Transparency in Forum Moderation

l2avism

Can we have a little more transparency in forum moderation?
Sometimes it seems like mods just ban or suspend people or close threads simply because they had a bad day or because someone posts something that doesn't jive with a mod's political beliefs or MMO playstyle.

How about an area where all moderation actions are listed. Perhaps even have an area where site users can upvote or downvote moderation actions as a way to keep abuse in check. Any open discussion about forum moderations usually gets closed down and the user is told to PM someone which we all know will get nowhere.

Horusra

Welcome to a privately run board.

scorpex-x

l2avism said:

Can we have a little more transparency in forum moderation?
Sometimes it seems like mods just ban or suspend people or close threads simply because they had a bad day or because someone posts something that doesn't jive with a mod's political beliefs or MMO playstyle.

How about an area where all moderation actions are listed. Perhaps even have an area where site users can upvote or downvote moderation actions as a way to keep abuse in check. Any open discussion about forum moderations usually gets closed down and the user is told to PM someone which we all know will get nowhere.

Someone recently replied to me saying "those who make the rules can break the rules", pretty much how it is.

Mendel

scorpex-x said:

Someone recently replied to me saying "those who make the rules can break the rules", pretty much how it is.

Can the someone who made this text editor, break this text editor?  Please?

Slapshot1188

scorpex-x said:

l2avism said:

Can we have a little more transparency in forum moderation?
Sometimes it seems like mods just ban or suspend people or close threads simply because they had a bad day or because someone posts something that doesn't jive with a mod's political beliefs or MMO playstyle.

How about an area where all moderation actions are listed. Perhaps even have an area where site users can upvote or downvote moderation actions as a way to keep abuse in check. Any open discussion about forum moderations usually gets closed down and the user is told to PM someone which we all know will get nowhere.

Someone recently replied to me saying "those who make the rules can break the rules", pretty much how it is.

I have always thought it would be good to put a name next to any mod action.  If it's one guy/gal that is always hitting someone as opposed to a range of moderators that would be interesting to know.

l2avism

scorpex-x said:

l2avism said:

Can we have a little more transparency in forum moderation?
Sometimes it seems like mods just ban or suspend people or close threads simply because they had a bad day or because someone posts something that doesn't jive with a mod's political beliefs or MMO playstyle.

How about an area where all moderation actions are listed. Perhaps even have an area where site users can upvote or downvote moderation actions as a way to keep abuse in check. Any open discussion about forum moderations usually gets closed down and the user is told to PM someone which we all know will get nowhere.

Someone recently replied to me saying "those who make the rules can break the rules", pretty much how it is.

Yes, but those who make the rules are paid from advertisers who are paid from the customers who happen to visit the site.
Piss off the customers, they'll communicate their discontent to the advertisers who will in turn stop advertising on the site that broke the rules.

Volgore

scorpex-x said:

Someone recently replied to me saying "those who make the rules can break the rules", pretty much how it is.

And it pretty much applies to this site's technical funtionality, too.

Kyleran

l2avism said:

Can we have a little more transparency in forum moderation?
Sometimes it seems like mods just ban or suspend people or close threads simply because they had a bad day or because someone posts something that doesn't jive with a mod's political beliefs or MMO playstyle.

How about an area where all moderation actions are listed. Perhaps even have an area where site users can upvote or downvote moderation actions as a way to keep abuse in check. Any open discussion about forum moderations usually gets closed down and the user is told to PM someone which we all know will get nowhere.

Not at all true, I've PM'd MikeB on multiple occasions, resulting in moderators posting why a thread is closed, re-opening threads, getting a moderation action taken off of me (more often than not).

If you are in the right, he generally will deal fairly with you.  Trouble is most people don't realize/accept when they are really in the wrong, and think they have more "rights" here than they do.

Kyleran

l2avism said:

scorpex-x said:

l2avism said:

Can we have a little more transparency in forum moderation?
Sometimes it seems like mods just ban or suspend people or close threads simply because they had a bad day or because someone posts something that doesn't jive with a mod's political beliefs or MMO playstyle.

How about an area where all moderation actions are listed. Perhaps even have an area where site users can upvote or downvote moderation actions as a way to keep abuse in check. Any open discussion about forum moderations usually gets closed down and the user is told to PM someone which we all know will get nowhere.

Someone recently replied to me saying "those who make the rules can break the rules", pretty much how it is.

Yes, but those who make the rules are paid from advertisers who are paid from the customers who happen to visit the site.
Piss off the customers, they'll communicate their discontent to the advertisers who will in turn stop advertising on the site that broke the rules.

Er no, that is not at all how it really works, your only real communication vehicle is to not visit the site.

Heck, over 50% of visitors use adblock, so they are pretty much dead weight freeloaders who would be better off blocked from access.

MrSnuffles

Kyleran said:

l2avism said:

scorpex-x said:

l2avism said:

Can we have a little more transparency in forum moderation?
Sometimes it seems like mods just ban or suspend people or close threads simply because they had a bad day or because someone posts something that doesn't jive with a mod's political beliefs or MMO playstyle.

How about an area where all moderation actions are listed. Perhaps even have an area where site users can upvote or downvote moderation actions as a way to keep abuse in check. Any open discussion about forum moderations usually gets closed down and the user is told to PM someone which we all know will get nowhere.

Someone recently replied to me saying "those who make the rules can break the rules", pretty much how it is.

Yes, but those who make the rules are paid from advertisers who are paid from the customers who happen to visit the site.
Piss off the customers, they'll communicate their discontent to the advertisers who will in turn stop advertising on the site that broke the rules.

Er no, that is not at all how it really works, your only real communication vehicle is to not visit the site.

Heck, over 50% of visitors use adblock, so they are pretty much dead weight freeloaders who would be better off blocked from access.

And why would you not run adblock when the site runs 40+ adware and malware scripts? I rather not risk getting infected by some shady malware tracking script.

Kyleran

MrSnuffles said:

Kyleran said:

l2avism said:

scorpex-x said:

l2avism said:

Can we have a little more transparency in forum moderation?
Sometimes it seems like mods just ban or suspend people or close threads simply because they had a bad day or because someone posts something that doesn't jive with a mod's political beliefs or MMO playstyle.

How about an area where all moderation actions are listed. Perhaps even have an area where site users can upvote or downvote moderation actions as a way to keep abuse in check. Any open discussion about forum moderations usually gets closed down and the user is told to PM someone which we all know will get nowhere.

Someone recently replied to me saying "those who make the rules can break the rules", pretty much how it is.

Yes, but those who make the rules are paid from advertisers who are paid from the customers who happen to visit the site.
Piss off the customers, they'll communicate their discontent to the advertisers who will in turn stop advertising on the site that broke the rules.

Er no, that is not at all how it really works, your only real communication vehicle is to not visit the site.

Heck, over 50% of visitors use adblock, so they are pretty much dead weight freeloaders who would be better off blocked from access.

And why would you not run adblock when the site runs 40+ adware and malware scripts? I rather not risk getting infected by some shady malware tracking script.

Your fear betrays you. 

Ikeda

As a person who has been silenced, send an email to MikeB@MMORPG.COM, explain the situation and he'll come back.  @MikeB has been even in the past.  Sometimes I was deserving (well the person on the other end of my lashing probably deserved it as well), sometimes not.  

Making a topic about it is just doomed to have the topic closed because it's in the Terms/Rules.

And honestly, how often do you see people go crazy in here?  Most times the mods just lock a topic, explain why, and move on.  I seriously doubt they are aggressive towards you in particular.

MrSnuffles

Kyleran said:

MrSnuffles said:

Er no, that is not at all how it really works, your only real communication vehicle is to not visit the site.

Heck, over 50% of visitors use adblock, so they are pretty much dead weight freeloaders who would be better off blocked from access.

And why would you not run adblock when the site runs 40+ adware and malware scripts? I rather not risk getting infected by some shady malware tracking script.

Your fear betrays you. 

You think?

Hatefull

As a guy that has had his fair share of warnings, and a ban or two I can tell you; If you have a legit case and take it to the mods they will talk to you.  You may not always like the answer they give you, but it will be a legitimate answer.  

I got a ban overthrown when I took my side of the case to a moderator and had him review the details, that time it worked.  The rest of the time, I pretty much earned my time out.

Sometimes the moderators are just trying to stop a crap storm before it gets rolling.  I wish they would do it with the almost daily Star Citizen threads, but to be fair some of them (SC threads) actually have good information in them.  Very few, but some.  Over all I think this site is pretty fairly moderated.  Again, coming from a guy that has had several run-ins with several mods.

Phaserlight

No; publicly listing all mod actions is begging for a reason to debate and criticize the decisions of people that are trying to help. Most of the time what those actions are is pretty apparent, anyway.  Consider that if you had an administrative action taken against you, it was most likely for your benefit.

Kyleran

MrSnuffles said:

Kyleran said:

MrSnuffles said:

Er no, that is not at all how it really works, your only real communication vehicle is to not visit the site.

Heck, over 50% of visitors use adblock, so they are pretty much dead weight freeloaders who would be better off blocked from access.

And why would you not run adblock when the site runs 40+ adware and malware scripts? I rather not risk getting infected by some shady malware tracking script.

Your fear betrays you. 

You think?

Not one of those gets thru my viral and anti spam protection, either at work or one of 4 home computers.

JamesGoblin

Too much transparency demands, and you might find yourself going the way of the dodo.

I like brief summary of TOS I saw on RPS (?) forums the other day - "Iron fist of infinite tyranny". Short and to the point.