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This is just pointless. Why is someone getting banned for doing the exact same thing that a poster did above them but the above poster doesn't even get a warning?
The mod queue being how we decide if someone gets banned is just dumb. I check the user/janitor thing every time I'm here and it's like half of the reported comments (which I assume is how they get there) is because someone disagreed with them and they're using the report as an extra downvote. And it's obvious that is skews in one political direction as well, maybe because they're a smaller portion of the people here or maybe it's just their way because it certainly is on places like reddit. But using that as an excuse is surely just going to end up with people deciding the only way to decide what is acceptable on the site is just mass reporting everything they disagree with.
I still don't understand why the mods here can't ever ban people for the things they do that are bad but instead keep a secret tally of bad things that they don't disclose and then ban them for all those things when they do something less egregious. And almost always in a baited argument where the person doing the baiting does not even get a warning.
Because he was very consistent.
He has been warned. Banned once, to no apparent effect. This is all public record.
So when I check the queue and see exhibits A, B, C, I don’t think there’s been a mistake. Dude just really hates his political enemies. If he can’t keep that in check when he’s posting, then I’m going to ban him.
It is disappointing, because he’s obviously a smart guy who asks reasonable questions. He just also does this.
So exhibits a, b, c, are warnings that were not warned or bans that didn't happen? How is it consistent to hold those posts against him if they apparently didn't break the rules? Is it not exactly like I said that those posts are part of a debt that leads to a ban that neither he nor anyone else is aware of?
You are failing to understand the evidence presented.
Exhibits A, B, and C are all examples of rule-breaking; they did not recieve mod action because he ate a ban for a fourth comment concurrently in the queue. When that happens, we ban and comment for one such post message and then dismiss the reports on the other examples, rather than adding a separate formal warning for each individual infraction.
He has been reported many times, four of those reports drew formal warnings, and a fifth drew a tempban. He has now drawn a second, longer temp-ban for another spate of rule-breaking. The exhibits will not go on his permanent record, any more than the majority of his previous infractions have. On the other hand, we have working memory, and even if we didn't his comments are publicly available and can be perused by anyone at any time.
Do you recognize that, formally warned or not, the "exhibits" provided are good examples of bad posting? If so, then it should be easy to understand that those who make a maintain a habit of posting in that manner will have some of their posts reported, elevating them to the attention of the mods, who will warn and then ban them. The solution to this is to not post in such a manner, and if you are posting in such a manner, to read and internalize the rules and cease to do so.
If you find the rules or the mod interpretation of them difficult to grasp, feel free to ask questions and I'll personally be happy to answer them.
I understand them well enough, now. You can just call me stupid and not be passive aggressive about it, I'm an adult.
I would have no problem with him being banned if the person that instigated the events were even just warned but they weren't in this case or in the others. The rules are different for each poster. Wildcard rule, whatever. I disagree that this is a good way to do things but I stand by the fact that it's simply unfair for seemingly no reason other than accumulation. In most situations the instigator is held to a higher standard than the responder. But not here. It's fair and right that there should be consequences and even if you had given steve a permanent ban but had given the original instigation a warning I would have thought it was a better response than just ignoring someone basically calling anyone who makes a certain argument a pedophile and not even getting an informal warning.
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The mod queue is not how "we" decide if someone gets banned. It is one of several things that the mods consider. It is never the sole consideration, but if you have a whole bunch of comments in the mod queue because you're on a rage-posting spree, we are more likely to say "This guy needs a time out." @SteveKirk's post above was bad enough to earn a ban (because of his growing record of tantrums, which incidentally precede this account, because I know exactly which previous permabanned account he used), but the fact that he was posting many comments like this certainly warranted mention.
This is true, unfortunately.
This is absolutely not true. You see the volunteer queue; we see the actual reports and who made them. The majority of reports are indeed from individuals who use the report tool as a super-downvote button or to express their dislike of the poster. (Waves to all my haters.) I can assure you there are plenty of rightists who do this. In fact, I think you have the numbers reversed; leftists are a smaller portion of posters here, hence the majority of reports come from right-leaning people, and rightists are definitely not less prone to reporting posts because someone disagreed with them. There are a number of people who seem to reflexively report anyone arguing with them as "antagonistic." (You know who you are. Yes, we notice.) Most of them are not lefties.
There are people who do this. We are not stupid and we see the reports.
Again, untrue. Contra @The_Nybbler's usual ankle-biting (he's been singing this same song for years even though he's been very patiently walked through the errors in his thinking multiple times), it's not an "authority tactic." Our moderation is about as transparent as it can be; we post warnings and bans publicly. Our tally is not "secret" except in the sense that only mods can see your mod log (in which we record all past infractions so that we have them to refer to and know if we've seen this behavior before). We tell you when you are accumulating a record that's likely to result in increased consequences. We usually point to those past infractions when we start applying them.
When someone gets banned for something "less egregious" it's because they've been a persistent bad actor and told to stop doing that. There is such a thing as "the last straw." If you call me a jerk once, you'll probably get a warning. If you've been namecalling for months and getting repeatedly warned and banned for it, then the next time you call me a jerk, you might get a permaban. Anyone who claims this comes as a surprise is not being honest.
We are not secret police collecting dossiers on people we don't like; we tell you what you're doing and why you're being modded (and ask you to stop). Almost always, the people who get permabanned are the people who tell us (implicitly or explicitly) "Fuck you and your rules."
Unsurprisingly, a lot of moderation occurs in the context of a heated argument, and equally unsurprisingly, the person modded (and his supporters) almost always think the other guy started it. Sometimes we agree and warn both participants; sometimes we don't.
What level of evidence would be required to convince you that there are good-faith concerns about your recurring behavior instead of just flippantly dismissing the topic whenever it comes up?
I have in the past, more than once, indulged people who wanted another round of "Complain about the moderation" (or me, specifically). It always turns out to be a mistake, because while people do sometimes have valid concerns (and whether you believe this or not, I listen and have changed some of the ways I respond over the years as a result), it is mostly just people who are angry because they don't like how moderation works, and mostly they don't like how moderation works because they think we're being too hard on their tribe and not hard enough on the other tribe.
So no, I don't flippantly dismiss the topic every time it comes up, but on the other hand, the "level of evidence" that would be required to convince me that whatever bad thing you think about me is true would be rather high. For starters, I would have to be convinced it's not coming from personal or tribal animosity, and you'd have to show me where the "recurring behavior" is not "You modded someone I don't think you should mod, and you didn't mod someone I think you should mod, and also I don't like your tone."
You, specifically, would have a particularly high bar, because you are precisely one of those people I've referred to in the past who uses the mod queue as a super-downvote button to report people making arguments you don't like. Thus in my mind, you have fallen into the bucket of "tribal warriors whose complaints are mostly made in bad faith." Trying to convince me otherwise would require you to make an argument that doesn't match that pattern.
Then, I would wonder why, if you think I am such a bad mod, you have not raised these concerns with the other mods. Oh, you say, that would be pointless because we're a clique and will never police each other? Well, while it's certainly true one person (or multiple people) complaining is not going to convince any of us that someone is a bad mod, we do actually discuss it when users complain! And sometimes we have disagreements about how moderation should be done. Sometimes in general, and sometimes about specific people or posts. You will have to take my word for it that if I was out of line, it would be discussed amongst ourselves.
But sure, go ahead. Give it your best shot. What are your good faith concerns about my recurring behavior? I promise to at least give you a non-flippant answer, though it may not be one that satisfies you.
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I'll have to take your word for it as it's all I have, but, like a certain New York City rental bike situation, I know that you and I see the world in different colors.
Anyway, if you want users to not post in a certain way then warning them privately is a pretty bad way of getting other users to know what's okay to post. I've never gotten a private warning but I've read many posts from SteveKirk in the past weeks and months and I'm sure there are some that got warnings I didn't see but this ban is the only one that points out to others that it's not an okay way to post. "Accumulating a record" that no one can see, and only the person who has the record knows that and only then they get to know only by accumulation doesn't seem transparent at all. Not for others or even the person with the record. Especially because "having a record" is the A.#1 reason why anyone gets banned on this site.
It would only be anecdotal evidence, but as someone who clicks on the volunteer button on a regular basis I think that Amadan's comments ring true, at least when it comes to reports. I see a lot of comments that I can tell got reported for reasons of "this person disagrees with me" rather than the actual quality of the post.
Yeah, I said it was like over half the reports in the janitor queue. We disagreed on how often the reports were "super downvotes" for being too left or too right.
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No you don't, and no we don't.
Who said anything about warning them privately? We rarely communicate with people via DMs. Warnings and bans are public. "Stop posting like this or you will be banned" is a very common thing we tell people, and even if we don't say it explicitly, if you get banned for a day, then do the same thing and get banned for week, then do it again and get banned for two weeks, you should be able to do the math.
The fact that you think the world operates on the same level with the same understanding for all people is ridiculous. I saw a clear insult receive no warning and you get to say it's not an insult and to not believe my lying eyes because the person who insulted back got some warnings earlier. I accept I don't see everything but I see what I can see, I didn't see most of the warnings that netstack brought up in the other post but I stand by what I've said. You enforce the rules haphazardly and based on divination that's impossible to understand from the outside looking in and then say everything is completely transparent expecting everyone to know everyone else's posting history by default. In most of those examples his seething is preceded by someone needling him and arguing in bad faith that does not get a warning or anything at all. The fact that you can just say "no," and then say you're the arbiter of reality is honestly breathtaking in its rudeness and smugness.
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It's a standard authority tactic. It means there's no argument that whatever you did didn't deserve the punishment.
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