Complaint about military forum moderation

skink

Now i am not one to moan, complain or whinge, but i feel i have been unfairly banned by Hagar in the military forum.

It all stems back to when he told a poster to use the report post button to report thread spoils.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054944550
Read posts #18 #19 #20

So i decided to use the report post button, as it seemed a goood idea, so in what i thought was good faith reported a number of posts that were either idiotic or had no relevence to the topic, and had the possiblity of ruining threads and subsequnetly the whole forum.

So i thought all was fine, he reprimanded a few posters and all was ok

when on the 15th of this month i recieved this in my inbox

Hagar wrote:

Reported posts.
Hi Skink,

You have single-handely reported more posts than all the rest of the posters on the forum combined. I can only assume you are doing this in good faith.

In order to put some balance into the equation would you mind telling me a little of your military background ? You needn't if you don't wish to, I'm just trying to assess your knowledge of the topics concerned.

Take it from me you are not going to agree or even like every topic or opinion expressed on this forum. I certainly don't. You could always engage the topic and debunk it if you wish.

There will be some goofy threads while the forum settles down, we will have some off-the-wall stuff but I'm going to allow a bedding in time before I set my ban stick on full auto.

Please PM me if there is anything you want to discuss.

Hagar.

NOw i got this message at 21:04, 20 minutes later, without any reply by me( i was working and did not see a computer all night) i received this

HAgar wrote:

Temp ban from Military Forum
Skink,

You have been banned for being disruptive.
This ban is tempoary to give you time to assess your attitude.
If you want to be re-admitted PM me and convince me of your genuine wish to be a productive participant in the forum.

Hagar

I arrived home from work and found the messages, sent a pm enquiring as to why i had been banned, and received this

Hagar wrote:

Re: Temp ban from Military Forum
Ok, because you have a low post count I'm going to make certain assumptions:

1. You are enthusiastic
2. You are an inexperienced poster
3. You do not really know how things work around here.

I could also assume that you are also a previously banned poster who has re-registered to get around a ban and knows full-well what he is doing, but I won't do that.

I would suggest that you curb your enthusiasm until you gain some more experience and learn more about boards. Watch what the "older" posters and learn from the way they post.

You have made a couple of posts about how other posters where going to get the forum closed down but you didn't consider the effect of public statements like that. You have reported several posts for trivial reasons. All reported posts go to the Moderator forum and every single mod, cmod, smod and admin read them. Did you know that? How much good do you think that does the forum you were trying to protect? You even reported the co-mod of the forum for publishing freely available photos. There is nothing against reporting a mod but it should be for a solid reason or else you look foolish.

Now all I suggest is that you log out and go back and read your posts in the cold light of day and see if they are as valid now as you thought they were.

If you want to get back in PM me in a week. A ban is just a wake up call, it's not the end of the world.

Hagar.

So i took his advice advice and went and read over my posts, i found what i think he banned me for, but it is not disruptive at all, and makes areasonable request, as i know many people who have photos on the net and are sick and tired of people taking them and not giving any credit.link to it below.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054946034

So i decided to pm Devore, and ask his advice, he said i could take it take it to feedback or try and cort it out privately, so that is what i did, this time i got a detailed answer. But after reading i still am of the idea it was unfair.

Hagar wrote:

Re: Temp ban from Military Forum
Hi skink,

Here’s the reasoning behind what I have done. Although I am not obliged to go into so much detail I will because I think you will be a good poster on the forum.

skink wrote:

this post is pointless, stupid and posts of this type will probably bring on the early demise of this forum

This was the comment on deafness. I allowed the post to stand for a reasonable length of to see if the poster was going to expand his point. There was relevance as the amount paid out in claim affected the Army’s budget in the short term and longer term they would have to budget for a lot more health and safety equipment for their personnel. There is also the point that the state not taking seriously the welfare of its soldiers would lead to a drop in recruitment. All relevant to the main topic. The poster never came back so I judged him to be flippant and issued him a public warning.

skink wrote:

this is obvioisly some idiot being smart, if this forum is to be kept respectable and good, i feel posts like this should be removed and the poster reprimanded

Demographics Poll. How do you know what I may have said via PM to the poster before you even reported it? You don’t, yet you jumped in feet first.

skink wrote:

relevence to topic?

Irish Army Weapons. As you can see the following post by me was putting the user back on topic without being confrontational.

skink wrote:

ok cool post but going off topic, i hate to be like this, but if if this forum is survived, topics need to be kept to topic!

Irish Army Weapons. You reported this post after I had endorsed it by asking for more pictures. The photos are relevant to the topic because they depict the Irish Army showing off its men and weapons to the Irish People for the first time in many years. I’m sure it did a lot for morale and raised public awareness of the Defence Forces which has to be good thing.

skink wrote:

to be honest this whole thread is idiotic, and the idiotic replies are just making the forum look like a pile of ****e!

Iran V USA. This thread had the potential to be useful as there is a possibility that there will be conflict between the two nations. However it did deteriorate and was closed.


Now as I explained in my last PM all reported posts get seen by every mod, cmod, smod and admin. This constant nuisance reporting of posts was making our new forum look bad. Constantly second guessing mods and telling them their jobs in public is going to undermine the forum.

The fact that you asked me some time ago to be a mod shows me your genuineness but you must learn to temper enthusiasm with a certain amount of tolerance. I know you want this forum to be a success but your over enthusiasm is having a negative effect.

As for reporting a mod I think you will find that Dub13 along with gandalf is a mod of this forum. I put up a post to this effect and the forum mods are named on the bottom right hand corner of every page.

You may contact DeVore as is you right, you may start a thread in Feedback if you wish but I think if you reconsider you will find that a temp ban was for the good of the forum and was not excessively harsh in the circumstances.

As I said drop me a PM when the week is up and you will be re-instated with no hard feelings. In the meantime you are not completely excluded, you may read the forum by logging out and browsing as an un-registered guest.

Regards,

Hagar

Now i am confused over this whole thing, i thought i was acting in good faith giving all the help i could to the fldgling forum, and what happens? i get slapped with a ban!

thoughts please.

Thanks
skink

Ruu_Old

Nice to see you can read! This is FEEDBACK, take your complaint to the helpdesk. Thank yoooou!

skink

Devore said to take it to feedback....

Devore wrote:

Re: slightly confused
first you should pm Hagar and discuss it with him.
If you still unhappy then you bring it to me or post in Feedback. Hagar may be being very strict because he's a new mod and its a new forum. Try to work with him if you can.

DeV.

Faith

I think Hagar explained his decision very well when he wasn't obliged to. Like he said, a ban isn't the end of the world, even more so when it's only a week. Take his advice and chill out a bit, I'd say. There's no need to report every post you have a problem with.

Ruu, questions about bannings are generally dealt with in Feedback, not the Helpdesk.

scojones

Thoughts? I think Hagar responded well and the ban was deserved.

Ruu_Old

Faith wrote:

I think Hagar explained his decision very well when he wasn't obliged to. Like he said, a ban isn't the end of the world, even more so when it's only a week. Take his advice and chill out a bit, I'd say. There's no need to report every post you have a problem with.

Ruu, questions about bannings are generally dealt with in Feedback, not the Helpdesk.

Just reading what it says up there *points*

This is for FEEDBACK. If you have a query, complaint or need help, use the HELPDESK.

Karoma

The ban is only for 1 week.: it's to 'encourage' you to take a step back and view the interaction between other posts on the forum. It seems fair and sensible.

ChityWest

skink wrote:

Now i am not one to moan,

Originally Posted by skink
this post is pointless, stupid and posts of this type will probably bring on the early demise of this forum

Quote:
Originally Posted by skink
this is obvioisly some idiot being smart, if this forum is to be kept respectable and good, i feel posts like this should be removed and the poster reprimanded

Quote:
Originally Posted by skink
relevence to topic?

Quote:
Originally Posted by skink
ok cool post but going off topic, i hate to be like this, but if if this forum is survived, topics need to be kept to topic!

Quote:
Originally Posted by skink
to be honest this whole thread is idiotic, and the idiotic replies are just making the forum look like a pile of ****e!
__________

Not sure what your hoping to acheive by posting all this stuff here - if your looking for other peoples opinion on whether they think you have been hard done by - mine would be - no you have not been hard done by and I would agree with hagar on this.

Karl Hungus

In fairness Skink, it seems like you were going around calling posts you didn't like stupid or idiotic, aswell as trying to be an authority on what is or is not acceptable yourself. Aswell as that, reporting posts for something trivial can really annoy a moderator.

Amz

Ruu wrote:

Nice to see you can read! This is FEEDBACK, take your complaint to the helpdesk. Thank yoooou!

Ruu, nobody appreciates that kind of "input".

RuggieBear

Ruu wrote:

Just reading what it says up there *points*

nobody pays attention to that, Ruu and when even the site admin say take it to feedback, feedback is the place for these complaints.

Hager went well beyound the call of duty in detailing his reasoning...

EDIT KH sums it up much more eloquently than i could ever manage

Ruu_Old

Fairy nuff, cheerfully withdrawn

Cake Fiend

skink wrote:

Now i am not one to moan, complain or whinge

Doesn't look that way to me!





Oh no he didn't!

secret_squirrel

I think you have been treated very lightly indeed, and you are still failing to cop on.

Hagar has bent over backwards explaining his actions to you, and yet you still fail to comprehend them.

Most other mods would have spent far less time on you than hagar did.

PMing an Admin for a simple weeks ban was totally over the top too. If every one did that boards would have died years ago.

Boards is a community, and you seem to have failed to grasp that.

Unless you spend so serious amount of time reviewing your posts and trying to modify your behaviour I predict a short sojourn here for you.


Neither Boards or the world revolve around you - please try to grasp that.

skink

right fine stuff it so.

Hagar

What can I say? I tried my best to be even-handed and fair. It is a new forum and I am a new mod. The forum will take time to bed down in the meantime I must try to ensure that it is not is not unduly disrupted.

I don't think it's normal to publish PMs but I think my PMs to skink were reasonable. I did make an error saying a particlar thread was closed but I corrected that in a PM which was not quoted.

Skink will be welcome back to the forum in a few days and hopefully this incident will be history.

Talliesin

Hagar, it's just that you're new at this. You'll soon learn that whenever you're lenient it's then that you get hassle. The ban was completely clear-cut. Make skink's ban permanent and put him in your ignore list, no further worries.

secret_squirrel

skink wrote:

right fine stuff it so.

Wow! with that atttude Im sure the ban is already lifted!

A little more maturity might help ya.

Nevyn

Look skink you're new, you are so new to here you still squeak.
so here a few links for you
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=98
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=129605
http://www.boards.ie/wiki/index.php/Moderator

Now really a one week ban is nothing and Hagar has been hugely generous with his time in reguards to dealing with you.
A week will be done in no time at all and he could have banned you for a lot longer or permantly.
He is giving you the benefit of the doubt and hoping you may turn out to be a useful contributing memeber of the communities here at boards.ie.

If you break the rules you get given out to and punished and you are ment to learn from it.

The report post function clearly states it is is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising messages, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts. and you must have missed that despite the number of times you used it and really being abusive to wards another user while reporting a post is never a good way to go.

You have to learn to play in the sandpit here and not upset those who play here like this or the owers of the sand pit the admins and the the moderators who are entrusted by them to run the forums will ban you from playing.

gandalf

skink wrote:

right fine stuff it so.

Nice attitude, and its one that flows through all the reports you posted. I am the Category moderator for the whole society section so I saw those reports as well. I let Hagar and Dub13 act on them because thats their jobs. I am there to clean up the more serious issues if they arise.

I welcome users using the report this post function, if they didn't we could not do our jobs. I suggest you adjust your confrontational attitude when reporting posts in future. Calling posts/people idiotic just flags you as a potential troublemaker when we read the reports.

I suggest you cool down, sit out the ban and head back in with a clean sheet.

fade2black

As far as I can see all this feedback thread has achieved is to highlight how well Hagar is doing his moderating job and how patient he has been with you skink. Nobody owes you anything.

nesf

Thaedydal wrote:

The report post function clearly states it is is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising messages, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts.

That can vary according to the forum in question and how the mod(s) want it run. So that isn't a blanket statement imho and the charter overrules it.

(more directed at users reading this thread than yourself Thead )

Nevyn

uh huh

Sparky

fade2black wrote:

As far as I can see all this feedback thread has achieved is to highlight how well Hagar is doing his moderating job and how patient he has been with you skink. Nobody owes you anything.

Quite true, Hagar couldn't really do anything on Eurosat as such as its a very very very quiet place, but now he on full action.

lostexpectation

I think this thread is a perfect example of the inconsistant moderating around here, skink obviously is new to the boards and didn't know how it works and that he should counter ppl in thread and that the report post button is so very rarely used, and then he gets a warning and a ban with no time between them to respond, and then everyone tell hims how reasonable they have been????

tbh

skink wrote:

thoughts please.

Thanks
skink

My initial thoughts look like they were correct. Hagar is a nice guy.

BuffyBot

lostexpectation wrote:

I think this thread is a perfect example of the inconsistant moderating around here, skink obviously is new to the boards and didn't know how it works and that he should counter ppl in thread and that the report post button is so very rarely used, and then he gets a warning and a ban with no time between them to respond, and then everyone tell hims how reasonable they have been????

He's been around 6 months. I wouldn't consider him too new.

Also, he was warned for doing what he was doing, yet persisted. He was then banned, and his error was explained (in some detail) by the mod in question.

WhiteWashMan

lostexpectation wrote:

I think this thread is a perfect example of the inconsistant moderating around here,

you know what.

youre dead right.

what do you propose we do to make things ship shape around here, ensure that all the rules are enforced in the strictest of measures, and that there can be no personal input into what moderators do.

please post up full details and a timeline when we can implement your project.


or...

you can just accept that all the mods are different, all the forums are different, and every day is different, and that some of the time, you are going to get inconsistancies.

these are not going to cause the world to stop. in fact, it wont even miss a spin. they wont cause boards.ie to fall over. they certainly wont stop me missing any sleep.
why do they mean so much to you?

Talliesin

lostexpectation wrote:

I think this thread is a perfect example of the inconsistant moderating around here,

True, but given that it was inconsistent in skink's favour (Hagar couldn't have mollycoddled him any further without changing his nappy), it's hard to see what his gripe is.

stevejazzx

lostexpectation wrote:

I think this thread is a perfect example of the inconsistant moderating around here, skink obviously is new to the boards and didn't know how it works and that he should counter ppl in thread and that the report post button is so very rarely used, and then he gets a warning and a ban with no time between them to respond, and then everyone tell hims how reasonable they have been????

Skink was calling people idiots and then reporting their posts.
Well for a start calling someone an 'idiot' in an serious thread is well out of line and against charter, so really what should of been happening is that Skinks posts should of been reported, but they weren't because (thankfully) most have the common sense to let a Moderator moderate and let a thread breathe a little, all that Skink was doing was dictating how he'd like the thread to be run. The proof of the pudding is in his 'stuff it then' comment after many had given him good advice.

cast_iron

I'm not sure it would have gotten this far if Hagar hadn't sent the 1st two pm's as he did - one a warning, then a ban without time for a response.

Saying that, i think Hagar was right to ban.

Somehow, i think skink's request to be a Mod is gonna be put on the long, long finger....

lostexpectation

cast_iron wrote:

I'm not sure it would have gotten this far if Hagar hadn't sent the 1st two pm's as he did - one a warning, then a ban without time for a response.

this is the point, few mods could possibly consider backtracking once a ban has been handed out, what is the deal with a warning and then a ban 20 mintues later? without a repeat of the offence?

if this is how it happened then obviously it was not a ban with a timely warning for a low count poster...

it looks 90% clear to me that this i what happened, even Hagar wasn't sure whether to ban him seeing as he changed his mind in that 20 minute period, so the possibilty that Hagar should have given shrink time to respond or time with the warning was a possibility.

no Ill get other mods come in and start having a go at me, he should have been asked to take a break for a which watch the forum not banned.

Mods are never wrong. Not even slightly.

nesf

lostexpectation wrote:

this is the point, few mods could possibly consider backtracking once a ban has been handed out, what is the deal with a warning and then a ban 20 mintues later? without a repeat of the offence?

He should have banned first time (imho) but tbh it's not a big deal. At the end of the day the ban was well deserved and this is what matters. If the ban was borderline you'd have a good point but in this case it wasn't.

lostexpectation wrote:

no Ill get other mods come in and start having a go at me

Mods are never wrong.

I don't think what you are saying deserves being flamed but I don't think you're looking at this situation in the correct light either. Hagar made the correct decision when he banned him, that he made the mistake of being overly generous with a warning and then corrected it afterwards is messy but tbh I don't really see a huge issue to fight over here. Skink deserved his ban, end of story.

If he didn't, yes you'd have a point, but you have spent this thread trying to pick tiny holes in what happened which serves to do nothing. We're not paid to do this, there is no legal system set up that we are forced to follow. So long as the forums keep working and the majority of the posters are happy then we're fulfilling our roles. Let's leave it at that.

kaimera

lostexpectation wrote:

Mods are never wrong. Not even slightly.

I was once but it was fixed within the 20 minute time period you mentioned

Hagar

It's simple really. I sent a warning via PM. Then I mulled over the posts again and again for the next 20 minutes and decided that the poster was not likely to respond well given his attitude so I banned him pending his response. His response was as I expected and he showed his attitude further in feedback.

Maybe I should have waited, maybe I should never have sent a warning just issued a ban. I did what I thought was right at the time. The ban is up tomorrow. Who would have thought that a deserved ban would be debated this long?

Rew

Dont mind him he thinks he thinks everyone is out to get him on every mil forum he's on, not even his first ban from a mil forum

DeVore

This has been handled fine imho. Lostexpectation, its quite a rough job being a mod and you have to remember we are huamn too.
Hagar did a text book job here imho.

DeV.