palmerq said:
yes they might have been more proactive but as far as i remember one of the moderators who did a lot only quit after the ads came into the forum whilsts claiming he would not mod the way he usually does with out being paid to. but you know I'm sure it's all bensons fault as is the usual reaction here
Oh ffs, please tell me that you are above stumping on mods who put in a hell of a lot of time, just like you, if not more, and who are no longer posting here, so they can't put your snide remark into context.
I just emailed Barrus that I was going to keep stumm, but if you are going to drag "other mods" into this and make it look like we were complicit or negligent or just twiddling our thumbs...
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It was me who took up this very this issue up behind the scenes when RR made a comment in public to Dan about something serious, without saying what it was. Needless to say, at that point, mods were not told anything by CN about anything serious, so I wondered what RR was talking about. I PMed RR, he gave me his allegations, and that triggered a small ****storm behind the scenes with a very unhappy FtP, complicated (initially) by having been told things in private. PM means something to me.
So I informed the other mods without giving them details. When I got the go-ahead from RR to be open to the mods, and we got Dan's reply to it, Barrus was as already as outraged as I was.
There were some pretty hefty words exchanged, in private, over the phone, in the staff room. [ People at the same time were frequently accusing us to be kissing CN's **** in the forum, that was kinda funny ].
It wasn't handled to mine or Barrus' satisfaction at all. Barrus left, I more than respected his choice. Still, I stayed for the exact same reason that Barrus left. I won't go into the question why all other mods were staying too.
I wanted to be able to keep an eye on the [in my eyes] callous and utterly disinterested way in CN/FP treated the alleged abuse of its own forum, and the security of its own members. With Barrus gone, I kinda felt I had to keep the seat on behalf of people who didn't know that this was going on, hoping some of them might appreciate that someone was making an ongoing stink on their behalf, and keeping an eye on the way their accounts were treated.
CN had/has a clear rule that put limitations on what the forum can be used for. It CANNOT be used to obtain personal data of other users for reason that have nothing to do with the forum itself (or could, at the time - it might have changed since I understand will soon be inviting Facebook to snoop along too).
Barrus and I [I will speak for just us two here, don't extrapolate to things I am not saying] both felt CN also has a duty of care to its users.
RR made a clear allegation. IF someone was willing to pay for the info, it seemed pretty obvious that it could be costly to RR. It was unlikely they were after his RR's identity to send him flowers.
The allegation was that the attempt to trick RR into handing out his details was initiated over the CN platform. As I understood it, the actual details came through another medium. To me that was immaterial, it was apparently initiated on CN, with an intent to deceive. If so, it should have consequences.
Did it happen? If so, was RR the only one who was targeted? These were my questions from the very start.
CN wasn't going to even look. All it showed any real interest in was if CN could be legally held responsible. Dan kept telling me that RR had given it out himself and not via CN. To me he was missing the point. It took forever to get anything 'done', and that was Dan getting legal involved. And that was only used -as far as I can tell- to check if CN could be held responsible.
The only angle they looked at (as far as I can tell) was self-interest only. Not if it could investigate, not what it could do to make sure there were no other people falling for a similar scheme.
That RR was considering Joe Papp's situation at the time, and had asked to not take it any further, was also given, by Dan, a reason to do nothing. I felt he was missing an important angle, it wasn't just between CN, RR and Papp.
Both Barrus and I stated frequently that we wanted the other members WARNED
immediately for that type of (ab)use of the forum, that it seemed to be taking place, to prevent any user of exposing themselves along a similar route. Whether it had taken place or not, even without naming Papp by name.
CN didn't think it was needed, and it might complicate RR's position too. So, as the bare minimum, we demanded, again, an
internal investigation to see if other users were approached the same way. We had long long arguments about this, with Dan.
It was declined for what I felt were reasons that were not good enough. Barrus left because of how this was handled. I still stayed.
I understand more users have now declared they have been approached too. It certainly seemed it was needed, if you cared about your user base (and even some of your most valued and key contributors at that), that is.
I kept my mouth shut for the same reason Barrus did, as it was utterly privileged and sensitive information we had (and only an allegation. CN was the only one who had the tools to look into this to see if it was likely to be true).
RR had explicitly stated after a direct question by me, that at the time he was ok with no further action, and had told Dan so, with the argumentation that Papp was in legal hot water, so it wouldn't cause potential complications for him.
(Which to me didn't preclude behind the scenes action for the benefit of OTHER users, rather the opposite, and I voiced that opinion loud and clearly to Dan - Bro, you certainly did have mods on your side).
IF I had known that after that was settled, RR had been in touch with Dan, and was told to shove it.......... [words kind afail me here]. I would have tried VERY hard to find a way to embarrass CN into changing the dreadful way in which CN/FP sees its duty of care to its users. I am glad this has come out now, so you can all draw your own conclusions.
To me, all what CN says about being valued and appreciated... it defines "lipservice" to me. Shocking. But not surprising.
And kinda hilarious that they can't be bothered to look into this, when we were tasked with investigating (and banning) people for utter trivialities in comparison. Stuff not even within the same galaxy. I still can't get over that imbalance, and for a while I wasn't even sure why I was intervening on anything.
I'm quite keen to no longer post on CN anymore, Martin's stepping down was a real exception. This is a door I had closed, but not if people start to make it out as if it wasn't "Dan" alone.
I am also leaving it in the middle what really happened. I can't guess, but I can't tell for sure. It's all hearsay to me. But I also would have investigated.
I won't comment on the modding here now, it is not for me to comment on.
But palmerq, it would grace you if you judged mods like Martin on the hundreds of hours he put in unpaid long before he ever reached that point of no longer wanting to provide CN with free labour. Don't hand out underhand sweeps because he refused to accept CN milking the forum further with those ads
whilst we were slaving away for hours on end, each week, and weren't even given the level of support from CN/FP that could max-fix the width of XL-images in a 2 year time-span. He stated to Dan he would only continue to do what he did, which pretty much dwarfed the input of all volunteer mods combined at the time, if CN valued him enough to compensate him for some of his efforts. There is a precedent on CN for this, btw. I worked with Martin for a long time. It would be below my standards to insinuate a mod like him was in it for personal gain, after what he dad, and certainly by dropping that private information after he has left the board.
This thread was brought to my attention, and even after Bro's question, I (still) wasn't going to say anything. I did feel that anyone smart enough would have realised that it wasn't just one issue I left over.
But if one of the current mods is starting to drag staff room discussions and privileged information in the open for apparently a desire to make the current mod(s) look better by hitting an older one into the ground (without crucial context), and hence questions the contributions by retired mods in public -you are kinda starting to point and wave at what we did or didn't do- you leave me no choice.
If it ain't clear to you that that is not on, then I have bitten my tongue more than long enough.
BTW, I can understand that not everyone would be as outraged as Barrus and I were. But I felt it was an issue that would certainly outrage some of users equally, if they had known about it. I certainly spoke with them in mind.
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