Poor Moderation Complaint

The Corinthian

I reported the following post given it was a personal attack in the thread. As a result a moderator made this rather laughable warning (the smiley hardly giving the impression that it was being taken seriously).

Additionally, both these posts appeared to be deleted for a few hours then reappeared.

I've followed the disputes procedure and at mod and CMod level, my complaint has been dismissed, with little or no explanation.

I would appreciate knowing why such poor moderation was carried out on something that should have received a severe warning at the very least (an infraction would have been more appropriate), rather than a tongue-in-cheek slap on the wrist and why, when queried, the disputes process failed to clear up any of the above points on this or the posts' temporary absence.

Dr Galen

I've been primarily involved in this dispute, as it stemmed from another issue initially.

Here is a copy of the latest PM which I sent to The Corinthian in response to a PM he has sent this evening. It clears up one of his issues I feel.

Hi TC,

I just want to clarify with you on this one point. I've checked the thread edit history on that thread, and had checked it before you raised this question. There was no deletion of ANY post in that thread at all, nevermind the posts your raising a question about.

Is it possible that there was a glitch in the matrix, or that it simply appeared to you that the posts had gone?

As you well know, it would be pretty easy for what I'm saying to be proven false here, so unless I'm checking the history arseways (which I doubt, as I can do it on other threads no prob) I'm happy to stand over what I'm saying.

Thanks

MM

For the record I'm happy for any PM correspondance I've sent on this issue to be posted here for transparancies sake.

r3nu4l

Just realised you made a Help Desk post so I've taken my PM that I just sent you and am reposting it here.


Right, here's my take on this.

Your main problem appears to be that Boston told you to stop behaving like a child and you feel that he didn't get enough censure.

Quite frankly, I felt a friendly warning was enough. It's not like he told you to 'STFU you ****er'.
You were told to stop beaving like a child. I told the poster to stop throwing insults around. The wink smile was meant to be a friendly nod to people to keep it civil. tGC is a social forum and therefore the moderating touch is lighter when there are disputes. People are generally told to relax, chill out and move on...like adults should do.

I fail to see why you are still unhappy. What exactly do you want to see happen? A ban? An infraction? We're adults here and I expect that when I ask people to get on with it, that they will do just that.

'Laughable'? No, simply one adult, telling another to resist insulting others. Had that poster continued insulting you or another poster insulted you then there would have been a ban issued.

As a mod yourself I would have thought you would be familiar with the system whereby on certain forums mods issue simple direction first (that's what I did there), official on-thread warnings second, infractions third and bans fourth. Of course, if an offence is serious enough I can (and have) jump straight to a ban. In my view, this wasn't worth it.

As it happened, we discussed your concerns amongst ourselves and decided that the best way forward was a parallel thread to explore the issue of female on male violence.

So, that's really all I have to say on this. Escalate it as much as you like, you'll get the same answers from me unless you can articulate more clearly exactly what the problem is. I may not agree with your take on it but I will listen and take note.

I can also confirm that there were no deletions on that thread...make of that what you will.

Cheers,
r3n.

Nesf has confirmed that there were no post deletions on that thread as has been alleged by the OP and an Admin should be able to confirm that really easily.

So 'The Corinthian', that's all I really have to say unless you can give me more of an idea as to what else you wanted? Just because someone doesn't mod the way you want them to does not mean they were 'wrong'.





Now this is also a slightly tricky issue because as tGC was originally a Science Forum, when OscarBravo was Soc CMod he left it to the Sci CMods (tbh and myself) to CMod that forum. Now scofflaw and nesf are Soc CMods and the forum has moved away from Science considerably so it may be time to rethink that but we'll discuss that amongst ourselves.

The Corinthian

Mystik Monkey wrote: »

Is it possible that there was a glitch in the matrix, or that it simply appeared to you that the posts had gone?

I know what I saw, however I accept that it is entirely possible that it was a technical anomaly such as caching. If so, so be it - these things do happen.

Nonetheless, it is only now that I have escalated the issue that I have received any attempt at an explanation at its perceived disappearance. It was not even mentioned in the dispute ruling you gave and thus gave me the impression you were avoiding the issue rather than addressing it.

r3nu4l wrote: »

So 'The Corinthian', that's all I really have to say unless you can give me more of an idea as to what else you wanted? Just because someone doesn't mod the way you want them to does not mean they were 'wrong'.

It really has nothing to do with with what I think would be an appropriate level of action. An infraction for abuse on a thread is commonplace for such an offence, but even if a warning is sufficient, one with a smiley completely undermines it, implying a bias supporting the person making the insult.

Regardless of your own personal opinion on whether you felt Boston was justified in attacking me thus (which is what I and others read from your 'warning') it is important that moderators make some effort to appear to execute the rules of their forum impartially and in this regard you failed pretty miserably.

r3nu4l

The Corinthian wrote: »

I know what I saw, however I accept that it is entirely possible that it was a technical anomaly such as caching. If so, so be it - these things do happen.

Caching would not be responsible for posts appearing to be deleted. The moderation log clearly shows that no posts were deleted so whatever you saw you did NOT see deleted posts.

Nonetheless, it is only now that I have escalated the issue that I have received any attempt at an explanation at its perceived disappearance. It was not even mentioned in the dispute ruling you gave and thus gave me the impression you were avoiding the issue rather than addressing it.

As far as I and the others were concerned there was nothing to address. I saw that as a non-issue. In fact, we thought the issue had gone away based on the last PMs we received but clearly you are very upset by this.

Now, onto the matter of the warning:

It really has nothing to do with with what I think would be an appropriate level of action.

Oh but it clearly does because you are complaining about it. It is obviously an issue for it and you go on to say as much here:

An infraction for abuse on a thread is commonplace for such an offence, but even if a warning is sufficient, one with a smiley completely undermines it, implying a bias supporting the person making the insult.

In your opinion, that's what you inferred from a written communication. Would you have preferred bold letters? ALL CAPS? Some other arbitrarily 'sufficient' response? You see, I've discovered that some users complain about 'bold' font being used because they see it as over-moderation when simple 'friendly nod' would do. Others feel that bold font or talking down to users as if they were children is unacceptable, therefore a friendly 'we're all adults here, move along' is better in some circumstances. I felt this was one of those circumstances.

As it happens the user in question that told you to 'stop behaving like a child'. The wink at the end of my comment was more of a 'you should know better' to Boston, who is no stranger to infractions, bans and even site-bans. It was a case of me saying 'look pal, you know better than this and I know you that you know better than to be at this, now cop on and let's get on with the thread '.

Regardless of your own personal opinion on whether you felt Boston was justified in attacking me thus (which is what I and others read from your 'warning')

Let me clear that one up for you right now so you can rest easy in bed tonight. No personal attack is ever justified but to be honest as I've said, this incident was the mildest of attacks and thus got the mildest of warnings. I'm not a fan of over-moderation, maybe you are? Had Boston told you to 'STFU loser' then he wold have been banned. The fact is that he didn't, so he got a mild warning but a warning nevertheless.

By the way, who are these 'others' who felt I was supporting Boston?

it is important that moderators make some effort to appear to execute the rules of their forum impartially and in this regard you failed pretty miserably.

So let me ask you something...were there any more personal attacks on you after my warning? Did anyone else post on-thread to have a go at you after I stepped in? The answer is a resounding No! There were no more attacks after my warning, no more digs at you, no more insults! I'd say my moderation had the desired effect. I really fail to see the problem here.

As for impartiality, again you are making a presumption of bias on my part based on the fact that a user wasn't hung, drawn and quartered for a mild insult. I certainly won't let you dictate to me how that forum should be modded.

As it is you are trying to do that now and you tried on-thread to back-seat mod the forum yourself by telling the mods to move the thread to the Ladies lounge.

You consistently derailed the thread because you felt it shouldn't be there, refusing to allow discussion of the topic at hand. We could have banned you for what you did but we allowed it. I'm sure some users out there would think 'Mod conspiracy' , if that was me, I'd have been banned'. Some users probably inferred from what we did that Mods can get away with anything. They would be wrong but there you go. So just like Boston got a mild warning, you were damn lucky to get away with your behaviour and should consider yourself lucky tbh.

tbh

Just to stick in my two cents (as co-honourary cmod, who wasn't involved in the thread)

From a mods point of view, the only thing we care about is that the behaviour stops.
in your forums, you may have achieved this through the use of infractions or bannings, and that's cool.

In this case, it was stopped without the use of either of those things, and that's cool too.

I'm sorry that the action you wanted carried out didn't happen, but sometimes life is just like that.

r3nu4l

Just a thought, it's clear that The Corinthian and I have very different views on moderating style and I don't think that's going to change or that we will come to an agreement. However, I'm very happy for any of the GC mods to come in and say that they would have done something differently, or they think I was wrong etc. I really, really* don't have a problem with that. It won't change anything but it may help you in some way...


*Can't emphasise this enough!

Dr Galen

The Corinthian wrote: »

Nonetheless, it is only now that I have escalated the issue that I have received any attempt at an explanation at its perceived disappearance. It was not even mentioned in the dispute ruling you gave and thus gave me the impression you were avoiding the issue rather than addressing it.

I just want to address this issue if I may. I think r3n and tbh have sufficently dealt with your other queries.

On this thread in the reported posts forum. You will see a post from me, about 30 mins after your last one. I'm not going to go into what you posted before or the inferences you made. But I think I cleared it up there with my answer.

Also, in the PM I sent with the Moderator Decision to you. I outlined the following.

Hi there,

I had said I would come back to via PM once we as a Mod Group had discussed this.

It has been decided that the thread your referencing does have a home in tGC and will be remaining there.

As for your other query, there was no U-Turn as you describe it. An on-thread warning was given and the Mod felt that this was an appropriate action.

Hopefully this clears both situations up for you

Cheers

MM

As you have not stated that PM's from yourself can be published here, I will not comment further, suffice to say, that on 2 occasions it was stated that there was no cover up, no secondary Mod deletion/undeletion of posts and no U-Turns. There was also no avoidance of the issue. In fact As far as I was aware, the issue had been cleared up and answered, and as r3n says, was now a non issue.

OldGoat

r3nu4l wrote: »

Just a thought, it's clear that The Corinthian and I have very different views on moderating style and I don't think that's going to change or that we will come to an agreement. However, I'm very happy for any of the GC mods to come in and say that they would have done something differently, or they think I was wrong etc. I really, really* don't have a problem with that. It won't change anything but it may help you in some way...


*Can't emphasise this enough!

My modding style (for what it's worth) has always been as light a touch as I can get away with. I would have followed the same line as r3n here, an inline ticking off for what I see to be a minor taunt.

Tom Dunne

The Corinthian wrote: »

I would appreciate knowing why such poor moderation was carried out on something that should have received a severe warning at the very least (an infraction would have been more appropriate), rather than a tongue-in-cheek slap on the wrist

TC, I have to be honest here and say that I don't believe the comment warranted any more severe action than r3nu4l gave. As you well know, different forums have different rules and different moderators have different moderating styles. I think it's fair to say that all the forum moderators on tGC have a pretty non-confrontational, easy-going moderating style which suits the forum.

So, unless there is more to it than that single post, I really don't see a problem here.

The Corinthian wrote: »

and why, when queried, the disputes process failed to clear up any of the above points on this or the posts' temporary absence.

Nothing showing in the Moderator log for that thread, so it is not possible that a post was deleted. Not sure what happened there.

The Corinthian

r3nu4l wrote: »

Caching would not be responsible for posts appearing to be deleted. The moderation log clearly shows that no posts were deleted so whatever you saw you did NOT see deleted posts.

I meant caching on my browser, which could have done that. If that is what the moderation log shows, then that is what it shows.

As for impartiality, again you are making a presumption of bias on my part based on the fact that a user wasn't hung, drawn and quartered for a mild insult. I certainly won't let you dictate to me how that forum should be modded.

No I am making a presumption of bias on your part based on the fact that in addition to nothing more than a warning, that it was delivered with a wink.

I already said here that my main issue is not that he was "hung, drawn and quartered", as you would call it, but that the warning was a joke - what is a warning delivered with a wink, after all?

I'm sure some users out there would think 'Mod conspiracy' , if that was me, I'd have been banned'. Some users probably inferred from what we did that Mods can get away with anything. They would be wrong but there you go. So just like Boston got a mild warning, you were damn lucky to get away with your behaviour and should consider yourself lucky tbh.

Not really, because I didn't actually break any serious rules - I may have pushed a few, but I never went beyond the line.

I don't think there are any mod conspiracies, tbh. Most of the time it's about a mod making a bad call and not wanting to lose face. I suspect this is one of those cases.

Mystik Monkey wrote: »

As you have not stated that PM's from yourself can be published here, I will not comment further, suffice to say, that on 2 occasions it was stated that there was no cover up, no secondary Mod deletion/undeletion of posts and no U-Turns. There was also no avoidance of the issue. In fact As far as I was aware, the issue had been cleared up and answered, and as r3n says, was now a non issue.

Saying there was no secondary Mod deletion/undeletion of posts is a denial and not an explanation. Were the logs being checked mentioned anywhere before here (they may have been in which case it's my mistake)?

tbh

The Corinthian wrote: »

I already said here that my main issue is not that he was "hung, drawn and quartered", as you would call it, but that the warning was a joke - what is a warning delivered with a wink, after all?

I would call it an effective warning, if it stopped the behaviour, which it did.

Case closed as far as I'm concerned.

Dr Galen

TC the logs were checked by me before I made any reply to you either in that thread or via PM. I would not have said what I did without being sure. You've continued to make inferences throughtout this process about this aspect of things. You've made out that at the least I've been covering something up at really without saying it, inferring that I've been lying. It's been been cleared up several times now, so I'm not going to discuss it further. You can either accept the facts or not. Really, going on some of the things you've been saying on this particular issue I actually think I'd well entitled to a sorry from you.

On the other issue you've brought here to be discussed, well I don't see how much further we can go. R3n made the right call and is supported by his fellow mods. Unless an admin wants to overrule that decision we won't be reversing it. We cannot allow for individual users to set, question or decide moderation policy. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't allow that on any of your forums either. We may just have to agree to disagree on this.

The Corinthian

tbh wrote: »

I would call it an effective warning, if it stopped the behaviour, which it did.

I respect your opinion :rolleyes:

See my point yet?

Mystik Monkey wrote: »

TC the logs were checked by me before I made any reply to you either in that thread or via PM. I would not have said what I did without being sure. You've continued to make inferences throughtout this process about this aspect of things. You've made out that at the least I've been covering something up at really without saying it, inferring that I've been lying.

Prior to this thread, you never explained anything. You simply stated that there had been no U-turn and elsewhere that you personally had (un)deleted nothing, you never mentioned that the logs had been checked.

Please show me where you said otherwise. If you did I'll happily apologise.

On the other issue you've brought here to be discussed, well I don't see how much further we can go. R3n made the right call and is supported by his fellow mods. Unless an admin wants to overrule that decision we won't be reversing it.

I can see that the ranks are being closed on this one all right.

As I have replied to tbh above, a smiley can change the entire meaning of a post. Whether R3n issued a warning, infraction or ban is up to him, but he didn't do any of these. He issued a non-warning and that is my objection.

r3nu4l

The Corinthian wrote: »

Whether R3n issued a warning, infraction or ban is up to him, but he didn't do any of these. He issued a non-warning and that is my objection.

In your opinion.

There's no 'face' to lose here TC, you don't like how the warning was issued, that's all there is to it. I'm big enough and bold enough to think nothing of 'losing face' as you put it but as it happens in this case, I just think that you are being over-sensitive to a petty insult and really making a mountain out of a molehill here. If you want to call that 'poor modding' that's absolutely fine with me. I've no problem with that but it won't change how I mod in future or how I respond to you or even how I think of you as a person. Simple as that.

Nothing is going to change unless an Admin rules otherwise.

'Closing ranks'? Nope, if any of the lads think I didn't go far enough I've already said that they can openly say so here. I've no problem with that. You are now insulting them by suggesting that is happening.

I won't be making any more replies on this thread, I've said all there is to say and we both appear to be talking to 'brick walls' here as I don't see any change in attitudes from either of us here.

I'm not ignoring you, I've just said all I have to say. Over to the Admins now.