Bullying

neverever1

Hi, so this is a complaint about the politics cafe forum.

I'm about to get banned from there following a campaign from 2 mods of the forum. I have to go to bed now but I will follow up with details about the campaign of bullying when I find time tomorrow and also about how the forthcoming banning is completely unjustified.

dudara

Moving to the Helpdesk as this is about specific moderation. Please note that this is a pre-moderated forum.

An accusation of bullying is very serious; please share your case with us.

neverever1

I don't know if I'm wasting my time doing this, I just hope this will be looked at objectively.

I already had a few infractions from the politics cafe and the mods have taken a dislike to me. I was accused of being obnoxious when I wasn't, then I purposely was posting in an extra nice way, that wasn't good enough and they gave me a final warning. This time I was just posting normally, I will quote all my posts in the thread so you can judge for yourself:

" How many here have claimed child benefit? Surely you should be paying it back as you don't believe in social welfare."

"Just a couple of things. Firstly don't pensions get the highest percentage cut from the 20b social welfare bill?

Secondly, 2 million people from this state benefited from social welfare in the past year. It's likely that everybody will at some stage.

Thirdly, the amount of social welfare fraud is exaggerated. The amount of people who claimed social welfare before, during and after the boom was less than 40,000.

Lastly, those stating that people on scoial welfare are living up should have a look at some facts. Jobseekers allowance adds up to 10,000 per year. They have to contribute 30 per week to their rent IF they are in receipt of rent allowance, that's of course if they can find a place available for under rent allowance threshold, if not they will have to pay extra than 30. Anyway, they're already down to 8,500. Do any of you fancy living on 8,500 per month? People who are unlucky enough to lose their jobs or can't find employment have to be looked after, should we throw everyone out on the street if they can't get a job?"

"If you can post the breakdown of all the welfare costs that would be great.

A state should look after it's people when they need it. That's my view, you may disagree.

I can only go on the data released and this article from 2013 shows that only 43,000 people who received social welfare never worked throughout the boom:
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news...-29278033.html
That includes people who were not old enough to be employed during the boom.

That example you gave is very rare. Very, very rare. Of course these people should be targeted but the truth is that most are really struggling on social welfare and would love to get a job."

"It is rare. I've already shown that just over 40,000 people remained unemployed before, during and after the boom. That's a minuscule amount of people really."

"No, people have said that the welfare bill is too high and too many people receive it.

I've said that any people scamming should be targeted, but the number is much smaller than many believe."

That's them all up to when mod 1 came in. I don't think anyone can say there's anything wrong with those posts.
Now here's the discussion between myself and mod 1:

Mod 1: Can you please provide a link to back up your claim that only 40,000 people were continuously unemployed in this time?

Your link that you provided doesn't instead it states

Quote:
As these figures reveal, 43,375 people, or one in seven of those in receipt of the €188-a-week Jobseeker's Benefit, have never made any contribution to the PRSI system, in other words, they have never been in employment.
That's not quite the same as your claim above which I've quoted.

Me: Just over 40,000 as of 2013 were in receipt of social welfare and had never worked before or at least paid PRSI. Of course this includes people who were just out of school/college so the number is really far less than 40,000.

Mod 1: Can you provide a link to back up your assertion that just over 40,000 people claimed social welfare continuously prior to the crash, during the crash and after?

You're simply not backing up your claims here

Me: Did you read the link? When you look at the unemployment rate during the boom then these numbers add up. What's the issue here? You think it was more than 40,000? You think it was less?

Mod 1: No I don't see any assertion from you backed up with any source that only 40k people continuously claimed welfare before, during the boom and afterwards.

Your link states that one in seven on welfare have never worked, which is not what you asserted.

If you are going to make claims then be prepared to back them up with valid evidence if asked.

Me: Well 40k had never worked in 2013 who were in receipt of social welfare. As someone else said some may have died or emigrated but also many were too young to be in receipt of social welfare during the boom, some would have worked on the black market so it's safe to assume that 40,000 would be at the higher range of estimates.
You have any data we can look at to state there was more?

Mod 1: I'm asking you to back up your statement that before the crash, during it and afterwards, only 40,000 people continuously claimed welfare.

It's perfectly fine to admit that you can't if that's the case, and ergo, you posted incorrect statements?

Me: I've just shown you that 40,000 is at the upper range of estimates. Do you have any data to dispute my claims?

Mod 1: You've not though, you've not provided a single link which states that DSP figures show that less than 40,000 people continuously claimed welfare prior to the crash, during it and after???

Me: I've just shown you how the figure was reached, went through it step by step. I can't make it any clearer than that.
If you can't come up with any proof that there was more than 40,000 claiming social welfare before, during and after the boom then it's perfectly fine to admit that.

As you can see continuous pestering and trolling from mod 1. They may not have been happy with my explanations but I was explaining as best I could. I wasn't breaking any rules, in fact it was the mod who was breaking the "don't be a dick" rule. Of course this mod couldn't then ban me as it would just seem to biased to be true so they called in their pal mod 2:

Mod 2: The DPD report (found after a basic search) mentions 1.4 million recipients of weekly social welfare payments in 2010 paid in respect if 2.2 million beneficiaries.
http://www.welfare.ie/en/downloads/2010stats.pdf

Please explain where you are getting your information or I shall consider you as a troll and act appropriately (and no, you haven't shown us your source).

Me: I don't know what the relevance of that link is?

The unemployment rate was 4% for the most part during the boom. As we can see from my link, only 43,000 had been in receipt of social welfare without the payment of PRSI in 2013. That means that only 43,000 had never worked a day in their lives.
As I've said, some during the boom may have died or may have emigrated but that is offshot by those who were too young to be on social welfare during the boom and those working on the black market.

Now you may not like my claims but I have attempted to back them up. I have not broken any rules including the 'don't be a dick rule'.

And that was it, obviously I knew I was getting banned at that stage and started this thread in feedback. The mods ganged up on me, one of them harassed me while the other came in later to ban me. There was loads of other people making claims on the thread but they never backed it up with anything. Not once did either of these mods ask them for evidence of their assertions. I actually gave evidence for my assertions, the only reason they attacked me was because they didn't agree with my viewpoint. It's as simple as that. Is picking on someone because they have a different opinion than you something the mods of the politics cafe should be doing?

If you got this far, thanks for reading and take your time making your verdict.

steddyeddy

Hi guys is it OK for other posters to chime in if they have relevant information on this? I feel I have experienced the same thing the OP has in the Politics Café.

neverever1

Hello. Is there any progress with this? Thanks.

The Hill Billy

steddyeddy wrote: »

Hi guys is it OK for other posters to chime in if they have relevant information on this? I feel I have experienced the same thing the OP has in the Politics Café.

Start another thread to describe your issue. If relevant, they can be merged later.

The Hill Billy

neverever1 wrote: »

Hello. Is there any progress with this? Thanks.

Hi there. I will take a look at this for you. Apologies for missing this.