Prime Sonny Liston vs Prime wladimir klitschko

Yes, not this, at all.

I'm not going to travail the forum answering this question once every six weeks, so I'll answer it here and that will have to do. Here's a copy and paste summary of a discussion I had with another moderator about this banning (typical when a regular gets banned). Some of it is redacted because it concerns stuff that is private (...):

For some reason, mcvey has taken it upon himself to complain about every single moderating decision that is made on the forum, by whomever. Every time he sees anyone who has been banned he quotes the post and says something like "he's only been posting here 3 months! another one gone! "and then there were....""

The problem is, that's been taken up by seven or eight other posters. People really believe that "good posters" are being "routed" by "moderators who don't understand" because of this guy.

I have tried very hard with him. I've explained that most of these are temporary bans but for some reason this won't go into his head. More than that, he loves to make meatballs. He turns up at the site of any conflict to pitch in and has been especially active around Marciano flame wars which is the bane of my existence. But when I provide warnings or explanations he inevitably replies "don't you threaten me!" or something like that. He's old. He doesn't really understand how the internet works. SO i've tried - and not over months. Over a spell of about seven or eight years. He's far and away the most difficult moderation challenge on the forum.

You can see some of this in his last thread here:

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/lastarza-v-usyk.663125/

Also, what you say about people being afraid to approach me about the matter - I absolutely believe you. Some of these guys really think i'm some sort of trigger-happy ban freak now. Do you know why that is? It's because mcvey has been providing a non-stop commentary for everyone on every single ban that appears on Classic. He doesn't seem to realise most of these bans are taking place in the Lounge and General, but I have repeatedly pointed this out to him. If you can be arsed reading through the above thread you'll see...

It sort of crept up on me this. I had no idea people were actually taking him seriously. But they are. So having carefully cultivated a reputation as extremely even-handed in Classic (you'll know i'm the least likely of all mods to hand out a ban) he's generated this opinion that i'm a trigger happy ban mod which has been reinforced by my actually banning him

But if you read the thread above you'll see i'm giving him every chance, and that he literally does not budge one inch on any one of my posts. Every single one of them is met with maximum resistance.

There is absolutely no way McVey is coming back. He has been banned for:

As many flame wars as any member of classic, ever.
Ceaseless questioning of forum moderation, despite repeated warnings that this is against the rules.
Trolling hard around Marciano, which is the most difficult aspect of forum moderation in Classic.
Has received more temporary bans than any other regular Classic poster, equal with Mendoza.
Has received more warnings from me personally than every other poster on Classic combined (excluding Mendoza).
Over the course of ten years.



Some of this will not be clear to you because you are not moderators, some of this language is taken for granted so i'll expand a bit. McVey, essentially, didn't understand how the internet works. There are rules. On Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, almost everywhere online there are rules. These rules are selected not by the people who use the internet but by the people who run it - Government, tech sites, and website domain owners. One example is swearing. Swearing is not allowed here and nor is "bypasisng world filters", writing "D1ck" instead of "Dick." You may not agree with this rule - i don't - but if you are banned four or five times for breaking it you would presumably alter your behaviour and if you don't, when you are removed for your seventh or eighth breach, you wouldn't be confused as to why.

McVey did not alter his behaviour. Ever. Worse, when I tried to explain to him about these rules, he believed he was being "threatened" or "controlled by the mind police." He reacted aggressively to each and every warning he received. The problem got much, much worse when the site changed, for anyone who remembers this. When "likes" were added and the avatars got smaller, the way bans were displayed also got more prominent. McVey started to notice them more and started to complain about them. He was unable to understand or accept that many of these bans were occurring in General and Lounge and that they were all for legitimate rule breaches, or he did understand but for some reason pretended he didn't. He also didn't understand, or pretended not to understand, that most of these bans were temporary, not permanent, and the poster would be back next week.

For my own part, I believe that McVey really believed there were loads of unjust permabans happening on the forum and it upset him. But he believed this despite the fact that I spent many minutes trying to explain them to him. Specifically because I was a moderator, "The thought police", he didn't trust me. All of you who are complaining about his being banned saw most of this play out in public and were at no time any help at all. I never saw one of you try to explain to him what was happening or offer council on the likelihood of his being permabanned.

Over the last couple of pages of this thread, you will see opinions expressed: thank god this poster got banned. Why has this poster been banned, that's not fair? This poster should be banned, he gets to do what he wants. That is one hundred threads on this forum every day. The reason that criticising moderating decisions is a banning offence is that if it wasn't, the guys who already spend time removing threads about Chinese drivers licences and rabid racists, and, yes, people who break the rules as determined by the owners of the site who can impose any rules they wish upon members, members of course being free to chose to post anywhere they like; the reason is that moderators, specifically don't have to make long explanatory posts like this one every time someone is temporarily banned, which is every day.

I want to be clear now: if he was a General Forum poster, McVey would have been banned ten years ago. @louis54, who was posting about McVey's "unfair ban" about one out of four posts at one point (literally) would have been permanently banned. Swag would be on a temp, so would @WAR01. Every. Single. Possible. Courtesy. Is extended to regular Classic Forum posters. But some things just can't be helped.

So there it is. I'm sure many of you disagree with the above, but keep it to yourself. Don't go on and on about it. If you see someone else doing so, direct them to this post. If McVey has a friend you know doesn't understand why he was banned, @ him below. Be helpful.

Between his being given a final, final warning ("don't you threaten me!") and his being removed from the forum permanently by me, McVey made posts complaining about moderating decisions in four different threads, including an "in memorium" thread. In mere hours.

People will want to say, "oh but he was a good poster." He was. He was a good poster. But being a good poster doesn't mean you don't have to obey the rules. That is on every single forum that has ever existed in the history of the internet. Mcvey's banning was absolutely justified, beyond justified, he was afforded more chances than could possibly be construed as reasonable, then he was afforded that many chances again. That he failed to take any of them is not the fault of the owners, any of the other moderating staff, nor myself.