When Forum Moderators Go Bad

interesting article…

seroundtable.com/archives/013440.html

Wow Mcsash, didn’t seem too bad a comment to me.  Almost right out of the article?

“Moderators who are immoderate and partial are very destructive, damaging users’ trust. You can lose a lot of core/good members when even one mod gets rude/patronising/personal or is clearly editing in a partial or …”

your post…

"Expat…you have bigger jewels than I do to post something like this.  Congrats.
Pretty soon you will be visiting me in my domicile called the wasteland!!!
As Johnny Muslix would say…Peace "

I do not see how that fits into the following criteria…

"What is the wasteland?  Why do you move posts there?

The Wasteland is where we send threads that we don’t like.  Common reasons for moving of threads include:  liberal use of the word ‘racist,’ name calling, disruptive posts, annoying others, etc.

Basically, if one of the moderators doesn’t like the thread, he or she may move it to the Wasteland.  Moderators can choose to split the undesirable posts from the thread and move them to the Wasteland, or just move the entire thread to the Wasteland.  Moderators can also choose to lock threads, so that they cannot be continued.

Moderators do not generally remove posts.  For legal reasons, we keep all posts, even if they are moved to the Wasteland.  Posts moved to the Wasteland cannot be edited.

The Wasteland is visible to registered users only"

Mind you, there is a lot of room for interpitation in those criteria. Go figure… :unamused: :unamused: :unamused:

No, and coming from you it wouldn’t be a bad post at all.  Notice your post wasn’t moved.

But coming from Mcsash, whose only reason for posting seems to be to try and annoy, then yeah, it gets moved.

Honestly, I think that’s his gig, that’s his reason for being here – to try and annoy as much as possible.  Remember his original avatar?  Want to dig around some of his posts?  In fact, it got so bad he removed his account, so you’ll have to actually use google to read some of his older posts. 

But I’ll sum them up for you:  they were all designed to annoy.  Period.

So here’s the challenge to Mcsash:  he’s said that we should let go of the past, and let bygones be bygones.  Ok, fair enough.  But that works both ways. 

Mcsash, from now on, no mention of the moderators, of the wasteland, of karma, or how nobody loves you, ok?  If you can post stuff that’s not designed to provoke a response, then it won’t get moved.

I’ll bet you can’t.  Prove me wrong.

I have read a lot of mcsash’s recent posts and he seems to have turned over a new leaf.  This was a thread started by me,  and as much as it is you duty, job, whatever  to patrol the threads I do not see why you would view his post as being annoying to me.  I was not annoyed,  nor offended,  nor insulted.  Was this your thread,  or is all of the HTMF you domain?  Seems a bit overlordish.

I suggest you read his older posts for a better context.

But yes, let’s continue your thread.

What do you suggest is a better way of avoiding crap in our forum?  You yourself observed that threads seem to deteriorate into shit flinging. 

What’s your solution, if not moderation?

I was not suggesting crap be avoided,  just propperly and fairly moderated.  Mcsash’s post in this thread was not wasteland worthy. He was only suggesting my post was risky. why the wasteland,  please explain.

And I believe I said “Monkey poo”

Well, the problem with “properly and fairly moderated” is that it’s an opinion.  People who have their posts moved never think that it was fair, or proper. 

In my opinion, mcsash’s post was wasteland-bait.

And that’s the basis of the moderation problem – one person doesn’t like another person’s opinion about what is appropriate and what is not appropriate.

Personally, I like the wasteland system, and I have to thank TranscendingRationality for thinking it up.  Previously, we just deleted all the posts we didn’t like. 

For a while, we tried the karma system, where posters were rated, based on the ‘quality’ of their posts.  Guess who had the lowest karma on the site?  While that was a more equitable system, in that everyone was involved in rating, in the end we had to scrap it because it was perceived as popularity contest.

Even though the results were the same – mcsash had the lowest rating on the site, even when BigThumb gave him a huge “head start.”  Karma was given by all the members, not just the moderators. 

So in my opinion, until we get a better system of group moderation, then we’ll have to live with the opinions of the moderators.  By the way, there are 8 moderators.  And yes, moderators have sent my posts to the wasteland as well.

But mcsash’s post was not to you,  about you, insulting anyone, thing, idea or other.  I looks like a personal problem.  I understand that it is your sandbox,  but I thought you made this up for a melding of thoughts and ideas?  I know mcsash was off for a while,  but since back it seemd that you cannot leave the past in the past.  He seems to have tried to move on,  but through others not letting go he was sucked back in part and had to reply to assasinations of his post because people did not agree.  Like they had not better arguement other than he had bad posts in the past.  so to the wasteland.

Well, again, we disagree.  That’s the basic problem you have with moderation.  It’s an opinion of a moderator that decides when posts get moved.

“Pretty soon you will be visiting me in my domicile called the wasteland!!!”

To me, that’s baiting the moderators, and wasteland-worthy.  Basically “how dare you question the moderators, everytime I do, they move me to the wasteland!  See you there!”

It was most certainly about me, and about the way I keep moving his posts to the wasteland.  And yes, it was my personal opinion that made me move it.  That’s how moderation works, it’s the opinion of the moderator.

Ok, like I said, I’m more than willing to give him another chance, but he’s gotta get over the fact that he’s the #1 resident of the wasteland.

I don’t think he can post anything substantial, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.  I think his only purpose for coming on HTMF is to annoy and purposely get moved to the wasteland, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.

So let’s see it, let’s see Mcsash posting stuff that isn’t insulting, not moderator baiting. 

Well, I guess I’ve been proven wrong.

Here are some mcsash posts that I didn’t agree with, that  I didn’t move to the wasteland:

hackingthemainframe.com/smf/inde … #msg121158

I especially like the post where he calls someone “ma barker” and then says that he didn’t insult anyone.  Even that post wasn’t moved to the wasteland.

You know what got moved to the wasteland?  When he started whining about getting moved to the wasteland.

hackingthemainframe.com/smf/inde … 821.0.html

In fact, here’s what he says in the post that was moved to the wasteland:

So I guess even he sees some merit in his post being moved.

So yeah, he’s turned over a new leaf.  Let’s see him stick to it.  But any whining about being moved to the wasteland, etc., guess where that will end up?