Gandalf (and mods in general)

Pigman II

First off I know how you guys feel about me and you all know how I feel about gandalf (I sent you guys a letter as far back as last October) so I won’t waste both our times writing about his performance on soccer over the past few days (and months).

But out of this debacle I was hoping that you might consider the following suggestions:

1) I would also like to see a ‘banning league’ introduced so that mods who are ‘wielding the axe’ excessively can be highlighted. No doubt gandalf would already be in championship contention if such information was made transparent but it might be a deterant to mods to so quickly ban people left right and center if a solution to ease tension on a thread still existed?

2) I would like to see trolling made an equally punishable offence as so-called ‘disrespect’ currently is. You may ask ‘how can trolling be proven or defined?’ but surely this rule could come into effect in cases where the mod himself (as gandalf did) has already acknowledged that a user was trolling? Perhaps that way we would only have one guy facing a weeks ban on soccer now instead of five?

Finally I’m already perm banned on soccer now (which I readily accept as suitable punishment) so it makes little difference to me what gandalf does over there now. However, I know for a fact there are others who feel the same way as me about his performance on soccer (but don’t want to say publicly lest they end up in the bad books too) and for their sakes I would like to see something done about the way mods carry out their duties and especially are made accountable for their actions.

Thank you for reading this and respect for all the hard work that admins and mods on boards.ie do (and yes that even goes for gandalf!)

DeVore

Originally posted by Pigman II
First off I know how you guys feel about me and you all know how I feel about gandalf (I sent you guys a letter as far back as last October) so I won’t waste both our times writing about his performance on soccer over the past few days (and months).

But out of this debacle I was hoping that you might consider the following suggestions:

1) I would also like to see a ‘banning league’ introduced so that mods who are ‘wielding the axe’ excessively can be highlighted. No doubt gandalf would already be in championship contention if such information was made transparent but it might be a deterant to mods to so quickly ban people left right and center if a solution to ease tension on a thread still existed?

Mods report bannings on the Mod forum whereby the admins can review trouble spots and the like. You also have the right to press your complaint here, where Mods have no more editing power then you do.

Gandalf has banned no more then 10 people in a year and is a fine mod imho.

People who call other people "scum" "****" etc, forfeit the right to communication within polite conversation.

2) I would like to see trolling made an equally punishable offence as so-called ‘disrespect’ currently is. You may ask ‘how can trolling be proven or defined?’ but surely this rule could come into effect in cases where the mod himself (as gandalf did) has already acknowledged that a user was trolling? Perhaps that way we would only have one guy facing a weeks ban on soccer now instead of five?

Oh take some f*cking responsibility for your own actions. Even if WWMan was trolling, he didnt psychically force you and the others to start a bigotted tirade against him. If he is trolling (and I think he was doing no more then Celtic supporters would have done if they had won... ie posted a message saying 'yay we won!' ) then you fell for it and more fool you.

You are not a child. You are a grown person I presume who is capable of ignoring things without us creating a nanny-site for you.

Finally I’m already perm banned on soccer now (which I readily accept as suitable punishment) so it makes little difference to me what gandalf does over there now. However, I know for a fact there are others who feel the same way as me about his performance on soccer (but don’t want to say publicly lest they end up in the bad books too) and for their sakes I would like to see something done about the way mods carry out their duties and especially are made accountable for their actions.

Thank you for reading this and respect for all the hard work that admins and mods on boards.ie do (and yes that even goes for gandalf!)

I'm sure there *are* others who feel that Gandalf is wrong. I'm not one of them.

We will never get a situation whereby *everyone* is happy on a forum. Its just not attainable, so instead we apply an 80/20 rule. If the mod is keeping 80% of people happy and supportive of them, and 20% are complaining thats acceptible.

This site, in the end of the day, is a democracy. You vote for it by coming here. Since we've blown past 2Million pages a month now we must be doing something right.

DeV.

Pigman II

Originally posted by DeVore
Mods report bannings on the Mod forum whereby the admins can review trouble spots and the like. You also have the right to press your complaint here, where Mods have no more editing power then you do.

Gandalf has banned no more then 10 people in a year and is a fine mod imho.

People who call other people "scum" "****" etc, forfeit the right to communication within polite conversation.

Oh take some f*cking responsibility for your own actions. Even if WWMan was trolling, he didnt psychically force you and the others to start a bigotted tirade against him. If he is trolling (and I think he was doing no more then Celtic supporters would have done if they had won... ie posted a message saying 'yay we won!' ) then you fell for it and more fool you.

You are not a child. You are a grown person I presume who is capable of ignoring things without us creating a nanny-site for you.

I'm sure there *are* others who feel that Gandalf is wrong. I'm not one of them.

We will never get a situation whereby *everyone* is happy on a forum. Its just not attainable, so instead we apply an 80/20 rule. If the mod is keeping 80% of people happy and supportive of them, and 20% are complaining thats acceptible.

This site, in the end of the day, is a democracy. You vote for it by coming here. Since we've blown past 2Million pages a month now we must be doing something right.

DeV.

Thank you for your comments and explainations.

Firstly, I'd just like to say that I wasn't one of those Celtic people/bigots who responded to WWM with insults so I don't think it's fair that you have lumped me in with them and given me your patented lecture on 'responsibility'.

Couple this with the fact that I've readily accepted the consequences of my actions so I feel the condesending tone of your of your post is slightly unfair.

As such I would have hoped my comments on trolling would have been taken a little more seriously by you.

Regarding my insult to gandalf it wasn't meant in any seriousness (and I've apologised, retracted it and explained that to him in PM). It was purely employed to emphasise how far I was willing to go to highlight my disatisfaction with him on soccer.

Anyway, it's your show and I'll respect you for that. This is the last I'll say on it until I've got the 80% and you're prepared to listen to me. So until then I'll wish you well .

DeVore

And I you. When more then 20% of the soccer regulars come here and complain about Gandalf I think both I *and* Gandalf would say its time to review the situation.

I dont think you'd get 2% right now as I dont think the soccer forum wants to be joined by the kinds of people we banned.

DeV.

DeVore

Ok, I asked Ecksor to run some stats over the logs for me.

There were 2337 unique ips that visited the soccer forum in the past 28 days.

There are 20 users (with a few duplicates, yourself included) who have EVER in the history of boards been banned from the soccer forum.

Now 2337 unique ips doesnt mean individual people, but I could happily accept that it represents at least a couple of hundred. And thats in the last 28 days.... usually we look at stats for 3 months.


I think these facts speak volumes and I stand by my position. If, however you think I'm wrong and there is a underlying dissatisfaction with Gandalf as a mod then Feedback is the place to call his conduct into question if you want to show support for your position, or here if you want to raise it solely with an admin.


DeV.