Dispute eminating from Cycling forum

Slideshowbob

I received a week long ban last Saturday

Below is my last PM last Monday to the Mod that banned me - he/she has not responded since.

---

(1) That being the case, But I meant to ask in this particular instance how was I being political?

(2) We are talking about sports here, and those that would puport to be an organisation for the overall benefit of cycling and ultimately I gather the health of its participants. It is by no means an interrogation - how can such be conducted on boards, merely a question to Mr. Myles who had the courtesy to respond to such questions. I had no question regarding any minutes. Are you referring to a meeting or such like?

(3) Sorry if I am eating mod time and now yours I gather you will claim. I gather the mods at all times had the opportunity to pass me up to yourself at earlier instances in the triestes but they too opted to reason things out without their satisfaction.

All I am asking for is clarity on why I am being punished - to merely brand me a trouble maker is rather simplistic and misleading. IMHO I am moreso dismayed at the lack of breath of knowledge amongst mods and such like rather than amused.

uberwolf

this was a Cat Mod ban by Sparks with my support, so goes straight to Admin for review.

Sparks

The ban and the reasons for it were fully explained in the PM exchange before the PM slideshowbob has posted, and goes back to the earlier ban he received for the same reasons less than a week ago, a ban which was explained fully over a PM exchange of some 20-odd PMs:

Slideshowbob wrote:

Doesnt sound like an impartial review if you have to resort to the retort that I am being dickish - all ye cycling forum mods back yerselves up

Sparks wrote:

Having reviewed the thread and those involved in it, I have the following three comments/recommendations:

1. This should have gone through the new Dispute Resolution procedure, as an admin pointed out in Feedback.
2. The entire Bike Pure thread should be deleted. It started off sailing very, very close to the line of defamation at best, and by most people's reading, mine included, started off on the wrong side of that line. There is such a thing as defamation by innuendo.
3. Slideshowbob, you're using up too large a proportion of the moderator's time. A PM exchange like the one below is utterly out of proportion to the changes made. This has to change, for the good of the forum. Further, your recent tone in reported posts and feedback threads is one we would normally refer to as "dickish", in the same sense as the overarching philosophy of boards.ie (namely, "don't be a dick"). Dial it back a notch or six.

uberwolf wrote:

Sparks, for the sake of impartiality, could you review this one please.

Slideshowbob wrote:

ok sorry - uber cc'd this time

Beasty wrote:

I have dealt with it in my in-thread warning - further such comments will, as I have stated already, incur infractions

I have now spent pretty much the whole of the evening trying to deal with this issue. If you are not happy with my decision, your next step is to contact one of the CMods (uberwolf or Sparks)

Thanks

Beasty

Slideshowbob wrote:

i am sorry but there is no specific indication on the thread that Niezcizean has been pulled back for his comments about me, so to a new reader, it still looks like I was fair game. His post:

"Is this just not more SSB stoking everyone with a big stick looking for a reaction? He never even bothered to even look at their website before starting the thread.

Yawn, more flame bait. "

acuses me of a few things - among others that I am ignorant of bike pure - i am to a degree but from the thread others are too in those regards.

I would like it seen that his post was out of order as it was a quite personal attack on me

Beasty wrote:

I have issued the in-thread warning, and similar comments will incur infractions going forward.

We are under guidelines to leave "offensive" posts like this in place to help educate posters as where they are going wrong.

Beasty

Slideshowbob wrote:

hmmm sorry to be a royal pain in the ass but i took it if you were doing a clean up you would also address nichesion or whatever his name is's attack on me which i had in fact reported on

also as i look back at the thread i see someone went to the bother to mockingly act as my mother, setting up a profile just for this purpose. So hmmmm thats a bit distaste now aswell i think as i recollect on it

ta

Beasty wrote:

OK, I am taking this as express permission then.

I simply did not want to change it without stating you had agreed to the change, or risking you coming back and accusing me of changing it without your permission. If it had been particularly offensive, illegal or contravening certain boards guidelines, I would simply have deleted the post without asking.

Thanks

Beasty

Slideshowbob wrote:

what exactly you want my express permission for again? cant mods delete stuff without express permission? whats different in this case?

I said do as you see fit so to me that implies you I am giving my express permission to adjust whatever as you see fit accordingly - no bother

Beasty wrote:

OK, I'm not going to change that particular post without your express permission, and will now leave the thread locked.

Hopefully uberwolf has now dealt with any specific concerns re the Roche thread. I will raise your point concerning the Charter when we get round to looking at it in detail - I think it possibly is something we could include an explicit rule on, but we need to look at this as a moderating team, of which I am only one member

Thanks

Beasty

Slideshowbob wrote:

you are the moderator not me, so do as you see fit as per my previous message.

is the issue on the roche thread about doping speculation also to looked at in terms of the charter?

Beasty wrote:

The charter will be looked at in the context of the sticky tidy up. If you have anything specific you think may need changing, drop us a PM

In terms of consistency, we basically deal with issues as we see them, and we are all individuals. Hence although we would try to be consistent, there will always be an element of judgement involved.

With regard to the Bike Pure thread, could you confirm if you happy for me to delete the section of your post I referred to?

Thanks

Beasty

Slideshowbob wrote:

Well do as you see fit but I'd respectfully suggest you regularise consistency and fairness among mods and / or update the charter in time to reflect better how things stand

(The above deep nested quoting is omitted from the rest of the PMs reported below; nothing has been redacted in the process. The PMs are in order and the repetition is not an error, but reflects the actual PMs received)

Slideshowbob wrote:

Doesnt sound like an impartial review if you have to resort to the retort that I am being dickish - from what i can see all ye cycling forum mods back yerselves up. no wonder you like mod criticisms moved to pms because then you can resort to insulting people

Slideshowbob wrote:

Doesnt sound like an impartial review if you have to resort to the retort that I am being dickish - from what i can see all ye cycling forum mods back yerselves up. no wonder you like mod criticisms moved to pms because then you can resort to insulting people

if thread should be removed why has it stood for months

if i am using too much of mods time, they should have me aware of this earlier - again i think they thrive on these exchanges.

Sparks wrote:

Slideshowbob wrote:

i think they thrive on these exchanges.

You are incorrect. Nor, for that matter, do I thrive on this sort of dross.

Sparks wrote:

I'm not a cycling mod. And as I said in the first point, this should not have been done by PM, but through the new dispute resolution procedure.
As to dismissing my impartiality on the grounds that I quoted the actual rule to you, I think that more than supports point three.

Slideshowbob wrote:

why didnt the mod in question bring it there then and it would have avoided all this waste of time?

when was i not civil? please cite me

Slideshowbob wrote:

why didnt the mod in question bring it there then and it would have avoided all this waste of time? My time has been wasted too.

when was i not civil? please cite me

Slideshowbob wrote:

why didnt the mod in question bring it there then and it would have avoided all this waste of time? My time has been wasted too.

when was i not civil? please cite me

Sparks wrote:

Slideshowbob wrote:

why didnt the mod in question bring it there then and it would have avoided all this waste of time?

Because you were the one who brought this to the CMods, despite an Admin pointing out the correct procedure to you in feedback only a few days ago.

when was i not civil? please cite me

Dickish behaviour does not require rude language.
The PMs you have quoted in your PMs to date are the first citation I would select. The term best used to describe them is "passive-aggressive" and it's a waste of volunteer moderator time and effort.
For a second citation, take the pure bike thread itself; I've not seen a smarmier piece of work in a while. It's a near-textbook case of defamation by innuendo.
Bluntly, I see little point to continuing this by PM any further. If you wish, bring this up with an Admin by posting in the dispute resolution forum, as was detailed to you earlier in Feedback.

Slideshowbob wrote:

i will not go to dispute resolution - its a pity cycling mods etc seem incapable of reasoned discussion and make up rules as they like

ill just note for now that your moderators seem to not be fully aware of boards procedures - hence my time has been wasted

i rest my cases for now

Slideshowbob wrote:

i will not go to dispute resolution - its a pity cycling mods etc seem incapable of reasoned discussion and make up rules as they like

ill just note for now that your moderators seem to not be fully aware of boards procedures - hence my time has been wasted

i rest my cases for now

Slideshowbob wrote:

i will not go to dispute resolution - its a pity cycling mods etc seem incapable of reasoned discussion and make up rules as they like

ill just note for now that your moderators seem to not be fully aware of boards procedures - hence my time has been wasted

i rest my cases for now

i have cc'd some protagonists in this message.

Sparks wrote:

Frankly, you appear to be attempting to waste both their time and mine for your own poor amusement, and unlike them, I have no difficulty in banning you for it if you continue. If you wish the decision appealed, go to the dispute resolution forum, if not, drop the matter as resolved. In future, however, I would expect you to go through the procedures the correct way, as was explained to you recently. I would also expect that you not insult others in the process.

To be blunt; you are, judging by your posts and tone, a troublemaker. Consider this a warning from a category moderator to knock that on the head with all due haste, or be banned.

Sparks wrote:

Slideshowbob wrote:

i have cc'd some protagonists in this message.

CC'ing my response.

Sparks wrote:

Frankly, you appear to be attempting to waste both their time and mine for your own poor amusement, and unlike them, I have no difficulty in banning you for it if you continue. If you wish the decision appealed, go to the dispute resolution forum, if not, drop the matter as resolved. In future, however, I would expect you to go through the procedures the correct way, as was explained to you recently. I would also expect that you not insult others in the process.

To be blunt; you are, judging by your posts and tone, a troublemaker. Consider this a warning from a category moderator to knock that on the head with all due haste, or be banned.

Following this, less than a full week later, Slideshowbob returned to the thread the Cycling Mods had left open on bikepure in order to leave bikepure respond, a thread left open with the following warning:

Let me be very clear, there is to be no more trolling in this new thread. This is the final warning.

Slideshowbob returned to this thread, ignored all previous warnings and resumed ****stirring about bikepure's accounts and asking "when will you stop beating your wife"-style questions. I banned him from the entire category:

/facepalm

In the interests of clarity and openness, a note: I've stepped in over the heads of the local mods here as category moderator and given Slideshowbob a week off from the sports category. His post above isn't cycling; it's political ****stirring and he was warned to give that a rest at the start of the week.

We now return you to your regular programming...

The following PM exchange then took place:

Slideshowbob wrote:

Hi sparks

Can you cite specifically why I was banned on this occasion or where offence was found?

No specific reason was given in your correspondence so without going thrashing through posts I am at some loss

Thanks

Bob

Sparks wrote:

Hi Slideshowbob,

You have been banned from Sports for the following duration:

7 Day(s)

for the following reason:

You were warned:

Sparks wrote:

Frankly, you appear to be attempting to waste both their time and mine for your own poor amusement, and unlike them, I have no difficulty in banning you for it if you continue. If you wish the decision appealed, go to the dispute resolution forum, if not, drop the matter as resolved. In future, however, I would expect you to go through the procedures the correct way, as was explained to you recently. I would also expect that you not insult others in the process.

To be blunt; you are, judging by your posts and tone, a troublemaker. Consider this a warning from a category moderator to knock that on the head with all due haste, or be banned.

One week ban from the entire sports category.
Providing your ban is not permanent, it will be lifted automatically after 7 Day(s). You will get an automatic message informing you that the ban is lifted. If you do not receive this message after the allotted time, please PM a moderator to clarify.

Bans occur after a serious rules breach so please keep in mind that Moderators don't just decide to ban people out of the blue. If you wish to appeal this ban, please follow our Dispute Resolution Process here. Your first action should always be to PM the Moderator(s) of the forum to discuss the ban. Remember that our Mods are volunteers and are not always online, so they may not be able to answer you straight away.

All the best,
boards.ie

Sparks wrote:

It's quite simple slideshowbob, you caused an enormous row over bikepure at the start of this week which culminated with this warning from me as the category moderator:

Frankly, you appear to be attempting to waste both their time and mine for your own poor amusement, and unlike them, I have no difficulty in banning you for it if you continue. If you wish the decision appealed, go to the dispute resolution forum, if not, drop the matter as resolved. In future, however, I would expect you to go through the procedures the correct way, as was explained to you recently. I would also expect that you not insult others in the process.

To be blunt; you are, judging by your posts and tone, a troublemaker. Consider this a warning from a category moderator to knock that on the head with all due haste, or be banned.

Less than a week later, you returned to the topic with yet more political ****stirring and came within a hairs breadth of committing defamation by inneundo.

You were warned not to do so or you would be banned; you did so; you were banned for a week.

Repeat offences will incur repeat sanctions.

Slideshowbob wrote:

How was I being political? We are talking about sport here, nothing to do with politics.

Sparks wrote:

Slideshowbob wrote:

How was I being political? We are talking about sport here, nothing to do with politics.

(1) If sport had nothing to do with politics, both would be better off. But that is not the case.

(2) If we are talking sports here, then interrogations on accounts and minutes and administrative details have no place here.

(3) I have no intention of allowing you to eat up as much moderator time as you feel you wish to, given your past history in that regard. Find a different source of amusement.

Slideshowbob wrote:

(1) That being the case, But I meant to ask in this particular instance how was I being political?

(2) We are talking about sports here, and those that would puport to be an organisation for the overall benefit of cycling and ultimately I gather the health of its participants. It is by no means an interrogation - how can such be conducted on boards, merely a question to Mr. Myles who had the courtesy to respond to such questions. I had no question regarding any minutes. Are you referring to a meeting or such like?

(3) Sorry if I am eating mod time and now yours I gather you will claim. I gather the mods at all times had the opportunity to pass me up to yourself at earlier instances in the triestes but they too opted to reason things out without their satisfaction.

All I am asking for is clarity on why I am being punished - to merely brand me a trouble maker is rather simplistic and misleading. IMHO I am moreso dismayed at the lack of breath of knowledge amongst mods and such like rather than amused.

At this point it was clear that slideshowbob was not engaging in the dispute resolution process. I should have pointed out the DR forum at this point, but work, boards and shooting events demanded more time in the last few days, and slideshowbob was already low on the priority list as a result of the above so this thread preempted that.

At this point, I believe we are, despite best efforts, past cat mod resolution as uberwolf stated, and an admin decision is required.

Slideshowbob

To clarify a point made by Sparks - I had not previously been banned.

Slideshowbob

Dispute!

Resolution?

Asiaprod

Slideshowbob wrote: »

Dispute!

Resolution?

Please clarify

Slideshowbob

I posted on the dispute resolution forum with the intention of iliciting sound reason as to why I had been banned.

Alas I still await clarification.

So the dispute is unresolved.

I am a rational person so if I got a rational answer instead of being merely labelled a troublemaker, being told I am being political and best of all, get this, on correspondence on another matter, but having relavance to this ban I believe, being inanely told I am being "dickish", I'd probably be able to accept my punishment.

For mods / cmods to resort to such personal offence in arguments is quite frankly, sad; and more to the point, rather derogatory.

Isn't the motto attack the post not the poster???

In fact to demonstrate to what extent some mods have it in for me, previously when I complained about being insulted on a thread, rather than actually do something about it, mods mockingly included the term "bitter old husk" into the forum charter as acceptable! I wouldn't bring this up normally but if we are being citatious about defamation et al

While I'm at it I'll point out someone went to the bother of setting up a profile just to mimick my mother on the earlier bikepure thread, I let it pass at the time, but would note it again demonstrates the fact that as I do not see eye to eye with some mods in the cycling forum, nothing was done when I complained about it.

As it stands going back to my thread in question and continued correspondence with mods and cmods I still can't see why I deserved a ban. Their continued dialogue has led me to this forum.

All sorts has been labelled at me including time wasting yet it was those that I was communicating with that also wasted my time by deciding to continue their dialogue.

Boards motto is - Now your talking? Maybe but all within the confinds of mods/cmods comfortable range of knowledge and sadly nothing beyond as far as I can see.

The mods / cmods have also been inconsistant by initially letting my original thread stand for weeks, yet when i 'got their goat' it became unacceptable and was removed.

Indeed the very person / organisation I had laterly been accused of "defaming by innuendo" originally, came on to reply to my questions, and did not seem too offended or perturbed.

For defamation by innuendo to exist, the burden of proof lies with a plaintiff: http://www.swarb.co.uk/lawb/defInnuendo.shtml.

In this scenario, the allegedly offended person did not seem to have an issue in the first place, and even if they did, I still see my questioning as legitimate. There was no play on words, innuendo did not have to be assumed. It was straight forward questioning in a public forum of an organisation that receives public donations.

So, consequently, I continued with my original line of questioning only to be banned!!

Alas, the questions still remain to be answered......... now on two fronts, Indeed its actually a shame the mods did not let the secind thread run as it would have been interesting to hear a response back from the organisation in question, alas with better judgement, it was not to be....

Sparks

I'm firmly of the opinion that this now requires an admin decision, but I do want to provide answers to two of SSB's points above:

Slideshowbob wrote: »

I am being "dickish", I'd probably be able to accept my punishment.
For mods / cmods to resort to such personal offence in arguments is quite frankly, sad; and more to the point, rather derogatory.
Isn't the motto attack the post not the poster???

"Don't be a dick" is the actual rule. That's not a paraphrasing or any other form of rewording, it's a word-for-word quote.

So if your posts break that rule, your posts are dickish. It is not derogatory, nor is it attacking the poster, both of which are points I believe I made perfectly clear in my first PM to SSB:

your recent tone in reported posts and feedback threads is one we would normally refer to as "dickish", in the same sense as the overarching philosophy of boards.ie (namely, "don't be a dick")

its actually a shame the mods did not let the secind thread run as it would have been interesting to hear a response back from the organisation in question, alas with better judgement, it was not to be....

The second thread is still open.
Noone was interested in the topic to the point where they'd continue the discussion.
I believe that supports the view of the mods and the cmods that SSB is just ****stirring to waste other peoples time for his own amusement; and further, I'm now of the opinion that he's doing so again in this forum instead of engaging in the dispute resolution process in good faith.

Asiaprod

Thanks all for the input. I will get back to this shortly with a decision.

Asiaprod

Sorry for the delay, there was much ground to cover here and I like to be sure of things before I act. I am going to deal only with the ban here. While looking into any residual history behind the ban issue it became very clear that the Mods in question had actually spent considerable time and energy corresponding extensively with you in an effort to help. They explained to you that there was an issue with your posting style in that forum; that in short your posting style was unacceptable. You continued to post in your usual style.

In the thread in question you were warned not to pursue a line of questioning and you ignored that warning. So you were banned.

I am afraid you may not agree with this, but my opinion is that the ban was justified. I see no reason to overturn it.

Regarding the other complaints, that would be a topic for a separate resolution thread, should you wish to pursue it. However, please be aware that while looking into the ban issue I came across no trace of victimization or bullying.

Slideshowbob

thanks for your deliberations Asiaprod

It does disappoint me however - I suppose it tells me more about the boards structure and helps me value opinion there on accordingly

Asiaprod

Your welcome.