Banned from Motors

Quazzie

Tonight I was banned from Motors by Our Man in Havana which I believe to be a wrong decision. I made a post in the Chat thread which was mostly tongue in cheek but contained some truths. I never used any bad language and in fact instead of writing bull**** I even used the acronym BS.

The reason given for the ban was I was "being uncivil". I fail to see what I said was being uncivil, as I never used any foul language, or even made anything that could be regarded as uncivil. The reason given is even more absurd than the ban.

As I was immediately confused by being called uncivil I repsonded by PM to the mod that I wished him to rescind the ban, and also reinstate my post (which was deleted) as I felt it was harsh in the extreme. I told him that if I didn't get the matter resolved I would be going to DRP for a resolution. The following is the PM that he returned to me, which I found to be uncivil in itself and also abuse of power in my honest opinion.

Go to DRP. Think you can win? Go ahead.

This to me this is condescending and abuse of moderator privelages.

I asked him could I post his PMs here but he refused, but I feel it is within my rights within the remit of the DRP to post PMs that occur as result of moderation action.

As a long term contributer to the Motors forum, and Boards as a whole I feel this ban is unfair in the extreme as I can't recall ever getting a warning in Motors let alone a ban. I feel the moderator has acted with some sort of prejudice which is evident in his PM.

I have consulted with a former and well respected ex-mod of Motors and he was in agreement that the action taken by Our Man in Havana was incorrect, although I know that this opinion carries no weight in this situation, but I have used to it gauge my own opinion. I am deeply saddened that such an action was taken against me, with no regard for my history on the site or the forum, and even more so by the flippant remarks made in the Private messages that ensued.

All I did was point out that three people, including a motors mod, were shilling, which on any other forum on Boards would result in a site ban for the user involved. I feel that the action taken by Our man in Havana was a reactive post to me pointing out the blatant and obvious shilling by his fellow mod.

Quazzie

I understand fully that CMods have real life commitment and its not my intention to be pushy but have any of the REC CMods had a chance to look at this.

mikedragon32

I have had a look and I've contacted the mod already to advise of the DRP. Awaiting a response.

Quazzie

Thanks Mike

mikedragon32

Sorry for the delay.

Having reviewed the post in question and read back over the thread I am going to uphold the decision of the Mod. Given your post accuses another Mod of the forum of being a shill and then naming several other posters as shills, I feel the action taken is warranted.

Quazzie

mikedragon32 wrote: »

Sorry for the delay.

Having reviewed the post in question and read back over the thread I am going to uphold the decision of the Mod. Given your post accuses another Mod of the forum of being a shill and then naming several other posters as shills, I feel the action taken is warranted.

What is the reason for my ban? How was I being uncivil?

The three people accused of being shills are shilling. The moderator in question has a thread where he is shilling for a competition on another website. No other user in the forum would be granted such a thread, so the fact that its a moderator that is doing it, doesn't stop it being shilling.

The second user I named has made several posts in the Of Topic thread asking for users to fill out his poll on boards, is also shilling. On any other forum on Boards it would result in a ban.

The third user continuously, shills for the company he works for and uses Boards to get business for there. Again, on any other forum on Boards as per the Boards rules, he would be directed to the hello@boards.ie to request a trade account. On some other forums I post on, Construction and Planning for example it would lead to instant ban.

I would like an admin to review this please as I understand that it is hard for a CMod to go against, not one but two of the mods in Motors. I would also like an admin to review the interactions that the moderator in question had with me whilst carrying out his mod duties. His words were condescending and insulting, and even though the DRP has lived down to his expectations, I still found them to be wrong.

Quazzie

Again. I don't mean to be pushy but have any of the admins had a chance to look into this yet?

Trojan

Quazzie: patience. An admin will be along to review as soon as they have a chance. Limited time, unlimited work

(Personally I can't pick this up as I'm traveling for the next few days so wouldn't be able to communicate and respond to posts in a reasonable time frame.)

Quazzie

Trojan wrote: »

Quazzie: patience. An admin will be along to review as soon as they have a chance. Limited time, unlimited work

No probs. Thanks for the response

Trojan wrote: »

(Personally I can't pick this up as I'm traveling for the next few days so wouldn't be able to communicate and respond to posts in a reasonable time frame.)

Lucky fecker. :P

The Sweeper

Quazzie, I can pick this up on Friday at some point if you're willing to hold off until then (might be AM, might be PM).

Quazzie

The Sweeper wrote: »

Quazzie, I can pick this up on Friday at some point if you're willing to hold off until then (might be AM, might be PM).

that's prefect., thanks

The Sweeper

Hi Quazzie

Okay, I've looked through this.

I've read the motors chat thread. I've read through things on the forum. I've looked into post histories and ban reasons.

Quazzie, there are a few things that I think might be causing confusion, so I'm going to go through them and hopefully it clarifies matters for you.

First, 'being uncivil' as a reason for a ban - always, in the history of boards.ie, we've had a rule that was 'don't be a dick'. It's a good rule. It sums up a lot of behaviour and covers a lot of bases. However, it's something of a confrontational thing to say to someone - 'you're being a dick'. It's incendiary and most folks are likely to arc up if someone calls them a dick (whether or not they were being one). Subsequently, some mods replace 'being a dick' with 'being uncivil' as an effort to express 'you were acting the goat and being irritating and bringing up stuff that was better done as reported posts and generally causing a fuss' in a few short words.

So first clarification: you weren't 'being uncivil' in the absolute description of the words. You were being disruptive, and deliberately incendiary and you were bringing up stuff on thread that really, if you were truly worried about it, would have been better handled through reported posts, PMs to Mods or CMods or even a thread in the feedback forum - where, as a place for you to air your opinions about how the site is being run, you could have brought up the subject of moderators posting on specialist forums when they're involved in commercial business and so on.

The second clarification is what the DRP is for. This forum is for deciding whether or not your ban was justified. It's not for establishing whether your comments are legitimate and therefore should have been excused, and it's not for deciding anything at all about anyone else'e behaviour. This thread is not the place to hold a discussion about whether or not other posters on Motors are shills.

If you're concerned about whether or not the mods and other users on Motors are behaving within the forum rules, you have a number of options open to you:

• Report the posts.
• If it's a mod, PM the CMod.
• You can always request an admin look into behaviour especially if you suspect it as shilling.

The third thing is that yes, Our Man in Havana is justified refusing you permission to publish his PMs - however there is a 'report the PM' function on your PM inbox. If you receive a PM that you feel is over the top, report it. The reported PMs are visible to the admin team. We get to see what you're talking about without you ever having to put it in the public domain.

Please feel free to report the PMs you've received about this matter.

There are a number of things that will happen from here.

First and foremost, I'm upholding your ban. It's just a week, and the fact is you were being incendiary, bringing up stuff that had no place on that thread, throwing out accusations and generally being a dick. Sit the ban out and next time if you want to discuss something, give some thought to less confrontational ways to do it.

Second, I'm going to have a discussion with the motors mods about other matters brought up in your post. Those matters aren't justification for overturning your ban - as I said, this forum is for talking about whether or not your ban was deserved and it my view it was.

You can feel free to report the PMs you received about this matter. Again, they won't make me overturn your ban - as a standalone exchange of action and reaction, you behaved how you behaved and you got banned for it and nothing is going to change that. However I am willing to take on board reported PMs and they will influence how I may start a conversation with other folks about their behaviour.

Cheers

The Sweeper

Quazzie

The Sweeper wrote: »

Hi Quazzie

Okay, I've looked through this.

I've read the motors chat thread. I've read through things on the forum. I've looked into post histories and ban reasons.

Quazzie, there are a few things that I think might be causing confusion, so I'm going to go through them and hopefully it clarifies matters for you.

First, 'being uncivil' as a reason for a ban - always, in the history of boards.ie, we've had a rule that was 'don't be a dick'. It's a good rule. It sums up a lot of behaviour and covers a lot of bases. However, it's something of a confrontational thing to say to someone - 'you're being a dick'. It's incendiary and most folks are likely to arc up if someone calls them a dick (whether or not they were being one). Subsequently, some mods replace 'being a dick' with 'being uncivil' as an effort to express 'you were acting the goat and being irritating and bringing up stuff that was better done as reported posts and generally causing a fuss' in a few short words.

So first clarification: you weren't 'being uncivil' in the absolute description of the words. You were being disruptive, and deliberately incendiary and you were bringing up stuff on thread that really, if you were truly worried about it, would have been better handled through reported posts, PMs to Mods or CMods or even a thread in the feedback forum - where, as a place for you to air your opinions about how the site is being run, you could have brought up the subject of moderators posting on specialist forums when they're involved in commercial business and so on.

My comment was tongue in cheek. I fully understand that if I had a genuine gripe with what was happening the report post function would have been used, as I have before. Just as a reference, in the same thread a couple of weeks later I posted something similar about Limerick Man when he posted about something he was selling. He edited my post to look I offered to buy it, and we joked about it. Then it was tongue in cheek also and was handled as such and all parties involved got a laugh out of it. I don't feel I was being "a dick" as I wasn't flaming, or trying to start anything.

The Sweeper wrote: »

The second clarification is what the DRP is for. This forum is for deciding whether or not your ban was justified. It's not for establishing whether your comments are legitimate and therefore should have been excused, and it's not for deciding anything at all about anyone else'e behaviour. This thread is not the place to hold a discussion about whether or not other posters on Motors are shills.

If you're concerned about whether or not the mods and other users on Motors are behaving within the forum rules, you have a number of options open to you:

• Report the posts.
• If it's a mod, PM the CMod.
• You can always request an admin look into behaviour especially if you suspect it as shilling.

Like I've said its not something that particularly bothers me to be honest, and that's why I never went down the report post route, or the other options you have outlined. The reason I made the comment above was just to prove that my post (albeit tongue in cheek) did contain more than just a trace of truth, so it wasn't like I was out throwing unfounded accusations around. Funnily enough if the post contained less truth maybe it might have been seen as tongue in cheek as per its intention.

The Sweeper wrote: »

The third thing is that yes, Our Man in Havana is justified refusing you permission to publish his PMs - however there is a 'report the PM' function on your PM inbox. If you receive a PM that you feel is over the top, report it. The reported PMs are visible to the admin team. We get to see what you're talking about without you ever having to put it in the public domain.

At the top of the DRP its states "Private message conversations in relation to the topic at hand are ok to publish in this forum in an attempt to resolve an issue. This is contrary to normal Boards.ie Guidelines that permission be sought before publication of any PMs sent or received." I thought this meant it was ok to publish them here, but I think I understand that you mean any problem I have with the PM will be handled separately to this matter if I use the report post function

The Sweeper wrote: »

Please feel free to report the PMs you've received about this matter.

There are a number of things that will happen from here.

First and foremost, I'm upholding your ban. It's just a week, and the fact is you were being incendiary, bringing up stuff that had no place on that thread, throwing out accusations and generally being a dick. Sit the ban out and next time if you want to discuss something, give some thought to less confrontational ways to do it.

Second, I'm going to have a discussion with the motors mods about other matters brought up in your post. Those matters aren't justification for overturning your ban - as I said, this forum is for talking about whether or not your ban was deserved and it my view it was.

You can feel free to report the PMs you received about this matter. Again, they won't make me overturn your ban - as a standalone exchange of action and reaction, you behaved how you behaved and you got banned for it and nothing is going to change that. However I am willing to take on board reported PMs and they will influence how I may start a conversation with other folks about their behaviour.

Cheers

The Sweeper

Thanks for taking time to look into this. I disagree that I was being a dick, because like I said my comment was tongue in cheek, but its hard to get context across in posts. Overall I'll have to accept the judgement and hope that the ban doesn't stain my history too much.

The Sweeper

Resolved so - thread closed.