What are you supposed to do if you cannot post a thread?

Donald Trump

I got a ridiculous warning a few weeks ago. The result of which was that I could not start any threads, including one here to ask for it to be looked at?

What is the point of having a dispute resolution forum if a poster cannot raise a dispute?

I'm after getting another wanring from the same moderator this evening for telling someone trolling me that I wasn't going to be spoonfeeding them.

Spear

What warning? I've checked back for the last few months and I don't see any threads from yourself. Who told you you couldn't start DRP threads? Please provide a link to this.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119393804#Comment_119393804

Whatever settings I was put on meant I could not create a thread. On all forums - including this one. I could still post, just not create a new thread. The button was not available to create a new one.

There also appears to be some issues with the system for warnings. They don't automatically disappear after they "expire" so I don't know whether that is by accident, or by design, but it renders the expiry date irrelevant.

Spear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119393819#Comment_119393819

There's no such functionality to do that. A common refrain regarding Vanilla in general, but there's no such system. Did someone tell you there was?

Edit: this is overly simplistic by me. The warning system can reach a point where you're banned from starting new discussions, it's not something that can be specifically or separately applied.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119393823#Comment_119393823

No. The button was not there. It was not something someone told me. I think it also said it under the "warning status" that was on my profile. Not a message from an individual person.

It might be a bug in your settings.

Donald Trump

Try to replicate it there if you want. Increase my warning level and I will tell you if it is the same. I will post you a screenshot if it is

Spear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119393830#Comment_119393830

Did your avatar change to one with bars over it during this?

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119393840#Comment_119393840

No. I could still post on existing threads. If I remember correctly, the warning banner on my profile said something to the effect that "cannot post discussions" and that "signature is hidden" .

Spear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119393849#Comment_119393849

That sounds like a warning level called jailed, but the avatar should also have changed to show bars, hence why I asked. I'll need to verify what was applied.

Donald Trump

It didn't change for me anyway. Perhaps a person doesn't see their own bars when logged into their own account?

Either way, I couldn't start anything here. I pinged the moderator to say I couldn't do it and I'd need them to start it for me, but got no response at that time.

Spear

I'll need to confirm with Niamh about the jailed state, and whether it was applied or not, and if the avatar should also be visible to yourself.

It does raise a weakness that it would prohibit someone from starting a DRP thread though.

Donald Trump

That was why I raised it.

It should be easy to replicate though.

Donald Trump

If you had had a sticky thread at the top that people could post into to request a thread be opened for them, then that would be a possible workaround.

I had thought to raise it in someone else's thread, but we aren't supposed to post in other people's thread on here.

Spear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119393927#Comment_119393927

It wasn't a foreseen or previously encountered scenario, so it wasn't known to be an issue. It may need to be an option if there's no way to make DRP an exclusion.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119393943#Comment_119393943

It may have happened to others, but because they couldn't start a thread, they couldn't raise it and just left it.

Beasty

You are at warning level 2. AFAIK it's warning level 3 where you cannot start new threads. Equally you started this thread. At level 3 you cannot even start a thread here, so it is a strange one. Alas some of our functionality was compromised when Vanilla ran an update a couple of days ago which means I currently cannot see some things related to your account. It's possible that update may have messed things up for you also. It's not even as if I can remove one of the warnings to get you down to level 1 - that's one of the functions we have lost with the update. Hopefully we will get all that functionality back before too long

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119397240#Comment_119397240

Yes, I am at level 2 now. But I had the other one a few weeks ago. I got a warning that I wanted to dispute but I couldn't post here at the time.

I don't know what way the "levels" are supposed to work but it appears that they stay even after expired. So that I had an expired "level 1" and then I'm at "Level 2"

The most recent warning was for this: It appears to have been deleted. But here is the link in case you can still see it: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119392084#Comment_119392084

It simply said:

Ask your daughter to read it for you and explain it to you. I told you that I'm not spoonfeeding you any more. You have the link. It's only short.

The poster was basically trolling me and pretending to ask nonesensical questions such as "how does a country get temporary EU status". I eventually give them a link to the EU Directive under which Ukrainians were granted temporary protection in the EU. The same poster was going on about how their daughter was denied a place in university and was asking me to write a synopsis of the directive. The same poster later said admitted they don't have a daughter.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119393869#Comment_119393869

The jail bars only appear on mobile.

Spear

Moved to Helpdesk, as there's valid discussion value in it, and it's not really an appeal.

@Donald Trump If you still want to appeal any warning, you can start an appeal thread focussed on it.

@Hotblack Desiato I have since become aware of that little catch. It's annoying that the mobile and desktop version differ in such functions.

Spear

So how the warning levels work:

Warning Level 3 means they have 3 points, etc.

There are actions taken at 3 points (Level 3) and again if they then reach 5 points (Level 5).

3= jailed, 5 = banned

Being jailed means

• A jail icon is overlaid over the user’s avatar.(only on mobile)
• The user can’t start new discussions.
• The user is flood-controlled so they can only post once every 150 seconds.
• The user’s signature is hidden.

So in the case of @Donald Trump, you're currently on level 2, but you were briefly on 3, with one then reversed. So the jail stuff did kick in, leaving you in a scenario where there's no mechanism to start a thread to dispute the warning that put you onto level 3.

Without a way to exclude DRP from it, I guess the simplest method is for anyone in such as state to PM myself or Shield, and we'll start the thread for the user in question. It's not exactly a graceful approach, but there shouldn't be too many of these cases.

Donald Trump

No. I got a warning one day for what I though was a harmless quip to a poster on some thread about landlords. The landlords always go mental and get emotional over the fact that they can't evict tenants onto the side of the street on a whim and the fact that they have to pay income tax on income they receive.

The next day, there was a thread about adoptees and rights etc. I tried to ask a very neutral question about rights accruing to providers of genetic material. I used that term because it is specific and and accurate. It is also the type of language used in legislation. I got warned and threadbanned for it. I was suddenly unable to start a thread to appeal it and ignored by the moderator in question.

Why did I use that term - well because, after adoption your parents are legally the people who adopted you - the same as it they had been your parents in the "traditional way". If you are not adopted, then your parents don't need to be the ones who provided genetic material. You can have

1) A surrogate who gives birth is the mother under Irish law. She will not have supplied any genetic material. But she is the birth mother. If a surrogate carries your child, you don't have any automatic rights. You can accrue some rights automatically if your husband/partner is registered as the father as a result of some recent changes but that still takes 3 years to vest.

2) A woman who receives an egg donation will be the birth mother, but also will not have supplied any genetic material

3) A man who is married to a woman who gives birth benefits from the legal presumption of paternity, and is automatically by default the father, whether or not he supplied any genetic material.

I wasn't asking about parents, I wasn't asking about birth parents, I was asking about the people who provide the genetic material which is neither always the same thing as parent, nor birth parent, as explained above.

The point would be that if you grant absolute rights based on provision of genetic material, then you open up a huge can of worms. You have a sperm donor who thought they were anonymous, being suddenly responsible for the resulting child. Or on the flip side, you have a sperm donor arriving on a couples step demanding access to his genetic child. Or the birth mother demanding access from the adopting parents. Or you have a rapist demanding access to a child that was conceived as a result of that rape.

So the point being that I would be surprised if there would be "very few" of level 3 cases as it happened very quickly to me.

Also, I don't know whether this is by design or not, but the warnings remain on profiles after the "expiry date". So it appears they still accumulate.