Dies to Removal

Originally posted by mazinger on MTGS

Sorry for the belated post Nai, but I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to thank you for all the hard work you did for the site during your shift as an administrator.

More specifically I'd like to thank you for having shown the upmost integrity during the troubled times of this site's sale to Curse, and for always having put the interests of your "constituents" at the forefront of your administrative priorities.

Also further barning what everyone else said, you will be missed. People with such moral
fibre as yourself are what this site most needs.

So I posted this in the Furry's helpdesk today and I was banned for being a troll account?

I can only guess they don't think he is a good person

Originally posted by Yanni on MTGS

Please don't think I care at all about nipples. I don't.

The idea goes against my principles, I have to admit, but then again the forum is more important than my principles.

No one, period, has a right to be a jerk without there being consequences for their actions.

-jeffbcrandall, 2013

The way I personally look at moderation and such, comes from a perspective of someone that tries to understand things from everyone's perspective. As a user, I of course fully understand the user perspective of things. Users dont want to have their own personal posting styles restricted by rules they dont agree with. Many users likely dont read through ALL the rules, and occasionally do something that is against them and get a warning/infraction. I would say its fairly rare that a user will intentionally break a rule, but it can and does happen. When people find a site they love, they want it to conform to the posting style they are comfortable with, people resist change, which is where a lot of the issues tend to come I
would imagine.

From the perspective of the mods though, the rules are there, the rules are clear, and everyone is expected to take the time to sit down, read, and understand them before ever posting in those areas of the forums. If you screw up, you get a warning, if you screw up again on the same thing, youll get an infraction. Processes of appeal exist to help weed out borderline stuff, and can always be appealed to a higher up mod in cases of continued disagreement. The mods have, in recent times, tried to take steps to be a little more lenient in regards to some of the rules to allow for more mistakes by the users that wouldnt immediately lead to a warning/infraction.

At the end of the day, its simply a clashing of styles between users that want complete (or more) freedom in posting, and the owner/admins/mods who are looking to keep the site as organized, on point, and spam/troll/flaming/etc free as possible.

I personally like the site for how much time and effort the mods put in to making
it as organized and on-point as it is. As a new user myself, I got a couple warnings and an infraction because I was still figuring stuff out. I acknowledged my mistakes, thanked the mods for letting me know and made sure to learn from those incidents and make sure not to break those rules in the future .

In the case of thread closures, sometimes threads simply get played out. After a while of nothing new really being added to the discussion about the topic, often mods will simply decide that its better to close a thread than having to take mod actions otherwise that would lead to spam infractions and such otherwise (its part of the greater leniency that the mods have been trying to practice). Ive also seen threads reopenned plenty of times when something new was potentially being brought to the table about the topic and it was requested to be reopenned. Ive made requests and had them granted for several threads in
the past in fact.

Are the mods perfect? Nope, we are all human, and there are processes in place to help take care of such issues. Otherwise from my point of view, the rules are the rules. If you disagree with a rule and can think of something better that will adequetely deal with the issues that caused the rule creation in the first place, then by all means suggest it. Its important to have such discussion in a calm and respectfull manner though.

As someone who has been suspended a few times; the moderators here are extremely understanding. Whether you think they are fair or not, they do want you to enjoy your time here and where possible, remain a valuable member of the community.

Just because you think it is unfair or ridiculous doesnt mean that they don't have very good reasons for doing what they're doing. Every time I have had an issue with the (very many) red cards that I have received, I have contacted the awarding moderator to clear the air, and while there cannot always be something done about the award, at least you're clearing the air and you can learn from the experience.

At the end of the day, they're people as well, with their own lives, work, family and
obligations. All things considered, they're pretty terrific to be putting in all that extra time and energy to make this place the valuable resource and wonderful community that it is.

Galspanic and Sene in particular, are just top blokes, even if they have given me heaps of infractions ~ I respect them because I deserved it and they did the right thing for the community.

A huge issue with the mod team is how incestuous it is. The cronyism is gross. We saw votan go from inactive user to admin in a very short time which should be disturbing to anyone. This place was on the right track when Azrael was an admin and when he left it went down hill with friend recruits instead of merit based recruits.

edit: they also aren't keen on getting rid of problem moderators. It took them long enough to axe Woapapplane and Protamin. Arcadiac is still on staff. Senori and Teia are still staffing after the WCT rules debacle.

You got me, this is all my fault
You actually made a good example with me and the "Friend recruits argument". I was approached by rianalnn to re-apply for a mod position last year because 1) I was active again and 2) they needed an experienced mod to balance and teach the new guys. I had the experience, so ria came to me and I accepted it. That could be an example of your theory, but the truth is, there wasn't anyone that met the requisites they had at the time. There were no other experinced mods to choose from. After that, ria left and I was left "friendless" on staff, so by your theory, I should have been stuck in clans or left already. Well, no, I got promoted to Global by people that I hardly knew back then and then promoted to Admin for the job I did as Global. I was Adminned by people I knew already, but that's always true when you work in a place with few people that get along.
Now, as for Woapa and Promatim, they weren't cut, they left. They were 2 great mods and I don't really
appreciate it when they are named like a cancer that had to be removed. As for Arcadic, Senori and Teia? Yeah, they are still on staff. That's what they get for doing their jobs.
You can't expect us to do our jobs perfectly. We are human. Humans make mistakes. We have a system to try and compensate for that (appeals) but I admit that some stuff may slide through the cracks. However, the idea that we just don't care, or that we single out people on purpose? I devote a lot of time to this site. Not because I get something out of it, but because I care about the people that I've met here for the past 8 years. To think that anyone would be on staff with any bad intentions.... It just doesn't fit.

Also, for another argument against cronyism: If moderation on this site was a popularity contest, I'd probably never have been
modded. The majority of the staff didn't know who I was at the time, and of those who did, opinions were mixed. I was actually a bit surprised to get in, considering I honestly thought the deck was stacked pretty hard against me.

The issue is not getting the job by cronyism, it is keeping it.

Less parts cronyism, more parts being incredibly forgiving/sympathetic/team-oriented. Arguably to an unbalanced degree.

But still, not really any new issues or impetus for anything to get resolved by revisiting this yet again.

I'd be less inclined to keep a team member if they tried to cover up bad work by kissing up. Bad work is bad work, and that needs improvement no matter what.

Truth be told, if I saw someone focused so much on kissing up, I'd be more inclined to keep a closer eye on them and being more critical of their work simply because they have the wrong motives in
mind.

Disagree. Rules are rules, favoritism hurts, and leads people to the favorite poster's continued abuse and pushing the rules, as well as a hostile environment for newer posters. It shrinks and isolates an internet community, and leads to trolling.

That's odd, because for the more than seven years since this community was founded, it's community has just continued to grow and grow and grow. Granted, 99.9% of the community isn't searching for conspiracy theories that don't exist or trying to stick their nose in the moderator's business and just let the mods do their thing. Since only a tiny handful of users and their gimmick accounts (created for the sole purpose of
trying to look like they have a larger backing than they actually do) are the only ones that seem to ever cause drama or have issues with the staff, and it's the exact same users over and over again, you'd think that'd say the staff is doing a pretty excellent job of running such a large community.

I say if the someone feels the staff is doing a bad job or are corrupt, maybe they should just leave the community and find somewhere else to troll... I mean, to participate in. No ones holding a gun to your head and making you stay here. Truthfully, if any one of the members that are usually stirring up trouble left, the 99.9% of the community that is satisfied or doesn't care (who aren't one of those users that get off on e-drama) probably won't even notice they're gone.

And before the inevitable straw man argument riddled with sarcasm claiming that ignoring a "problem" is obviously the solution? To that I say, quit fabricating problems and being the problem, and there won't be any
problem.

It's also confusing to me why one of the most dead places on the website that also has the least rules in place has five people moderating it.

Galspanic always says something different than everyone else. Good cop/bad cop, much?

You're joking with people's work and I'm sick of it

What?

I don't understand this?

There have been instances of mods receiving infractions before. Arcadic calling certain users "scumbags" and Promatim asking a user to stop posting were both carded, for instance.

Hi Teia. I hope everything is well. I vaguely remember seeing a post
in which another current mod was referring to users as scumbags. If I remember correctly, this post went unpunished. The thing is I can't use it as an example because for the life of me I can't remember who it was. You seem to have a solid grasp on the course of events, maybe you know who it was? Any help would be appreciated.

If you have something productive to say, say it, otherwise, keep it to yourselves.

What about Condoms's posts were rabble-rousing? He had basically the same complaint as rezombied.

But masterraids I could see being a rabble-rouser.

What criteria do you use and why is it different from infractions? I mean I think the only red text I saw was on masterraids.

Or is this about kicking out DTR
people?

Thanks for your input Sene.

It basically comes down to their dislike for the members of DTR.

~Snip~

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