Banned from Boxing for "Spamming".

Dan_Solo

The moderator at Boxing has banned me, supposedly for "Spamming". This was in response to me reporting his post asking me "Are you actually brain dead".
Is reporting abusive posts "spamming"? How else can direct personal insults be reported then?

the drifter

I'll have a look at this. It will be tomorrow before i get a chance though

Dan_Solo

Thanks.

Dan_Solo

My ban has been lifted. Thank you very much.
Can I have some feedback on the reasoning behind this? (by PM would be fine)

the drifter

Dan_Solo wrote: »

My ban has been lifted. Thank you very much.
Can I have some feedback on the reasoning behind this? (by PM would be fine)

Your ban was only for one day. It was never a perma ban.

Are you happy to leave it at that or do you want it looked into further?

Dan_Solo

Sorry, I hadn't realised that the ban had expired of it's own accord. I mistakenly took it as being rescinded after investigation.
I'd prefer if somebody had a look at that thread TBH ("Are you actually Brain dead?"), and the PMs I received from cowzerp ("yes you are laughed at, by me") etc. Also, threatening a ban because they don't like an argument going against them is ridiculous. Another poster there also pointed out that was what cowzerp was doing. Obviously he should have done that by PM. I complied with this mod order not to post again in the thread, which I do not agree with, and have not posted in Boxing at all since.
Also, the banning for "spamming" makes no sense when I was reporting his abusive posts. I didn't send any new posts to Boxing at all, only reported abuse! Can any mod now ban someone for reporting the mod's own abusive posts? How can the reporting system possibly function then?
I understand the ban is over, but I feel this is shockingly poor moderation.

the drifter

Very well i shall look into it.

Cheers

D

cowzerp

Invited by The Drifter to add my input.

Hi,
he was asked not to post on a thread again because he was trolling me and others and deliberately not understanding what people including myself where saying, I done this rather than give any officiall warning, only after this he decided to keep reporting posts over and over so I banned him for trolling that way, nothing to do with the thread

If I did not tell him not to post on the thread again he was guaranteed to get a ban because his attitude to posters, my brain dead comment was out of frustration as everytime I made a skills point he kept saying that I was talking about toughness and trying to belittle my debate, then I'd explain the skills point in more detail saying regardless of toughness and he'd do it again, he was simply trolling me

On the same thread before all this he was doing the same to another regular poster "megadodge" and as I said at the time he was trolling and trying to irritate people

In hindsight I should not have asked was he brain dead

I'll leave it there and come back if needed to explain more or when I can get in the laptop and do it better.

the drifter

Dan_Solo

I've discussed this with the moderator and read back over 5 pages of the thread in question. You seems to have gotten into an on thread spat with megadodge as well.

Your ban as issued for the reporting of 4 posts. It was a one day ban and i feel this was fair as one reported post would have done. Also the common procedure if you have an issue with moderation is to PM the mod in question, not to report the post or openly discuss it on the forum.

As for the comments ("Are you actually Brain dead?") the mod has agreed to remove these from the thread.

If you have any issues feel free to PM me.

Thanks

D

Dan_Solo

cowzerp wrote: »

Hi,
he was asked not to post on a thread again because he was trolling me and others and deliberately not understanding what people including myself where saying, I done this rather than give any officiall warning, only after this he decided to keep reporting posts over and over so I banned him for trolling that way, nothing to do with the thread

I don't think there's any onus on a poster not to report your abusive posts whenever they see fit. Also, there were other posters there who seemed to be also "deliberately not understanding" what you were saying. Were they all trolls? Is everyone who does not agree with you a troll.

In any case YOU DIDN'T BAN ME FOR TROLLING, YOU BANNED ME FOR SPAMMING. Please be honest. Here is my ban notice.

Dear Dan_Solo,
You have been banned from Boxing for one day for posting Spam.
Spam is defined as repeatedly posting unwanted and/or unrequested advertising or information.

Even though I still have not posted a single additional post to Boxing? What I did do was report your abusive posts. Is that spamming? Of course you get to decide this, so I'm sure all reporting of your personal abuse conveniently fall under "unwanted information". Spamming specifically states POSTING. Not reporting or PMing. Totally spurious reason for a ban.

cowzerp wrote: »

If I did not tell him not to post on the thread again he was guaranteed to get a ban because his attitude to posters, my brain dead comment was out of frustration as everytime I made a skills point he kept saying that I was talking about toughness and trying to belittle my debate, then I'd explain the skills point in more detail saying regardless of toughness and he'd do it again, he was simply trolling me

I saw your posts as just as argumentative, and megadodge not far behind. "Your follow up post is so stupid I shouldn't have even wasted this sentence on it."? That isn't argumentative? No issue with you the mod of course as you were agreeing with him.
At least two other posters agreed with me that you WERE repeatedly equating physical toughness with toughness of a sport, when it is really about difficulty. None of us saw fit to resort to personal abuse. "Belittling your debate" is just trying to put an inflammatory spin on what is really just a run of the mill posting of a refutation. You could say anybody is "belittling" someone else's argument any time they try to disprove it. Emotional language to describe the perfectly ordinary on a chat board.

cowzerp wrote: »

On the same thread before all this he was doing the same to another regular poster "megadodge" and as I said at the time he was trolling and trying to irritate people

No, you didn't. You made no reference whatsoever to my argument with megadodge. You said if I posted again you'd ban me. You said I was trolling, no qualifier, no explanation, no mention of megadodge.
For context, megadodge came out with the line that when he said "you" when talking about a theory I was proposing, he really meant "you" in the third person, even when he was talking about a theory I was proposing right there and then! Sure, a minor point, which may even be seen from both angles, but again you will say that I am trolling but he is not solely because you agree with him on the central argument. And you say it now after the fact.

As a matter of interest, how many of my posts were reported for "trolling" in that thread exactly?
I would suggest none. Many of them even received a Thanks!

cowzerp

You trolled that thread and reported posts trying to stir it, If you post in that fashion in future your stay won't be for long in the boxing forum I'm afraid.

Glad this is resolved anyway.

Dan_Solo

cowzerp wrote: »

You trolled that thread and reported posts trying to stir it, If you post in that fashion in future your stay won't be for long in the boxing forum I'm afraid.

Glad this is resolved anyway.

Reporting your abusive posts such as "Are you actually Brain dead?" is now "stirring it"?
Do you have the decency now to admit you banned me for "Spamming" and not "Trolling" as you have claimed above? The first ever case of "Spamming" that involved a sum total of zero posts?

cowzerp

I banned you off the thread for trolling, I banned you off the forum for spamming us with reports, again you are acting like a troll.

If this is your general manner on boards im shocked your still here tbh.

I'm not going to go around in circles as I have enough to do without dealing with trolls outside the boxing forum, I'll leave that to others.

Dan_Solo

cowzerp wrote: »

I banned you off the thread for trolling, I banned you off the forum for spamming us with reports, again you are acting like a troll.

If this is your general manner on boards im shocked your still here tbh.

I'm not going to go around in circles as I have enough to do without dealing with trolls outside the boxing forum, I'll leave that to others.

Your response to everything is that I am troll. I could say exactly the same about you or megadodge. Same number of argumentative posts and even more in the way of personal abuse than there ever was from me.
It says quite clearly that spam only concerns POSTS. In any case the posts I was reporting have turned out to contain personal abuse which had to be deleted, destroying your own case that I was "spamming"!
So I was banned for spam post when there were no posts involved and the posts of yours I reported turned out to be abusive anyway!

cowzerp

1 and I was asked to delete it and did, was out of order and I should not have reacted to your trolling posts, next time I will not comment but will just infract etc, keep going

Dan_Solo

cowzerp wrote: »

1 and I was asked to delete it and did, was out of order and I should not have reacted to your trolling posts, next time I will not comment but will just infract etc, keep going

My trolling posts?
Which ones were these? Who has reported them as trolling? You by any chance? Nobody?
You seem to be using the "troll" word as some sort of magic wand. Throw enough mud etc. As was pointed out in the thread, it was incredibly obvious you used your mod position to end a perfectly legitimate argument, that you happened to be one of the major protagonist in, in your own favour. Yes, that was one of your posts I reported, and other people seem to agree that I was right to.
Is your case that you and megadodge were not trolling, despite your argumentative and personally abusive posts?
Now you are taking any attempts to air these grievances as further evidence of trolling, thereby making it supposedly a self-fulfilling prophecy. When he complains of abuse he's spamming, when he defends his corner it's "more" of the trolling which didn't happen in the first place.

cowzerp

I'm done here, I'm not wasting anymore time dealing with you here.

the drifter

I would ask that no one replies to this until ive had a chance to review whats been said.

Thanks

D

Dan_Solo

That's before we even get as far as the aggressive PMs I have received from cowzerp

cowzerp wrote:

I have no case to answer for, you are a troll, a bad 1 at that and i am respected on the forum and we rarely have trouble-you don't interest me, if you don't change your attitude on here you will be gone soon anyway.

That's my last response to you, and yes you are laughed at, by me.

Turns out he did have a case to answer for, posting "Are you actually Brain dead?", clear personal abuse.
"you don't interest me"
"yes you are laughed at, by me"
Are these normal replies to someone reporting abusive posts? (and yes, at least one of them was abusive enough to have to be removed)
Who is "stirring things" with PMs of this sort exactly?

Dan_Solo

Apologies the drifter, I was composing my last mail when you posted.
Will I delete it?

the drifter

No leave it be for now. I will review this later on.

Thanks

D

g'em

This one is a bit all over the place so I'm going to take it from her. Can I get a full copy of all PMS sent relating to the ban please? Including any sent before the ban was administered but related to the thread in question.

cowzerp

Sent, the ban was for repeatedly reporting post's and not for his trolling, that was the only way to stop him reporting posts, this was agreed by the other mod Bigears

Dan_Solo

Only way to stop him reporting your posts that turned out to be abusive!
You were hardly inundated with reports in any case. What was it, four of them, one upheld and one of them backed by other posters in the thread.
Can somebody please get the times of my reports and post them here, and we can see how inundated cowzerp was with these (some it turned out legitimate) reports?
I do not think I need any other defense, but these do not qualify as spam in any case, as they are not posts to the forum. cowzerp could probably have picked something more believable, but in his haste to silence any dissent at his abusive posts decided to ban me so I couldn't report them.

cowzerp

Dan_Solo wrote: »

but in his haste to silence any dissent at his abusive posts decided to ban me so I couldn't report them.

you reported 4 and 3 of them where pointless and no rules where broke, the 1 where i asked you where you brain dead was wrong and i removed it as i should not have let you wind me up by ignoring my points and twisting them to try make me look stupid

I was clearly talking about the skills of boxing been tough and you kept saying i was only talking about actual toughness which was not the point of the thread! which i was clearly not talking about toughness on it's own but the skills been tough-even after explaining that you kept on.

again i apologise as i should not have said that-i have been told by those above me that i should not have done that and accept that.

I am not responding to anymore of your post's on here as it is like beating a dead horse and that is pointless.

g'em

Well this is a bit of a mess isn't it? Thank you both for forwarding the PMs; having read them and the thread in question there were - frankly - two of you in it.

Having said that thank you cowzerp for apologising on thread and thereby in public, it takes cojones to admit fault like that and I applaud you for it. You have acknowledged yourself that the personal comments you made were out of order - it's quite clear that you were frustrated and emotive over a topic that's close to your heart. We're all guilty of getting the Modding and user lines a little muddied from time to time, but that's why we have Co-Mods and C-Mods, let them step in and judge proceedings with a neutral eye. Users often get overtly defensive when arguing with a Mod because of the perceived power imbalance so the onus is on those with the bolded names to level the playing field.

I'm satisfied that you know what you did wasn't exercising the best judgement and that you'll make sure a third party approach is employed for any hassle on then forum next time you want to get so involved in a debate.

Dan, I'd like to tell you a story so make a cup of tea, pull up a chair and get comfortable.

A couple of years ago I went to visit my Dad in France. He has decided to spend his retirement years restoring a farmhouse in the Bordeaux region to chateau status fit for nobility. Delusions of grandeur you might think, but if anyone can do it, my old man can. Fourty odd years of teaching in a National School will mould a resolve thicker than the finest treacle known to the culinary world.

After he picked myself and my brother up from the airport my Dad started excitingly telling us about his big find in the old shed earlier that spring - a real live, buzzing, hopping hornets nest. Now Dan, I don't know if you've ever encountered a hornet, but think of the most evil, vendetta laden wasp you could ever imagine and put it on steroids for 12 months. Then double it in size. They have pure evil and resentment coursing through their thorax and fear receptors that can detect panic at 100 paces in their antennae.

Knowing that the garden was going to be full of visitors for the summer, but also having a big heart, a lack of desire to cause overt harm to any living creature and also being rather firmly on the frugal side of living styles my Dad decided to combat the hornets next in the most humane way he knew: he bought a pipe of Expanding Foam Polyfilla, shoved the nozzle into the opening of the nest and emptied the contents of the tube into the crepe papery mesh of cells. Instant suffocation. Not the worst way to go really.

By the time my brother and I arrived in France the nest had been sealed for a good three months with little or no activity. Now, although logic would dictate that the nest was no longer a danger, and we as humans, have in-built evolutionary triggers to warn us away from such potentially damaging things as a hornets nest (plugged or unplugged) my brother and I just could not resist taking a closer look. Curiosity killed the survival extinct you might say.

We approached the nest with care and due respect but could see no signs of life. Now, at this point I decided that although my curiosity was still piqued (I come from a zoological background, this find was as exciting to me as the amber-encased mosquito was to paleontologists of the mid-90s) the dangers of approaching the nest and chancing my arm any more outweighed the good fortune I'd already had to be able to see a nest in it's natural habitat so up close and personal.

Unfortunately I think my brother was born with a slight defect in his survival genes. Perhaps it's a sex-linked trait. Who knows? He decided that simply viewing the nest wasn't enough. Off he disappeared and returned with an array of sticks; long and short, thick and thin, and set about the task of knocking down the nest. I'd love to say that I had the sisterly sense to talk him out of it but alas, I was to eager to satisfy that burning scientific curiosity I had and let him on his way even though I knew, as surely as I knew that French brie is the undisputed kind of cheeses, that it would all end in tears. Big, fat, woe-is-me man tears.

I'll keep the next bit brief - no one needs too much gore at this time of the morning, and we are after all a PG13 site.

My darling brother managed to knock the next down to the ground with relative ease (brief aside, it's an undisputable wonder of nature how a complex structure that's as heavy and solid as a hornets nest can be held attached to the ceiling with no more than a thin sliver of material), but still unsatisfied he decided he wanted to break open the nest to inspect the contents. At this stage I had no choice but to intervene and ask him was he sure it was a good idea, "course it is sis," he said "sure aren't they long dead, what harm can come to me".

He broke open the nest and at first, all was still. The starlings swooped lazily overhead in the afternoon heat, dragonflies hovered delicately over the pool water, the sunflowers in the field next door raised their heads majestically to catch the end of the afternoons rays. And then, from deep inside the cracked-open nest came a low humming. Soft at first, we thought it was just our minds playing tricks with us with the expectation of what we were to find. But soon that humming became agitated buzzing, and without warning a hornet appeared from the remains of the nest with all of the vengeance of a Vespan who has lost 6oo cousins and double that number in siblings. he was mad, and he was looking for revenge.

My brother was where the hornet found that revenge. Two inches to the right of his butt-cheek to be exact. On seeing the angry hornet rise from the ashes of his nest empire, my brother turned to flee from the impending insect rage. I don't know if you've ever seen a starved, angry hornet in flight - it's not pretty, but it's fast. As though he had been storing his anger during his solitude as an entombed lone survivor, the hornet attacked my brother with every last drop of energy that his dying cells could muster. And oh my word, what a sting it was. Within minutes the area had swollen to the size of a football and we all knew that by brother was going to spend his summer with the most tanned back of any Irishman, because he sure as hell wasn't going to be able to sit down anytime soon. It was a harsh lesson learnt.

So the moral of the story Dan is simple: arrogance might lead you to transient dominance, but will often bite you in the ass in the end.

This may be the internet where we can approach arguments with strangers with a bravado that we may lack when addressing people in real life, but real life common courtesy goes a long, long way. cowzerp told you not to post again of thread so instead you reported numerous (yes, four in one thread is numerous) posts which all landed in cowzerps email inbox. You may have been unaware of that procedure of course. In future can I advise you that you are a little more mindful of how your argument might be interpreted by those reading it, and not feign indignation when it pisses your fellow debaters off. It doesn't mean your argument is less valid or less correct, simply that if you are going to approach a discussion with such fervor, you have to be prepared for some emotive responses.

And if you have trouble with a Mod in thread, approach their Co-Mod or a CMod for assistance and advice.

One last thing - being right on the internet really isn't all that. It kind of gets a little boring after a while to be honest.

Ban has elapsed, cowzerp has apologised, Dan_Solo has been advised to seek assistance in future and not abuse the reported post function.

Resolved.