Moderators

[martinvickers]

This is what The Game quoted yesterday:

Susan's further edit, softening the post, is ommitted.

Moreover, the spam comment was removed after that. Clearly, in my view, mods looking after each other and attempting to backtrack, and highly dishonest.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

I must say I did not understand the 'spam' part at the time, but, aside of the possible personal messages, I really see nothing in it.

Come on Vickers, put it a rest.

Nor did I - but Parrulos first language is not English, so I took it as just not fully understanding the term.

 

[martinvickers]

Nor did I - but Parrulos first language is not English, so I took it as just not fully understanding the term.

Oh, get real. This defence is getting pathetic.

1) his idiomatic english certainly extended to "consider yourself warned" - to know that, and not the meaning of spam? Yeah, I'll have what you're smoking...

2) frankly, if his english isn't good enough to mod properly (and I don't belive that guff for a second), he shouldn't mod. full stop. This is a forum, not an EAFL class.

He knows what he did, and he knows why he did it. We'll see soon enough how fair and honest the administrators of this forum are. I await resolution.

 

[Joachim]

Jeez 'Doper gets a knighthood' thread gets closed and someone cant take it! Oh dear what a fan!

If you bother to read the relevant pages of this thread you'll see that Martin isn't at all bothered about having a thread closed.

Nice of you to turn up just to have a stir though.

 

[Joachim]

Nor did I - but Parrulos first language is not English, so I took it as just not fully understanding the term.

If his english is so bad that he couldn't understand the words he chose to use, why on earth is he allowed to moderate on an English speaking forum?

 

[Froome19]

Susan's further edit, softening the post, is ommitted.

Moreover, the spam comment was removed after that. Clearly, in my view, mods looking after each other and attempting to backtrack, and highly dishonest.

So that was an edited post already?

 

[Benotti69]

If you bother to read the relevant pages of this thread you'll see that Martin isn't at all bothered about having a thread closed.

Nice of you to turn up just to have a stir though.

sockpuppet spouts.

 

[thirteen]

Oh, get real. This defence is getting pathetic.

as is your offence.

 

[martinvickers]

So that was an edited post already?

Yes - she took out some of what the mod said. - which the Game caught, and then added a bit herself, which he didn't.

 

[martinvickers]

as is your offence.

Sorry, and you are?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Vickers...

What Hitch said rings true. You consider there to be "torrents of abuse" against Sky fans in the Clinic... but if you want it to stop, you have to make complaints, name names, so those people can be warned, suspended or whatever. The mods here, Susan excepted, are volunteers, and can't be everywhere at all times.

Personally, I have been here for nearly three years now and have never reported a post. That's my prerogative; I have been annoyed, irritated or offended by material posted here sometimes, especially when posting on women's cycling, but I've never been offended to the point of reporting, preferring instead to write rebuttals or comebacks. But, because when I am upset or offended by posts I do not ask the mods to take action, I consider that I therefore can't protest the mods' lack of action on that front. It's not fair to consider that the mods should each go through every post on every forum, because the forum moves too fast for that and, again, Susan excepted, the mods aren't paid to do this. I post alongside a full-time job and therefore assume that several others will do to, including moderators.

I've had posts deleted and I've been reported in the past. Usually I know what I've done wrong (usually involves my responding to posts I've found inflammatory or offensive, as detailed above) which usually either means the discussion flags a mod's attention or somebody else attracts a mod's attention before it gets out of hand.

I appreciate that sometimes it can be hard to tell where the right place to post something is. On the biathlon World Cup, a couple of Czechs have made some strong improvements this year; whilst I commented on it in the thread in the General section, I also commented on it in the thread in the Clinic, not necessarily because I believed they were doping but because I felt discussion may head in that direction and therefore wanted to pre-empt discussion being deleted - only to draw the ire of a poster who felt it was unfair to place the discussion in the Clinic at all. That's fair enough. You may have felt that a thread celebrating the achievements of Wiggins would inevitably descend into Clinic back-and-forth anyhow, and that's why it was started in the Clinic... but it would have been infinitely safer to start it in the Pro Road Racing forum and let it be moved if discussion takes it that way, as starting it in the Clinic may have seemed to whichever mod got there first to be baiting posters on the "other" side of the Sky debate.

There are also things regarding the moderators that need to be taken into account. Firstly, English is not Parrulo's first language and there is a chance that he has therefore not worded things as delicately as he may have done in Portuguese, even if taking an aggressive tone. Secondly, mods are only human, and you don't know how their responsibilities take up time. There's a good chance they are spending a lot of their time at present sifting through and discussing complaint after complaint based on the Sky thread(s). If I'd seen a thread as potentially divisive (along such well-trodden lines) after a couple of hours of sifting through complaints about posts in the Sky megathreads, I'd probably be inclined to show it little sympathy too.

 

[The Hitch]

susan then edited the original post to protect him. .

Moreover, the spam comment was removed after that. Clearly, in my view, mods looking after each other and attempting to backtrack, and highly dishonest.

Thats one possibility.

The other possibility is that Susan moderated Parulos post because she felt he was ott and that his response required moderation, especially since Parrulo's closing post would be seen not just as his own stance on the subject but that of the moderating staff - of which Susan is ultimately the caporegime.


Maybe your take on it is the correct one, I dont know, but if it really was a cover up, why did Susan leave her name on the edit?

 

[Froome19]

So all together we have this:

this is pure spam and could even be considered trolling, consider yourself warned.

/thread closed

ETA: Please feel free to open a thread in the general subforum, without the overtones.....

As it was clear that Susan had edited it and had added the last bit, I would not really say that Susan was in anyway was misleading anyone with what she added. That she got rid of the first bit is also perfectly understandable as it reflected poorly on Parrulo.

 

[Joachim]

Vickers...

What Hitch said rings true. You consider there to be "torrents of abuse" against Sky fans in the Clinic... but if you want it to stop, you have to make complaints, name names, so those people can be warned, suspended or whatever. The mods here, Susan excepted, are volunteers, and can't be everywhere at all times.

Actually LS, it was me that referred to abuse, and to me that the Hitch was referring.

Funnily enough, in the few days since registering here I have reported 2 posts.

That is 2 more than the total number of posts I have reported in 14 years of using forums and usenet groups.

The reason for the posts I and Martin have made on this thread are the reason why I have resorted to reporting posts here.

Now, we all know that there is a lot of game-playing, bad faith offence and attempts to goad people into responses that will get them rebuked. That cannot be a good thing, but it is a facet of some of the moderation here that allows it to thrive.

 

[The Hitch]

Vickers...

What Hitch said rings true. You consider there to be "torrents of abuse" against Sky fans in the Clinic... but if you want it to stop, you have to make complaints, name names, so those people can be warned, suspended or whatever. The mods here, Susan excepted, are volunteers, and can't be everywhere at all times.

.

It was not MartinVickers but this Joachim fella who claimed there are torrents of abuse.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Oh, get real. This defence is getting pathetic.

1) his idiomatic english certainly extended to "consider yourself warned" - to know that, and not the meaning of spam? Yeah, I'll have what you're smoking...

2) frankly, if his english isn't good enough to mod properly (and I don't belive that guff for a second), he shouldn't mod. full stop. This is a forum, not an EAFL class.

He knows what he did, and he knows why he did it. We'll see soon enough how fair and honest the administrators of this forum are. I await resolution.

Hold on- what's your objection (now)?
The spam comment is neither here nor there - you claim to be upset "consider yourself warned".
He warned you, a warning nothing more. The rest is just hot air from your meltdown.

 

[Joachim]

I can't remember which thread it was, but I made a list of the words used to describe me, that I considered to be abusive, as well as mocking photographs.

That post was met with...you guessed it, more abuse.

I'm just about getting the measure of posting here, but as I said earlier, the dice are loaded.

 

[martinvickers]

Vickers...

What Hitch said rings true. You consider there to be "torrents of abuse" against Sky fans in the Clinic... but if you want it to stop, you have to make complaints, name names, so those people can be warned, suspended or whatever. The mods here, Susan excepted, are volunteers, and can't be everywhere at all times.

It might ring true if I said it. I didn't. Joachim did. Not an auspicious start.

There are also things regarding the moderators that need to be taken into account. Firstly, English is not Parrulo's first language and there is a chance that he has therefore not worded things as delicately as he may have done in Portuguese, even if taking an aggressive tone.

If his language issues interfere with modding. don't mod. simples.

Secondly, mods are only human, and you don't know how their responsibilities take up time. There's a good chance they are spending a lot of their time at present sifting through and discussing complaint after complaint based on the Sky thread(s). If I'd seen a thread as potentially divisive (along such well-trodden lines) after a couple of hours of sifting through complaints about posts in the Sky megathreads, I'd probably be inclined to show it little sympathy too.

Once again, for the newcomers, it was not the closing of the thread that was the reason of the complaint. in relation to the complaint, I await resolution.

 

[martinvickers]

Thats one possibility.

The other possibility is that Susan moderated Parulos post because she felt he was ott and that his response required moderation, especially since Parrulo's closing post would be seen not just as his own stance on the subject but that of the moderating staff - of which Susan is ultimately the caporegime.


Maybe your take on it is the correct one, I dont know, but if it really was a cover up, why did Susan leave her name on the edit?

1. Because that's the way the software works. it records the last edit, she didn't choose it to. She's a mod, not a programmer.

2. If she felt Parrulo had gone OTT why di she not say so to me? Why did i receive no recognition. and why amend it only long after it was closed, when, but for the compliant escalating, no-one would likely read it?

 

[Froome19]

Vickers...

What Hitch said rings true. You consider there to be "torrents of abuse" against Sky fans in the Clinic... but if you want it to stop, you have to make complaints, name names, so those people can be warned, suspended or whatever. The mods here, Susan excepted, are volunteers, and can't be everywhere at all times.

Personally, I have been here for nearly three years now and have never reported a post. That's my prerogative; I have been annoyed, irritated or offended by material posted here sometimes, especially when posting on women's cycling, but I've never been offended to the point of reporting, preferring instead to write rebuttals or comebacks. But, because when I am upset or offended by posts I do not ask the mods to take action, I consider that I therefore can't protest the mods' lack of action on that front. It's not fair to consider that the mods should each go through every post on every forum, because the forum moves too fast for that and, again, Susan excepted, the mods aren't paid to do this. I post alongside a full-time job and therefore assume that several others will do to, including moderators.

I wholly believe that it is up to the posters to sort out their differences amongst themselves. For you that may have worked in the past, but in this specific case of the Sky thread it is different as it is very clear that the aspects which some posters do not like are indeed embedded within the thread and culture of the forum (however ridiculous that sounds). That means that solving the problem through two posters' dialogue is never going to work. Instead it is now up to the moderators to take the initiative and therefore I see it as imperative that posters report posts which may detail such problems in order to assist the moderators.

The problem being discussed has been around for a while now and it is not going to go away. Martin's complaint seems to me to be relatively insignificant but nevertheless it is a depiction of the frustration which some posters feel. The Sky thread is charged with such emotion that it will always over boil and in my opinion it is up to the moderators to target the cause of that and to deal with it.

 

[martinvickers]

So all together we have this:

As it was clear that Susan had edited it and had added the last bit, I would not really say that Susan was in anyway was misleading anyone with what she added. That she got rid of the first bit is also perfectly understandable as it reflected poorly on Parrulo.

It reflected poorly on Parrulo because it deserved to. She removed the spam comment - but for The Game that would simply have disappeared and Parrulo would have been wrongly and dishonestly protected.

Why should his 'rep' be protected from his own misjudgment, bang in the middle of a formal complaint? It's not like he reconsidered and took it down himself. and the bottom line is, the private mesages were even more aggressive. And no apology, no Susan telling Parrulo to cool it in those messages. No consideration of the threats made.

No, just an attempt to make Parrulo look better in a dispute, folloiwng a formal compaint, by dishonest and selective editing of an already closed thread.

Dishonest cover-up. convince me otherwise, susan.

 

[martinvickers]

I wholly believe that it is up to the posters to sort out their differences amongst themselves. For you that may have worked in the past, but in this specific case of the Sky thread it is different as it is very clear that the aspects which some posters do not like are indeed embedded within the thread and culture of the forum (however ridiculous that sounds). That means that solving the problem through two posters' dialogue is never going to work. Instead it is now up to the moderators to take the initiative and therefore I see it as imperative that posters report posts which may detail such problems in order to assist the moderators.

The problem being discussed has been around for a while now and it is not going to go away. Martin's complaint seems to me to be relatively insignificant but nevertheless it is a depiction of the frustration which some posters feel. The Sky thread is charged with such emotion that it will always over boil and in my opinion it is up to the moderators to target the cause of that and to deal with it.

to be honest, i don't give a d*mn about the sky thread, though i entirely see your point. I give a damn about a moderator abusing his powers out of spite, and secondarily another moderator trying to cover his tracks during a formal complaint.

In the case of susan, I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

Parrulo has no benefit of the doubt let after our private correspondence and his baiting in this thread.

 

[Parrulo]

Yes - she took out some of what the mod said. - which the Game caught, and then added a bit herself, which he didn't.

that's a lie as my response is fully displayed on the game's post on this very thread that he made last night and repeated just a few posts ago.

so the one being dishonest here is you

 

[Parrulo]

you also seem to be bringing our private conversation up a lot, i have no problem posting it if you want and this way people can judge this conversation themselves instead of taking your word for it

 

[martinvickers]

that's a lie as my response is fully displayed on the game's post on this very thread that he made last night and repeated just a few posts ago.

so the one being dishonest here is you

"she took out some of what the mod said" - she did, the spam reference.

"she added a bit of her own" - the 'invitation' to post elsewhere.

which part of that is a lie?

I have asked politely for you to desist while this complaint is in progress. I advice you to heed me.