Moderators

[usedtobefast]

ya i agree with you hitch.

the 3 strike system is awfully designed

truly bad

 

[thirteen]

This. As am I.

Greetings from the Black Hills of South Dakota. Debating trading in my job as cycling journalist for that as an eternal tourist in the Black Hills, Badlands and wide open spaces of Wyoming.....

Susan

have a lovely holiday!

summer (ha!) still sucks over here

 

[The Hitch]

Also i feel the "Forum rules and guidelines thread" was far far far far better off when it had the bit at the end about civilized discussion and using common sense.

It meant that whenever someone was acting like a **** but not directly breaking any rule you could point it out to them.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

ya i agree with you hitch.

the 3 strike system is awfully designed

truly bad

What was/is wrong with the 3 strike rule?
And more importantly what would be a better alternative?

I was always against the permanent ban hammer being wielded except where an account was created to insult or troll- but the 3 strike rule is a workable compromise.

Anyone can go off the rails occasionally and a warning should be all it takes to get them back in line. If a warning is ignored a 24 hour ban is appropriate as it offers the poster an opportunity to cool their jets and for the discussion to have moved past contentious issues.

The only reservation with the rule would be that a 1 month ban is a fairly big jump up from a 24 hour ban - maybe a week off and then a month off for another warning, but the flip side of that is the poster has already flouted a number of warnings.

 

[The Hitch]

What was/is wrong with the 3 strike rule?
And more importantly what would be a better alternative?

I was always against the permanent ban hammer being wielded except where an account was created to insult or troll- but the 3 strike rule is a workable compromise.

Anyone can go off the rails occasionally and a warning should be all it takes to get them back in line. If a warning is ignored a 24 hour ban is appropriate as it offers the poster an opportunity to cool their jets and for the discussion to have moved past contentious issues.

The only reservation with the rule would be that a 1 month ban is a fairly big jump up from a 24 hour ban - maybe a week off and then a month off for another warning, but the flip side of that is the poster has already flouted a number of warnings.

Because you didnt actually have to break a rule to get a strike. You seem to think that people get bans for ignoring warnings but in fact the first strike can come for one thing and then the second strike can come for something completely different.

Neither had to actually be a crime that caused any distrution whatsoever, or even a rule in the first place.

Or it could be something very minor.

Hence bans were given out for 2 "offenses" that would before not have even caused the mods to blink.

In fact it can even be somehting that has never before even receieved so much as an "edited by mod" response, and certainatly isnt mentioned in forum rules, but if a mods whishes it so they can under the 3 strike system just give you a ban for it.

And the best bit, is that they dont have to explain themselves. They just say "poster has been suspended for 24hours as per the current TdF posting guidelines.".

Makes it look like you actually did something.

If you confront them about the ban, they just ignore.

Of course once you get the 1 day ban, fair or unfair, then you risk a 1 month ban any time you make a post.

Considering the types of things people usually get 1 month bans for - death threats, constant insulting of other members,, creating threads about sexual positions, its a bit wrong imo that a 1 month ban can be handed out for writing a swear word (hidden under **** of course).

And of course different mods have different moods at different times, and something they allow or even encourage one day (eg the f word) can a few hours later if they feel like it get someone a 1 month ban.

The only reason 1 month bans werent handed out for 3 strikes is because after 2 strikes people post a lot less, and proof read every post 20 times.

 

[MacRoadie]

Upon reviewing the member Suspension thread, I found the following to be the full list of members given 24-hour bans during the ENTIRE month of July (excluding one member who apparently got himself banned deliberately):

FlyingPortagee
Ryo Hazuki
El Pistolero
The Hitch
erik saunders
Parullo
Blackcat

Aside from yourself, and Ryo Hazuki who seems to get banned regularly, regardless of time of year or rules imposed, that leaves a whopping 5 guys out of the HUNDREDS who posted in the Tour daily threads and in the clinic.

Hardly an alarming rate of suspensions, and hardly evidence of biased or unfairly applied rules.

 

[The Hitch]

Upon reviewing the member Suspension thread, I found the following to be the full list of members given 24-hour bans during the ENTIRE month of July (excluding one member who apparently got himself banned deliberately):

FlyingPortagee
Ryo Hazuki
El Pistolero
The Hitch
erik saunders
Parullo
Blackcat

Aside from yourself, and Ryo Hazuki who seems to get banned regularly, regardless of time of year or rules imposed, that leaves a whopping 5 guys out of the HUNDREDS who posted in the Tour daily threads and in the clinic.

Hardly an alarming rate of suspensions, and hardly evidence of biased or unfairly applied rules.

I never said they were biased.

I just listed the flaws it could potentially have. An action doesnt need to have created any major negative effects, yet, to be seen as unproductive, potentially wrong etc.

You give me a list of the other people that got banned. I don't know their situations were, maybe they were all deserving of a ban, I don't know, I can only speak for my own situation.

For (hopefully) easier reading, Ill split the major flaws into 2.

1 The main point is that several posters including myself would not get banned during the other 11 months of the year because if the mod thinks something we have said is wrong we will get a warning and we WONT DO IT AGAIN.

Here we dont have the chance to not do it again. We get banned and its needless. A needless ban which achieves nothing because we would not have done anything wrong anyway.

Before, the mods would give people 1 day bans after repeatidly giving them warnings which they continued to ignore. Here they give you the ban straight away. Its like they assume youll ignore the warning.

Of course it doesnt necessarily have to be a rule in the first place.

In my case what i got banned for something is not listed anywhere in the rules section, even now after it was punished. A "crime" that had been commited on several occasions before and not once punished with so much as a warning.

Its not like I would have continued to do it after getting the warning. But instead i get banned, having in my previouse 7000 posts ammassed a grand total of 1 warning and about 3 "edited by mods".

Again a needless ban that achieves nothing other than create a disgruntled poster and give the mods several lengthy complaints to read from myself. (assuming they do read them).

_______________________

2 The second point is that the severity is ridiculous.

If you continue your research into the suspensions thread youll see just how harsh a 1 month ban is.

1 poster got a one month ban for saying "you should have been strangled at birth," twice. Redtreviso got a 1 month ban for a disgusting orgy of persecution against 1 poster that lasted almost a year and half a century of posts.

People get 1 week bans for swearing AT moderators. I once saw Francois just give a warning to a poster who insulted him with the f word.

Sometimes mere 1 day bans are handed out for continuing to insult eachother after repeatidly ignoring warnings.

By comparison to this anthology of disgusting posts, under the 3 strike system posters can get a 1 month ban for something which on another day with another mod wouldnt get so much as a warning.

_____________________________________________________

So as to your lists, and conclusion that its not that bad because only 7 people got banned, it doesnt really matter if it has happened before, the point is that it could happen and these are significant flaws.

As such i wont analyze the lists you gave even if at first glance one obvious suspension is missing and 1 month (or less) isnt necessarily a sufficient trial period.

 

[Damiano Machiavelli]

It could be worse. The forum could be ruled by jaded toolbags who barely post anymore, only respond to flagged posts, do not read any of the posts surrounding the one that was flagged to understand context, and then ban members with no warning depending on whether or not they are in a bad mood that week. That would probably never happen here.

 

[MacRoadie]

Dude, it's an internet forum, not your health care system, the Selective Service, the IRS, or Social Security. There are no "significant flaws" because the whole freaking thing is insignificant. Get over it. This isn't "No Child Left Behind", or "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". Nobody cares who was banned, why they were banned, or how long they were banned for.

 

[pedaling squares]

It could be worse. The forum could be ruled by jaded toolbags who barely post anymore, only respond to flagged posts, do not read any of the posts surrounding the one that was flagged to understand context, and then ban members with no warning depending on whether or not they are in a bad mood that week. That would probably never happen here.

Weak stuff Damiano. If you're going to take a shot at the volunteers, at least man up and call out the mod(s) in question.

And if they barely post, it's probably because their time is spent dealing with spats among adults who are acting like children.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

I never said they were biased.

I just listed the flaws it could potentially have. An action doesnt need to have created any major negative effects, yet, to be seen as unproductive, potentially wrong etc.

<snipped for brevity>

I was going to respond to your previous post and ask did what you post happen or are you fearful of some type of "1984" scenario developing - it appears to be the latter.

No need to go in to detail, but what did you get your ban for?

I don't see why a full list of "crimes" is needed - most of the rules here are standard forum rules or plain common sense.

The rest of your post is complaining about apparent inconsistencies between mods and sanctions - so wouldn't a clearer system be more favorable?

 

[The Hitch]

Dude, it's an internet forum, not your health care system, the Selective Service, the IRS, or Social Security. There are no "significant flaws" because the whole freaking thing is insignificant. Get over it. This isn't "No Child Left Behind", or "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". Nobody cares who was banned, why they were banned, or how long they were banned for.

Ah the old " Who cares" response. Personally I always saw it as borderline trolling.

I will however offer the proven time tested response to such a post:


If you don’t care about something don’t comment. No one is forcing you to.

Or something to that effect.

This thread is called "Moderators".

This thread is filled with hundreds of lengthy complaints and suggestions from posters regarding the moderating on here.

It’s the purpose of the thread. Duh.

If you dont like it dont read it.

Simple.

Good day.

Ps
One does wonder however why you spent so much time going through the suspensions thread, if you think the whole situation is insignificant.


Oh and your list of random American acts and institutions impresses no one. Kind of ironic though. You dont care about my situation, and yet to illustrate your point give me a list of things I, as a European with no intention of living in the US, dont really care about. funny.

 

[Martin318is]

Hitch,
You have raised a number of points and some are valid but several of them were addressed quite a long time ago and are nolonger relevant. An example of this is the "as per TdF rules" in the suspensions statement.

I would point out to you that 12 months ago there was no notification whatsoever that someone had been suspended. I created the thread to help reduce the questions in threads about what happened to someone. During the Tour, once it was realised that the above statement was not particularly useful, we changed back to including the specific reason for the ban. (in fact, yours was the last suspension to be notified without the exact reason) I'd point out though that the person who got the ban had always received a notification containing the reason for it.

Regardless of this - its just one of a number of items - the fact is that from the point of view of the majority of the forum (and they said so via comments to individual moderators), the 3 strike system WORKED.

In a one month period - the most difficult period of the year on this forum - we saw a reduction in the trolling and nastiness when we would ordinarily see a massive increase.

Its true that a couple of people who had not bothered to read the TdF rules sticky were surprised to receive a strike and there were some who did not understand how it worked. This is a fair criticism since we only just got it in place for the first stage. However generally the concept was well received by those who received 1st Strikes and this is demonstrable if you look at the numbers. Less than 10% of those who received a first strike went on to receive a second or third and get suspended. Those that DID get suspended were certainly deserving.

If that meant that a small minority of people felt they needed to review their posts carefully before submitting then that was probably a good thing. I would hope that people would review their posts anyway to remove some of the comments they make in the heat of the moment. If that meant that someone who was about to get on the usual roll lof nasty posting suddenly pulls up and either behaves themselves or goes somewhere else for a while - GOOD.

Some general benefits of this system that have been glossed over here:

# Impartial I - all moderators act the same consitent way in the same circumstances. Personal attitude is effectively reduced.

# Impartial II - all posters are treated the same way whether they are popular on the forum or not - no favourites.

# Members know exactly what their personal circumstances are. No more cases of a warning every few days for ever. Now you know exactly what will happen if you keep pusing.

# Reduction in ability to have fun with the rules - there are a number of members who have made a sport of pushing a rule until they are nearly banned and then moving on to pushing a different rule, etc. This has annoyed a lot of the forum as they appear to be teflon coated because they continuously annoy people without punishment.

# Fair - you get 3 chances in a one month period to either muck up or screw up. If you do that then you get time off but the clock then resets for when you come back.

# Consistent - in the past you did not know how long someone would get suspended for a particular action. Now, you know exactly what will happen.

It is a very simple system:
* Do something worthy of a moderator intervention - Warning and 1st Strike

* Do something else worthy of moderator intervention - 24hour suspension and 2nd strike

* When you come back, cause a 3rd moderator intervention - 1 month suspension and 3rd strike.

- After a month, start the count again from zero.

 

[The Hitch]

No need to go in to detail, but what did you get your ban for?

In responce to a post saying that Contador had forgiven the kid that caused the crash that cost him 1 and a half minutes in the Tour, I joked that as part of his Act of contrition, the kid should bring down Contadors rivals - Basso, Gesink and Schleck.

Snip
.

THanks for the reply. I see you spent a lot of your time making that post, and i appreciate it.

I guess my main point is regarding "what is a strike".

Are they handed out for little things that oft go ignored or for actually causing disruption and trolling and being a nuisance.


Say its the latter, as i feel it was last time.

The problem with handing out strikes for any minor infringement is that it treats posters as if they were out to break the rules rather than as people who are trying to follow them.

95% of posters are willing to follow rules. But it seemd to me last time as a kind of "gottcha" anytime a poster makes a minor slip.

And it is a slip because the problem with these minor infringements is that most of the time they go unpunished so people get used to them and include them.

Eg swearing. 99% of the time that someone posts "****" mods let it happen. So we do it. Its often an important literary device.

Sometimes mods decide to crack down on it though. And fine. Without the 3 strike system, you get a warning, you dont do it again.

With the 3 strike system you get a strike. So if you had a previous strike you get banned.

And the joke i made about the kid taking down Contadors rivals, i mean come on, it may have been a bad joke but was i trolling/ causing disruption?

So my point is that the fault is in having some minor crimes like this be worthy of strikes.

Now, if strikes are given for real disruption, given for for example for swearing at mods, insulting other members etc, i can see how its a fair system, and i have no problem with it, and yes it works.

If they are handed out however for a "****", or making a bad joke, then it really does seem to me to be punishing people who arent causing any disruption in the first place.

My 2 cents.

 

[Martin318is]

Hitch,
your thoughts are appreciated.

We have always tried to make the distinction between allowing someone to write **** and penalising someone for writing ***. This is because the first is naturally allowing the software to edit out a word that was perhaps uncoinciously added. The second however demonstrates that the person clearly meant to use the word and has actively made effort to dodge the software and make the word visible.

so we move on to the context of the words:

"oh, ****" - not a problem

"go and **** yourself you *******" - you get penalised, more so for abusing someone else than for the actual swearing, although people often don't realise that this is what we are ruling on.

Regarding the cause of your 24hrs suspension. This was - as you say - for your comment about making Basso, et al crash. This was treated as incitement to cause harm to a rider (yes I know WHY you wrote it and the context of it - I am just telling you the wider case). The situation for the moderators at the time was that your comment was one of several of this type made in quick sucession (by other people). Those people were penalised and so it was felt that your post also deserved equivalent action.

A note: The moderators were only starting to get used to the new way of doing things as stuff like that doesn't immediately work overnight. We were still making mistakes around grey areas at the time and I feel that we got it right in the end.

For a system like this to work - and it does work - the expectation for any member must be that if they breach the rules they will receive a strike.

 

[pedaling squares]

After a month, start the count again from zero.

I hadn't realized that you had added the 'time off for good behaviour' clause. I like that, it keeps someone from standing eternally on the edge of a 1 month suspension if he is merely a sporadic misbehaver or a guy who had a bad day. So how does it work? If I get strike 1 today, and strike 2 three weeks from now, do I have one month from the time of strike 2 to act within the rules to avoid strike 3? And after 30 days of minding my p's and q's , I assume that I would go back to 0 strikes?

Would be good to clarify this for us and add it to post #2 of the 'Forum Rules and Guidelines' thread. Then delete post #3.

 

[Martin318is]

Look for a soon to arrive sticky from Daniel Benson about how the rules will work going forward (and replace my post 2).

However:

Get any infraction - it has a 1 month expiry from the day you get it.
Any time you have 2 live infractions - 24hour suspension.
Any time you get a 3rd live infraction - 1 month.

Logically though - if you have spent a month on suspension, the other infractions will all have expired while you were away.

If you are a generally well behaved poster you could quite possible expect to have a warning infraction every now and then but it would be unlikely that you would accrue enough in the short term to get a ban. If however you tend to go nuts now and then there is a good chance you will get some 24hour suspensions and possibly even get as far as a 1 month holiday.

There is the possibility of creating a handicap infraction so that some one coming back from 1 month away has to behave properly for a period before going back to zero live infractions.

 

[skidmark]

This is an interesting discussion, and the fact that it is written out here and that mods and members are interacting in such depth seems like an encouraging thing to me, that the sense of community here is really building and that people feel like stakeholders in various ways. This forum has steadily grown over the 2.5 years it's been around, but I think it's growing up. The beginning of an 'about the forum' subforum was a good step I think, and the thread to announce bans was an even better one - I think in any community (especially the internet where things are written down forever, or at least until someone with authority might delete them) it's good not to sweep this stuff under the rug, and giving clear reasons as to why someone was banned on the thread is an excellent accountability tool, as well as a good way to quash the informal rumour mill. I've seen alot of places where moderators do things because they're moderators, and don't see the need to give more reason than that. And the fact is that it's not like a country that has a constitution that you can refer to - we, as posters, are at the whims of what the mods feel like doing. Having mods who listen only encourages more people to come to this site. We have no fundamental rights we can refer to, other than those of 'common sense', which varies with each of our perspectives.

I agree with Hitch that 'banned as per TdF posting rules' was somewhat vague - but I also understand that you guys are volunteers and that July is a busy time so it's probably a big sigh of relief to be able to refer to something centralized and concrete.

There's a tough balance to be reached between forum members, their various temperaments, interests, posting styles, how much they care about the forum and it's rules, etc. Handing Hitch and ACF 24 hour bans has probably much more impact than someone like, say, me, who has posted less than 700 times in the whole 28 months or whatever this forum has been around. I mostly read anyway, so a 24 hour moratorium on posting is no big deal. So I get that the impact is different, and moreso than the 24-hour ban, the fear of a 1-month ban. That's a huge leap, and I would add my voice to the criticism of that.

Anyway, my point is that I think that yes, moderation is inconsistent to the level one would expect with human variation, but on the whole I feel the system is fairly transparent. Regarding this discussion, it seems unfortunate to me that Hitch was seemingly caught up in the crossfire during a situation where a lot of things were going on and neither side really had the opportunity to communicate with the other. But I would view that as an unfortunate incident rather than a serious or fundamental flaw.

I guess I just wanted to state that I appreciate the way this forum and its moderation is developing, and it is certainly a long way from where it was 1 year, or 2 years, ago. And more than that, I appreciate that we have the ability to give you guys feedback in 'public' so to speak, in a thread like this.

 

[AussieGoddess]

I have been a mod on another forum (also using vbulletin) ... and we had a system similar to this, but a bit more involved.

In it the rules show clearly the infraction system, and what infraction a breach will occur. Points are either expiring (usually 1 month) or permanent depending on the severity of the issue

eg
- general rudeness, or ignoring a moderator warning will get a 1 pointer which expires in a month
- personally attacking/insulting is 2 perm points
- offensive/racist/graphic/porn etc can get 3 perm points
- insulting pm's are worth 5

You get a warning for each rule, then points.

Once you get to 10 points, you are banned. If they expire, then its a temp ban, but 10 permanent points is a permanent ban.

A second user name (either to circumvent a temp ban, or created to troll) is cause for an immediate 10 points. (Same as here)

And you only get one temp ban. A second ban is always permanent. You are expected to learn from your mistakes, and report rather than respond.

That kind of system might address Hitch's issues about the severity of the penalty being appropriate for the crime.


Note though - on that site, you are not allowed to question moderator decisions at all except via pm. Rudeness to or about a moderator on the forum incurs and immediate infraction

 

[Martin318is]

I have been a mod on another forum (also using vbulletin) ... and we had a system similar to this, but a bit more involved.

Thanks for your comments - yes we have access to create a very similar set-up. We stayed away from that because it involved some complexities that were difficult to get around. We went with this simplified system in order to get it implemented faster and be easier to organise what to do on the fly. (some of us do a lot of moderation work via phones, etc)

If you view this in terms of stages of evolution, we are moving from a case by case manual system to a simpler semi-automated one. The next stage - which could be next year, I don't know - would possibly be to do further analysis of the rules, who breaks them, why, and what the penalty should be. When we have that, we could theoretically use the infraction system to manage that.

The key thing to take away (as a few people have kindly pointed out) is that we are moving forward, learning from experiences and taking note of constructive commentary from members. The forum and its moderation are fluid things and we feel that they are moving in a good direction.

 

[thirteen]

i am heartened to see you give a little leeway for swearing.

i naturally have a trucker's mouth and sometimes nothing but ****, ****, or **** will do

 

[oncehadhair]

Hitch,


# Impartial I - all moderators act the same consitent way in the same circumstances. Personal attitude is effectively reduced.

# Impartial II - all posters are treated the same way whether they are popular on the forum or not - no favourites.

Not entirelty true. One moderator took offense at my language because (i assume) it was somehow offensive in his country. The poster to whom the reply was aimed did not express offense and several other posters commented on the humour of my post.

When I pointed out several other posts in the same language he ignored them and still awarded a strike.

There is are variations in consistency of moderators.

 

[Parrulo]

Not entirelty true. One moderator took offense at my language because (i assume) it was somehow offensive in his country. The poster to whom the reply was aimed did not express offense and several other posters commented on the humour of my post.

When I pointed out several other posts in the same language he ignored them and still awarded a strike.

There is are variations in consistency of moderators.

not the first time it happened.

during the sunday flat stage of the tour since nothing was happening me, michaeldeebeedee and a few other guys were having some fun posting memes in the thread because nothing was happening on the race. and for some random reason we started posting religion related memes. ofc a moderator got mad because some memes implied that the "baby jesus" and "god" never existed and being a good catholic he felt like that was a good enough reason to delete all our posts. the thread died straight away and even with the sprint and the sprint discussion only had like a couple more pages of posts.

i also think that the jump from 1 day to 1 month is ridiculously high.

 

[JRTinMA]

I like the new rules. It seems to me that once a month now I am free to tell somebody what an ignorant ****** bag they are and I should never get a ban. Twice a month if I'm willing to take a 24 hour ban and that may very well be worth it when you look at the cost-benefit analysis.

Bravo mods!

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Thanks for your comments - yes we have access to create a very similar set-up. We stayed away from that because it involved some complexities that were difficult to get around. We went with this simplified system in order to get it implemented faster and be easier to organise what to do on the fly. (some of us do a lot of moderation work via phones, etc)

If you view this in terms of stages of evolution, we are moving from a case by case manual system to a simpler semi-automated one. The next stage - which could be next year, I don't know - would possibly be to do further analysis of the rules, who breaks them, why, and what the penalty should be. When we have that, we could theoretically use the infraction system to manage that.

The key thing to take away (as a few people have kindly pointed out) is that we are moving forward, learning from experiences and taking note of constructive commentary from members. The forum and its moderation are fluid things and we feel that they are moving in a good direction.

That is how I view it, an evolving process.

As you know I was against permanent bans or even long term bans as that just led to people creating new accounts. I think less tolerance to 'rule' breaking with shorter bans will be far more effective.

From reading your replies on this matter - I would assume nothing in set in stone and that at some point it will be looked at to see if it is effective or not?

My only reservation is the jump from 24 hours to a month.
Two alternatives:
1. Go from 24 hour to a 1 week ban, probation for a month after and any violation during that month results in the 1 month ban.
2. If someone gets a 24 hour ban they then go back to 0, any further infringement gets a 24 hour ban, any further infringement gets a 1 month ban.

i am heartened to see you give a little leeway for swearing.

i naturally have a trucker's mouth and sometimes nothing but ****, ****, or **** will do

Agree - it is good to see that common sense is applied - I don't find swearing bad or offensive.

Of course it depends on the context - if all someone contributes is swear words then it could be viewed as deliberately baiting or taking a thread off-topic.
Obviously anyone using swear words to insult other members should be swiftly dealt with.