Trolling in the Soccer Forum and other problems.

amy21

Iago wrote: »

If I wasn't impartial you'd already be banned by now anialmylo2721.

In fact I'm so biased that I've had DRP threads about me accusing me of banning people because they support United and I'm a Liverpool fan.

Keep banging that drum though.

Ban me for what

101001

The Muppet wrote: »

I did say it was possible citing the reason that I couldn't understand what motivation those that made the allegations, an MP and a chief superintendent of the investigating police force would have to make up such sick lies.

You did say that but that came later from what I recall. You definitely asked about the motivation last night which was after the post that Mr. Alan submitted.

An example of the man, which might lead to a motivation or type of character was given to you. did you discuss that?

Perhaps a discussion forum is not the place to be hanging around for people who are going to get upset and offended by other people asking genuine questions in order to get a better understanding of events.

People wouldnt get upset if folks asked in a genuine way with a small bit more tact. If you find yourself gong through life offending a lot of people maybe a little self reflection is needed

The Muppet

101001 wrote: »

You did say that but that came later from what I recall. You definitely asked about the motivation last night which was after the post that Mr. Alan submitted.

An example of the man, which might lead to a motivation or type of character was given to you. did you discuss that?

It came immediately after the sources for the media story were revealed.

101001 wrote: »

People wouldnt get upset if folks asked in a genuine way with a small bit more tact. If you find yourself gong through life offending a lot of people maybe a little self reflection is needed

I was tactful.

SlickRic

The Muppet, why make the statement at all?

you know your history. you know you rile fans up, whether you think it's merited or not, it's meaningless. you do, and that's the end of the story, and you know you do.

so why on earth would you, of all people, bring it up like that? knowing the reaction it would get anyway, then taking into account your own image, why would you do that?

can you not get the information another way? can you not google? you'd have found the answers you were looking for in an instant. it's obviously your prerogative to post whatever the fúck you want, and you can claim this may be the best place to ask that question because we're 'knowledgable fans of our club', etc etc.

but you're not stupid. you know the reaction any mention of the Sun being in any way right would insinuate. so even if you technically had a right to ask, why bother if you'll cause upset?

are you bored? do you enjoy tension? what is it?

(this is my own personal post by the way; it's not on behalf of all the mods or anything - they're well able to speak for themselves!)

The Muppet

SlickRic wrote: »

The Muppet, why make the statement at all?

you know your history. you know you rile fans up, whether you think it's merited or not, it's meaningless. you do, and that's the end of the story, and you know you do.

so why on earth would you, of all people, bring it up like that? knowing the reaction it would get anyway, then taking into account your own image, why would you do that?

can you not get the information another way? can you not google? you'd have found the answers you were looking for in an instant. it's obviously your prerogative to post whatever the fúck you want, and you can claim this may be the best place to ask that question because we're 'knowledgable fans of our club', etc etc.

but you're not stupid. you know the reaction any mention of the Sun being in any way right would insinuate. so even if you technically had a right to ask, why bother if you'll cause upset?

are you bored? do you enjoy tension? what is it?

(this is my own personal post by the way; it's not on behalf of all the mods or anything - they're well able to speak for themselves!)

It shouldn't be about who made the statement, should it Slick? I made the statement because it is my opinion.

If I remember correctly iknowyoudidnt or whatever his username is made a similar comment did he not?

Jazzy

SlickRic wrote: »

so why on earth would you, of all people, bring it up like that?

sorry, i know you are a mod and all but really - why the f**k do you think he does.

sick of seeing this line by the mods of "oh we cant deal with the casual/little/small time trolls". frankly - its embarrassing. how are you all collectively able to do everything else so well other then this? have some members paid you off? i honestly just dont get it.

need a suggestion on how to deal with it, feedback as it were - ban certain users from posting in specific threads. stop the well known trolls from having their fun and you might notice that new users dont try trolling as much (because they see xxxx user with an old join date trolling they immediatly go "ah yeah its grand i think i might go for a troll too")

Bobeagleburger

The Muppet wrote: »

It shouldn't be about who made the statement, should it Slick? I made the statement because it is my opinion.

If I remember correctly iknowyoudidnt or whatever his username is made a similar comment did he not?

Yeah he did, and got a ban from it. And rightly so.

The Muppet

rarnes1 wrote: »

Yeah he did, and got a ban from it. And rightly so.

He got a ban for what he said in that thread?

SlickRic

The Muppet wrote: »

If I remember correctly iknowyoudidnt or whatever his username is made a similar comment did he not?

i didn't see it; i will have a look in due course.

but his situation makes no difference to yours.

It shouldn't be about who made the statement, should it Slick? I made the statement because it is my opinion.

that is extremely naive.

of course it matters.

you don't want it to matter because it suits you for it not to matter. but when it comes to the issue of 'trolling', a huge piece of criteria of how we are going to judge a post, or a series of posts, is by that poster's history.

that's surely a given.

again, you're either being very very naive with that statement, or you're trying to get us to change how we mod to suit yourself.

Jazzy

The Muppet wrote: »

He got a ban for what he said in that thread?

is this part of the "but they are so good at defending themselves/deflecting the issue/weasling out of it" that the mods & ex mods talk about ?

MitchKoobski

The Muppet

SlickRic wrote: »

i didn't see it; i will have a look in due course.



that is extremely naive.

of course it matters.

you don't want it to matter because it suits you for it not to matter. but when it comes to the issue of 'trolling', a huge piece of criteria of how we are going to judge a post, or a series of posts, is by that poster's history.

that's surely a given.

again, you're either being very very naive with that statement, or you're trying to get us to change how we mod to suit yourself.

Or just making the point that the username should be irrelevant, which it should IMO.

Bobeagleburger

The Muppet wrote: »

He got a ban for what he said in that thread?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056255647

It appears he got a ban for something he said but it's been recinded.

Think I've mixed him up with another poster.

The dispute resolution thread is top heavy with soccer bans today.

Anyway, sorry for going off topic OP.

SlickRic

Jazzy wrote: »

sick of seeing this line by the mods of "oh we cant deal with the casual/little/small time trolls".

when have we ever said this?

need a suggestion on how to deal with it, feedback as it were - ban certain users from posting in specific threads. stop the well known trolls from having their fun and you might notice that new users dont try trolling as much (because they see xxxx user with an old join date trolling they immediatly go "ah yeah its grand i think i might go for a troll too")

a lot of the time posters will post an alternative opinion, and people just go nuts calling it trolling.

this is not RAWK or RedCafe.

there is a happy medium between the 2 that is difficult to find, but we do our best. you can't ban everyone with an alternative opinion, and the amount of ridiculous reports we get from people who call a different opinion trolling is laughable.

Sean Bateman

Trolling will always be an issue on forums such as this.

But baseless allegations of trolling are just as much of a problem.

When certain people are faced with arguments that shock or anger them, they hurl accusations of trolling around like confetti. That probably hinders good debate more than pure trolling.

I would love to discuss Hillsborough with other football fans in greater detail. But I've always felt that the allegations reflected in The Sun were true, or at least had a grain of truth to them (i.e. Liverpool fans pickpocketed, urinated on and sexually assaulted the dead). And Liverpool fans will never engage in constructive debate about the issue.

The fact of the matter is that we all know that English football attracts some seriously dodgy characters. Is it utterly inconceivable that some Liverpool fans may have committed such atrocities?

SlickRic

The Muppet wrote: »

Or just making the point that the username should be irrelevant, which it should IMO.

you think that, because it suits your posting style.

and that's your opinion...and i'm telling you, as a fact, that it's not irrelevant.

explain to me how we would ever infract and ban trollers if we didn't take any history into account at all? if every post was purely taken on it's own merits?

catib999

Last night on a specific thread, since deleted called the Premier Soccer Saturday thread, there were frankly disgraceful comments from a poster who decided that Liverpool fans probably had caused the Hillsborough disaster and the Sun were probably right since they couldn't technically be proven wrong, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

KittyeeTrix

Sean Bateman wrote: »

Trolling will always be an issue on forums such as this.

But baseless allegations of trolling are just as much of a problem.

When certain people are faced with arguments that shock or anger them, they hurl accusations of trolling around like confetti. That probably hinders good debate more than pure trolling.

I would love to discuss Hillsborough with other football fans in greater detail. But I've always felt that the allegations reflected in The Sun were true, or at least had a grain of truth to them (i.e. Liverpool fans pickpocketed, urinated on and sexually assaulted the dead). And Liverpool fans will never engage in constructive debate about the issue.

The fact of the matter is that we all know that English football attracts some seriously dodgy characters. Is it utterly inconceivable that some Liverpool fans may have committed such atrocities?

Oh Lordy, here we go!!!:eek:

Mr Alan

Slick, I agree with you about calling people who simply disagree with you a troll is not good for the forum & it does happen.

However, with The Muppet, that's not the case. He is a troll. You know it. I know it. The other mods know it. Every user on the forum knows it. It's virtually his sole contribution to the forum as well. It's pathetic & last night was a step too far for me.

Ps. People, please ignore Sean Batemans contribution above, no need to de-rail this thread with his bile.

Bobeagleburger

It's very easy to actually troll and get away with it, if you have half a brain, let's face it. There's things to post in certain threads that will rile a few people up but won't be bad enough to earn a card.

There's a very fine line between trolling a thread and having a difference of opinin. Which is what Slick is getting at I think. It can be a very fine line at times though!

That's what makes it tough for the mods.

DOC09UNAM

Mr Alan wrote: »

Yea, I think he can, he is an excellent mod.

I've never seen him putting a foot wrong in the SF in general, or more specifically, in modding Liverpool related issues.

I say all that despite being in the middle of a six month ban in part handed to me by Iago.

I know you're new-ish to the place & you may not be aware of me, but I'm kind of a big deal, so pipe down & don't derail a valid discussion about the style of posting of some in the SF.

I genuinely miss you from the SF, one of the best posters from there.

That said, Iago is as impartial as they come imo, ask any united fan, I'm sure he's warned a few of them, myself included, not because he's biased, but because we broke the rules.

It really is as simple as that.

Dont be at yourself

At the end of the day, you have to eventually wake up and smell the coffee. All Muppet brings to the soccer forum is trolling of one degree or another. Everything he posts is done with the intention to wind people up and get a reaction. The disgraceful comments on the thread from last night only underline that. I don't believe he really means what he says - because all of the evidence to the contrary is widely available and well established. That means he simply did it to antagonise people.

The mods should stamp out this kind of crap (amongst all fans), because it makes the SF incredibly tiresome. We want to avoid RAWK/Red Cafe-style love ins, but we also want to avoid tedious arguments and wind-ups. We've successfully avoided the former, but wholeheartedly embraced the latter in doing so.

In the meantime, and in case the mods just make fob people off with "raise it in the end of season review" etc, I really strongly suggest that people who don't want to have to deal with such characters, do the following:

1. Add the posters to your ignore list.
2. If you read their posts, don't quote them in your replies.

Starve them of the oxygen they crave and they'll go away and troll someone else.

Bobeagleburger

I replied to that sick post from Bateman above but have deleted it.

No need to feed.

Panthro

(nazi hat on) It was Premier Soccer Sunday folks (nazi hat off)
I enjoyed getting the "inside scoop" from some of the posters that were actual audience members during the live show. Some of the info they had about the "behind the scenes" of the show itself made for pretty good reading I thought myself personally. The thread got a bit derailed off the face of the earth which is a pity but shure thats how it rolled I'm afraid.

The Muppet

SlickRic wrote: »

you think that, because it suits your posting style.

and that's your opinion...and i'm telling you, as a fact, that it's not irrelevant.

explain to me how we would ever infract and ban trollers if we didn't take any history into account at all? if every post was purely taken on it's own merits?

I think it because I think it's right.


I always assumed people were only infracted for breaking the rules, is this not the case?

Kess73

Sean Bateman wrote: »

Trolling will always be an issue on forums such as this.

But baseless allegations of trolling are just as much of a problem.

When certain people are faced with arguments that shock or anger them, they hurl accusations of trolling around like confetti. That probably hinders good debate more than pure trolling.

I would love to discuss Hillsborough with other football fans in greater detail. But I've always felt that the allegations reflected in The Sun were true (i.e. Liverpool fans pickpocketed, urinated on and sexually assaulted the dead). And Liverpool fans will never engage in constructive debate about the issue.

I was trying to stay out of this thread, but that last line is total bullsh1t.

The Liverpool superthread has had a number of Hillborough debates in it over the last two or three seasons. People have had questions answered and links to sites with factual information have been made available.

Plenty of supporters of other clubs were involved and it generally went well when genuine questions were asked. Now maybe you have not been using the football forum for very long or just missed those discussions but the issue has been discussed a number of times over the years. Generally there is a bit of duscussion on the topic every April for obvious reasons, and for some reason it seems to get an airing in the superthread around Halloween as well.

Anybody who is genuine in their questions is never a bother in my eyes. Plenty of folk are too young to remember what happened, or supported other clubs and only had a passing interest as to what happened.

What actually happened, the attempted brushing under the carpet as to why exits were locked and in some cases chained, what was reported in certain media outlets, what was said by a certain manager, and how certain media outlets had their version blown out of the water and the same went for that manager, and the fight that families have made for the truth to be published is all out there to be read about, and in many cases it is there to be heard from a Liverpool supporter's pov as well.


The allegations made by that paper were proven false, and the report that proved those allegations were false was published in 1990.

Now I hope this is ok with the mods but I would like to put up a link to the HJC (Hillsborough Justice Campaign) which my brother and I are involved with.

http://www.contrast.org/hillsborough/

Using that link, you can read through reports of what happened. Read reports from survivors, and listen to reports there. You can read about the various campaigns and the whys behind each campaign. If you decide you have further questions on it, feel free to pm me and I will give you what I think to the best of my ability, or if mods allow it, maybe a sensible chat about it in the superthread where other reds could let you know how they feel about it and give you their takes on it.

What happened that day and it's aftermath goes far far beyond club loyalties, and should never be used for points scoring or cheap baiting ( not for a second saying that about you). It changed a lot of lives and many still live with it to this day.


The ball is in your court now if you are genuine about it. Use the links, pm me, or ask a mod if we can discuss it in the forum.

_blank_

The Muppet wrote: »

Or just making the point that the username should be irrelevant, which it should IMO.

You can't be serious here mate.

Of course a poster's history is taken into account when moderating their posts, it's how the forum is modded, with the cards building up to bans system.

Be of no doubt that a detailed history is kept of all "troublesome" posters in the private soccer mod forum, ticks against their name, "ones to look out for and stuff like that.

I'd love to see mine

It's the only way to keep a handle on such a busy forum.

SlickRic

The Muppet wrote: »

I think it because I think it's right.


I always assumed people were only infracted for breaking the rules, is this not the case?

ok, i'll walk you through it.

one of the rules is to not troll.

it would be extremely difficult to ever ban/infract someone for low-level trolling if it was simply on every individual post. in fact, i'd say it'd be impossible.

and you think it's right, because if it was right, you can post whatever the fúck you want without reprimand. ever.

you want 'freedom of speech'. fine. i agree. but there has to be a point, as per the rules of the charter that you are sensitive to where you are posting and what you are posting about. or else there is anarchy.

murpho999

Muppet: Can you see in any way that people may have taken offence at what your request for information may have done?

You asked for info to prove that the allegations were false when in my book allegations must be proven to be true not the other way round?

Mods: this thread seems to be turning into an extension of the deleted thread. Will there be any actions taken and should some posters not at least apologise for what was said?

LoLth

Soccer discussion is not feedback. that belogns in the soccer forum. Discussion of the rules/atmosphere/content of th esoccer forum is feedback and that can be posted here.

lets try to maintain the gap between these two types of posts please.

@the muppet
yes, rule breaches get infracted but, depending on the severity, frequency, repetition of the offense they can also be bannable.

Some users will pick up an infraction every so often in a claculated "i can get away with this and then stay clean for X amount of time" way. Thats not fair to users who post within the framework of rules and contribute to the forum and community as it is intended. Eventually, if it looks like the user is not learning or is just playing the system, an action that would have earned an infraction the last time they did it will warrant a more severe repurcussion - ie a ban of whatever duration. if it continues then that ban, at the moderators discretion can be extended in duration and also scope. A user can (dont know if one has yet though) earn a siteban for repeated disruptive behaviour.

If a user takes up too much mod time then we have to question whether that user is of benefit to the community of boards.ie as a whole. As long as the mods are fair, then any user should have received ample warning before it ever gets to a serious ban (except spammers/shills, they dont get a warning, they get to explain their side of things in prison).

Of course, users who feel that a ban or infraction is not warranted have every right to question it by following the DRP (PM mod, start DRP thread, talk to cmod, ask for admin decision). The DRP is there to ensure mods stay as consistent and as fair as possible.

If a user wants to post in a forum then they implicitly accept the rules of the charter. It would be advisable for users to read the charters or at the least learn from the warnings they receive when they break those rules. If a user feels that they cannot abide by the charter rules then thats not the forum for them to post in and they should look elsewhere OR they can always question the charter rules by providing feedback that the moderators can either explain the whys and why nots or maybe even get an idea for how to change the charter to make it more acceptable to the community of posters as a whole.