Politics ban

KomradeBishop

This ban was put in place more than a year ago, on my old KyussBishop account, and I contacted a Politics mod about this with my previous account (KahBoom) some time back, without a reply (which I take as deciding to uphold the original decision) - so figure this can go straight to DR. However I was specifically not banned from Political Theory.


First though, I would like to ask why my account KyussBishop was banned from Political Theory after it was closed? I would also like to know who did that and when - it's really odd I was not told about that, since I was in contact with a mod after I closed that account.

This nearly led to me being permanently sitebanned, because I posted in Political Theory with my new account - without having any idea that I was banned there or why - surely the mod was perfectly aware, that I had no way of knowing about the post-account-closing ban?
This is so odd, that I think a mod/admin may have a personal issue with me - which I'd like to be taken into consideration, for keeping the treatment of this dispute impartial.

Here is the prison thread for that:
boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057291513


Second, I was told in the Politics 'A discussion on the rules' thread, that I was banned for discussing my economic views too much (I support Post-Keynesian economic views), i.e. that I was banned for soapboxing - but my private ban info said that I was banned for 'trolling'.
BlueWolf disclosed this in an A&A thread here, but later retracted it and apologized for disclosing private ban info publicly; the edit history will need to be checked, to see it (would make her non-impartial here anyway):
boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=91022449&postcount=606

My reply (also later edited):
boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=91023171&postcount=615

So, why is the reason I am marked as being banned from Politics, different to the reason I was given in the Politics rules thread? I think that this also calls into question, the validity of the ban. Here is the start of the discussion in the rules thread:
boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=97080&page=70


Third - the first thing I am told by Scofflaw, in the rules thread, is this:

Scofflaw wrote:

OK, well, let's start here. I appreciate that you're the only person carrying your particular torch, and, as I said in my warning on the thread, you have every right (obviously) to your particular economic view, and I have no intention of stating that you don't, and no wish to prevent you airing it - within reason.

However, I have just been told second-hand, in the Prison thread (I've no dispute with the admin there - has been very helpful and AFAIK is just passing on what others said), that:

Mr E wrote:

I won't uphold it, but please be mindful of what you post there (for example, I suspect any mention of MMT will greatly affect your future in that forum).

boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057291513

So, can we agree that MMT/Post-Keynesianism is a de-facto banned topic on all Politics forums? It is extremely important that this is made very clear, because before my Politics ban (well before the start of the discussion in the rules thread), I was given assurance by Scofflaw that it could be discussed 'within reason', but this was de-facto not the case: Every time I mentioned it - even when I didn't mention it, but it was assumed I was mentioning it - I was carded - and this led to my ban.

It's important that people can appreciate here, that this puts me in an impossible position, where I'm effectively set-up for a future ban: I can never know when I can mention the topic, without being carded (on Political Theory, I don't believe I have mentioned it anytime in the last year - despite attempts by some posters to accuse me of it) - I did not even know if I can talk about Politics/budgets at all, because mods had a habit of interpreting what I said as MMT, even when it was not - so the mods/admins have a de-facto ban in place on the topic (and this is indirectly confirmed by Mr E's quote above), but I was told there was not.

So this makes the wider Politics ban unfair, because the mods mislead me into thinking it was ok to discuss 'within reason', but I'm now being told it is effectively banned - a fair course of action, would be to explicitly ban the topic, instead of taking the easy way out, and banning me.


Fourth (related to above): I was specifically not banned on Political Theory, meaning it was implicitly ok for me to post about Post-Keynesian/MMT views there - and Mr E's post signals a reversal of this. There is no reason given for this (I had not posted about such topics at all, for a long time prior to closing my account), and it also backs my view that such views are effectively a 'banned topic'.


I think it's very important that mods/admins acknowledge it is a de-facto banned topic (and I take Mr E's post as, almost, an acknowledgment of this). Censorship of any topic is a very important problem, which (after this DR - and depending on how it goes) I may take up on Feedback again.

Taltos

Hi

When you and the Mod confirm you have completed the first step of the review process I will investigate this.
The steps above are not optional.

Regards
Taltos

KomradeBishop

I had completed the first step with my KahBoom account, and received no reply, but will contact the mod again.

Taltos

You were banned by our Admin Mr E, who had lifted your site ban.
Please contact them directly.

KomradeBishop

Ah, it was Mr E who suggested the Dispute Resolution - however, it is a Politics ban I am taking issue with, so I will contact the Politics mod involved. No worries anyway, am in the process of contacting them.

Scofflaw

Kyuss wrote:

So, can we agree that MMT/Post-Keynesianism is a de-facto banned topic on all Politics forums? It is extremely important that this is made very clear, because before my Politics ban (well before the start of the discussion in the rules thread), I was given assurance by Scofflaw that it could be discussed 'within reason', but this was de-facto not the case: Every time I mentioned it - even when I didn't mention it, but it was assumed I was mentioning it - I was carded - and this led to my ban.

I'm afraid this is something of a complex issue. I did indeed say:

Scofflaw wrote:

OK, well, let's start here. I appreciate that you're the only person carrying your particular torch, and, as I said in my warning on the thread, you have every right (obviously) to your particular economic view, and I have no intention of stating that you don't, and no wish to prevent you airing it - within reason.

But I have to highlight the last part of that - "within reason". The bans applied to Kyuss were not applied because "MMT/Post-Keynesianism is a de-facto banned topic on all Politics forums". Kyuss simply made no attempt to stay within the boundaries of reason, and it is Kyuss who is banned, not the topic.

I appreciate that Kyuss views his MMT-evangelising efforts as "within reason", but part of the problem is that what Kyuss views as within reason, and what any third party views as within reason, are poles apart.

So let me reiterate that there is no issue with MMT in Politics (or Economics) - on the contrary. Unfortunately, there is a huge problem with Kyuss as an advocate for MMT.

I have always promised that Kyuss' bans are reviewable, because I consider Kyuss to be entirely honest as a poster, and that he has no intention of trolling, spamming, or soapboxing. Unfortunately, I have seen nothing to warrant a reversal of the bans, and I'm not seeing it on this thread either. The evangelical fire burns as strong as ever, and the lack of insight remains total, which means that whether Kyuss' intentions are honourable or not, the effects remain unacceptable in the Politics forums.

regretfully,
Scofflaw

KomradeBishop

If that was the case, then why was I banned from Political Theory after I closed my account, and why does Mr E pass on that any mention of MMT, may lead me to trouble? (also, who was it that banned me from PT, after closing my account?)

That heavily implies, that what you are saying to me here, conflicts with what is being said behind-the-scenes, and with how things are actually enforced.


The term 'within reason' is, you admit yourself, entirely subjective "what Kyuss views as within reason, and what any third party views as within reason" - think about that:
That means I have to be able to read your mind, to be able to know when you will or will not card me, for bringing up that topic.

This is even more important: If I recall correctly, you carded me when I did not even bring up MMT, prior to the Politics ban - you made assumptions about what I was posting, labeling it MMT, when it was not - so that means I can hardly post at all on certain topics, because I have no idea when I am going to get carded - even when I had not breached a mod warning, because what I discussed was not MMT (and this helped lead to my ban).

The problem is, I can't read other peoples minds, and know what they think is 'reasonable', or when they (entirely wrongly) interpret something as MMT.

It also means that when you 'think' something is a breach of the rules, there is no way for me to contest that, because normally you refuse to discuss whether or not something was actually MMT - again, anyone can reasonably see, that this leaves me with no idea of what I can/can't talk about, or how to quantify 'how much' is too much, and that it effectively censors me.


I think also that you may not be impartial on this topic - I too, think you are an entirely honest poster, and have a lot of respect for your detailed posts on Politics - but you are engaging in ad-hominem here, with stuff like "the evangelical fire burns as strong as ever, and the lack of insight remains total".

Such statements, I doubt you would say about the largely Neoclassical economic views, that dominate the Politics forum (views that are heavily criticized internationally, as being dogmatic/evangelical themselves...) - the forum lacks a plurality of economic views - something that economic students worldwide, are trying to reform within economics right now:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Student_Initiative_for_Pluralist_Economics
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralism_in_economics

The Politics forum should not reflect one (or a few similar) narrow set(s) of economic views - all should be free to be debated.


It should be noted as well, that the entirely subjective/inconsistent modding here, means that one of the most important areas of political discussion - Post-Keynesian based alternatives to austerity and ways to resolve the economic crisis - is de-facto out-of-bounds for discussion on the Politics forum.

Taltos

OK thanks Scofflaw.

I am taking your above post as the completion of the first stage. Let me look into this now. I may be in touch with you both via PM, but equally I may just review the original posts in question and rule based on them alone.
Also note, all other comments above in relation to other mods who later retracted such comments and apologised, while you may feel a grievance at this all it is doing here is muddying the waters and will be ignored. Let's keep the facts pertinent.

In terms of the ban to Political Theory - this is a sub forum, when banned from the top level forums all other forums follow suit, I can see that forum ban was originally lifted and reapplied later, so I need to discuss with the mod that lifted it the reasoning behind that and if there is any justification for a ban at the top level forum NOT to be applied to a Child forum, if there is that will be a first for me but let me check into it.
Mr E also explained about the post closure bans, I see no need to repeat his explanation here, although if you want a timeline of bans / accounts etc I can facilitate that if it will help.

Clearly there is a lot behind this so bear with me for a day or two. If I can complete my review sooner I will.

KomradeBishop

Thanks.

Taltos wrote: »

Also note, all other comments above in relation to other mods who later retracted such comments and apologised, while you may feel a grievance at this all it is doing here is muddying the waters and will be ignored. Let's keep the facts pertinent.

Regarding that, I accepted the apology at the time, and don't have a further issue with that mod - just they are not impartial here - but the private note on my ban is relevant:
Why was it privately marked as trolling? This shows that the real reason why I was banned, was not the reason I was told by mods at the time - which calls the validity of the ban into question.

Taltos wrote:

Mr E also explained about the post closure bans, I see no need to repeat his explanation here, although if you want a timeline of bans / accounts etc I can facilitate that if it will help.

I'm very confused about that post-close ban, so that would help yes, thanks!

Sorry that this has created a lot of work for you - the reasons why I think the ban is unjust, are a bit complicated alright - to the point, that I'm not sure this will get far.

Taltos

OK - let me be clear.

This thread is ONLY to discuss your ban from Politics.
It is NOT here to discuss how the forum is modded, what topics may be covered or anything else. Similarly if the ban to Politics is valid the ban will APPLY to ALL sub fora unless the mod team can confirm that access is handled differently than all other fora.

I will review your posts and modding, make a decision and return with my findings. Arguments one way or another will not sway me in a positive manner.
If I rule with the ban you may escalate to the Admin team, otherwise if I rule with you the ban to Politics will be lifted, or just to Political Theory pending my discussion with the mods on if forum bans are handled differently.

If this is not acceptable to you just indicate and we can push this immediately to Admin review, otherwise I would ask you to wait for my review.

- Just seeing your last post - OK as part of the review I will include a timeline of bans/lifts.
In terms of extra work, no need to apologies, this forum is here for you to try to help resolve disputes where the normal PM discussion has failed, so no worries. It might take some time but I will do my utmost to get through it as fast as I can for you.

KomradeBishop

Thanks - it was more the way I personally was moderated against, which I think is directly relevant to my ban - it left me in an impossible position, where I was told I could discuss something 'within reason', but this was (in my view) enforced unfairly, because I had no idea what mods thought was 'within reason' - they never specified this, I could only find out by getting carded - which makes many cardings and the ban unfair.

Otherwise though, that sounds acceptable.

Mr E

OK, I'll jump in here to clarify a few things:

1. The MMT thing was more an observation based on what transpired on your last account (rather than a straight-out verbal ban of the topic). You had a tendency to try and shoehorn that topic into other conversations.

2. It looks like when you were banned from Politics, Scofflaw gave you explicit access to Political Theory so that you could continue to post there - I'll do the same now.

KomradeBishop

Okey, that clarifies that well - cheers!

Taltos

OK, again apologies for taking so long but there was a lot to go through.

I have reviewed your infraction history. For Politics and it’s sub-for a it stands at
Warnings = 10; Infractions = 3; Bans = 3. And that is just from 625 posts there.

This is not a good track record, irrespective of the timeframe, but just out of interest in your case this is just since 2012.

In terms of the review to be frank KyussBishop this had me torn.

I came across many threads and posts in Politics that are fine, that are even thanked by some of the mods you feel may have an issue with you. I have seen multiple instances where you post repeatedly in quick succession, which can be annoying for some posters and is a sometimes moderated as a result is telling me you really do care for what you are posting on.

So then onto the Ban for Ignoring Mod instructions:
Note I have “Ignoring Mod Instruction”, that was the original description applied. After your closed account was re-banned Trolling was used instead, depending on how you view your contributions that led to the ban either description is interchangeable, you mightn’t like or agree with it but the label of the ban is just that, a label.

I have gone through some of these posts that were carded as well as your thread in feedback and the thread “A discussion on the rules”. These are the primary ones that are worrying me. The above passion I mentioned for your posts here seems to have blinded you to your behaviour and the impact you are having on the forum. In saying this I already know you probably won’t be able to accept this, you’ll see it as another example of mod conspiracy which for the record it isn’t.

This one statement says it all to me:

All political discussion is inextricably intertwined with economics, and all of economic discussion is intertwined with economic theory - this makes parts of most political discussion based on one economic theory or other:
This makes discussion of theory inseparable from discussion of politics - when you start shutting down discussion of policies advocated by one school, you start giving primacy to other theories.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=85996545&postcount=1066

But worse in my mind is your willful disregard of the rules – I cannot ignore this:

As a side note (unrelated to the point you're making): With MMT, government does not even need to use national debt to fund spending, government can create money and spend it directly

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=82161028&postcount=116

I have to balance the repeated requests from the mods for you to disentangle your MMT economic slant on threads from the political aspect (known as soapboxing), I also have to balance the impact on the forum as a whole, I can see a number of posters who have given up on reporting your posts and have simply closed their accounts. That alone speaks volumes to me, we can’t allow one individual to disrupt the flow of a forum or indeed become such a timesink to the mods (who are volunteers) to this extent. Just looking at your infraction history above in 2 years screams that your posts are generating an excessive amount of work for the team.

We generally call this type of posting as soap boxing or trolling (in some circumstances) or as a poster becoming a time sink.

With this in mind I am going to support the Ban from Politics. However, you are not banned from Political Theory, this to me is unusual, normally if you are banned from the parent forum you are banned from ALL sub-fora. However Scofflaw has made an argument to let you stay and the rest of the mod team supported this, I am not going to countermand that.

Here then is my suggestion – take it if you will but think on it at least, prove yourself in PT, don’t run afoul of the rules again and in one year PM the mod team and ask them to reconsider your ban in Politics based on your input over the last year. This is their call though, they may reject it, but if you prove yourself they will at least give it serious and fair consideration.

Please let me know if you are willing to accept this and work with the forum mods or if not you can request an Admin to review your call to lift the ban from Politics.

Timeline you asked for:
Forum|Date|Event
Political Theory|13-Apr-12|Warning
Politics|18-Apr-12|Warning
Irish Economy|09-Sep-12|Warning
Political Theory|04-Oct-12|Infraction
Politics|15-Nov-12|Warning
Politics|17-Nov-12|Warning
Politics|19-Nov-12 19:25|Warning
Politics|19-Nov-12 19:28|Infraction
Politics|19-Nov-12 19:33|Infraction
Politics|08-Dec-12|Warning
Irish Economy|10-Dec-12|Warning
Irish Economy|18-Feb-13|Warning
Irish Economy|07-Aug-13|Warning
Political Café|14-Aug-13 18:17|Ban (Permanent)
Irish Economy|14-Aug-13 18:18|Ban (Permanent)
Politics|14-Aug-13 18:19|Ban (Permanent)
Political Theory|14-Aug-14 18:48:08|Access Granted – mod discretion
ALL|23-May-14 00:51:26|ACCOUNT CLOSED
Politics|23-May-14 00:51:26|Access Cleared (Account Closed)
Political Theory|13-Jun-14 06:22:09|Ban (Permanent) – purpose to show active ban at time of account closure
ALL|15-Sep-14|New Account – KomradeBishop
ALL|19-Sep-14 20:48:51|Ban(Permanent) – ReReg
ALL|18-Sep-14 11:14:09|Ban Lifted –Appealed in Prison
Politics|18-Sep-14 11:17:11|Ban(Permanent) – Ignored mod instruction
Political Theory|18-Sep-14|Access Cleared

KomradeBishop

(While I clarify my view and the problem I have on a lot of things below, I accept the result of the DR at the end - so, not trying to debate/contest each point )

Taltos wrote:

I have reviewed your infraction history. For Politics and it’s sub-for a it stands at
Warnings = 10; Infractions = 3; Bans = 3. And that is just from 625 posts there.

This is not a good track record, irrespective of the timeframe, but just out of interest in your case this is just since 2012.

One problem I had when I posted in Politics - and this led to a number of my warnings/infractions - is the posters I was debating with:
There is a problem with debating certain topics, where multiple posters would be routinely uncivil/condescending, dragging down the quality of debate in order to be like that, but they can get away with this without mod action, because it is often done in numbers (multiple posters piling on).

I would return the same kind of tone when replying to these posters, yet because I was debating against multiple posters of this type, I would accrue more warnings/infractions.

So ya, I have been uncivil in my posting history - but my defense there is it is nearly always responding in kind, to others who usually (due to numbers) did not tot up warnings/infractions.
This works fine in After Hours, where posters don't gain an advantage by piling-on like that, but in Politics, it's a good way of getting a minority-side to tot-up mod actions, or to just shout them down.

Taltos wrote:

I have gone through some of these posts that were carded as well as your thread in feedback and the thread “A discussion on the rules”. These are the primary ones that are worrying me. The above passion I mentioned for your posts here seems to have blinded you to your behaviour and the impact you are having on the forum. In saying this I already know you probably won’t be able to accept this, you’ll see it as another example of mod conspiracy which for the record it isn’t.

Ah, I don't view it as a mod conspiracy - even though I think it may be a 'little' bit personalized - I think it's more a fundamental (and probably unresolvable - which is why I've not been hopeful with this appeal) disagreement, over the view that economics intersects with and is a part of politics, not something separate.

On the statement where I say "All political discussion is inextricably intertwined with economics" - is that something people disagree with, and take as the point where my enthusiasm for the topic, goes too far?

If so, that might be a good point of focus, for trying to resolve this - but it would probably need to be on Feedback (or better, Political Theory), not DR - I think (after a lot of researching to refine my argument), I could prove that economics is inherently a part of politics - the problem though, is I am almost certain that mods/admins don't want to entertain that (that's how it went down, when I tried before).

Taltos wrote:

But worse in my mind is your willful disregard of the rules – I cannot ignore this:

KyussBishop wrote:

As a side note (unrelated to the point you're making): With MMT, government does not even need to use national debt to fund spending, government can create money and spend it directly

While my point there was unrelated to the persons post, it was related to the topic, as budget deficits are the no.1 topic that MMT applies to.
So the problem there, is how could I know whether that was inside or outside of the rules? This is why I think it is a de-facto-banned topic (even if mods don't intend it to be) - I had no way to know at all, when a mod was going to card me for it, because even when it seemed related to the topic, I was not safe to mention it.

Taltos wrote:

I have to balance the repeated requests from the mods for you to disentangle your MMT economic slant on threads from the political aspect (known as soapboxing), I also have to balance the impact on the forum as a whole, I can see a number of posters who have given up on reporting your posts and have simply closed their accounts. That alone speaks volumes to me, we can’t allow one individual to disrupt the flow of a forum or indeed become such a timesink to the mods (who are volunteers) to this extent. Just looking at your infraction history above in 2 years screams that your posts are generating an excessive amount of work for the team.

We generally call this type of posting as soap boxing or trolling (in some circumstances) or as a poster becoming a time sink.

It's a pity that people view economics, as something that can be separated from politics - as mentioned above, I think that is part of the fundamental disagreement between me and mods/others.

Ya, I didn't like that my posts generated a lot of work for mods, the trouble though is that it is an extremely controversial topic (probably one of the most controversial), which brought out a lot of trolling against me as well (I'd say economic topics, are more 'dirty' than even Israel vs Palestine topics) - and mod action would get concentrated on me, due to the 'numbers' problem described above.

So, posters holding controversial minority views, naturally will create more work for mods - so if you view them as 'causing trouble' because of this, then that tends to lead to silencing controversial/minority views, because they generate more work.

Taltos wrote:

With this in mind I am going to support the Ban from Politics. However, you are not banned from Political Theory, this to me is unusual, normally if you are banned from the parent forum you are banned from ALL sub-fora. However Scofflaw has made an argument to let you stay and the rest of the mod team supported this, I am not going to countermand that.

Here then is my suggestion – take it if you will but think on it at least, prove yourself in PT, don’t run afoul of the rules again and in one year PM the mod team and ask them to reconsider your ban in Politics based on your input over the last year. This is their call though, they may reject it, but if you prove yourself they will at least give it serious and fair consideration.

Please let me know if you are willing to accept this and work with the forum mods or if not you can request an Admin to review your call to lift the ban from Politics.

That is fair enough, and I won't take the DR thread further - can I ask though, what kind of rules are in place on PT? I don't feel I can discuss any Post-Keynesian-economics related stuff there, because I would have the same problem of not knowing when I can get mod action.

Another poster actually made a point, not long ago (on Political Theory), of constantly accusing me of posting about MMT, to try and generate mod action against me - to the point I had to get a mod to step in against him - so you can see, that it is a very easy topic to censor, and can even be used to censor non-MMT topics when I discuss them (how will I know what mods think of as MMT? I have had mod action against posts that had nothing to do with MMT, where it is stated they do touch on MMT), because there is no certainty on when mods might warn/infract me - this actually allows other posters to try and censor me too, just by accusing me of discussing it (this all creates a large 'chilling-effect' on the topic).


Anyway, many thanks for looking this over Taltos You've given a very balanced look at this - I think the main problem I would have taking this further, is convincing people of how economics/politics are intertwined, and how this can't be separated from discussion of politics (and I'm not sure it would be possible to convince people, which is a pity, and probably means can never successfully appeal - but maybe I'll do a PT thread on that).

Taltos

Thanks KomradeBishop.

I will request this to be set to resolved so.

In terms of your continued posting in PT.
Generally each sub-fora has it's own charter, that will be your starting point.

Irrespective though and I am not going to get into it as I feel there has been enough discussion in Feedback, Politics (rule discussion thread) and elsewhere I am concerned. Your assertions in your response above about economics and politics being irretrievably intertwined drives you to post in the exact manner that has created this mess. Basically it's this simply, if you cannot contribute in a manner that is not a continuation of your soapboxing (whether it's MMT or the continuation of your old arguments on the economic-political interdependency) then please don't post. If you do and are banned from PT that will be the end of the matter, there will be no further recourse. The mods have shown great tolerance here in even allowing PT to be available to you, as above it is not the norm, and were it my forum it is not a courtesy I would extend or even consider extending.

So please do take care, even hold back for a while, imagine you are posting in PT for the first time and re-learn the ropes.

Respectfully (but concerned)
Taltos