Unneccessary Ban From the Soccer Forum

noodler

Hey all,

Is it possible to get another soccer mod's opinion on the following?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=62627969&postcount=399

Basically, it is a funny picture symbolizing how the rest of the soccer community will be feeling at Liverpool after our poor display against Lyon tonight in the CL.

The reason I was banned was 'trolling', I participated in the thread tonight for a while and did see that there was some bother for the Mod in question with regards people being off-topic and I respect that.

Now I certainly wasn't trolling, as I am a Liverpool fan (absolutely no secret over at the forum) and certainly did not to it to provoke an angry response from fellow Liverpool fans. It was a genuinely funny picture, with no personal, racial or sexist aspects to it and, although the off-topicness of it can be brought into question, I would argue it was on-topic to a degree as it was an anticipated reaction from opposition fans to our current plight.

There is a certain give-and-take with regards banter over in the Soccer Forum and I really do feel a ban for the above picture is simply going a step too far.

Anyway, I feel another Soccer mod's opinion would be far more useful here than from a mod who doesn't regularly visit it but there you go.

Kind Regards,
Noodler

Dub13

I will lay out my taught process here so any Admin or fellow Soccer mod will have both sides.

First of in normal circumstances you would only have got a yellow card but I am sure you are aware of the new policy in the soccer forum on yellow cards,you can read about it Here but the bit thats relevant in this case is this bit...

It has been decided that all yellow card offences will carry an immediate one week ban until further notice.

For any Admin reading this who is not up on Soccer Liverpool played a big game tonight and lost,now we had 3 threads going talking about this.I was getting complaints that a lot of posts were getting duplicated across the 3 threads and people did not know which one to read.In a attempt to bring some structure to this I posted This on the match thread basically trying to get only posts talking about the game on this thread.I even let a few posts slide after my warning and posted Here saying that they were maybe in the cooker when I put up the warning.

Now most of the forum were fine with this and understood what I was trying to do,I did however have two then delete 3 posts which were not talking about the game.So I then issued another third warning Here.So after 3 warnings and me changing the tread title to put in that there had been a mod warning noodler then decided to post a 'funny pic' no words nothing not adding a thing to the thread and ignoring 3 mod warring's.I decided to issue a yellow card and in accordance with the new soccer forum rules a one week ban.

Noodler,your post did provoke a angry response as the post was reported by another user.I was acting on that.

I am well aware of the 'give-and-take with regards banter over in the Soccer Forum',I am sure you are well aware that there is a time and a place for the banter and after 3 mod warnings this was not the time nor the place.I would like to point out that if you had posted that pic on ether of the two other threads going on this then no action would have been taken as no mod warning was in place on those other threads and you would have been free to have your banter there without getting in the way of lads who wanted to talk about the game.

One last thing,I am not sure what year mean by saying I am a mod who doesn't regularly visit the soccer forum.I am on it every day for hours sure I have more posts on the LFC thread than Noodler,you are way way way off on this one.

I hope this explains things.

Dub13

WhiteWashMan

Personally, I am delighted that Liverpool lost

However, the moderators are best placed to make decisions on what they will tolerate and what they will not. If they deem your post to be disruptive, unfunny and trolling, then thats what it is. I see n oreason to over rule their decision.

I did think your picture was funny though.

You are however still banned. Sorry.

noodler

Dub13 wrote: »

Noodler,your post did provoke a angry response as the post was reported by another user.I was acting on that.

I am well aware of the 'give-and-take with regards banter over in the Soccer Forum',I am sure you are well aware that there is a time and a place for the banter and after 3 mod warnings this was not the time nor the place.I would like to point out that if you had posted that pic on ether of the two other threads going on this then no action would have been taken as no mod warning was in place on those other threads and you would have been free to have your banter there without getting in the way of lads who wanted to talk about the game.

One last thing,I am not sure what year mean by saying I am a mod who doesn't regularly visit the soccer forum.I am on it every day for hours sure I have more posts on the LFC thread than Noodler,you are way way way off on this one.

I hope this explains things.

Dub13

Honest to god, just becasue someone reported that post does not mean you need to act on it. You have to actually tell me then why was that post worthy of a ban? Hell, even an infraction?

It was not off-topic, it was to do with result of the match.

I was not saying you do not visit the forum by the way, I was saying that the 2nd opinion of another mod who didn't regularly visit the forum (see above) would not be particularly helpful in this case.

noodler

WhiteWashMan wrote: »

If they deem your post to be disruptive, unfunny and trolling, then thats what it is. I see n oreason to over rule their decision.

You have to question the point of this forum then, don't you?

Dub13

noodler wrote: »

Honest to god, just becasue someone reported that post does not mean you need to act on it. You have to actually tell me then why was that post worthy of a ban? Hell, even an infraction?

What relevance did your post have to last nights game...?Again after 3 mod warnings saying only talk about the game.I tried my best on that thread to give it some structure and not let it get out of hand.

Not everybody knows you are a Liverpool fan and if they see a funny pic post they will think its fine to post another funny pic and its then a downward spiral into a car crash thread.

I am well aware that I don't have to act on all reported posts sure there were other reported posts last night we did not act on.I only brought up the fact that someone reported it because you said ' I certainly did not to it to provoke an angry response from fellow Liverpool fans'.I was just pointing out somebody did take offense.

I see what you mean about another mods opinion,sorry I picked that up wrong.

One last thing,I am not ignoring your PMs.When dealing with a issue I only keep one avenue of communication open I think this is more transparent and a better way to deal with things.So we are dealing with this in Help desk not via PMs,that was your choice.

noodler

I didn't think you were ignoring me, in fairness you replied last night.

I only sent you one this morning because I wanted to clarify the 'other mod's opinion thing' because there is no gaurentee anything posted in this thread will actually be allowed up (when you post it tells you the mod will check it before deciding).

Final thing, the picture had to do with reactions to the result. Wasn't in bad taste in any way, shape or form. I could report a utd fan annoying me after a Liverpool loss but it would not neccessarily be justified. I honestly feel that punishment was completely out of line and, if applied consistently, would destroy that forum.

Dub13

To sum up this,you got a yellow card for not following 3 on thread mod warnings.Right you say the pic was a reaction to the game,if this was ok we would open up a whole can of worms.I think we will disagree on this,there is not much we can do about us seen it different.

Now onto the punishment,at the moment we are having a clamp down on the soccer forum and have decided that every yellow card will have a mandatory weeks ban.So once I decided your post merited a yellow card my hands were tied,you had to get a weeks ban it would not be fair on the other lads who have got a weeks ban if I did not implement this.

So you have two avenues to get redress.

1)if the post was a yellow card at all.I have given my case for this already on this thread.I think it merited a yellow card.

2)The one weeks ban,if you are going down this road I think you will need to start a new Help Desk thread about the clamp down as all yellow cards for some days now have been met with a weeks ban so we could not deal with your ban in isolation.

therecklessone

As somebody who does post on soccer, I support Dub13's decision

Dub13 wrote: »

First of in normal circumstances you would only have got a yellow card but I am sure you are aware of the new policy in the soccer forum on yellow cards,you can read about it Here

This sums it up IMO. In the past that wouldn't have earned a ban, but we have changed our policy on infractions and bans in response to the behaviour of users on the forum. Since the new charter was implemented there seems to be an attitude among users that they can do what they want regardless of the forum rules and "sure a mod will let us know when we need to knock that on the head". The thing is users should not need warnings on-thread to abide by the rules, so when they are provided and people still ignore them, no matter how minor the transgression, we will infract and issue a ban in accordance with that forum announcement.

We've found on-thread warnings aren't working, we've found personal warnings aren't working, we've found infractions without bans aren't working...we've moved on to an automatic ban, and hopefully people will start to think twice before acting up in the future.

You are unfortunate in your timing, and I dare say you wouldn't have raised an objection if you had just picked up a yellow card.

noodler wrote: »

Honest to god, just becasue someone reported that post does not mean you need to act on it.

Ironically, I've had a recent complaint in similar circumstances saying that I shouldn't have infracted+banned because there was no reported post. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

WhiteWashMan

noodler wrote: »

You have to question the point of this forum then, don't you?

NO, because in this matter I do support the mods.

If I didnt, then I'd tell them to change the outcome.


Feel free to debate at will, however, my decision is final.