOU START A NEW THREAD - READ THIS - €€€€€€€€ the seventh General Note says -

Yes, I saw that before but 24 hours for it to be premoderated? None of the posts previous to or since that one took more than an hour or so.