Moderators and Preferential Treatment

[TheBob]

Ok first of all I'd like to say that I posted this in general talk because I wanted to make it a poll so no one's views would be public unless they wanted them to be. My question for you is the following, do you believe that the general forums are poorly moderated and that they offer preferential treatment to certain members (No need to name them)?

I would also like to offer a challenge to the Mods. I would like you to be mature enough to leave this post here so that people can respond and be allowed to voice their opinions.

[Colin]

It's natural if they like (or seem to like) some people more, I mean they are human's, they do have friends.

[madskillionaire]

sometimes they can be a bit biased, but for the most part, they are fair

[Shep]

yeh moderators should treat everybody the same when it comes to punishment or warnings, even if some people give them nba tapes and others submits downloads

[BIG GREEN]

The NLSC has one mod...me. Andrew is the webmaster and board admin. He makes the rules and i help to enforce them. 98% of what i do is approved by him. People of this board are free to voice there opinion as they please as long as it doesn't break the rules....where preferences come in here..is beyond me.

However, in all fairness...if it has seemed in the past that i have given preferential treatment to anyone..i do apologise. I will try to do my job better. However, you have a problem with the way i do stuff...you can also pm me stating your complaints. It can be discussed rationally...and sensitivly. It's a community not a "dictatorship" as someone once put it...hence(once again)..you are free to talk to me.


Formality aside, TheBob, some of your behaviour in the community has been less than professional..hence you were warned by Andrew for it. If you have a problem with that...remember that he had his reasons which i feel were more than correct. Deal with it; dont sway from the point of it and go into something else.

[LegoSHAQ]

you can also pm me stating your complaints

Yeah right Yohance.. so you can just PM back "Deal with it" as you did to me not so long ago.. Why even pretend that you don't moderate like a dictator?

[Matthew]

It's always easier to critisise.

Being a mod is like being a refereein basketball, you never win. I have no problem with the moderating. I think its fair and in the long run each decision made by Andrew or Yohance has helped the community.

I don't want either of these guys to go becuase of what they have done. They do a great job and they get virtually no reward for their hard work.

But If i dont speak for anyone else, so be it. I would like to publicly thank Yohance and andrew

[Andrew]

An interesting topic. Another one that paints Yohance and myself as those evil, corrupt moderators who do favours for their friends and treat the rest of the forum unfairly.

I'm not going to get into the whole "this could be handled privately" issue. In my opinion, to discuss the issues this way is to invite flames, stir up trouble, and undermine the authority of moderators and the administrator of the board. Such behaviour is not usually tolerated, but since you feel there is injustice, I leave the floor open.

First, I'll address your assumption that the boards are poorly moderated. A poorly moderated board would have much more in the way of flame wars than any of the general forums are currently home to. There would be several off-topic posts, flames in each topic, and people would be deleted without warning - and several people would be deleted every day.

There's only one person in the forum who can delete users - myself - and I can tell you, I do not delete an average of even one person per day. I do hand out a lot of warnings. Unfortunately, a warning from me is going to sound much more stern than one from Yohance, because I have more power, including deletion and all forms of banning.

Like Yohance, I apologise for instances where I have been truly unfair, and have let my personal feelings get in the way of my responsibilities. But you seem to imply that this happens frequently, and that the moderating in this forum is, in your words, poor.

With all due respect, your opinion on the matter is no doubt influenced by a recent incident in which I warned you about one of your posts. You seem to have interpreted this as preferential treatment for Clinton, who is my cousin. Neither Clinton nor myself endeavour to hide that fact.

It's true that I am proud of my family and have grown up with Clinton. Am I quick to rush to his defence? I'm sure that in some cases, I have been a little too quick to defend him. But Clinton has no position power in the forum. He's not an admin, and he's not a moderator. Because I am in contact with him away from the forum, I may discuss matters with him privately (and have done so before), whereas I must moderate publically for others.

There was no need to go off-topic, as the "MJ in Philly" post did, in which Clinton was mocked, from misquoting his name ("Clin"), making reference to the highly unnecessary "raped" discussion, and even though he was not called a "flaming faggot", the posts still made fun of him, one of them quite directly in relation to his 50 Cent avatar.

I would like to say that everyone is treated the same, but I can't. And for good reason. Veterans of the forum tend to get the benefit of the doubt in a lot of situations, since they have been around a long time and are valued contributors to the forum. A new member who causes trouble from the moment they are activated, posts nothing but insults and basically displays an attitude that is not welcome in the forum is going to be treated with a heavier hand. I believe this to be a fair method, since left unmoderated, a new member will continue misbehaving, while a long time poster likely got caught up in the moment.

I am not going to shy away from defending someone I know or have contact with outside of the forum, simply because I have that connection with them. Similarly, I'm going to warn anyone who attacks Yohance or myself. We're all forum members, so the rules apply to all of us. It's not unlike the fool who attacks a police officer - it's no different to attacking a civilian, but because the police officer has the power to punish, it's just asking for trouble.

I also have to ask myself, if someone will show utter disrespect and openly insult or flame an administrator/moderator, who have the authority and power to punish them, why should they treat other members of the forum any differently? If someone's going to curse at me, the only person who has power to delete their account, why would they think twice about attacking anyone else in the forum?

Moderating is not an easy position, and it's not always easy to be totally fair. You have to look at who is the worst offender, who started the problem, who continued it when they could have ignored it or put a stop to it. A lot of times, to be cliche, "you're damned if you don't, and you're damned if you do". It's hard to please everyone with your moderating, and sometimes, you just have to take action even if it means you're unpopular - as long as what you're doing is right.

To that end, we're not unlike referees. Sometimes we're going to make calls you don't like, and you're going to feel they're unfair calls, no matter what reasons we offer. That's simply human nature. When we feel we're right, we're not going to back down, neither one of us.

To ask us to be fair is within your rights. And I say, we're pretty fair most of the time. We let profanity go, even though the rules state "No profanity". We give people that latitude, that the odd swear word here and there is fine, unless it's directed at someone. Obviously, if it makes up too much of the post, it's a problem. But that doesn't usually happen, unless it's directed at someone, in which case it's a violation anyway.

We should delete posts that are in the wrong forum, but we almost always choose to move them to the correct area. There's probably been a lot of threads I've never seen that violated the rules, because Yohance has already taken care of them. We offer several warnings before deletion, and as I said, deletion is pretty rare unless there's a very good reason.

One of those reasons is our tolerance. We can only be fair for so long before we have to take a harsher approach. If repeated warnings are ignored and/or mocked, we're not going to keep being friendly and polite in our warnings. And eventually, if a member refuses to behave, they're going to be deleted.

yeh moderators should treat everybody the same when it comes to punishment or warnings, even if some people give them nba tapes and others submits downloads

I'm going to cover some old ground here, so please bear with me.

Repeat offenders and constant troublemakers are going to be watched more closely, and dealt with more severely, especially if they ignore warnings. I do not see what is unfair about that. The severity of the violation is also a factor in the warning and the punishment, as it the person's tenure and previous behaviour/violations.

It doesn't matter if a person is submitting patches or whatnot. Contributing to the main site does not equal contributing to the forum - making good posts, being a positive part of the discussion, being considerate of other members and keeping a friendly atmosphere in the forum means being a contributor to the forum.

If someone is deleted for their behaviour, signs up again (or uses a second account - another violation) and continues behaving in an inappropriate manner, they will be dealt with as if they were still posting under their former account. If you are deleted, and sign up again, it's expected that you adopt a different approach, and a positive attitude, else you obviously haven't learned anything from your deletion, hence you will be deleted again.

How you are treated by moderators depends on how you treat the forum. If you treat it as a place to run amok and cause trouble, then you'll be dealt with severely. If you are a respectful and respectable member of the community, then your punishment or warning is not going to sound so harsh. In school, they didn't threaten to expel the good kids for talking in class, and they didn't just send the bad kids out of the room for setting fire to the desk.

I'll be as fair as a human being can be. But remember, just because you disagree with a call, it doesn't mean the referee is wrong, or giving the other side preferential treatment.

[Stevan]

Going for the Longest Posts accolade there Andrew??

I'd have to agree with most of the stuff said, and it's good to see that Yohance didn't take this as a personal dig at him, which could happen since he's the only Mod...

I keep my status high and protected because I give Andrew backrubs! I got off lucky, you should see what some of the other vets have to do!!! j/k

[Legin]

I keep my status high and protected because I give Andrew backrubs! I got off lucky, you should see what some of the other vets have to do!!! j/k

shh! no one else is supposed to know!!

As for the mod issuse.....some people are never happy.....I think the mods are fine...

[Andrew]

Going for the Longest Posts accolade there Andrew??

I'm sure there's been longer. Probably more interesting ones, too.

I keep my status high and protected because I give Andrew backrubs! I got off lucky, you should see what some of the other vets have to do!!! j/k

(Bill Clinton voice) I deny ever...

[Nick]

I think the mods are fine...most of what they do isn't noticed by others...(Andrew probably already said that in his long post that i couldn't be bothered to read)

I voted for option 4 though because sometimes Andrew can be a little harsh in the deletions of people. No big deal.

I could just suggest that rather than deleting people...you could give them a warning to start with (actually it would depend on how troublesome what they did was), then delete them if the act up again.

[Andrew]

See, that's why you have to bother to read things Nick. In my post, I did outline why I appear to take a harsher stance with some users. I also mentioned an important fact - I do not delete users daily, and the amount of deletions due to guideline violations (as opposed to the removal inactive accounts) does not average out to even one per day.

As Yohance said, we'll try to be as fair as possible, but please understand why we do what we do - I did explain it fairly thoroughly in my post.

[Nick]

My bad, andy pandy (:P hehe, woops, promised i wouldn't call you that ever again hey ) ...next time i'll read the above post before posting...

[VC416]

An interesting topic. Another one that paints Yohance and myself as those evil, corrupt moderators who do favours for their friends and treat the rest of the forum unfairly.

I'm not going to get into the whole "this could be handled privately" issue. In my opinion, to discuss the issues this way is to invite flames, stir up trouble, and undermine the authority of moderators and the administrator of the board. Such behaviour is not usually tolerated, but since you feel there is injustice, I leave the floor open.

First, I'll address your assumption that the boards are poorly moderated. A poorly moderated board would have much more in the way of flame wars than any of the general forums are currently home to. There would be several off-topic posts, flames in each topic, and people would be deleted without warning - and several people would be deleted every day.

There's only one person in the forum who can delete users - myself - and I can tell you, I do not delete an average of even one person per day. I do hand out a lot of warnings. Unfortunately, a warning from me is going to sound much more stern than one from Yohance, because I have more power, including deletion and all forms of banning.

Like Yohance, I apologise for instances where I have been truly unfair, and have let my personal feelings get in the way of my responsibilities. But you seem to imply that this happens frequently, and that the moderating in this forum is, in your words, poor.

With all due respect, your opinion on the matter is no doubt influenced by a recent incident in which I warned you about one of your posts. You seem to have interpreted this as preferential treatment for Clinton, who is my cousin. Neither Clinton nor myself endeavour to hide that fact.

It's true that I am proud of my family and have grown up with Clinton. Am I quick to rush to his defence? I'm sure that in some cases, I have been a little too quick to defend him. But Clinton has no position power in the forum. He's not an admin, and he's not a moderator. Because I am in contact with him away from the forum, I may discuss matters with him privately (and have done so before), whereas I must moderate publically for others.

There was no need to go off-topic, as the "MJ in Philly" post did, in which Clinton was mocked, from misquoting his name ("Clin"), making reference to the highly unnecessary "raped" discussion, and even though he was not called a "flaming faggot", the posts still made fun of him, one of them quite directly in relation to his 50 Cent avatar.

I would like to say that everyone is treated the same, but I can't. And for good reason. Veterans of the forum tend to get the benefit of the doubt in a lot of situations, since they have been around a long time and are valued contributors to the forum. A new member who causes trouble from the moment they are activated, posts nothing but insults and basically displays an attitude that is not welcome in the forum is going to be treated with a heavier hand. I believe this to be a fair method, since left unmoderated, a new member will continue misbehaving, while a long time poster likely got caught up in the moment.

I am not going to shy away from defending someone I know or have contact with outside of the forum, simply because I have that connection with them. Similarly, I'm going to warn anyone who attacks Yohance or myself. We're all forum members, so the rules apply to all of us. It's not unlike the fool who attacks a police officer - it's no different to attacking a civilian, but because the police officer has the power to punish, it's just asking for trouble.

I also have to ask myself, if someone will show utter disrespect and openly insult or flame an administrator/moderator, who have the authority and power to punish them, why should they treat other members of the forum any differently? If someone's going to curse at me, the only person who has power to delete their account, why would they think twice about attacking anyone else in the forum?

Moderating is not an easy position, and it's not always easy to be totally fair. You have to look at who is the worst offender, who started the problem, who continued it when they could have ignored it or put a stop to it. A lot of times, to be cliche, "you're damned if you don't, and you're damned if you do". It's hard to please everyone with your moderating, and sometimes, you just have to take action even if it means you're unpopular - as long as what you're doing is right.

To that end, we're not unlike referees. Sometimes we're going to make calls you don't like, and you're going to feel they're unfair calls, no matter what reasons we offer. That's simply human nature. When we feel we're right, we're not going to back down, neither one of us.

To ask us to be fair is within your rights. And I say, we're pretty fair most of the time. We let profanity go, even though the rules state "No profanity". We give people that latitude, that the odd swear word here and there is fine, unless it's directed at someone. Obviously, if it makes up too much of the post, it's a problem. But that doesn't usually happen, unless it's directed at someone, in which case it's a violation anyway.

We should delete posts that are in the wrong forum, but we almost always choose to move them to the correct area. There's probably been a lot of threads I've never seen that violated the rules, because Yohance has already taken care of them. We offer several warnings before deletion, and as I said, deletion is pretty rare unless there's a very good reason.

One of those reasons is our tolerance. We can only be fair for so long before we have to take a harsher approach. If repeated warnings are ignored and/or mocked, we're not going to keep being friendly and polite in our warnings. And eventually, if a member refuses to behave, they're going to be deleted.

yeh moderators should treat everybody the same when it comes to punishment or warnings, even if some people give them nba tapes and others submits downloads

I'm going to cover some old ground here, so please bear with me.

Repeat offenders and constant troublemakers are going to be watched more closely, and dealt with more severely, especially if they ignore warnings. I do not see what is unfair about that. The severity of the violation is also a factor in the warning and the punishment, as it the person's tenure and previous behaviour/violations.

It doesn't matter if a person is submitting patches or whatnot. Contributing to the main site does not equal contributing to the forum - making good posts, being a positive part of the discussion, being considerate of other members and keeping a friendly atmosphere in the forum means being a contributor to the forum.

If someone is deleted for their behaviour, signs up again (or uses a second account - another violation) and continues behaving in an inappropriate manner, they will be dealt with as if they were still posting under their former account. If you are deleted, and sign up again, it's expected that you adopt a different approach, and a positive attitude, else you obviously haven't learned anything from your deletion, hence you will be deleted again.

How you are treated by moderators depends on how you treat the forum. If you treat it as a place to run amok and cause trouble, then you'll be dealt with severely. If you are a respectful and respectable member of the community, then your punishment or warning is not going to sound so harsh. In school, they didn't threaten to expel the good kids for talking in class, and they didn't just send the bad kids out of the room for setting fire to the desk.

I'll be as fair as a human being can be. But remember, just because you disagree with a call, it doesn't mean the referee is wrong, or giving the other side preferential treatment.

aight, now can we have abridged version?