More moderation for the British forum? Vote in the poll

Based upon the rate of reporting and banning associated with the British Forum and based upon the responses in this thread, there appears to be bit of a problem. However, as has been rightly pointed out, there may be a silent majority, so just straight up answer the question in the poll, if you have an opinion.

What that moderation would look like is still being discussed in the thread, so treat it as binary: is there a problem that further and altered moderation might help with, or should things be left as they are.

The poll is open for 30 hours only.




You guys are reporting each other loads, getting yourselves banned loads, loading up alts loads.

So a moratorium on banning in this thread only (though I will probably delete your posts in a bit if they are wild), so express yourselves. What or who is the problem? And i'll try to explain to you what is happening from my perspective.

Note that:

the fantasy that there is some Matchroom bias is gibberish and I won't entertain it for one second. You can think it, but I don't want to hear it because I know it's utter tripe. And second, the bans that have been handed out to those guys have mostly been good bans and all have been reasonable bans.

@Professor please extend no bans for anything that occurs in this thread, i'll take care of it.

EDIT: I'm also deleting a lot of off-topic posts, so try to keep it on point.

 

I'm going to lock this thread in five minutes so at 1932 to deal with some of this chat so the posts don't become overwhelming but I will unlock it again after.

 

1) Matchroom. I accept, yes, that if some group of posters or a very dedicated pro-matchroom posters aggressively reported posts of a certain kind repetitiously it could have an effect. So the moderating team isn't interested in who is Matchroom and who is not, but it would be possible to rig the system accordingly.

 

2) Alts. The problem with alts is if you are dedicated, you can disguise your alt. So for example, if you posted with each "character" from a different device in a different location you could run that number of accounts and we could never prove it. So Imagine you're a sixteen year old kid, you live four days with your ma, four days with your pa, and you're at school. You use your phone, a device at your ma's, and a device at your pa's to post as three different people. There is no way to prove that this is happening, definitively, so you might be comfortable issuing bans for alts.

This is where I feel bad for British. Myself and CST drop in sometimes, I know, and maybe other guys too, but there's no "live in" British Mod. That's important because it's possible to identify, by posting style (where they are singular) an alt. But it's NOT possible where there's no live-in Mod. Some guy messages me or uses the report button and says "this is clearly an alt of Poster X, ban him" (crudely), I can't take that advice. That'd be crazy, anyone could send that message for any reason and there's always a chance the messaging poster is wrong even if sincere.

I have a bit of line on the guys you guys are talking about - there's no proof that they are the poster you say they are.

I do worry about this. This happened in the Australian forum which died as a result.

 

3) Bans

Sometimes I don't agree with a ban another mod gives out, but all British-centric bans from the last month have been OK by me. I wouldn't have issued all of them, but i'm not against them. I'm not going to talk about them though. I will talk about one of mine.

Recently a poster wrote in the main forum "He’s a gypo. All gypo’s are vile people." I won't allow that. So he got a short ban (either 2 or 3 weeks i forget) which is lenient so far as I am concerned. Guy comes back with an alt, starts an "All Mods Are ****s" thread on this forum. Then he reports himself apologising. ****ng mentalist behavior, basically. Now he's banned for six months. That is also lenient. Most forums I think would permanently remove a poster like that, here he's been provided with one more chance, a last chance.

Anyway the reason i'm telling you this is that in that thread, people were all "yes disgrace that you got banned mate" and "good posters being banned for no reason" (not direct quotes). This is a two way street. The rush to believe in the total innocence of banned posters is mad.

 

I'm interested in hearing a bit more from anyone who wants to speak up.

 

No.

I'm not here to answer questions on individual bannings.

 

No.

Reporting is not just encouraged, it's a requirement unless we get five or six new mods, we won't be identifying anyone who hits the report button.