Moderation on the thread Greece being given fingers by the EU ? Part 2

Bob24

I would like to raise concerns about moderation on this thread yesterday evening.

The thread has been active for a long period (over 18000 posts) and one poster had been regularly posting news updates related to the topic in bold font for the past few weeks. A large majority of regular contributors on the thread have been very happy with these and they were causing no issue. Several moderators are regular contributors to the thread and had not raised any concern either.

Yesterday evening, one moderator jumped in requesting the user to stop posting in bold fonts.

Quite a number of us on the thread were surprised with how the situation escalated. The poster (RobitTV) received plenty of support from other people (including moderators for other forums) for being a well-behaved contributor and not having caused any issue, but he was quickly single out by the moderator (JT26) who then went ahead and banned him.

In my view and in this particular case, rather than fixing a (non-existent) issue moderation actually created one, and completely broke the momentum of discussion thread which was recently going very well with interesting contributions and a civilized enough debate.

Myself and other people who were active on the thread and saw all the (now deleted) posts are a bit perplexed by this. There was a request from the moderation team not to discuss this on the forum and to send private messages instead, but myself and other posters haven't received replies to the messages we have submitted.

This is why I would like to raise the issue here.

Of course the last word will be with the moderation team, but given the situation I would very much appreciate a light handed approach to this, maybe with one of your team members mediating between the poster and the moderator and letting the poster keep posting his regular updates.

Synode

I second the above. Since when is bold text only allowed by Mods? RobitTV's posts have been very welcome in a thread that can move extremely quickly at times. I've also PM'd the mod in question (after he told us to do that) but have not received a reply

CruelCoin

There have been many posts throughout the thread thanking RobitTV for his contributions. They had been invaluable in prompting discussion, and were never biased in any one direction.

This post sums things up nicely: #8902

Prior to his banning, he had apparantly been given the green light to continue the posts, but in another colour only. Why then was his poll-thread on our preferred colour deleted?

Usually when a poster is banned, their post is redacted, or there is a mod note added to the bottom of it, stating the reason for the ban. But he was just simply deleted from the thread. This smacks of censorship, not moderation.

It would be great if you guys could lift his ban and allow him to contribute to the thread again, as he had been doing for quite some time absent complaint. One of the great boards.ie threadnaughts has suffered in his abscence.

Regards,

CC.

Completely agree. Why provide text formatting options to users if they're not allowed to use them?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

mirrorwall14

I usually have misgivings about being involved in moderation discussions as a former mod but in this case I have to support the above statements.

Most of us I think actually initially thought it was a joke but the thread is now dead in the water even though it was and still is a very relevant issue. For 18k posts I don't think there was much moderation actually used at all (I stand to be corrected on that, I'm pretty sure I've seen very little on it anyways!) and this was a bolt out of the blue for those of us following that thread. And although I think Robit went OTT in his reaction, I do believe it is a reflection of the shock we all felt at it.

I'm not sure whether the colours were a mod suggestion but they aren't visible on the touch site and weren't really a solution (to something that hadn't been a problem until yesterday). I actually didn't even realise that post 8802 actually had the colours used until I logged onto my desktop later.

I have never been involved in the politics cafe before but I spotted this thread on the front page multiple times and eventually clicked in about three weeks ago. I have been addicted since, I've never been this involved in a political event and I've loved it. Been logging in 10 times + a day to check whats going on, stayed up to see the votes etc. I'm so disappointed to have lost it.

Edit: To point out I do not "get" twitter, have no idea how to follow stuff and the regular updates from the news reporters that robitt was posting are something I simply don't know how to access now

Take2Sean

Ruined my main news outlet for this topic....The guy was consistently ahead of the Times, Indo apps and had great links to different news agencies and articles I wouldn't have found myself..

Poor form..silly decisions

Polo_Mint

+1

Both Greek threads reflected everyones opinions for months and actually gave a massive insight into Politics for both beginners and the people who are in the know.


Brilliant debates to be had for the OXI and NAI.

But we distinguished between opinion and NEWS by using Bold text.

Users who didnt understand the bold text understood it after it was explained by the Regulars in the threads.

when the mod comes marching in after months of a system we used and banned our resident Newsreader, they collapsed a very important daily thread for us all no matter which opinion you held on the greek issue.

Spear

Synode wrote: »

I second the above. Since when is bold text only allowed by Mods? RobitTV's posts have been very welcome in a thread that can move extremely quickly at times. I've also PM'd the mod in question (after he told us to do that) but have not received a reply

There's no rule about bold text being mods only, but it is a common and widespread convention to use it for mod posts (not to prohibit users from using it).

Take2Sean

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

I usually have misgivings about being involved in moderation discussions as a former mod but in this case I have to support the above statements.

Most of us I think actually initially thought it was a joke but the thread is now dead in the water even though it was and still is a very relevant issue. For 18k posts I don't think there was much moderation actually used at all (I stand to be corrected on that, I'm pretty sure I've seen very little on it anyways!) and this was a bolt out of the blue for those of us following that thread. And although I think Robit went OTT in his reaction, I do believe it is a reflection of the shock we all felt at it.

I'm not sure whether the colours were a mod suggestion but they aren't visible on the touch site and weren't really a solution (to something that hadn't been a problem until yesterday). I actually didn't even realise that post 8802 actually had the colours used until I logged onto my desktop later.

I have never been involved in the politics cafe before but I spotted this thread on the front page multiple times and eventually clicked in about three weeks ago. I have been addicted since, I've never been this involved in a political event and I've loved it. Been logging in 10 times + a day to check whats going on, stayed up to see the votes etc. I'm so disappointed to have lost it.

Edit: To point out I do not "get" twitter, have no idea how to follow stuff and the regular updates from the news reporters that robitt was posting are something I simply don't know how to access now

Exactly same as me....

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

jimmycrackcorm

The MOD should reverse the decision as it is just arbitrary. It seems to me that the MOD just doesn't want to lose face by correcting this. I didnt see any rule that says only BOLD is used by mods. - why is it available if it's not being used?

I call moral hazard!

Patser

I'll chime in and agree with all the above. RobitTV was taking tweets and comments that were appearing in multiple sources (Guardian, Telegraph and Twitter mostly) and successfully filtering/condensing them into the threads in a way that let you know it was relevant breaking comments from people reporting on the ground, and not just a discussion point from posters.

It was an important distinction as it allowed debate to flow around 'breaking news', which could then be introduced. RobitTV didn't seem to have any preferential slant in these updates, just plainly reporting new information. He was trusted in this. Now we'll all have to trawl for relevant news and provide links.

zl1whqvjs75cdy

I agreed on the other thread that Robit set up but had my comment deleted. It can be clearly seen that the Greece thread has ground to a halt after being one of the most active thread on boards for a few weeks. This is because a mod got too precious about the use of bold text, which apparently is only for mods. The news posts were obviously not mod interventions, they were marked as tweets and usually had hashtags with them. The vast majority of the posters in that thread greatly appreciated the updates (as seen in a poll and the numerous complaints about heavy handed moderation. Mods seem to be ignoring pms on the issue too so I don't know how we are supposed to get this resolved. Though I suspect a furious circling of the wagons is going to ensue and we'll be politely told to **** off.

FreudianSlippers

Spear wrote: »

There's no rule about bold text being mods only, but it is a common and widespread convention.

Spear, in this case I don't think there was any cause for confusion on most posts:

1) It is manifestly clear on both the regular and touch site that this user was not a moderator.
2) The entirely of the posts were rarely in bold; usually it was just the text in the quote tags.

Now here is an exception to point 2 above:

RobitTV wrote: »

BREAKING:

Greek banks will reopen on Monday after ecb's decision to raise emergency funding - senior banker - RTRS

There is going to be a huge bank run now....

Click through and tell me if you believe any reasonable user of the site would have mistaken that for a mod post?


I also thoroughly disagree with contention that although there are no rules to users being prohibited from posting in bold it is common convention that this is the case. I agree that where a mod is posting solely in bold they are delineating their post as authoritative as opposed to a post they may be making as a "normal" user.

i.e. if I were posting in Legal Discussion, saying:

Claiming you must consent to laws in order for them to apply to you is nonsense.

is manifestly different than saying:

Claiming you must consent to laws in order for them to apply to you is nonsense.

In the first instance I'm offering my views on the matter; in the second, I'm telling future posters not to continue perpetuating that myth or action will be taken.

Does this mean that it is "convention" that normal users cannot make use of bold text in their posts simply because moderators use it to delineate between their authoritative and non-authoritative posts? I would wholeheartedly argue that not to be the case.

This type of incident only further highlights the issues with the Cafe with no clear and set rules as to what is acceptable and what isn't. Honestly, whether your post is fine, yellow carded, red carded or worthy of a ban seems to be a total toss-up depending on the mod you get reviewing it and/or their mood at the time.

Polo_Mint

Spear wrote: »

There's no rule about bold text being mods only, but it is a common and widespread convention.

It seems there is a miscommunication between Mods then

JT26 wrote: »

Bold posts are for moderation posts typically so please no more of that.

RobitTV is told not to use Bold in a thread where he has been using Bold all along.

Hasent been an issue for Months until im guessing one poster out of Hundreds reported about it.

Mod jumped the gun without understanding how all of us contributing to the thread had developed a system to seperate opinions from news

FreudianSlippers

donkeyoaty0099 wrote: »

It can be clearly seen that the Greece thread has ground to a halt after being one of the most active thread on boards for a few weeks.

A number of us have already indicated we will not be posting there until the ban is reversed and I would argue it continues across the Cafe until clear rules are put in place.

Spear

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

Spear, in this case I don't think there was any cause for confusion on most posts:


Does this mean that it is "convention" that normal users cannot make use of bold text in their posts simply because moderators use it to delineate between their authoritative and non-authoritative posts? I would wholeheartedly argue that not to be the case.

I was referring to sitewide general rules. And I was referring to the convention of being used by mods, not being prohibited to users. I'll edit my earlier post to clarify the wording.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Neyite

Spear wrote: »

There's no rule about bold text being mods only, but it is a common and widespread convention.

A fair few mods are moving away from all bold text in on thread warnings, including myself, it feels less bossy and a bit more inclusive to newer users. So for example instead of:

Please read the charter before posting again.
I now usually write:

Mod Note:
Please read the charter before posting again.

By labelling it as a mod note, its clear to users that it is a mod instruction. It also helps mods if you got someone claiming that they didn't know the Boards convention of using bold to denote a mod instruction.

aliveandkicking

I echo the sentiments expressed above. Normally wouldn't be one for getting involved in discussions about mods but in this particular case I believe the mod to be ridiculously out of line and was the one who unecessarily ruined an excellent long running thread.

Neyite

aliveandkicking wrote: »

I echo the sentiments expressed above. Normally wouldn't be one for getting involved in discussions about mods but in this particular case I believe the mod to be ridiculously out of line and was the one who unecessarily ruined an excellent long running thread.

Sorry, I actually haven't read the greece threads at all, I'm not even familiar with the forum let alone the style of modding required so I have no comment or opinion on that.

Nate--IRL--

I'd like to add my voice to this too - RobitTV provided an invaluable service to a very very active and fast moving thread.

Nate

Bob24

For reference if a boards.ie rep is reviewing this, I saw Robit has submitted a request on the resolution forum: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057462804

Spear

Bob24 wrote: »

For reference if a boards.ie rep is reviewing this, I saw Robit has submitted a request on the resolution forum: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057462804

And as a reminder, don't anyone go attempting to post on that. We've already had a load attempt to do so last night.

RobitTV

Hi everyone its RobitTV speaking and i am here to defend my friends on the Greek forum and their decision to support me

I am just shocked by the amount of support from users and forum moderators!

This is a huge mandate for me personally to continue my hard work. Everyone has been amazing and i really couldn't ask for better supporters i have received message after message and now forums supporting me.

This decision to Ban me was a huge mistake and the moderator involved has faced a blacklash. It just shows what happens when you go against the will of the forum members, the forum was so peaceful for a long time before yesterday!

I hope common sense will prevail in this situation and once again i would like to thank everyone for the overwhelming support over this past while it has been truly incredible.

jank

Have seen some questionable moderating on my 13 years on this site but this takes it to another level in my opinion.

The cafe is some weird experiment that just seems to cause more trouble then its worth. The irony of course of all this forum was supposed to clear AH of political topics, yet there is a big long Greece thread there as well! So why therefore is this forum around?

Dav

First and foremost, there is no democracy on this site - especially when it comes to the site's rules.

Your disruption of the thread with your FIGHT DA POWAH nonsense is the reason you were banned. You do not get to have a vote on whether or not you think a mod's decision is correct or not and your insistence of dragging that thread off topic with all your collective "the people have spoken" and the likes are the reason you were banned. It is the same on every single forum on this site and you are not some special case.

I see three or four pages of off-topic noise - I don't know why you all felt the need to derail that thread with that conversation instead of doing the smart and sensible thing of starting a new thread to discuss it.

I disagree, by the way, with the mod's decision to make any sort of issue of it in the first place, so leave this with me and I will sort it out.