Banned from Atheist Forum

Brown Bomber

Hi, ostensibly I have been banned from Atheism & Agnosticism for "being uncivil" but I am unsure what the actual reason is.

I was concerned that there was a conflict of interest in the moderating of the mods when moderating Atheist Ireland's threads. I felt the moderation wasn't being impartial. It was a legitimate concern reached for reasonable reasons which I will explain later.

There is a "feedback" thread in A&A. I asked plainly if any of the mods were members of Atheist Ireland. Jernal answered for two of the three mods but not Robindch. As the answer was incomplete, I asked again regarding Robin's membership. Robin "answered" aggressively and patronisingly to my reasonable request for transparency and made reference to the "Power Rangers", apparently an in-joke which I didn't (and still don't) get. This confusion contributes to the ban.

While I'm not a former power ranger, although I'd love to be, I am a fully paid-up member of one sailing club and one gym. I hope this firm knowledge helps still your quivering, aching chest.

I didn't respond to the provocation and explained my confusion and answered:

I don't get the Power Rangers reference. Could you please clarify if you are a member of the pressure Group Atheist Ireland?

For some strange reason the above post led to a "formal warning" and the statement that I would be receiving unique treatment from the mods that I would be banned if I wasn't "helpful", "amusing" or "interesting" in the mods subjective eyes. The post still didn't answer my very simple question.

As above, I'm a member of one sailing club and one gym, though I'm not quite sure why either of these might interest you. I'm not a member of any "pressure group" and find your usage of the term typically unhelpful.

I'm also putting you on formal notice that if you don't start contributing to A+A in the generally helpful, or amusing or interesting, fashion that most other posters do, you will be carded or banned at the mods' discretion.

I responded to this post with a request for Robin to clarify his previous statement and again enquired about his membership of AI as he hadn't actually answered it yet.

#332 - Jernal, a co-mod came in and told me I wasn't allowed to speculate on a users identity.
#333 As I wasn't speculating, I informed Jernal of this. I was infracted for this post and I wish to dispute this.
#335 Robin FINALLY answers my original question when a simple Yes or No would have sufficed long before all this and again issues another warning:

For the record, and since you've failed to grasp the meaning of either of my two previous posts, I am not now a member of Atheist Ireland. Nor, for what it's worth, have I ever been a member of Atheist Ireland.

You have also been red-carded for ignoring a direct moderator instruction which I issued just over an hour ago.

Your next post which, in the opinion of any of the forum mods, is bickering or unhelpful will result in a week's ban from A+A. If, upon your subsequent return to A+A, any further posts which, in the opinion of any of the forum mods, are similarly bickering or unhelpful will result in your permanent departure from this forum.

I am left extremely confused about the whole chain of events. I try to reason with him and ask him to explain the "Power Rangers" reference which led to to this mess and ask him to explain what he means by the extremely vague terms of being "unhelpful" and "bickering" as I now have a target on my back from the mods.

The above post gets me the ban which I would like to dispute.

+++++

I mentioned above that my question about AI membership of the mods was reasonable. I'd just like to briefly explain why.

Atheist Ireland (AI) are a special interest pressure group who are afforded unique (afaik) and special privileges on boards.ie through free advertising and exposure to a) Flog tickets for events and b) Issue press releases for their latest lobbying campaigns.

The A&A Christmas Party has even been organised by Robin in conjunction with AI; evidently the lines between the two groups are blurred.

More specifically I observed what I would consider moderator bias in favour of AI by Robin in a thread/PR Release by atheist Ireland. This is what motivated me to enquire about a conflict of interest in the Feedback thread.

The standard in A&A is to support your claims with evidence. Indeed, I have seen users clamped down upon for not supporting their claims. Atheist Ireland were making claims of fact without supporting it. I had pushed Michael to support his claims in an effort to establish the facts. Michael Nugent/Atheist Ireland refused to do this. However, rather than Robin demanding that Atheist Ireland support their claims as per the norm Robin came to Atheist Ireland's rescue and issued the diktat that despite not knowing him/herself that Atheist Ireland's unsupported claims were to be considered as fact and that there was to be no more discussion of the topic.

As this moderating double-standard had allowed Atheist Ireland the license to shift the burden of proof and discussion of this was prohibited by moderator decree I went to the extraordinary effort of checking the veracity of Atheist Ireland's claim by doing and what he had refused to do - I went through each submission one-by-one, categorised them and published the results.

I opened a new thread for this as all discussion on the results themselves had been apparently prohibited but this was quickly merged with the original thread, which was fine, except for one detail. Atheist Ireland have been afforded the opportunity top open three threads on the same topic with a short period of time.

Please do this Today to help Separate Church and State in Ireland
Today you a have a unique opportunity to help reverse the historic influence of the Catholic Church on the Irish Constitution – a document that begins with the embarrassing anachronism of: “In the name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority,”

A Secular Constitution for a Pluralist people
Atheist Ireland has today made this submission to the Constitutional Convention. 1. Executive Summary 1.1 Atheist Ireland is an advocacy group for atheism, reason and ethical secularism.

Constitutional Convention insults secular citizens with 2% vote on Church & State
The Irish Constitutional Convention has responded insultingly to the many citizens who asked it to discuss Separation of Church and State.

So then the discussion proceeds and Robin again interjected extremely unfairly asking "If I have anything positive to add to the discussion." It was in response to this post to and I am not sure why he has targetted to me unless he means "have you positive to add about Atheist Ireland".

The thread was soon locked with the again patronising comments by Robin clearly directed at me.

This thread is being closed temporarily to give people a chance to develop a point of view worth debating.

So it was an accumulation of an number of events of double-standards and what I consider bias in favour of Atheist Ireland which made me ask the question in Feedback in the first place. Getting messed around with private jokes about "Power Rangers" by the mods when I was asking a genuine question just made things worse.

Ickle Magoo

Hi Brown Bomber,

Have you been in contact with the moderator who banned you to discuss this, as per the DRP protocol?

Brown Bomber

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Hi Brown Bomber,

Have you been in contact with the moderator who banned you to discuss this, as per the DRP protocol?

Hi,

To cut a long story short, yes, I have - Jernal.

The ban itself has long expired. Is there anything else you need to know?

Brown Bomber

I should add that when I queried the "being uncivil" allegation the offense was changed to "ignoring moderator instruction" or "trolling".

The reality is that none of the above is the case. As I hope I've made clear I was asking a legitimate and reasonable question about a possible conflict of interest in the feedback section of a forum. If anything I was the one being trolled.

Is it an offense to question moderation impartiality in a feedback thread?

The "mod instruction" I "ignored" was a ridiculously unfair demand that I not be "unhelpful" and "bicker" when to be unhelpful and bicker is wrongly defined to by the mods to dare question their impartiality when the impartiality itself is already openly exposed.

Ickle Magoo

Okay.

The bottom line is you have no business demanding to know the private lives of posters on this site - and that includes the moderators. Two of the three moderators of the A&A forum made the decision to divulge information to you and you went on to publicly demand further information from a specific moderator who may have chosen not to share that - as is their right. That kind of behaviour in itself is not on. You were warned it was not on.

You have an extensive record. You have previous in the A&A forum. When a moderator of a forum tells you stop with a particular line of inquiry, you should stop and at this stage you should know you should stop. It is a site rule that all posters are entitled to anonymity and a site rule not to dispute moderator instructions on-thread, there are no provisions that these rules may be ignored in feedback threads or to satiate a posters need to rule in/out moderator bias.

In terms of the reasons for moderator actions changing, there are a list of pre-determined reasons for action that moderators can choose from - those may not fit exactly with the reason the poster is being actioned - that is just the way the site is set up to give warnings/infractions/bans. Alternatively, as in this case, some posting habits can be covered by numerous valid reasons for actioning.

In short, Boards has site protocols, forums have rules - both of which have been clearly stated by the A&A mod team to you and I will reiterate:
When moderators warn you to stop a particular behaviour and you don't, that is resolved by removing your posting rights. When somebody doesn't "get" a forum and negatively affects the enjoyment of that forum for many of the regular posters &/or shows themselves to be an unnecessary time-sink for the volunteer moderators despite numerous warnings to change their posting habits then there is an issue. That issue is easily resolved by removing the posting rights of the problem poster in question to that forum - permanently if needs be.

Ban upheld. You may ask an admin to review.

Brown Bomber

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Okay.

What a complete waste of time it was to lay out things in such detail for you. You have completely misrepresented everything.

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

The bottom line is you have no business demanding to know the private lives of posters on this site - and that includes the moderators.

This is false.
Where have I ever "demanded" to know the private lives of posters on this site???
NOT ONCE have I done this.

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Two of the three moderators of the A&A forum made the decision to divulge information to you and you went on to publicly demand further information from a specific moderator who may have chosen not to share that -

This is also false.
I requested not demanded.

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

You have an extensive record.

This is also false.
I do not have an "extensive" record.

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

You have previous in the A&A forum.

Again false.
If my memory serves me correctly this is my first ban from the forum

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

When a moderator of a forum tells you stop with a particular line of inquiry, you should stop and at this stage you should know you should stop.

I would appreciate it if you could be clear on this: Is what you are saying is that when a moderator is giving preferential treatment to a special interest group that the users of this site are banned from knowing if a conflict of interest exists which has lead to this preferential treatment?

That boards.ie moderators can have a conflict of interest and refuse to answer questions about it?

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

It is a site rule that all posters are entitled to anonymity

And I fully support this rule. If you actually read the thread then you would understand that I haven't done this.

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

and a site rule not to dispute moderator instructions on-thread,

Again, I support this rule. I didn't dispute any moderator instructions. When they told me to stop asking I stopped asking.

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

However, there are no provisions that these rules may be ignored in feedback threads or to satiate a posters need to rule in/out moderator bias.

Again, I support this. Although it's irrelevant as I did not a) Speculate on anyone's identity or b) Ignore any mod instructions.

I'm not sure where you have got your information from but essentially everything you have said is false. Also, you have completely ignored the crux of the issue - The admitted and obvious special treatment to a single lobby group, an atheist one, by a moderator who is an atheist activist themselves.

I ask you again, is it a reasonable question to ask if mod(s) have a conflict of interest in a Feedback section?

If not, what specifically have I done wrong? Because it is documented that I have not done what you allege.

Ickle Magoo

Brown Bomber,

The function of the DRP is to review specific disputed warnings/bans/infractions. It is not a platform for general discussion of any general bug bears you have with a specific forum or interest group that posts within that forum.

When I say "previous", I am not just referring to bans - which are almost always an escalation of prior on-thread warnings, official warnings and infractions - I refer to all previous moderator action.

Like most things on Boards there are protocols to follow if you are concerned with any aspect of the site - such as approaching an admin or posting in the feedback forum. Doggedly insisting moderators divulge information pertaining to their private lives or derailing the thread further with pedantic demands for the definitions of bickering and unhelpful on-thread in response to a moderator instruction is not how you go about it.

Do you wish an admin to review?

Brown Bomber

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Brown Bomber,

The function of the DRP is to review specific disputed warnings/bans/infractions. It is not a platform for general discussion of any general bug bears you have with a specific forum or interest group that posts within that forum.

When I say "previous", I am not just referring to bans - which are almost always an escalation of prior on-thread warnings, official warnings and infractions - I refer to all previous moderator action.

Like most things on Boards there are protocols to follow if you are concerned with any aspect of the site - such as approaching an admin or posting in the feedback forum. Doggedly insisting moderators divulge information pertaining to their private lives or derailing the thread further with pedantic demands for the definitions of bickering and unhelpful on-thread in response to a moderator instruction is not how you go about it.

Do you wish an admin to review?

Damn is there anyway to get your post back when your login times out on internet explorer?


Sorry about this.

Brown Bomber

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Do you wish an admin to review?

I'll decline, thanks. I had a different response yesterday but in the meantime there has been a feedback thread thread that has given me food for thought.


Not going to lie and say it has given me a whole new perspective, and I stand by my claim that you have in fact completely misrepresented everything, rendering this process pointless, and I have to be honest and and say that I don't see what I've done wrong but I'm not as arrogant to think that just because I don't see something that this doesn't mean that it isn't there and perhaps I was out of line to ask the question in the first place, even if it could have been handled more professionally.


All that remains is to for me to learn from this, apologise to Robin and to thank you for your time.

Brown Bomber

Brown Bomber wrote: »

I'll decline, thanks. I had a different response yesterday but in the meantime there has been a feedback thread thread that has given me food for thought.


Not going to lie and say it has given me a whole new perspective, and I stand by my claim that you have in fact completely misrepresented everything, rendering this process pointless, and I have to be honest and and say that I don't see what I've done wrong but I'm not as arrogant to think that just because I don't see something that this doesn't mean that it isn't there and perhaps I was out of line to ask the question in the first place, even if it could have been handled more professionally.


All that remains is to for me to learn from this, apologise to Robin and to thank you for your time.

In case I wasn't clear, I am happy to accept the ban.