Inconsistent Modding on the Soccer Forum

Pro. F

From time to time, if I've reported a post and it seems like it hasn't been dealt with, I'll follow up with a PM to a mod. I don't do this just for the sake of making sure that the mods have seen the report, but also to check that I understand what the mods' thinking is on different types of posts and how they interpret the charter.

Mods come and go in the SF every few years, so I expect there to be some change in what is and is not acceptable on the forum over the long run. But in in the last year I'm struggling to see what the current mods' approach is.

I received a yellow for this post yesterday:

Pro. F wrote: »

There is nobody who reads this thread who is stupid enough to think that my post implied that winning games is irrelevant. Your choice to make such an idiotic response reflects the type of poster you are.

Fair enough to be honest. The mod who carded it - Lord TSC - described it as a "sly shot." If that is the line then okay. If sly digs aren't allowed on the forum - and presumably overt digs too - then let's go with that.

But then, that is just not consistent with how the forum is being moderated, by Lord TSC and the other mods.

Here are some posts which I reported and followed up on, which weren't carded (I've bolded the relevant bits where necessary):

I disagree and was calmly expressing an opposite opinion? Not sure why it bothers you.

As for agendas I think Prof is on the wind up at times. He makes eyebrow raising statements and has what I find strange opinions such as the Leon Britton one and his hard on for Clev. If he's not on the wind up his judgement of a MF player is inherently flawed.

There fourm is bound to discuss or argue over such opinions. That's part of what its for.

link
At the very least this would qualify as a sly dig.
After reporting this and no card being issued I PMd Gavredking. He described it as borderline breaching the charter and decided against carding it. Saying he would keep an eye on the poster.

We failed to get out of groups with Fergie in charge. We should have sacked him then right?

Progress me h**e.
you say? 7th to 4th to a title race. Yes thats progress, undeniable progress.

All my FACTS mean NOTING, dumbest statement of the yeah right here. Unless this is satire your very unintelligent.

link
This is beyond a sly dig.
After reporting this and no card being issued I PMd Lord TSC. He described it as broaching the line and decided against carding it. He said it was a few users getting frustrated and testy with each other.

There is a difference, I said I really dislike Jose, so of course I'm not going to be jumping to his defense. Thats simple to understand for most.

People calling Jose and a-hole or worse went onto to list examples. He stuck his finger in an assistant managers eye, callled Wenger a specialist on failure, publically slated and then wrongfully demoted a femlae member of staff etc etc, many other examples of douchey comments listed.

People backed up there opinions. You called LVG a colossal a-hole, did you supply the examples of him being an ahole? No. Has LVG insulted his fellow professionals, has he stuck fingers in the eye of other coaches? No. LVG has conducted himself professionally.

Your reason for calling him a colossal a-hole is you don't like our brand of football and our legue position. This doesn't make him a colossal a-hole, it just means your an irrational child who resorts to name calling when things aren't going as you like.

link
This is beyond a sly dig.
After reporting this and no card being issued I PMd SlickRic. I didn't hear back from him. I PMd him on Dec 28th - given the time of year, maybe he missed it.

You're a rather strange individual

link
At the very least this would qualify as a sly dig.
After reporting this and no card being issued I PMd Gavredking. I never heard back from him.

Now, just going by the charter it looks like all of the posts I reported are card-worthy. But the mods seem to have decided to go with a more liberal approach to what is allowed on the forum. Fair enough I say, but then they need to be consistent.

I did raise this with Lord TSC before I came here and he directed me to the DRP. I've brought this to feedback instead because I am not disputing the card TSC gave me, but rather the inconsistency in moderation on the forum. As far as I can tell the DRP only works for disputing a card you have received, not cards other posts have not received, nor discussions on general moderation behaviour on the forum.

HanaleiJ5N

At first glance, it does appear you have a point. Every post you have quoted does fall foul of the "attack the post, not the poster" rule of thumb.

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

Other posters behaviour is not up for discussion. If you have a problem with a post, report it.

Pro. F

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

Other posters behaviour is not up for discussion. If you have a problem with a post, report it.

How the mods deal with all posters' behaviour is very much up for discussion. As I detailed in the OP, I did report the posts and I followed up the reports with PMs to the mods.

How do you propose we discuss the job that the mods are doing without citing examples of the job that they are doing?

bucketybuck

I would also be interested in this topic. Here is a post I recently reported:

Condescending?

That's rich coming from you, of all people.

Homer of the paid forums.

Homer the "real fan"

If being a real fan means that everything else in life plays second fiddle then you can keep the real fandom.

You are actually an anorak.

To its very core its attacking the poster and not the post. I knew Homer probably wouldn't respond or report it but felt the language and tone were completely out of line and so I did. No cards issued.

It isn't the only example, just the most recent. The United thread in particular is choc full of personal attacks, I too would like to know why they are allowed?

GLaDOS

Might be better discussing this sort of thing with a neutral sports Cmod (ie one not also modding soccer) via PM.

Pro. F

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Might be better discussing this sort of thing with a neutral sports Cmod (ie one not also modding soccer) via PM.

I'd rather discuss this out in the open. If the mods are going to change their behaviour, then it would be best that that decision is publicly available. And if they are not, then it would be good to see their reasons too. Also, a thread makes for a better discussion with wider contributions than PMs tend to. The Feedback Forum Charter says that this forum provides that opportunity, so that seems good to me.

Zaph

Issues regarding the moderation of forums are generally dealt with in Help Desk, so I've moved this from Feedback.

Beasty

Firstly I would mention I don't mind this point being raised in the open although normal practice would be to raise it directly with a CMod if you are not reaching agreement with the mod. This does give me an opportunity to make a general point about modding in the Soccer forum although it is a point I also consider valid elsewhere.

I am not going to comment on the specifics here. I am AFK with limited access for a few days but my point is more general anyway.

Even in the Soccer forum, which has very prescriptive rules, there are always going to be grey areas. Essentially that then requires mod judgement and in some cases application of mod discretion over what action mayor indeed may not be taken.

I am not for one minute going to claim all mod decisions on such circumstances are going to be 100% consistent. That's pretty much impossible to achieve as human nature will kick in. In addition (and I am not claiming this to be the case in any of the examples you mention) there may be other relevant information which is not necessarily in the public domain such as a user's wider record.

To me though the solution is simple. Stay out of the grey and in the white. Make the mod's job easy and don't post stuff they have to judge. There are plenty around here who manage to avoid any mod action. That may be down to good luck or may even be down to good behaviour. Aim for the latter. If some benefit from the former then good luck to them. However their luck will in all likelihood run out if they continue to push it.

Pro. F

Beasty wrote: »

Firstly I would mention I don't mind this point being raised in the open although normal practice would be to raise it directly with a CMod if you are not reaching agreement with the mod. This does give me an opportunity to make a general point about modding in the Soccer forum although it is a point I also consider valid elsewhere.

Thanks. By posting in the Feedback forum first I pretty much did the whole thing arseways and so didn't see this forum's charter. Thanks for dealing with it here.

Beasty wrote: »

I am not going to comment on the specifics here. I am AFK with limited access for a few days but my point is more general anyway.

Even in the Soccer forum, which has very prescriptive rules, there are always going to be grey areas. Essentially that then requires mod judgement and in some cases application of mod discretion over what action mayor indeed may not be taken.

I am not for one minute going to claim all mod decisions on such circumstances are going to be 100% consistent. That's pretty much impossible to achieve as human nature will kick in. In addition (and I am not claiming this to be the case in any of the examples you mention) there may be other relevant information which is not necessarily in the public domain such as a user's wider record.

To me though the solution is simple. Stay out of the grey and in the white. Make the mod's job easy and don't post stuff they have to judge. There are plenty around here who manage to avoid any mod action. That may be down to good luck or may even be down to good behaviour. Aim for the latter. If some benefit from the former then good luck to them. However their luck will in all likelihood run out if they continue to push it.

I am well aware that moderation is not going to be 100% consistent. I think I have even argued in the past (in SF feedback) that we can't expect that. But what we are talking about here are not small inconsistencies.

To be honest, I was well aware of all the points you have made before I started this thread. Will you be able to look at the specifics when you are back in a few days?

Beasty

I will try and have a look over the weekend. I really don't want to start analysing the details here though. My aim would be to provide ire generic comments (slough at this stage without having had time to look through those posts and any relevant background I don't want to prejudge anything either)

Pro. F

Yes that's fair enough. If you would prefer to take the discussion to PM once you've had the chance to look into it and think about it that's fine.

Beasty

I had not appreciated that all the posts you were referring to were made by a single poster. Now I don’t want to turn this onto a discussion of one poster and hence I am not going to go into any further details in connection with those posts

Looking at those specific posts in isolation I agree gives an impression of inconsistency

The posts you mention go back about a year and I’ve therefore had a more general look at the interaction between yourself and the other poster, together with some other posts from each of you over the past 12 months (which I have searched for within Reported Posts)

All I would say in connection with the behaviour of the pair of you is some of your posts are, when looked at individually, very close to or over the border of acceptability. However in my view, looking at this posting and the ways the mods have dealt with each of you overall, I do not consider there is any material inconstancy. I think you each have reason to feel very fortunate in some cases and possibly even hard done to in other cases, but overall I consider the treatment of each of you to be fair.

There is clearly an issue between the pair of you. Can I suggest you simply try and put this to one side. I am happy to PM the other poster with the same message. Any further problems from either side I would suggest PM’ing me or one of the other Sports CMods.

Pro. F

Beasty wrote: »

I had not appreciated that all the posts you were referring to were made by a single poster. Now I don’t want to turn this onto a discussion of one poster and hence I am not going to go into any further details in connection with those posts.

They are not all made by a single poster. The last quote I provided was from a different poster and the quote that Bucketybuck provided was from another poster. I can provide more posts from different posters that I have reported that weren't carded if you need. Here you go: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Beasty wrote: »

Looking at those specific posts in isolation I agree gives an impression of inconsistency

The posts you mention go back about a year and I’ve therefore had a more general look at the interaction between yourself and the other poster, together with some other posts from each of you over the past 12 months (which I have searched for within Reported Posts)

All I would say in connection with the behaviour of the pair of you is some of your posts are, when looked at individually, very close to or over the border of acceptability. However in my view, looking at this posting and the ways the mods have dealt with each of you overall, I do not consider there is any material inconstancy. I think you each have reason to feel very fortunate in some cases and possibly even hard done to in other cases, but overall I consider the treatment of each of you to be fair.

There is clearly an issue between the pair of you. Can I suggest you simply try and put this to one side.

I did not start this thread in order to complain about how the mods have dealt with the situation between myself and Your Airbag. If that had been my purpose then I would have stated it in my OP.

The fact that YA and myself have history is not a sensible excuse for why he wasn't carded for saying to other posters - not me - "your very unintelligent" and "your an irrational child." Those are obvious breaches of the charter. They weren't directed at me, so any history with me is irrelevant. So why were they not carded?

And that is before you get on to the other examples of personal abuse, which you have been provided with, from other posters that have gone unpunished.

Beasty wrote: »

I am happy to PM the other poster with the same message. Any further problems from either side I would suggest PM’ing me or one of the other Sports CMods.

I would rather if you not involve yourself in that and instead address the issue I brought to you.

Spear

It's been 4 weeks without any further responses. Normally under Helpdesk rules, that would mean closing it, but from a brief read, this doesn't seem resolved. Is that it, or is there more to be discussed?

Beasty

I had an exchange of PMs with the OP some time ago when I explained I really did not have anything more to add to what I had already said in this thread. I would suggest giving them a couple of days in case there is anything they want to add.

StringerBell

Can I ask was the OP satisfied with the exchanges you had? as the ones on thread here have done nothing to address the points that were actually raised and inspired the thread.

I understand you said you would look to make general comments but it seems to be more avoidance or deflection instead of engagement.

I would echo a lot of the sentiments regarding the huge variance in how the forum is moderated but only came across this thread tonight, just curious as to whether there was any consensus reached and if so can it be made public?

Spear

It's been another week, with no further response from the OP. I'd rather have a clearer conclusion, but there's only so long I can wait.