Moderator Action

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Rorthron
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Moderator Action

Post by Rorthron »

We have set up this thread to explain any situations where moderators have to take action regarding forum members. We think it is important that these things are handled transparently. We also hope it is very rarely used.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by Rorthron »

C.Born

In the early hours of Wednesday morning C.Born made a post in the off-topic section that broke forum rules. The post was a tirade against third parties that C.Born called "Nazis" and "the Mafia". The post was deleted by a moderator. C.Born was sent a PM explaining the decision and politely asking him not to make similar posts in future.

Over the following few days C.Born sent the moderators a series of increasingly irate and aggressive PMs. The moderators explained the moderating decision and repeatedly asked C.Born not to make similar posts. In the last moderator reply C.Born was advised that the moderators' decision was final.

In protest C.Born made a post on Sunday evening withdrawing his consent for SC to distribute games. He is, of course perfectly entitled to withdraw such consent, and SC will remove his titles as a result. However, in the same post he also delivered a short tirade on the subject he had three times been warned to avoid. His post was therefore deleted and his account suspended.

It is regrettable that the incident escalated to the point where a user had to be banned. It is not a situation any of us wanted to happen. However, it was made necessary by C.Born's repeated refusal to accept the moderators' decision.

We hope this clarifies the situation.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by 5MinuteRetro »

Rorthron wrote: Mon Mar 05, 2018 10:20 pm C.Born

In the early hours of Wednesday morning C.Born made a post in the off-topic section that broke forum rules. The post was a tirade against third parties that C.Born called "Nazis" and "the Mafia". The post was deleted by a moderator. C.Born was sent a PM explaining the decision and politely asking him not to make similar posts in future.

Over the following few days C.Born sent the moderators a series of increasingly irate and aggressive PMs. The moderators explained the moderating decision and repeatedly asked C.Born not to make similar posts. In the last moderator reply C.Born was advised that the moderators' decision was final.

In protest C.Born made a post on Sunday evening withdrawing his consent for SC to distribute games. He is, of course perfectly entitled to withdraw such consent, and SC will remove his titles as a result. However, in the same post he also delivered a short tirade on the subject he had three times been warned to avoid. His post was therefore deleted and his account suspended.

It is regrettable that the incident escalated to the point where a user had to be banned. It is not a situation any of us wanted to happen. However, it was made necessary by C.Born's repeated refusal to accept the moderators' decision.

We hope this clarifies the situation.
Hmm. I departed the other place largely because of unjustified (or unjustifiable) censorship, disappearing posts and seemingly-kneejerk bans. I like this place plenty and would hate to see it head down the same path.

Transparency is good, and this explanation certainly has merit. However, I admit to feeling a little uncomfortable about an account being banned without more information and/or a right to reply.

Perhaps C.Born should be given a right to reply, on this forum? I'd be fine with such a post being edited to remove gratuitous profanities but I would like to hear the other side of this story.

Perhaps other users will pile in to confirm that whatever C.Born posted originally really was beyond the pale?

Just my tuppence, and I'll shup up now. :)
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by dfzx »

5MinuteRetro wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:14 am Hmm. I departed the other place largely because of unjustified (or unjustifiable) censorship, disappearing posts and seemingly-kneejerk bans. I like this place plenty and would hate to see it head down the same path.

Transparency is good, and this explanation certainly has merit. However, I admit to feeling a little uncomfortable about an account being banned without more information and/or a right to reply.

Perhaps C.Born should be given a right to reply, on this forum? I'd be fine with such a post being edited to remove gratuitous profanities but I would like to hear the other side of this story.

Perhaps other users will pile in to confirm that whatever C.Born posted originally really was beyond the pale?

Just my tuppence, and I'll shup up now. :)
A lot of people departed the other place because of the endless bickering and flaming. The people Spectrum Computing has attracted all seem like good hearted Spectrum enthusiasts, and the SC moderators seem even handed and trustworthy.

Personally, I hope no one piles in to confirm anything about what C.Born might have said or done. Just trust the SC moderators.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by 5MinuteRetro »

dfzx wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:35 am Personally, I hope no one piles in to confirm anything about what C.Born might have said or done. Just trust the SC moderators.
I said I'd shut up and meant to but... I certainly didn't mean that line to sound like an invitation to pitchfork-wielders everywhere, and I unreservedly apologise that it came across that way.

Scott.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by Ralf »

I like this transparency.

By the way - which rule was exactly broken by C.Born? Was it avoiding politics or something else?
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by R-Tape »

5MinuteRetro wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:14 am Hmm. I departed the other place largely because of unjustified (or unjustifiable) censorship, disappearing posts and seemingly-kneejerk bans. I like this place plenty and would hate to see it head down the same path.

Transparency is good, and this explanation certainly has merit. However, I admit to feeling a little uncomfortable about an account being banned without more information and/or a right to reply.

Perhaps C.Born should be given a right to reply, on this forum? I'd be fine with such a post being edited to remove gratuitous profanities but I would like to hear the other side of this story.

Perhaps other users will pile in to confirm that whatever C.Born posted originally really was beyond the pale?

Just my tuppence, and I'll shup up now. :)
I'm uncomfortable too. After the original thread deletion he did go apesh*t, but honestly I think all 4 of us admins could have done more to avoid it ending in a ban. I find this a very tricky case with a lot of grey areas, it's a bleeding nightmare.

I think we have some lessons to learn here to avoid crossing the Rubicon without even realising.
dfzx wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:35 am Just trust the SC moderators.
Good god don't do that! We should be held to account for what we do or don't do.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by Hikaru »

dfzx wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:35 am Personally, I hope no one piles in to confirm anything about what C.Born might have said or done. Just trust the SC moderators.
That's a good one considering they don't trust their userbase in the first place

OT: bans over nothing, /sc/ edition
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by Sokurah »

5MinuteRetro wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:14 am Perhaps other users will pile in to confirm that whatever C.Born posted originally really was beyond the pale?
I didn't see his original post, but you can take a look here.
It's probably the same as he posted here ... and as you can see he's clearly disturbed/unhinged/overly anxious/paranoid/etc.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by Ast A. Moore »

Sokurah wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 2:25 pm he's clearly disturbed/unhinged/overly anxious/paranoid/etc.
Other than the fact that he is disturbed by that particular issue and expressed his feeling the best way he could, the rest is not clear at all. Calling him unhinged, overly anxious, and paranoid, is conjecture at best. If anything, he deserves compassion and an attempt at understanding, given the fact that we call ourselves a community.

Personally, I believe that this incident undermines the authority of the moderators more than if the thread in question were left unattended. And I’m not sure who’s come out looking more “paranoid” and “overly anxious” in the end—C.Born or the moderators.

We’re off to a not very good start, are we?
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by Nomad »

I know its the internet but how hard is it to admit to a mistake? :lol: The guy was given lots of chances to have an alternative outcome.

Just a personal thing but I don't see the point of off topic stuff like that. If someone wants to discuss conspiracy theories or politics there are lots of places that it can be done and people want to read it. On a retro forum not so sure. I know for myself I do the whole programming 8 bits to escape from all that stuff :lol:

Moderators and admins have a difficult job, and I guess there is always the comparison to other retro forums so its kind of a tough balancing act. To strict and people will complain but if you let anything go then its going to become a difficult environment for people to focus on the main topic that is supposed to unite us in common interest (the spectrum).
Last edited by Nomad on Tue Mar 06, 2018 3:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by PeterJ »

We set-up the forum to talk about the ZX Spectrum Computer. We are new to forum admin and I supported the route taken. If you read the posts elsewhere and you think that is acceptable then I'm afraid we are on very different pages. We tried every pathway open to communicate and calm things down.

We wanted to be a different forum and focused on the Spectrum.

Regarding the other point from [mention]Hikaru[/mention] we allow two hours editing. I'm not aware of any other forum that offers longer. We did listen to users and kept it at this time.

You are right, this is not a good start. More info will follow.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by Ralf »

Most of us actually don't know what were his posts here and which rules he broke.

Which raises an question. I understand that posting offensive posts isn't allowed here. But what about "crazy" posts? That vaccines kill you, world is ruled by reptillians, there is some conspiracy and someone was abducted by aliens? ;) Okay or not?
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by PeterJ »

[mention]Ralf[/mention] It was similar to the post on the other site. The reference to Nazi's breaks a number of the rules. As said earlier we did try and reason with him a number of times.

The role of an admin is hard, and you can never please all the people all the time.

As said earlier, this is a ZX Spectrum forum.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by Spud »

What will happen when Roger Jowett finds this place :lol:

By the way I disagree. I think we're (well you're) off to a very good start. This place has been a haven for 5 months, it has been wonderful. If someone is asked to stop being a dick, yet continues to be a dick despite being repeatedly asked to stop being a dick I would expect a suspension to be totally reasonable.

At least the Admin had the decency to be transparent about it. I could understand the concern and uproar if SC had suddenly announced it was getting into bed with the ZX Vega+ crew.

All seems to be a storm in a tea cup to me.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by Ralf »

Thanks for the explanation.

One more final comment from me.

What would you say about temporary bans - for a week or a month?

So a person involved could cool down and rethink his attitude?
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by Hikaru »

[mention]PeterJ[/mention] For better or worse, certain arrangements of things correspond to certain states of affair. Although in a sense you are right I guess, the final nail in that particular coffin was amazingly the 'userbase not trusting itself' factor, something I haven't quite seen before on the internet.

You guys are of course free to run this website however you see fit.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by AndyC »

All seems perfectly sensible and appropriately transparent if you ask me. If the ramblings that were problematic were more spectrum centric then maybe more of a discussion would make sense (though when you start by invoking Godwin it's all a bit pointless attempting reasonable discussion)

So far I think SC has been doing a great job of keeping the focus as it should be without being overly strict and long may that continue. Moderating a forum is a pretty thankless task at the best of times and I think being transparent about decisions that had to be taken is the best way to keep folks on board.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by Rorthron »

Hi, all

Sorry for the relative radio silence, but time has been very limited today. I will try to answer all the points and questions people have raised.
5MinuteRetro wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:14 amHmm. I departed the other place largely because of unjustified (or unjustifiable) censorship, disappearing posts and seemingly-kneejerk bans. I like this place plenty and would hate to see it head down the same path.
I can assure you all the mods share your view.

I know that many in the Spectrum community are rightly very sensitive about these subjects, given some of the moderating decisions made elsewhere, but please understand that the mods here have absolutely no desire to follow the same path as others. The censorship was absolutely justified in my opinion. This was also not a knee-jerk reaction. The moderator team spent a huge amount of time deliberating these issues.

I promise you this is not a course of action any of us wanted to take.
5MinuteRetro wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:14 amPerhaps C.Born should be given a right to reply, on this forum? I'd be fine with such a post being edited to remove gratuitous profanities but I would like to hear the other side of this story.
As I explained above C.Born made several replies to the moderators by PM. Unfortunately I cannot share them here as (1) they are private and (2) their content breaks forum rules. It is also difficult to give him a right of public reply as he has already indicated that he is not willing to follow the forum rules.

I know many of you have read C.Born’s posts on WoS (under the name Crisis). Please understand the content in that thread is not the same as that of the posts and messages he made here.
Ralf wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 10:06 amBy the way - which rule was exactly broken by C.Born? Was it avoiding politics or something else?
It breached two forum rules: the play-nice rule and the inappropriate-content rule. I don't feel an angry tirade that labelled people Nazis could be considered playing nice. Also political tirades are inappropriate for a Spectrum forum. They usually end in flame wars, and the moderating team gives up its time to support a Spectrum community, not adjudicate other people’s political disputes.
dfzx wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:35 amJust trust the SC moderators.
I agree with R-Tape's sentiments on this. I don’t think the moderators are automatically entitled to trust. However, I hope they have earned your trust. They have tried really hard to be fair, open and accountable and to do things differently from elsewhere. I think this thread is a great example of doing things differently.

I think you also all understand that moderating can be a challenging task. Most of the time you are a really easy bunch to moderate, but when issues come up, they can be tricky.
Ralf wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 3:31 pmWhich raises an queion. I understand that posting offensive posts isn't allowed here. But what about "crazy" posts? That vaccines kill you, world is ruled by reptillians, there is some conspiracy and someone was abducted by aliens? ;) Okay or not?
Don’t worry, you are not obliged to make sense. :)

C.Born was not banned for saying “crazy” things.

Overall, please understand we are doing our best here. We are trying to be as fair, open and reasonable as we can. We won't get everything right, but I personally believe this has been handled correctly.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by RMartins »

I would just like state, that not matter what he did (I do not know him personally), it seems to me that a a permanent ban is too strong of a move for now.
People can be emotionally more fragile at times, so I would suggest this to be a temporary measure.

In a few days or weeks, I would suggest to remove the ban and then see how it goes from there.

Just be sure the rules are clear, when removing the ban, to try avoid repeating a similar incident.

Thank you, for being open and transparent on these issues.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by PeterJ »

[mention]RMartins[/mention] Thank you for your comments. We are reviewing the forum rules to make sure that they are fit for purpose. I agree with you that it is important that these are right.

Regarding the other point you raise, all I can say is that we frequently discuss all matters relating to moderation of the forum and we will keep the forum members updated via this thread. Whatever happens we will always be transparent with our users as I hope can be seen by our actions this evening.

I hope you will agree that labelling people and organisations as Nazis is simply not appropriate on so many levels.
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by Ralf »

I hope you will agree that labelling people and organisations as Nazis is simply not appropriate on so many levels.
Unless they are NSDAP, Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine :D
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by PeterJ »

Ralf wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:19 pm
I hope you will agree that labelling people and organisations as Nazis is simply not appropriate on so many levels.
Unless they are NSDAP, Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine :D
Good point [mention]Ralf[/mention]
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by Einar Saukas »

I said I would wait to get all the facts first. Now that they have been presented, it's time I post my opinion about it.

This was a moderation screw up.

He posted an off-topic rant, under the off-topic section of this forum. So what's the big deal? Admittedly he went over the top, but let's put into perspective that he's taking this issue far enough to spend a night in jail over defending what he sees as his civil rights (see here). Also I don't agree with his reasoning, but that's irrelevant. If it was a rant about a different, more unanimous concern such as an outrage over massacres in Syria, would it make any difference? Really, if you only concur with freedom of speech when others are expressing the same opinion as yours, then you don't actually believe in freedom of speech.

So why did moderation considered it necessary to interfere and censor his post? What guideline rules did he break exactly? The closest he got to breaking an existing guideline was not "playing nice" and not "setting a positive tone". So he was ultimately banned because he didn't accept censorship for not being "positive". Really?

He posted something similar at WoS forum. The WoS moderators didn't intervene, some users mocked the issue but others engaged in a comprehensive discussion about online privacy (that's a worthwhile subject after all). He had a chance to blow some steam, there was no harm done. By comparison, doing the same here got him censored. Not surprisingly, censuring someone already pissed off over civil rights, got him even more pissed off. Everything inevitably escalated to the point he got banned. Was it really the most sensible way to handle it?

Most people migrated to this forum expecting a more humane and comprehensive moderation policy, where unfair bans would never happen. However, in this particular case, moderators adopted a zero-tolerance "Internet police" approach, instead of taking context into account and then "letting it slide" like WoS moderators did. Good moderation is supposed to look after users and interfere only when strictly necessary, to prevent conflicts from happening. As opposed to acting heavy handed on users on uncomfortable situations (thus causing conflicts themselves).

Despite all this, I do believe moderators here are doing their best. They all have good intentions, and they sacrifice their time on a difficult and tiresome task every day. I also understand the extenuating circumstances (he blew up after getting censored thus making it harder to deal with the situation). And finally I appreciate the willingness from moderators to openly discuss it. Even so, the bottom line is, someone very passionate about the Spectrum was censored unnecessarily, driven to the point he got banned. That's a very big deal. Could it be avoided, if moderators dealt with the situation with more tact and tolerance? If so, then it means moderation screwed up.

Is there anything that can be done to amend this situation? And how can we prevent anything similar from happening again?
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Re: Moderator Action

Post by PeterJ »

[mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] thanks for your comments. Chris can always contact us via the Contact Us link at the bottom of the forum home page. It does not require a user to be logged in.

I have read through the WoS thread and most of the posts seem to be openly mocking him. This is not positive or helpful.

We are looking at the Off-Topic area and reviewing the future for it (including maybe renaming it).

We are trying to be different from the other place.
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