Very quiet in here

But does it though? From my reading of the rules there is no appealing the first 6 warnings at all.

So while your 7th warning could be quite justified, the previous warnings may not have been.

Whatever about the bannings and lack of appeals and what not - can see why it was done, even if the idea of being banned and not being able to appeal it doesn't feel right to me at some basic level - the real thing that's made things quieter again is the bug of the hopping pages, which I presume is actually never going to be rectified at that point.

When you click into a thread and it takes forever to calm itself down, you often couldn't even be bothered trying to read it, nevermind post on it. It's a joke.

People will always blame moderation, but, honestly I think that bug has been the biggest complete disaster for the site, amongst all the bad decisions over the last four years

I'm not sure the mods need to contribute, the rules were brought in to make life easier for them and they have done what they were meant to do. Can't see anything changing.

Used to post quite a bit but nonsense moderation and agenda driven stuff diluted my interest.

I think the appeal option should start from 1 month ban

The rules that were suggested are not what we're seeing enacted now.

I see one thread where one group of posters are routinely engaged in openly abusive behaviour with no oversight from mods while anyone on the opposite side of the discussion putting a foot wrong is banned immediately and the mod responsible takes to the thread to tell everyone that said user "can't come to the forum right now".

Not being able to even read the bloody CA forum as a whole while banned is a pain as well.

I got a weeks ban for a mod perceiving me ending a post with the phrase "bye now" as sarcastic. When I argued how ridiculous that was I was issued with another week's ban for a technicality (referenced an ongoing court case but didn't discuss it, seemingly even acknowledging an ongoing case is a bannable offence now).

I've had thread bans handed to me over the years and haven't broken them, now I'm not even allowed to look at the bloody entire forum when a mod doesn't like the way I'm structuring my sentences. And when I posted on this forum about it the thread was immediately locked.

Pretty much everyone here has been around a long time, and it feels like not only are a lot of us not valued as users of the site, but we are actively being told we're not really wanted at all.

CA moderation wasn't great and a lot of us contributed to trying to make it better, and for our trouble we're having the rules we suggested twisted and used against us for what feels like very personal reasons.

On the whole I post less on boards now particularly in CA, I know I'm not alone in that. Maybe that's the idea, who knows?

Oh right. I assumed all sanctions could be appealed.

Well it is destined to go the way of the Soccer Forum so by design.

We don't agree much NZ but on this I do 100% !

An admin was very, very clear in stating multiple times that anybody who doesn't like the way things are done should just leave.

The site is unusable on mobile since last year and nobody cares, the admins don't care about complaints and the mods have free reign to act as they please.

Of course it is quiet.

Is it time to abandon the rules but still make the warnings/bans “unappealable”? The forum is, clearly, a time sink for the mods, and admins. The lighter touch moderation doesn’t seem to have done much to satisfy the type of user who had been calling for the change.

Would it be possible for mods to take an even lighter touch “approach”? Same rules apply regarding post count and no recourse for warnings etc but, now, users are free to post all the racism, misogyny, homophobia, anti immigrant, transphobia, bigotry, hatred and whatever you’re having yourself within the forum without sanction. But, once they engage of any of that nonsense outside the CA forum it’s a straight ban.

Obviously, there should be no direct personal abuse. That would still be actionable. This would keep the users who wish to “promote” these things happy and would free up the mods from having to waste their time dealing with what they deal with now. Once it’s all contained in that forum, and everyone is aware of the rules, it would allow the rest of the site to run, more, normally.

Anyone who wishes to discuss politics seriously still have the Politics forum.

I think the issue Emmet is that some people's views on what constitutes "racism, misogyny, homophobia, anti-immigrant, transphobia, bigotry, hatred and whatever you fancy yourself" differs substantially to what you class it as.

You may feel that an opinion that most would find reasonable, as something that fits into one of your categories. You just want them all to be in one place so you and "others" like you can just post away and confirm with "other people" that you are correct.

That will be the true death of a discussion forum.

Thanks. But no. Topics like this can be subjective. So if I was to call someone "Queer" that might offend someone, it would depend on the context, the relationship I had with them and the intention. It is no longer a slur, but someone who chose to read it the wrong way could take it up as such.

Dictionary definitions are important, I grant you that. But I think you are selective when you choose to believe when words actually describe something.

Which is my point really.

If you say something a moderator doesn’t agree with you get banned..