Ban from Cork City forum appeal

Ludo

I have been banned from the Cork city forum for a week and wish to appeal it. I have PM'ed the mod and been referred to here.

I was banned for criticising a moderator here:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73989123&postcount=18

Twice in my time on boards have I ever criticised a moderator like that....I know this is against the rules. But both times have been the same moderator in the last couple of months for the exact same reason (and one was fair as it was on a feedback thread). The moderator deletes a whole thread rather than actually moderating and leave no explanation as to why you are taking the action. Both times other people have started a new thread asking what happened to the original thread...can you see the problem here? Proper moderating and an on thread warning would make life better for everyone and none of this would ever happen.

The first time I did this was when the moderator opened a feedback thread himself eventually about the deleted thread and gave me a warning for a direct comment about the feedback being requested which is unfair to say the least. There was a long feedback forum thread about a very similar situation in the SEI forum where a mod opened a feedback thread and then threatened people who criticised some of his decisions...as many people pointed out...don't open a feedback thread unless you are prepared for some actual feedback. This was my prior warning which is referred to in the post the mod made when announcing my ban...which I still claim should not have been a warning at all.

I can't find a link to that thread now for some reason. When I search for "castie" in the Cork City forum (sorted newest first) I can see what I think is the thread as the third result but for some odd reason there is no link to it.

In the latest thread (where I am not the only one to criticise the moderating by the way) I was making the point that maybe he is not around enough or something to have the time to actually edit a thread and hence delete the whole thing (yes I said the action may have come out of laziness) and maybe a second moderator who is around more would help avoid these situations.

I admit I shouldn't have said this and if that is going to be latched onto as the reason to uphold the ban then fair enough.

Anyway...I hope you can see where I am coming from here so I request you lift the ban please after considering it. Either way I would hope that raising this issue may result in better moderator actions...i.e. moderating a thread rather than simply deleting it.

Thanks,
Ludo.

Dub13

Hi Ludo,

I have had a look at this and to be honest its a blatant case of arguing with a moderator on thread.While you may have had concerns about the moderation on the Cork forum you picked the absolute worst method to express this view.You are hear long enough now to know you could have sent a PM to the mod or the Cat Mods,or you could have started a feedback thread.

Dub13

Ludo

I agree with all you say there Dub. As I said in my post earlier, I know I was wrong to post that and should have gone to feedback and it won't happen again. I am not contesting that.

However, I do feel a 7 day ban for the offence is harsh considering the ban seems to be based on an unfair warning received previously for giving feedback on a feedback thread. I contested that warning via pm but was dismissed. It left a bad feeling which probably contributed to my outburst on the new thread being deleted. I took it no further as it was only a warning and didn't realise it was going to be used against me later like this. Maybe I shoulda known better. Others who questioned the decision were not banned which implies to be that the previous incident is being held against me here.

Anyway, even if this ban is upheld (which by the strict letter of the law it probably will be), then I hope some issues will be brought to the fore and possibly considered by moderators in general

1. From a users point of view, simply deleting long threads which users have invested time in (and in this case one person made a very personal post about his sexuality) is not a good idea when a couple of minutes could be spent tidying up the thread.

2. If you open a feedback thread in forum, then don't give warnings or bans for contributions who mention moderating...discuss it.

3. Maybe there should be more than one mod in every forum at least. This MAY have resulted in the original thread not getting to the point where it was 6 pages long before the moderator got to it.

I realise those 3 things are not directly related to my ban appeal, and probably better suited to feedback, but felt I'm just putting them here anyway as I am typing.

castie

Here is the post that the warning was given for.

Quote:
Originally Posted by castie View Post
There was a direct comment regarding appearance being mentioned in the previous thread....
Yes, someone denied this was said...fair enough. I do seem to recall those comments myself. But that is not the issue here.

Why wasn't the original thread edited to remove the personal insults + infract the user. Deleting the whole thread was unnecessary.

How much thought was actually given to this charter update? It looks suspiciously like you got a reported post and immediately came on and deleted the thread and updated the charter. Was there any actual thought given to this or time taken to think it through?

Thread was to discuss a new charter addition and not the past actions.
On thread warning was issued previous to this also to everyone.

Ludo

Thanks for digging that out..I wanted to link to it earlier but couldn't get at it for some reason.

The feedback was requested as a direct result of that thread that I mention which resulted in a new charter addition. Surely a feedback thread discussing a new charter should include how the issue had been previously handled to determine how to handle it in future. Giving a 14 day ban warning in a PM for that post and then using it as ammo in the future seems a bit OTT.

Deleting rather than editing that landlord thread resulted another thread asking where it went and an "in forum" feedback thread.

Deleting the Old Oak thread instead of editing it resulted in another thread asking where it went and a feedback thread asking why it was deleted and now, indirectly, a dispute resolution thread.

I did not start any of the above threads by the way in case anyone thinks I did (other than this one of course).

None of the above would have happened if the threads had been edited to remove offending posts rather than deleting the whole thread or even if the content of the thread had been removed and replaced with a mod comment or something.

Dub13

Ludo wrote: »

I agree with all you say there Dub. As I said in my post earlier, I know I was wrong to post that and should have gone to feedback and it won't happen again. I am not contesting that.

So we have agreement here,which is good as 90% of the time in this forum users still cant see any wrong doing on there part.

I am looking at your 7 day ban in the context of site wide bans for similar situation's and I cannot honestly say its harsh.I would in fact say it was about the norm.

So from a Cat Mod point of view,1)the ban was sound & 2) the ban length was appropriate.