Thread: Town Hall Discussion: Feedback wanted on rules, moderation, banning procedures, etc.

I think that Topscribe should just run this whole forum
Thats my newest suggestion

Originally Posted by JayCutler4MVP!!!

I think that Topscribe should just run this whole forum
Thats my newest suggestion

What happened to your man crush on Tned???

Originally Posted by Watchthemiddle

What happened to your man crush on Tned???

It might slowly be moving on to Topscribe.

Originally Posted by JayCutler4MVP!!!

It might slowly be moving on to Topscribe.

At Tops age, you can move pretty slow....

^ but naw Tned will always be the man.
He cant get off the hook that easily.

Originally Posted by topscribe

Once again, you could not be more wrong than you are here. Tned gave up
the right to take anything away by himself. He does not have the right to
do as he pleases because he denied himself the right and gave his word.

He did not set forth the rules, and he will not be revising them. The Advisory
Board set forth the rules, and it will be the Advisory Board that will revise
them. Tned's power is limited to 1/7 of the Advisory Board . . . that's all.
I know. I was here in the beginning, before there was a message board.
I helped to create it and the Advisory Board.

I already said the ONLY circumstance in which he would make an exception
to this is if he or the message board was faced with legal repercussions.
That's it.

This is very important to understand. The power base to Broncos Forums is
the Advisory Board. The Advisory Board is made up of posters . . . regular
posters . . . who represent YOU, the posters on this message board. This
means a couple things to you:

1. The comments you make in this Town Hall forum and this thread help to
shape the government and create, revise, and remove rules.

2. Posters who disagree with a Mod's action with them have a place to go
to appeal that action . . . to other posters just like them. (As I said, the
Mods are not voting members of the Advisory Board.)

It is very, very important . . . critical . . . that this is understood because
you cannot experience this type of peace of mind and assurance unless you
know you have it and you exercise your rights here.

I hope I made myself clear this time because this is the way it is.

-----

Top, I know what your saying,

But your missing my point. No one gave us our constitutional rights. We received them at birth. If one person owns something he has the right to give the power to whom ever he sees fit because he is the owner. Do you think those who have been "given" the power now have a right? NO! Beings they were "given" the power they have a privilege.

They didn't earn or buy the power so it is only theirs because the person with the power gave it to them. Therefore it could be taken away and gave to someone else. Rights can't be taken away!

Do we have the right to drive or is it a privilege? Do we have the right to hunt or is it a privilege? Both can be taken away therefore no right actualy exists. I don't agree with it but with the power we gave our lower none constitutional courts, we exchanged our rights for privileges.

I'm not sure this is important to the discussion here? The main thing members need to know is that, the way Tned wants this set up is that we the members have a voice in the way things are done here. So yes every voice counts, because the only person with a "right" here said so.

If Tned felt those in charge of deciding who gets what they want were not representing this board in the way he sees fit, then he will take their power away and give it to someone who he believes will do a better job. As he has the "right" to do.

Originally Posted by fcspikeit

Top, I know what your saying,

But your missing my point. No one gave us our constitutional rights. We received them at birth. If one person owns something he has the right to give the power to whom ever he sees fit because he is the owner. Do you think those who have been "given" the power now have a right? NO! Beings they were "given" the power they have a privilege.

They didn't earn or buy the power so it is only theirs because the person with the power gave it to them. Therefore it could be taken away and gave to someone else. Rights can't be taken away!

Do we have the right to drive or is it a privilege? Do we have the right to hunt or is it a privilege? Both can be taken away therefore no right actualy exists. I don't agree with it but with the power we gave our lower none constitutional courts, we exchanged our rights for privileges.

I'm not sure this is important to the discussion here? The main thing members need to know is that, the way Tned wants this set up is that we the members have a voice in the way things are done here. So yes every voice counts, because the only person with a "right" here said so.

If Tned felt those in charge of deciding who gets what they want were not representing this board in the way he sees fit, then he will take their power away and give it to someone who he believes will do a better job. As he has the "right" to do.

I'm very interested in political philosophy . . . but not here.

I just want the members to know what the situation is on this board. And
what you are implying (not intentionally, I'm sure) is that Tned is dishonest
enough to break his word. Trust me: He is not. Believe me, everything has
not gone the way he would like. But he gave the Advisory Board the power,
and they will have the power from here on out.

What that means to us, the members, is that we have a VOICE in what
transpires here, regarding rules and regulations and environment . . . you,
the regular members even more than we, the Mods, in fact.

But this thread is getting side-tracked with this discussion. Let's turn
it back to feedback on rules, moderation, banning procedures, and
whatever else you members can think of to help the Advisory Board
with their decisions.



-----

Originally Posted by Watchthemiddle

For a member that was banned many times on Mania for numerous reasons...and finally perminantly, I always felt it was a good idea for it to be openly discussed on why someone was banned. And this is from someone who was banned.

Its my honest opinion that the reason Mods don't want it discussed is that its not because they fear it will humiliate the member being banned, its because they fear it will bring humiliation on them as Mods.

It could go both ways, but I feel its more to protect the mods and backlash for banning someone for petty reasons more so then to protect the member.

Great input, WTM...

But there was never a rule against you discussing it when you returned. If I remember right, you often did. Under that kind of rule set, often it IS the mods who get ridiculed because they will allow you (not specifically, mind you) to tell your side of the story without backing up theirs, provided you don't start flat out telling lies about them or completely embellishing. i.e. "I didn't do anything at all. I got a nasty PM from that LT guy and he said if I didn't stop posting, he'd ban me. I think he got in trouble for it, cause I'm back!"

Believe me, it would be much easier at times and it's often tempting to tell what happened. I haven't banned many regular members on mania other than spammers... but the few times I can think of off the top of my head were often because they couldn't take a simple warning and decided to cuss me out in a PM. I think most members of that board wouldn't hold it against me if I came out publically with the whole story, but the regulations there prohibit me from doing so.

I don't mind that at all... it's what I'm used to there... but believe me... I've taken more lumps for it.

Edit: Merry Christmas!

Often times, and maybe LT will back me as this as we are both mods on other sites, feedback from situations like that often times helps moderators be better at what they do. Constructive critisizm is always welcome as far as I'm concerned.

Originally Posted by LordTrychon

Great input, WTM...

But there was never a rule against you discussing it when you returned. If I remember right, you often did. Under that kind of rule set, often it IS the mods who get ridiculed because they will allow you (not specifically, mind you) to tell your side of the story without backing up theirs, provided you don't start flat out telling lies about them or completely embellishing. i.e. "I didn't do anything at all. I got a nasty PM from that LT guy and he said if I didn't stop posting, he'd ban me. I think he got in trouble for it, cause I'm back!"

Believe me, it would be much easier at times and it's often tempting to tell what happened. I haven't banned many regular members on mania other than spammers... but the few times I can think of off the top of my head were often because they couldn't take a simple warning and decided to cuss me out in a PM. I think most members of that board wouldn't hold it against me if I came out publically with the whole story, but the regulations there prohibit me from doing so.

I don't mind that at all... it's what I'm used to there... but believe me... I've taken more lumps for it.

Edit: Merry Christmas!

My point wasnt that you needed to tell the whole story. Just that the person is banned and a short explanation why.
Believe me, nothing is more annoying than a bunch of threads turning into rumour speculation how come this or that was banned.

Originally Posted by Jim

Often times, and maybe LT will back me as this as we are both mods on other sites, feedback from situations like that often times helps moderators be better at what they do. Constructive critisizm is always welcome as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, absolutely! Constructive is a key word there... but I love good discussion. The fact that such discussion here can directly affect policy is great, and why I come here.

Originally Posted by haroldthebarrel

My point wasnt that you needed to tell the whole story. Just that the person is banned and a short explanation why.
Believe me, nothing is more annoying than a bunch of threads turning into rumour speculation how come this or that was banned.

It's more of a headache to the moderators than the members, from my perspective... and always considered dealing with that particular headache as just something that I did because it was good for the community.

Now's the time to decide whether or not that's what's good for this particular community.

Originally Posted by LordTrychon

Great input, WTM...

But there was never a rule against you discussing it when you returned. If I remember right, you often did. Under that kind of rule set, often it IS the mods who get ridiculed because they will allow you (not specifically, mind you) to tell your side of the story without backing up theirs, provided you don't start flat out telling lies about them or completely embellishing. i.e. "I didn't do anything at all. I got a nasty PM from that LT guy and he said if I didn't stop posting, he'd ban me. I think he got in trouble for it, cause I'm back!"

Believe me, it would be much easier at times and it's often tempting to tell what happened. I haven't banned many regular members on mania other than spammers... but the few times I can think of off the top of my head were often because they couldn't take a simple warning and decided to cuss me out in a PM. I think most members of that board wouldn't hold it against me if I came out publically with the whole story, but the regulations there prohibit me from doing so.

I don't mind that at all... it's what I'm used to there... but believe me... I've taken more lumps for it.

Edit: Merry Christmas!

Thank you for that. As a Mod, I am not against publicly announcing a ban,
and I am not against publicly discussing a Mod. I feel that if I conduct my
job to the best of my ability, honestly and fairly, then I should not be afraid
of public scrutiny. I don't mean a poster's hijacking a thread by flying off
and flaming a Mod (or anybody, for that matter). But the Town Hall forum
should be open to such discussions, as well as the other matters here.

IMHO.

NOTE: Of course, there is one difference here: A Mod cannot put a ban on
a poster. The Mod can only submit that poster to the Advisory Board, who
in turn decides whether to ban/suspend and how long it will be. I believe
that serves as an assurance to the members here that such an action
would be less arbitrary that it might at the hands of one individual in the
heat of the moment. (As Senior Mod, I can "temp-ban," but only a 24-hour
type of thing, pending the Board's subsequent action. That would be done
only to stop an upheaval on the board.)

-----

Originally Posted by topscribe

Thank you for that. As a Mod, I am not against publicly announcing a ban,
and I am not against publicly discussing a Mod. I feel that if I conduct my
job to the best of my ability, honestly and fairly, then I should not be afraid
of public scrutiny. I don't mean a poster's hijacking a thread by flying off
and flaming a Mod (or anybody, for that matter). But the Town Hall forum
should be open to such discussions, as well as the other matters here.

IMHO.

NOTE: Of course, there is one difference here: A Mod cannot put a ban on
a poster. The Mod can only submit that poster to the Advisory Board, who
in turn decides whether to ban/suspend and how long it will be. I believe
that serves as an assurance to the members here that such an action
would be less arbitrary that it might at the hands of one individual in the
heat of the moment. (As Senior Mod, I can "temp-ban," but only a 24-hour
type of thing, pending the Board's subsequent action. That would be done
only to stop an upheaval on the board.)

-----

Should discussion of moderators actions become public... you'll want to also want to discuss how much moderators are allowed to respond too. I don't know if that's a discussion for here and now though...

Edit: Even though Mods here cannot ban (I couldn't for a long time on that other place either) the same goes for all moderator actions... discussion of deletions, closures... warnings... hell... even stickies.

Originally Posted by haroldthebarrel

My point wasnt that you needed to tell the whole story. Just that the person is banned and a short explanation why.
Believe me, nothing is more annoying than a bunch of threads turning into rumour speculation how come this or that was banned.

Because of what you described, all the speculation/questioning posts, we as a community need to decide if the preference would be to state reasons (even if somewhat generic) why a poster was banned.

Originally Posted by tnedator

Because of what you described, all the speculation/questioning posts, we as a community need to decide if the preference would be to state reasons (even if somewhat generic) why a poster was banned.

IMO, I feel everyone should be accountable for their actions. If there is no fault to be found with the mod for the banning then why shouldn't it be brought out?

If there was a special forum for this it would help keep it out of of the other forums. Plus, if we know the reasons so and so got banned we would know what is acceptable and what is crossing the line.

I really like the idea of only the advisory board being able to permanently ban someone. If they have access to all the information they will be able to determine if the offense is deserving of getting kicked off for good.

If we allow temporary bannings by the mods, then the members should have access to the advisory board so they can plead there case for the future.