Unfair Banning

chrislad

I was banned in the For Sale forums yesterday by CuLt. I was hoping to sort this out via PM, but having sent him two, I have not received a reply, despite him having posted elsewhere in the meantime (in this forum).

Basically, I was banned for 'threadspoiling'. I basically pointed out friendly to a guy that he was ripping off someone by asking for 80 plus a Nokia 6230i with a 512 MMC for a K750i. The sales charter clearly states that I was well within my rights to comment if a person is ripping someone off. As a result of this, all my posts from that thread were deleted, along with the posts of someone who replied agreeing with me, and I was banned, without warning.

I have no desire to enter an argument here, but I would appreciate either a proper explanation of what I did wrong or to be unbanned. Thank you for your time.

Ruu_Old

leave the person whos buying the phone to sort it out themselves tbh.

chrislad

That's fair enough, if the rules said that but they clearly state otherwise.

Asok

No Thread spoiling...

if you are not interested in an item do not comment on it...

From the FS charter.:v:

WhiteWashMan

chrislad wrote:

I was banned in the For Sale forums yesterday by CuLt. I was hoping to sort this out via PM, but having sent him two, I have not received a reply, despite him having posted elsewhere in the meantime (in this forum).

Basically, I was banned for 'threadspoiling'. I basically pointed out friendly to a guy that he was ripping off someone by asking for 80 plus a Nokia 6230i with a 512 MMC for a K750i. The sales charter clearly states that I was well within my rights to comment if a person is ripping someone off. As a result of this, all my posts from that thread were deleted, along with the posts of someone who replied agreeing with me, and I was banned, without warning.

I have no desire to enter an argument here, but I would appreciate either a proper explanation of what I did wrong or to be unbanned. Thank you for your time.

tell watchdog tbh...

TerrorFirmer

Twas a bit of a rip off though....:v:

Ah well. I'm sure the ban will be up soon. No point arguing it really. Once it's done, it's done, Cult knows why he banned you, and your logic isn't going to change his mind over something he decided for himself

Gordon

You sent him two pms yesterday and are expecting a response now? Just wait until he responds for gods sake.

chrislad

Asok wrote:

From the FS charter.:v:

It's not from the FS Charter from the FS section I was posting in

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=211342

Quoted from that Charter.

If your guide price is far too high then you are going to get flamed and I'm sorry but I'm not wasting my time responding to complaints from sellers who get flamed because they are trying to get silly money for their items. That's just how it is, people are entitled to their opinions once their comments are fair and their facts are straight, regardless of wether they are interested in an item or not. Why? Because we don't like seeing anyone getting ripped off. But if your comments are not fair (like people comparing contract phones to SIM free phones etc.) then you might get banned. If we feel you're a chancer coming here to make a quick buck then you'll also be banned.

Note the italicised and underlined marks.

Now I'm not trying to make a big deal out of it, it's just that the rules seem like they are completely muddied with different rules for very similar forums. What I did may have constituted a ban for another forum, but according to the charter for the forum I posted in, I was perfectly entitled to that opinion.

The main reason I'm even bothering is that I have a FS thread in General, and I would like to check for updates and be able to reply.

CuLT

My first complaint thread, thanks for breaking me in :v:

You started mixing prices for things from the Internet with thing available in Irish shops. That was your mistake. You can't pick prices willy nilly from around the place and tell someone they're a rip off.

The ban will not be revoked, nor the length reduced. And fyi, complaining the day after you query me is not a good plan.

chrislad

My first complaint thread, thanks for breaking me in

Before you get a swelled head, it's not a complaint. I was enquiring.

You started mixing prices for things from the Internet with thing available in Irish shops. That was your mistake. You can't pick prices willy nilly from around the place and tell someone they're a rip off.

Umm, I didn't. I specified Meteor with a price of 299 for the 6230i and Vodafone for a price of 329 for the K750i. These are in store prices and not ripped willy nilly from anywhere. Of course, I can't prove this as you deleted my posts. The only mention of the internet was the unlocking and reflashing site I provided which was to do with the fact that the guy was saying it was hard to do hence the high rip off price.

The ban will not be revoked, nor the length reduced. And fyi, complaining the day after you query me is not a good plan.

Again, not complaining. I'm a mod at starwars.com and lucasarts.com, I know how the system works. Fact is, your rules are all over the place. I've seen 3 different sales charters. I broke no rules based on the charter of the forum I was posting it. I've not been abusive. I've been nothing but polite and I don't deserve this contempt nor accusations.

I'll leave the matter be, but I'd advise having one set of rules across the board rather than having multiple. Good day.

I'll PM you to remove the ban on the 31st. Have a good night.

radioman

To be honest for boards.ie to have a 'rip off ireland' forum and then to have somebody banned for exposing a rip off in the 'for sale' forum is quite hypocritical

Tar.Aldarion

CuLT wrote:

You started mixing prices for things from the Internet with thing available in Irish shops. That was your mistake.

chrislad wrote:

I specified Meteor with a price of 299 for the 6230i and Vodafone for a price of 329 for the K750i. These are in store prices

hhhhmmmm.

radioman wrote:

To be honest for boards.ie to have a 'rip off ireland' forum and then to have somebody banned for exposing a rip off in the 'for sale' forum is quite hypocritical

Dfferent forums have different rules.How is it hypocritical. You can't go round posting about snooker in golf.yet there is a snooker forum :v:

CuLT

radioman wrote:

To be honest for boards.ie to have a 'rip off ireland' forum and then to have somebody banned for exposing a rip off in the 'for sale' forum is quite hypocritical

Man, don't even go down that road. Read other threads in this forum for a precursor to the replies you're going to get.

Anyway, chrislad will have his ban removed in due course. I ban mechanically, I have no feelings on the ban either way unless someone starts insulting me or irritating me.
Rules could probably do with some consolidation alright, I just don't want to do these things by myself, and it's hard to get all the FS mods in one place to do a big discussion of them.

chrislad

hhhhmmmm.

Hhhhmmmm is right

CuLT wrote:

Rules could probably do with some consolidation alright, I just don't want to do these things by myself, and it's hard to get all the FS mods in one place to do a big discussion of them.

To be honest with you, it could do with some major consolidation, especially with a forum of this side. You need one For Sale Charter (check out www.avforums.com for some great ideas), not one in each forum created by whatever mod for that forum. I'll take it that you're new here, since this was your first apparent 'complaint' thread. I'd recommend changing the rules, as what I posted was not against the current rules in that forum, but it may have been against rules that you intend to impose or that are already imposed in other FS forums. Fact is, the sticky is there for all to see and those rules are singing from a totally different hymn sheet to yourself.

From experience on a forum with a 6million+ membership base, you need to have a fixed set of rules with very little scope for deviation. At the moment, that's not the case here, on what I assume is Irelands biggest forum. Typcal Irish really

TerrorFirmer

Well, in chrislads favour, its nice to see nice thought out, polite and relevant feedback in relation to a banning. :v:

Not very commom around here!

Victor

chrislad wrote:

From experience on a forum with a 6million+ membership base, you need to have a fixed set of rules with very little scope for deviation.

[vader voice]"Yes, Master"[/vader voice]

Freelancer

chrislad wrote:

Typcal Irish really

Collectively arching a nations brow....

Now whats that supposed to mean then?

Neuro

chrislad wrote:

Basically, I was banned for 'threadspoiling'.

In that case you deserved it.

chrislad wrote:

The sales charter clearly states that I was well within my rights to comment if a person is ripping someone off.

I am not aware of such an exemption. Regardless, the For Sale Forum operates on a very simple concept in free market economics: no one is obliged to purchase at the stated price and can buy elsewhere if they so desire.

TempestSabre

I don't see the point of allowing people to comment on rip offs. If an item is expensive, no one buys it. The tread sits there with tumble weeds. If you want to help out a prospective buyer, who is unaware of realistic prices, PM them with your info. (maybe thats also thread spoinling?) Whats more annoying is people posting in a for sale thread who aren't interested in buying the item. Across all the for sale forums, theres subtle thread spoiling going on. Usually to try and get a bargain.

Some rules like the no auction rules are a bit pointless IMO. Perhaps the rules could be made more concise and have less ambiguity, for those that don't get it. or you could just ban them, and let them figure it out.

On a different point, and its just my opinion but. Your point/post should stand on its own. Not need to be qualified with a "I'm great and my point is valid because....(insert why I'm important)" . Blowing your own trumpet just gets people back up. Especially mods.

chrislad

TempestSabre wrote:

On a different point, and its just my opinion but. Your point/post should stand on its own. Not need to be qualified with a "I'm great and my point is valid because....(insert why I'm important)" . Blowing your own trumpet just gets people back up. Especially mods.

I was mentioning that to illustrate the point that I was making that I do know how to run/manage a forum. I do not think it makes me great, far from it actually. It was merely to illustrate a point, not blow my own trumpet.

Neuro wrote:

I am not aware of such an exemption. Regardless, the For Sale Forum operates on a very simple concept in free market economics: no one is obliged to purchase at the stated price and can buy elsewhere if they so desire.

Please read the thread I linked to in an earlier post for the exemption. Thanks.

CuLT

chrislad wrote:

To be honest with you, it could do with some major consolidation, especially with a forum of this side. You need one For Sale Charter (check out www.avforums.com for some great ideas), not one in each forum created by whatever mod for that forum.

There is one set of rules emblazened at the top of every forum, and the rules appear in my signature also.

I'll take it that you're new here, since this was your first apparent 'complaint' thread.

My reg dates says March 2001. This being my first complaint thread, you can take it that I'm a good moderator.
Don't patronise me.

I'd recommend changing the rules, as what I posted was not against the current rules in that forum, but it may have been against rules that you intend to impose or that are already imposed in other FS forums. Fact is, the sticky is there for all to see and those rules are singing from a totally different hymn sheet to yourself.

From the same thread:

Buyers are free to offer what they want, nobody is putting any pressure on them and I don't see why we should put a cap on sellers prices in order to protect buyers from making stupid mistakes. Sellers are also Boards members and deserve a level playing field.

"Totally different" is a wild exaggeration.

From experience on a forum with a 6million+ membership base, you need to have a fixed set of rules with very little scope for deviation. At the moment, that's not the case here, on what I assume is Irelands biggest forum. Typcal Irish really

6, 6 thousand, 6 million, whatever. The rules are there to help the mods in decision making, not allow the users loopholes. I'll just change the rules specially for whatever user tries.

Also, now that I recall, the last time I saw you posting was in the thread you first posted when you joined. In that thread you were telling boards.ie to change all over the place too.
The largest English-language based forum in the world is gaiaonline, and that only has 2.8 million users (only the Japanese-based 2channel has more), so I don't know where you're getting your figures.

Thanx 4 The Fish

CuLT wrote:

My reg dates says March 2001. This being my first complaint thread, you can take it that I'm a good moderator.

Why can we take it that you are a good moderator becasue nobody has bothered to complain about you ? Also, have you been a moderator for all of those those years ?

Anyway, just from looking at those rules I can see why people are confused and why it does definitely need revisiting.

Shabadu

Chrislad, they should invent a sloganizer just for you.

"Chrislad: because 6,000,000 other imaginary people say so."

"Chrislad: generalising a nation for shíts 'n' giggles!"

CuLT

Thanx 4 The Fish wrote:

Why can we take it that you are a good moderator becasue nobody has bothered to complain about you ?

Ehh, perhaps you don't read Feedback on a regular basis.

Thanx 4 The Fish

I do, I have been reading it for as long as its been about, and again I ask the question, Why can we take it that you are a good moderator because nobody has complained about you. I don't think anybody has complained about me on Feedback, perhaps they have complained about the access system or other stuff on Footy. I do not take that as an endorsement of my ability to mod and nor should you.

the_syco

chrislad wrote:

asking for 80 plus a Nokia 6230i with a 512 MMC for a K750i

chrislad wrote:

I specified Meteor with a price of 299 for the 6230i and Vodafone for a price of 329 for the K750i.

So... the seller asked for money + an inferior phone for the phone he had?

CuLT wrote:

The largest English-language based forum in the world is gaiaonline, and that only has 2.8 million users (only the Japanese-based 2channel has more), so I don't know where you're getting your figures.

Heh. P4wned by a mod.

=-=

You say the rules should be more rigid? And yet you complain when you get banned by one of the rules. It seems, sir, that you want your cake, and eat it.

TerrorFirmer

Well to be fair asking for a 6230i with a 512mmc AND eighty quid is a joke. So yes, it was a rip off. A very big one in fact.

But if someone is stupid enough to agree to it, then thats their problem!

I think though the threadspoiling policy does need a slight re-working and a tad more zero tolerance on messing around in threads.

I don't think there is any problem with the moderatering on the forum though.

Tar.Aldarion

if you think somebody is being tipped off, send them an email about it. That's allowed,right?

chrislad

There is one set of rules emblazened at the top of every forum, and the rules appear in my signature also.

The thread I linked to was emblazened on top of the FS Mobiles forum. Your signature isn't stuck to the top of all the forums and to the best of my knowledge, that particular set of rules isn't mentioned in the FS Charter for the forum in question.

My reg dates says March 2001. This being my first complaint thread, you can take it that I'm a good moderator.
Don't patronise me.

Reg dates have nothing to do with how long you've been a moderator. You could have been just made a moderator yesterday for all I know. My reg date for starwars.com and lucasarts.com is January 2000, but I was only made a mod in 2002. I'm not patronising anyone. You want to take it like that, that's your perogative. Whether you are a good moderator or not is not an issue here. I have not complaining about your moderating at all, just the apparent conflict in rules.

"Totally different" is a wild exaggeration.

One set says you can't say anything if someone is being ripped off. One set says you can. I'd classify that as totally different.

Also, now that I recall, the last time I saw you posting was in the thread you first posted when you joined. In that thread you were telling boards.ie to change all over the place too.

I'm afaid you're wrong. To the best of my knowledge, my first postings were in a For Sale thread I creates in FS Discs after a friend pointed me over here to sell some PC games I had hanging around. I didn't post much outside the FS section until pretty recently, and even then, it's been in the UL forum. Then again, my memory may be playing tricks and due to the lack of a search function, I can't back this up. If mods can still search, a link if you would? Thanks.

The largest English-language based forum in the world is gaiaonline, and that only has 2.8 million users (only the Japanese-based 2channel has more), so I don't know where you're getting your figures.

My figures refer to the membership base of www.starwars.com, www.lucasarts.com and www.indianajones.com. These 3 sites share the same membership. You register for one, you're registered for the other two. As a mod, I can check the number of active memberships, which at the moment is 7,799,998 members. That's the membership base. At least 15% of those have posted at least once on forums.starwars.com or forums.lucasarts.com. Indianajones.com has no forums yet.

Anyways, I'm pretty much done here. Fact is, you need to delete or edit that thread which says you can comment if someone is being ripped off. Anyways, like I said, I'll PM you on the 31st.

I don't think there is any problem with the moderatering on the forum though.

And neither do I. Nor have I said I have any problems with the moderators themselves. The best moderating team is one that you don't see, and I barely see these guys around so they must be doing a good job.

WhiteWashMan

chrislad wrote:

The best moderating team is one that you don't see, and I barely see these guys around so they must be doing a good job.

thanks

Gordon

The size of the forums you moderate in do not concern us chrislad. 1 point for the quote reference.

chrislad

Gordon wrote:

The size of the forums you moderate in do not concern us chrislad. 1 point for the quote reference.

It was mentioned to back up a point I was making. I am not trying to enter a penis size competition here.

Gordon

Ah you don't get the point then.

chrislad

You say the rules should be more rigid? And yet you complain when you get banned by one of the rules. It seems, sir, that you want your cake, and eat it.

Do people here not read or something? The issue here is that one set of rules says that telling people they are getting ripped off it fine, the other says it's not. It's not about me getting banned, a fact I could give two fiddlers about, it's that the rules are seemingly in direct conflict with each other. That's the issue. I've already said twice that I'm not pushing to be unbanned. I'm not complaining about that. I've told Cult I'll PM him on the 31st to remind him.

Gordon, you don't seem to get my point either, so it's best that we leave each other be, as you seem to be a bit hostile towards me for whatever reason.

Gordon

You misunderstand young padwan. I'm not giving you a point for not getting the reference.

Sleepy

FFS, the guy's got a point, the rules are conflicting.

Sure, most of the tards that get banned create "I was banned unfairly" threads here but that doesn't mean a bitch-slapping is required when someone actually posts a reasonable thread like this.

chrislad

Gordon wrote:

You misunderstand young padwan. I'm not giving you a point for not getting the reference.

Ah right.

My apologies

Asok

I have to agree with chrislad, I had never noticed that part of the charter tbh The way I look at it is the main one keeks posted covers the whole section but if the local charter says the opposite I go with the local charter. Perhaps it could be all made into one uber charter with sub sections for each board in fs?

RE*AC*TOR

Its unfortunate that there appear to be contradicting charters.

With regards to thread spoiling i think the overall rule:

"if you are not interested in an item do not comment on it..."

should be universally true.

With regards to this incident - while I would attribute no blame to CuLT - I reckon chrislad does have a point.

chrislad

Hey, can you unban me please? My ban was up yesterday, and I have PMed you a couple of days ago.

Thanks