Why is Boards so quiet?

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Jurgen Klopp

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Some people have changed accounts when bullied or stalked or too much personal information has been given away over a number of years. Makes sense to close one account and start another one.

Actually I just remembered.

Before the close account options I remember PM'ing an Admin about opening a new a account due to privacy and what's the story in regards to multi accounts

Was told that as long as it wasn't to evade a ban, just make sure to log out of the old one and never ever log into it again as I could be done for multiing no matter how innocent, say to look at old PMs

So frankly the close account thing wouldnt matter. I think a lot of posters like Dudess were doing it this way long before​ the Close Account option so it would be six of one and half a dozen of the other IMO

Beasty

....... wrote: »

But it would just have been the same mod who who changed the post who would have seen that I was reporting my own post.

Then I would just have been told off (or further carded) for being a time sink.

So start a thread in Help Desk or PM one of the CMods. That's all part of the CMod role.

Captain Obvious

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

Please report instances like this. Edits can be seen and corrected if necessary (not back to the original if there was something wrong with it, but to reflect the point more accurately). Also it gives CMods and Admins a record of events.

Isn't there a time frame in which ninja edits don't show and are not recorded?

Zaph

Captain Obvious wrote: »

Isn't there a time frame in which ninja edits don't show and are not recorded?

It's a very short period, two or three minutes at most iirc.

Erik Shin

Zaph wrote: »

It's a very short period, two or three minutes at most iirc.

That's an eternity in the land of the ninja's
Or not
Or maybe it is

Spanish Eyes

There was a difficult thread here about the child who died in the car.

There were so many requests to close it down, it was awful.

I hold my hands up. I responded to the thread and mentioned Travellers in the knowledge that I would be banned and the thread suspended.

And within a minute. It happened.

But it should have been closed down anyway.

Moral, just mention or denigrate Travellers and your wish is granted. Which is what I did. And it worked for the parents/family/friends of that little child. Jayzis. One word. Remember it folks. Travellers. Works all the time.

Tom Mann Centuria

Erik Shin wrote: »

That's an eternity in the land of the ninja's
Or not
Or maybe it is

Who knows with those stealthy assassins.

Peregrine

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

There was a difficult thread here about the child who died in the car.

There were so many requests to close it down, it was awful.

I hold my hands up. I responded to the thread and mentioned Travellers in the knowledge that I would be banned and the thread suspended.

And within a minute. It happened.

But it should have been closed down anyway.

Moral, just mention or denigrate Travellers and your wish is granted. Which is what I did. And it worked for the parents/family/friends of that little child. Jayzis. One word. Remember it folks. Travellers. Works all the time.

You wanted the thread closed, dozens of other people wanted the thread closed and reported it and said it on the thread. We had very cautiously reopened the thread earlier. Anyway, in between that somewhere, you slagged off travellers. 25 minutes later (that's 25 times 'within a minute'), I logged on, saw the dozens of reported posts, some more insensitive posts and a lot of abuse since we reopened it (I spent an hour earlier that day going through that thread and reading every post in it including a dozen that turned my stomach) and realised that it was just not going to work and made the decision to close the thread for good. You also got a ban for posting disparaging comments about travellers, yes.

Like I told you at the time, if you need to make yourself believe that I closed a thread about a tragedy involving a dead baby in which some people were repeatedly being insensitive and others were being abusive because you slagged off travellers then go ahead. It doesn't make it true. It's actually quite shocking, cynical and egotistical of you but knock yourself out.

This is what feedback has been reduced to.

Edit: It was 10 minutes. I got confused with my closing post which was 15 minutes later. My point still stands.

KyussBeeshop

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

At the moment, a person appealing can try to come to an agreement with the mod who took action, then raise it to a CMod, and then request an Admin review. If it stands after all that, then surely whatever action taken was justified.

You're assuming that the DRP review process (from CMods/Admins upwards) is free from bias/fault itself there - yet the plethora of complaints (on site and elsewhere) about the moderation here, would imply otherwise.

The DRP process is tantamount to a waste of fúcking time in many cases, especially if you've been 'targeted' or otherwise marked as a 'troublemaker' - and is more often a case of asking for a second helping of shafting (plus additional reprimand for dessert - or threat of escalation to an outright ban as another bonus), after a mod has already carded you.

KyussBeeshop

looksee wrote: »

Boards has pretty much the most open moderation system of any site I have been on. Mostly on the internet mods are pretty much invisible figures who give judgement and there is no way of disputing it.

A pm is just that, a private message, if it were proposed that messaging should be somehow public there would be an outcry about that too. What exactly do you suggest should be done about it?

Well the official guideline is to PM the mods first to appeal (it's in the DRP rules)....so what does the official guideline being private communication tell you?! That's not transparency. That said, I'm not criticizing that - just pointing out that detail - because it does make sense to PM mods first; just it does add to the lack of transparency somewhat.

TherapyBoy

Do you want to get rid of DRP altogether? How is that better?

neverever1

I think some mods get a kick out of banning people! Not in a 'oh they're on a power trip' but going by what people are saying here and what I've encountered, some mods take delight in handing out punishments and being as rude as possible in their pm's. In some forums there's a policy of locking threads that they don't agree with also.

Spanish Eyes

Peregrine wrote: »

You wanted the thread closed, dozens of other people wanted the thread closed and reported it and said it on the thread. We had very cautiously reopened the thread earlier. Anyway, in between that somewhere, you slagged off travellers. 25 minutes later (that's 25 times 'within a minute'), I logged on, saw the dozens of reported posts, some more insensitive posts and a lot of abuse since we reopened it (I spent an hour earlier that day going through that thread and reading every post in it including a dozen that turned my stomach) and realised that it was just not going to work and made the decision to close the thread for good. You also got a ban for posting disparaging comments about travellers, yes.

Like I told you at the time, if you need to make yourself believe that I closed a thread about a tragedy involving a dead baby in which some people were repeatedly being insensitive and others were being abusive because you slagged off travellers then go ahead. It doesn't make it true. It's actually quite shocking, cynical and egotistical of you but knock yourself out.

This is what feedback has been reduced to.

Edit: It was 10 minutes. I got confused with my closing post which was 15 minutes later. My point still stands.

Hi, I cannot even remember what mod was on duty that night.

I understand that your job can be difficult.

But honestly the demands to close that thread down was going on for a while, and no one was listening for ages. I did what I felt to myself I had to do, and it worked. I knew within minutes I would be banned and the thread closed. And it worked. I am sorry, but it did.

No offence intended to you or anyone else. Just pointing out that all the demands in the world didn't work until the Traveller words were mentioned.

Ah heck it worked, but for the wrong reasons. Again nothing personal, it is a generic thing.

KyussBeeshop

TherapyBoy wrote: »

Do you want to get rid of DRP altogether? How is that better?

You know it's not a black and white decision like that. Don't pretend it is.

TherapyBoy

But in the choice between having an appeal process & not having an appeal process, having one is better I presume. If the process doesn't work in its current format in your opinion, how could it be made better/fairer/less biased etc. There have to be shades of grey somewhere.

Zaph

KyussBeeshop wrote: »

You know it's not a black and white decision like that. Don't pretend it is.

So what's the alternative? I've never heard of another site where there's an opportunity to appeal a mod action against you, and still people aren't happy. What do people want, a quota where we automatically uphold 50% of all appeals? The simple reason that many appeals fail is because the poster deserved the card or ban in the first place. It's not exactly rocket science to work that out.

KyussBeeshop

Zaph wrote: »

So what's the alternative? I've never heard of another site where there's an opportunity to appeal a mod action against you, and still people aren't happy. What do people want, a quota where we automatically uphold 50% of all appeals? The simple reason that many appeals fail is because the poster deserved the card or ban in the first place. It's not exactly rocket science to work that out.

Both of you are trying to deligitimise criticism of the current system, by pretending people must present an alternative system before being allowed to criticise - that's inherently fallacious, and I can't really pretend that you don't know that...

Quite a lot of posters (on and off the site), have put forward their view that the DRP is often just a rubber-stamping process for mod actions - you can't retort this wideheld opinion, with the circular logic of 'if a ban was upheld, in many cases it must have been justified in the first place...'.

That, again, relies on the assumption that Admin/CMod etc. appeal decisions are free from fault - which a lot of people would disagree with, and which was exactly the fallacious logic my post was pointing out..

neverever1

Zaph wrote: »

So what's the alternative? I've never heard of another site where there's an opportunity to appeal a mod action against you, and still people aren't happy. What do people want, a quota where we automatically uphold 50% of all appeals? The simple reason that many appeals fail is because the poster deserved the card or ban in the first place. It's not exactly rocket science to work that out.

Maybe the problem is that cards and bans are handed out too easy. Obviously some are deserved but many are for ridiculous things. People disagreeing with each other should not be a reason to be banned as long as they're not giving personal abuse.

Zaph

KyussBeeshop wrote: »

Both of you are trying to deligitimise criticism of the current system, by pretending people must present an alternative system before being allowed to criticise - that's inherently fallacious, and I can't really pretend that you don't know that...

Not at all, criticism can be legitimate without offering an alternative. Unfortunately the problem is that all we see is criticism and nobody offering an alternative, so I was genuinely hoping that someone might have one.

KyussBeeshop wrote: »

Quite a lot of posters (on and off the site), have put forward their view that the DRP is often just a rubber-stamping process for mod actions - you can't retort this wideheld opinion, with the circular logic of 'if a ban was upheld, in many cases it must have been justified in the first place...'.

That, again, relies on the assumption that Admin/CMod etc. appeal decisions are free from fault - which a lot of people would disagree with, and which was exactly the fallacious logic my post was pointing out..

Yeah, but if you look at it logically, for an admin to uphold a card or ban three different people will have reviewed the issue and come to the same conclusion. How many levels should we go to before we can say that the mod's original call was right and people will be happy with that call? I'd guess that no mod on the site, myself included, has ever been 100% right with every single card or ban they've given, which is why we have a process whereby up to two more people can have a look before a final decision is made.

TimeToShine

neverever1 wrote: »

Maybe the problem is that cards and bans are handed out too easy. Obviously some are deserved but many are for ridiculous things. People disagreeing with each other should not be a reason to be banned as long as they're not giving personal abuse.

This is it. The bar in general for cards and punishments is too low. Everything needs to be scaled back multiple notches. The kids and trolls often get weeded out fairly quickly leaving ourselves - and we're all grown ups here (or so I would like to believe). Words can only do so much and if they hurt you that badly then the real world will chew you up and spit you back out.

Zaph

neverever1 wrote: »

Maybe the problem is that cards and bans are handed out too easy. Obviously some are deserved but many are for ridiculous things. People disagreeing with each other should not be a reason to be banned as long as they're not giving personal abuse.

I totally agree, that's not grounds for a card. But if it's two people constantly battling with one another to get the last word in and they've been told to stop and move on by a mod, then their continued disagreement is grounds for a card. However a lot of people may interpret it as them being carded for disagreeing with one another rather than ignoring a mod instruction, so maybe the issue is that in some cases the reason the card is given needs to be made clearer for everyone else to see?

KyussBeeshop

Zaph wrote: »

Unfortunately the problem is that all we see is criticism and nobody offering an alternative, so I was genuinely hoping that someone might have one.

I can honestly say that the previous post came across more as trying to delegitimize criticism, than earnestly seek an alternative.

Zaph wrote: »

Yeah, but if you look at it logically, for an admin to uphold a card or ban three different people will have reviewed the issue and come to the same conclusion. How many levels should we go to before we can say that the mod's original call was right and people will be happy with that call? I'd guess that no mod on the site, myself included, has ever been 100% right with every single card or ban they've given, which is why we have a process whereby up to two more people can have a look before a final decision is made.

The problem with that is, a ton of people have said that it feels like there's a bias towards upholding the original mod decision (that is, implicitly, from Cmods/Admins) - that's the specific criticism people have been posting - so the logic you're posting there, is basically a dismissal of that criticism/opinion (and it's circular logic, too).

It's not about how many levels you go - it's about examining the system (and people) in place for faults - which is up to the higher level people in the community to evaluate/figure out, not the everyday person posting the criticisms.

neverever1

Zaph wrote: »

I totally agree, that's not grounds for a card. But if it's two people constantly battling with one another to get the last word in and they've been told to stop and move on by a mod, then their continued disagreement is grounds for a card. However a lot of people may interpret it as them being carded for disagreeing with one another rather than ignoring a mod instruction, so maybe the issue is that in some cases the reason the card is given needs to be made clearer for everyone else to see?

That's not what happens though. Cards are handed way too easy. It should be just for abuse of any kind, any slanderous stuff, racist stuff or the like.
I know cards I've got and the reason was changed a few times. If a mod wants to card you they just have to say you're breaking the 'don't be a dick rule' if they can't find any other rule you've broken.
There's no point having appeals and so forth when the actual rules are too strict. Or maybe that's what boards.ie wants? People to stick within narrow guidelines? It's easier that way?

Overheal

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I don't see how you would have been carded for trying to report something in good faith.

You are readily dismissing constructive suggestions as they are given to you. What are you hoping to achieve? What is your objective at this point? If you want to see corrective action taken against someone for allegedly editing your posts and using that against you, then you will have to report those posts, and work with Mark or Admins to resolve the issue. Otherwise I don't understand what the purpose of complaining about it here is, except to just be mad about it and fume here in some grab for undeserved attention; with no way for any of us to verify your claim is even legitimate.

Trump: "Hillary! The emails! Lock her up!"

People: "Okay! You're the president now! Get that special prosecutor."

Trump: ".... No, that's too much effort, I don't wanna, I don't trust the system, they'll put ME in jail or something, etc."

[...]

Trump: "WHY HASNT SHE BEEN LOCKED UP YET? GAWD!!!"

mikeybrennan

Permabear wrote: »

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Not exactly true

A win would be somewhere in between​

Overheal

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

I think it would be reasonable for the Community to be aware of what percentage of appeals are successful in the DRP. While, the tone with which they have been requested above is undoubtedly adversarial, the DRP process affects everyone on the site and it's important to know if it's a kangaroo court or not. Like it or lump it, if the percentage was particularly low (less than 5% say) it would add to a sense that moderation is out of touch with what the user base wants.

If they're not recorded, I'd suggest it's a gap in how the place is run.

At the same time, the peanut gallery can read DRPs any time they want, everything but some of the PMs sometimes are all public proceedings. If you think that the DRP is not working, it will be on case by case situations, not on a summarizing statistic like that.

Additionally unless theres context the stats are meaningless. If people wanted to think that producing a low number of "overturned/resolved" DRPs would be used to change/disrupt the DRP process, you would see DRP threads for literally every little thing. Then, and this may already happen, you'd have some actors wasting huge amounts of time in the DRP disputing every time they were carded for abuse when they clearly called so and so a c*nt-faced bitch-rag that should die in a fire (ie. they have no leg to stand on). Then what happens? Admins have to process those appeals, eventually you see users shut out of DRP for being time-wasters, and then that information in itself is half-assedly used against the admins and mods as a cudgel to somehow "prove" that things are broken and its not their fault, it's the site and the moderators that are somehow the problem because they can't understand your freedom of speech to call users c*nty mcC*ntface. It would be relatively as pointless as using the statistic of sitebans vs. user registrations to show that modding is too heavy handed and not holy **** we had 300 signups from an internet cafe in Singapore who are all posting child porn, etc.

Thelomen Toblackai

Perfect example of one sided moderation here with one mod/admin not know knowing what the others mods are doing even in the same thread.

A couple pages back I was engaged with another poster discussing a thread in AH. I was asked/warned by an admin to make posts relevant to the topic and not discuss a single thread.

So I made the posts relevant to the topic in the context of poor moderation not dealing with the angry mob and personal insults encouraging poor quality posting and was duly carded and had my post removed by another admin for "ignoring an on thread warning".

I asked what about the other posters discussing the thread, why was I carded while they allowed to continue to discuss it with no effort made whatsoever to keep it to the topic of this thread and I was told other posters are not my concern. The warning wouldn't be lifted and my post wouldn't be reinstated as I ignored the other admin who had told me to "cut it out" apparently.

I quoted the warning which was literally "make posts relevant to the topic or take it elsewhere" and explained I did as was requested by that admin. The admin had clearly misread the warning and made a mistake by carding me and removing the post. So would they say, ok fair enough, these things happen? Of course not. They just ignored me once I showed they'd made a mistake....

Meanwhile I reported the other posts and the original admin came in and warned them to stop talking about a single thread. No cards for them, no posts deleted just another warning. Different admin/mod, different action, different treatment.

Now despite multiple warnings we've got multiple posters including a mod continuing to talk about that thread.

I'll give you two guesses what will be done in relation to that ? Here's a hint, it wont involved cards and deleted posts.....

I've clearly been dealt with more harshly than other posters including having my posts censored. Yet I cant go to the DRP with a warning, it's a waste of peoples time, I've done it before and was told "it's a warning, cop onto yourself by one of the ill tempered admins". It was an admin who carded me so there's no comeback anywhere else and the admin themselves ignored me.

In anticipation of the "it's only warnings and a deleted post", yeah it's not the crime of the century but this is from admins in a feedback thread on issues about boards with a lot of users complaining about poor and one sided moderation. It's pretty indicative of the attitude of mods and admins towards posters and this exact thing happens all the time with yellows, reds, bans, warnings, censorship etc. No two mods or admins will deal with something the same way so and being a mod yourself is usually a get out of jail free card where you're minor transgressions will be continually overlooked while mods and admins are overly anal about what regular and particularly new users post.

I'll probably be carded again for this. Whenever mods or admins get caught out they don't accept it, they double down. Which is why things won't ever change.

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