Most mod tools can show IPs by post, should be easy to identify socks unless they are meticulous with VPNs.

But last night, all they had to do was read the OP. There was no reason to delete the thread and indefinitely ban Bender based on "wanting the rest of the story".

trouble said:

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But last night, all they had to do was read the OP. There was no reason to delete the thread and indefinitely ban Bender based on "wanting the rest of the story".

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There's a moderation problem in general. I imagine it gets much harder to align as the website grows exponentially, but they've got to get it under control. If it's important enough to ban someone, it should be important enough to explain why and there be a communicated simple way to escalate bad moderation for management review.

I believe I went 10 or 15 years before I ever caught a ban. I've now caught 3 in the last year.

The first 2 were from the same thread for pointing out a couple posters were consistently breaking the special moderation rules for the thread. The moderator acknowledged that was the case in an email response that took way too long to happen (often after the ban is lifted). Yet I was banned and the infringing parties never were. A couple months later, same exact thing. When I requested the issue be elevated to moderation management / supervision they stopped replying. It's almost impossible to elevate the issue and that seems to be by design.

The last one was an internet mob pissed off and over emotional posting all kinds of ridiculous stuff. They didn't like me posting links to the actual facts and explaining how things actually worked. Instead of moderating all the posts that broke the rules, I got a brief time out so they could cool off.

It comes off like moderation has no supervision, no consequences for not following the established rules, and they and their internet friends are above the law.

Being a mod is a time consuming thankless job full of drama. It is also an unpaid volunteer position. Which is why we get the "never left home town becomes an abusive local cop" kind of personality a lot.

TH36 said:

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I took a shot with Liucci in Omaha. I'll ask him what's up and get back to yall…

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Na man don't ask him anything. This is the OB, as in outdoors board. Liucci couldn't negotiate his way past a cattle guard if his life depended on it.

Leave him to his board.

And Liucci, before you have a fit, that's a joke on this board. I know there nothing funny on Premium. But we don't take ourselves too seriously here. We laugh some.

trouble said:

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But last night, all they had to do was read the OP. There was no reason to delete the thread and indefinitely ban Bender based on "wanting the rest of the story".

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Bender said on the other thread it was a short ban, like 30 minutes. I don't think thats unreasonable while they sort this out and then correctly make the call to unban. I've never been a moderator, but I imagine they get on and start wading through all the flags reported. How that works I have no idea, but it's probably a mess. I think the mods too often rely on the flags and trust that people flagged something correctly and not maliciously as was with tikka.

So just lock it and read. Why ban anyone before they know the facts?

All they had to do was read the OP.

DatTallArchitect said:

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All they had to do was read the OP.

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So I'll jump in here a bit.

If that thread had gone wrong and any one had been dumb enough to try and dox pfg/tikka, they would have been 100% right to disappear the thread.

It came back, I was unbanned. No harm, no foul.

However, I do believe that the same things mentioned in this thread 5 years ago remain an issue. I have zero idea what moderator I was talking to this morning, if its the same one that locked the tuesday thread, etc.

In addition, I'll share a bit of what I said to unknown moderator in an email earlier:

I've been posting on forums for two decades and the way TexAgs completely deletes threads and posts instead of locking them, leaving them visible and explaining in the locked post why it had to be locked is what created the situation here. I don't know of any other forum, large or small that moderates in that manner, because it doesn't really work well. Users are less likely to be so wildly confrontational and disruptive like tikkashooter when they know their bad behavior won't disappear never to be seen again. Just my opinion, its yalls site and you can run it how you want, but I think the response from other users on the current thread has very, very little to do with me and everything to do with a desire for more clear, evenhanded and transparent moderation.

If everyone could see the kind of things pfg/tikka writes instead of just deleting them, giving him a few days off and letting him pretend to be reasonable again for a bit, his little schtick would wear thin a lot quicker.

But he gets away with trolling and negative responses because the threads just disappear.

Just my .02

RCR06 said:

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I think the mods too often rely on the flags and trust that people flagged something correctly and not maliciously as was with tikka.

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This is 100% it.

As he admitted in the thread last night, he intentionally trolls and insults looking for negative responses.

As he also admitted in the previous thread, he has no qualms about hitting the report button and crying foul to the mods even when he is lying about it.

Mods said they didnt get many flags or complaints about tikka. Thats just the culture here to handle things by talking like men. I'm willing to bet they got a ton of flag reports from tikka, though…because that was how he occasionally used the OB: to troll and be negative until someone responded, hit report, laugh about getting someone banned then doing it again because mods delete threads or posts and people who werent actively participating in the thread didnt see him troll.

yup. this goes back to my post on truth in the tikkashooter thread: without consequences, the bad behavior continues.

in the short term, when a thread gets deleted, no lesson was learned and the gift of a fresh start has been bestowed.

in the long term, we have what we had happen yesterday in that everything that has been built up over the multiple restarts comes crashing back to the beginning in a terrible fashion.

deal with the crap early and often and leave the heads on spikes as a reminder for all to see.

or dont. and we can do this again in 6 years.

RCR06 said:

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DatTallArchitect said:

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All they had to do was read the OP.

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Let's say a mod logs on and has a bunch of flags and 100 posts. Do you let things keep going or stop it and then catch up on the thread? Fortunately, I didn't have to make that call. In hindsight it's easy to mae that call, but in the moment maybe a little bit more difficult.

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I used to be a mod on a very large site. People were selected from the forums they frequented by other mods over the board(s) they were asked to help out on. I always kept up with the boards I was over, as the rest of the mods did, so it was easy to know who caused problems and what topics would generate issues. Yes, there were aberrations but it never took too much reading to find the issue.

Also, we weren't supposed to ever lock a thread without posting why it was locked. Generally, we would have to lock the thread before posting the reason but it would always be there within minutes of it being locked. It also ensured people knew who locked it, which created accountability.

They banned JP for posting a link to a rental house when the OP asked for rental houses. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the way they moderate. I've frequented this board much less often since then. Overall, feels like those that provide content and drive clicks get banned for arbitrary and asinine reasons. Then, there's no explanation or way for the banned poster to reach to the wizard of oz to find out why. I personally have decided to spend my $ elsewhere. Gave up my stars and subscription because I love the OB but can't financially support the whimsical moderation.

Dude threw out enough content and saved enough people hundreds or thousands to keep a thread running 400 pages deep in less than a year and he gets permabanned for posting a link to a rental house on a thread asking for rental house assistance. Unbelievable…

I wish the OB could vote to unban people too. Sometimes it feels like the moderation is a popularity contest.

I think that what is tougher is that there have been many posters here for 10+ sometimes 20+ years. It's our community. Moderators come in and disrupt the ecosystem that already exists. It's not their communities. It's ours.

They're sometimes like meddling Karens that are trying to regulate things that should self regulate. There should be some hard stops that lead to thread closure and bans like Gary's butthole picture but for gray area stuff, the benefit of the doubt should be given to posters that have thousands of posts and years of posting. That's how a real community operates. If you pay your dues, you get some leeway. Moderating needs to be fair but not necessarily equitable.

I say all of this because the average age of poster on this site just increasingly goes up with time and we lose significant contributors to poor moderation. That just leads to the eventual death of this site as we don't have a ton of new blood that fills in the ranks.

I enjoy this community so much and want it to be successful. I'd hate to lose more good posters because then what is there to come back for?