New forum software

It may be because of this: http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/posts/3853298/

 

First--I'm not going to be doing most of the moderation around here--the moderators you're used to working with will. They understand this community far better than I do, my job is to support them and also handle tech problems for everyone.

The one thing I'm changing on the moderation side is if someone is repeatedly warned for the same offense, then if it continues I'm going to be quicker than the moderators have been in the past to ban them--temporarily, then permanently if necessary. I figure if you've repeatedly been warned by the mods, and you're continuing to violate the rules, then you're doing so knowingly. Than you move from accidentally wasting everyone's time to purposefully wasting everyone's time, and I'm not going to to tolerate that.

I've tried to be proactive by PM'ing some of the users who consistently showed up in the moderator logs and set clear expectations to let them know about this.

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone if they get banned. And anyone who's banned is welcome to email support@sportsjournalists.com and ask for re-instatement--I'm willing to give folks a second chance if they promise to be good, but if you've violated the rules three or four times, that second chance is opt-in (asking to be unbanned) rather than opt-out (not getting banned in the first place).

Re: that specific thread--the bans I handed out in that thread, the posts weren't so much bantering and sarcasm but rather just stupid bickering and flat-out personal attacks. To clean it up, I had a good bit of collateral damage of deleting posts that weren't involved in the bickering, but I only banned the four folks who were heavily involved, and I only banned them for a week.

Arguably I could have just deleted the posts and warned the users, but I decided those four knew they were crossing the line. If you were one of those four and didn't realize this, my apologies, and as I said, anytime you think you were unfairly warned or banned, just email and I'll likely give you a second or even third chance. (Just not a fourth and a fifth and a sixth...)

Happy to answer more questions on this.

 

Shark, You have been around here enough that I am certain you have seen the kind of behavior he is talking about. It has mostly involved the same people over and over again. Unfortunately we had an absentee ownership right before Jeff and a moderating crew with limited time and resources to deal with some of the problems that built up. I can't codify being a problem poster with a simple rule, but 99 percent of the people on here have common sense and really don't have to really overthink this. Just be cool.

If your MO includes any of these things:
1) You post just to try to upset or get a negative reaction from people.
2) You can't just ignore someone being a jerk on a message board, so you take their bait and end up acting like an idiot yourself.
3) You are the user who is involved in pissing matches and personal arguments on thread after thread, which is ruining the board for everyone else.

Those kinds of things get to be problems. Nobody is going to get tossed from here for being sarcastic or having fun or goofing around. Just use a little sense.

Also, I'll always push Jeff to use longer leash for people, rather than a short one. I am not for liberal suspensions or bans. I never have been, even for people on here I personally can't stand. But I ignore someone if I think they are a jerk. If everyone else did that, this place could police itself.

Also, nobody is going to get a vacation from here if they haven't ever been a problem before. At worst, you'll get a PM from one of us asking you to chill, and if you are cool about it, it's not big deal.

 

I'm not sure if you understand why that particular user was banned.

The ban was not because of his public posts, it was because he was forwarding PM's in an attempt to cause trouble.

He'd originally requested that I delete his account, which I responded that I was happy to anonymize the account by changing the username, email, avatar etc and remove any identifying information from any of his posts, but I wasn't going to delete it. That was something I'd told the moderators when I first came on board, before I received his request, and was not at all singling anyone out.

I also took a look at his posts, and found the tone of his messages to be caustic and arrogant and I PM'd him that I didn't really want that on the board going forward and that he should either change his tone or leave the board. I certainly was a bit rude with how I communicated, and I apologize for not being more tactful. I also was over-stereotyping... while some of his posts were caustic and arrogant, many of his posts were extremely intelligent and knowledgable. And for that mistake I also apologize.

I heard nothing back from that user, until two public posts from two other users appeared using the words caustic and arrogant. Since it seemed that rather than having the decency to reply to me directly, he was instead just trying to stir up trouble by forwarding my PM, I decided to ban him.

I make mistakes, so if I send you a message that you disagree with, let me know. I've already reversed a temporary ban on another user because after hearing him out, I agreed that I misread the intention of his post and over-reacted.

But if you instead just try and stir up trouble, then it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone if that user gets banned.