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Moderation Appeal


Pfeiffer
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So Skynet locked a thread for 'going against a mod', which to me is just about the dumbest reason I could imagine using to justify locking a thread.

 

The thread in question: http://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/5355-politics-and-war-awards-results-for-february/

 

The post in question: http://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/5355-politics-and-war-awards-results-for-february/page-2#entry83071

 

Magicboyd25 took nominations for 'awards' and then had a forum poll to determine the winners. Our alliance, Mensa HQ, won the 'Best alliance of February' award, and as such our members celebrated by posting in the thread. The posts contained what is known as the 'Dio Flag', in recognition of our God-Emperor Dio Brando.

 

Fizban, without any explanation, said that we couldn't post them any more. This, to me, is also stupid. It's a thread announcing community awards, and the winners of one of the awards were celebrating. The posts were topical, and encourage further involvement in future community award nominations and polls by encouraging both our members and the members of any other alliance, to engage in the process and join in on forum discussions.

 

This is an example of poor moderation followed up by poor moderation. The only thing posted in that thread worthy of any sort of reprimand was where I told Fizban that he couldn't 'pull stuff out of your butt, which was not in fact what I received a point and hour long suspension for posting.

 

For context, the forum rules regarding spam are:

 

Spam

  • With exception to the Forum Games & Spam forum, topics or posts within topics which do not pertain to the forum or topic it is in.
  • One word posts and images are allowed as long as they convey a message, relate to the topic, and do not violate any other forum rule.

 

My comment about pulling stuff from butts was out of line, the rest of the thread was, as I believe is now evident, perfectly acceptable.

 

Therefore, I am requesting that the thread be reopened, and that the moderators be given a refresher on what is or isn't spam.

 

As the forum moderation team is a whopping three people, and I am directly contesting moderation action taken by two of them, I will obviously await Sheepy's availability for a ruling on what is or isn't allowed.

 

I understand that there need to be rules, and the rules need to be enforced. I was the Lead Administrator for some time on a forum with more members and a greater volume of daily posts (and more political !@#$ing) than these boards house. It's a pain, and sometimes tempers flare and actions are taken which, upon further review, need to be reversed.

 

I believe this is one of these times.

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☾☆ Chairman Emeritus of Mensa HQ ☾☆

"It's not about the actual fish, themselves. Fish are not important in this context. It's about fish-ing, the act of fishing itself." -Jack O'Neill

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The thread shouldn't have been locked, but the warn was justified.

 

This is the same as when we've had members respond to threads by simply quoting another person's post with no additional content. It's fine for a short time but eventually it becomes spam.

 

By all means, celebrate your victory. But don't just copy/paste the exact same message as everyone else without anything further.

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That is not how spam is defined in the rules.

 

If you'd like that changed, I suggest you have a discussion with the moderation team and the Administrator.

 

Also, I'd ask that it not be the moderators I've mentioned who formally reply to my appeal.

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☾☆ Chairman Emeritus of Mensa HQ ☾☆

"It's not about the actual fish, themselves. Fish are not important in this context. It's about fish-ing, the act of fishing itself." -Jack O'Neill

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We aren't a minority which rebels against the regime, Skynet. I'm sorry you felt like that.

 

Of course, we don't expect you guys to understand Dioism. Yes, it is a movement, but it stands for winning and for being successful against all the odds. It is something that we created in eRepublik and we use it for fun purposes only. Mensa HQ consists of players from different nationalities (mostly American though), people with different play styles, people with different views. Dioism is what unites us and this is the main theme of our alliance. Similarly to how Arrgh are pirates, we are Dioists. The only difference is that everyone knows what is a pirate but noone knows what is a Dioist :P

 

 

The thread shouldn't have been locked, but the warn was justified.

 

This is the same as when we've had members respond to threads by simply quoting another person's post with no additional content. It's fine for a short time but eventually it becomes spam.

 

By all means, celebrate your victory. But don't just copy/paste the exact same message as everyone else without anything further.

 

So, if everyone wrote "Hurrah, we won" it would have been fine? 

☾☆

Priest of Dio


º¤ø„¤¤º°¨ ø„¸¸„¨ ø„¸¸„ø¤º°¨¨°º¤ø„¸¸„ø¤º°¨¨°º¤ø„¸
¨°º¤ø„¸ GOD EMPEROR DIO BRANDO¨°º¤ø„¸
¨°º¤ø„¸ DIO BRANDO GOD EMPEROR¨°º¤ø„¸
¨°º¤ø„¤¤º°¨ ø„¸¸„¨ ø„¸¸„ø¤º°¨¨°º¤ø„¸¸„ø¤º°¨¨°º¤ø„¸
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That is not how spam is defined in the rules.

 

If you'd like that changed, I suggest you have a discussion with the moderation team and the Administrator.

 

Also, I'd ask that it not be the moderators I've mentioned who formally reply to my appeal.

Questionable Actions and Content

The guidelines above may not cover every situation. Should we encounter something that we deem harmful to the community, we reserve the right to take action against it.

 

Moderation Staff

  • Speculation regarding the identities of game staff and/or revealing identities of game staff is strictly prohibited. These actions are punishable up to, and including, a ban on your forum and game account.
  • Being rude or disrespectful to any of the game staff is not allowed. Creating posts “calling out†moderators or the game staff is prohibited.
  • Any concerns with the moderation staff should be addressed with the game administrator, Sheepy, via pm.
  • Abuse of the report system is strictly prohibited.
  • Do not ask to become a moderator. Moderation positions are invitation only.

The response we've given to this action has been generous. I publicly posted that further instances of the behavior would be unacceptable, and you responded by deliberately defying that statement as well as violating the specific rules regarding Moderation Staff.

 

For that, you received a warning.

 

Then, you deliberately came here and created a post calling out moderators, again in violation of the specific rules regarding Moderation Staff. In response to that second violation, instead of locking the thread immediately and giving you another warning, I unlocked the thread and gave a more detailed explanation for the reason behind my initial post (the one you deliberately ignored).

 

 

So, if everyone wrote "Hurrah, we won" it would have been fine? 

 

It might have been. A short post like that is less likely to evoke a visceral response than the ASCII picture you were using. But ultimately, the issue was with the repetition, not the content. Had I made similar post in response to you copy/pasting "Hurrah, we won," then the same result would have occurred had Pfeiffer made the same post, only substituting "Hurrah, we won" in place of your "Dio flag."

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No offense, but I don't see how you can spam a thread and then act all offended about it when you get warned. That's just childish. What did you expect?

Edited by Ceres
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@Fizban - Sheepy has announced he's going offline for nearly two weeks, otherwise I would have contacted him directly. I posted here knowing I may very well receive another point, I've accepted that. I decided that it was more important that the community, if it so chose, could have a conversation about the moderation choices made by the staff.

 

'PM Sheepy' is bad policy, and as it was probably set by him, it's worth discussing publicly. Unless of course the community gets zero input in how we interact with each other, and the staff.

 

I apologize for the comment about you pulling stuff from your butt, however I believe every other concern I've raised her is perfectly valid and worth discussion. If you don't, lock the thread and I'll simply re-draft this and e-mail Sheepy directly. 

 

 

No offense, but I don't see how you can spam a thread and then act all offended about it when you get warned. That's just childish. What did you expect?

 

It isn't spam, as spam is defined here.

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☾☆ Chairman Emeritus of Mensa HQ ☾☆

"It's not about the actual fish, themselves. Fish are not important in this context. It's about fish-ing, the act of fishing itself." -Jack O'Neill

iMZejv3.gif

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Perhaps I should have used the word "flood," instead. Either way, it is typically behavior that is against the rules in most forums or chat rooms, and you ought to know that well enough already. Multiple content-less posts were repeated in the thread, and it was quite annoying.

Edited by Ceres
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Perhaps I should have used the word "flood," instead. Either way, it is typically behavior that is against the rules in most forums or chat rooms, and you ought to know that well enough already. Multiple content-less posts were repeated in the thread, and it was quite annoying.

 

The content was clearly celebratory in a thread where community driven awards were announced. I fail to see how that is off topic or lacks content.

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☾☆ Chairman Emeritus of Mensa HQ ☾☆

"It's not about the actual fish, themselves. Fish are not important in this context. It's about fish-ing, the act of fishing itself." -Jack O'Neill

iMZejv3.gif

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'PM Sheepy' is bad policy, and as it was probably set by him, it's worth discussing publicly.

Grendle used to be head moderator and that position was removed after he left, I'll leave you to guess why that was.

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Orbis Wars   |   CSI: UPN   |   B I G O O F   |   PW Expert Has Nerve To Tell You How To Run Your Own Goddamn Alliance | Occupy Wall Street | Sheepy Sings

TheNG - My favorite part is when Steve suggests DEIC might have done something remotely successful, then gets massively shit on for proposing such a stupid idea.

On 1/4/2016 at 6:37 PM, Sheepy said:
Sheepy said:

I'm retarded, you win

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Celebrating is fine, repeatedly posting the same thing is not, that is spam, as you were informed by fizban. In response to your question, if you had all put the exact same 'hurrah, we won' you would also have received the same response.

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Celebrating is fine, repeatedly posting the same thing is not, that is spam, as you were informed by fizban. In response to your question, if you had all put the exact same 'hurrah, we won' you would also have received the same response.

 

Fizban literally just said up thread that that might not have been the case.

 

The simple fact that the response that would have been generated can't be agreed upon, and therefore isn't uniform, makes a discussion about what is or isn't allowed prudent.

 

Also, I like your avatar.

  • Upvote 1

☾☆ Chairman Emeritus of Mensa HQ ☾☆

"It's not about the actual fish, themselves. Fish are not important in this context. It's about fish-ing, the act of fishing itself." -Jack O'Neill

iMZejv3.gif

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Fizban literally just said up thread that that might not have been the case.

 

The simple fact that the response that would have been generated can't be agreed upon, and therefore isn't uniform, makes a discussion about what is or isn't allowed prudent.

 

Also, I like your avatar.

He said 'might'. We are only human and therefore use our judgement based on the rules when handing out warns or making posts on threads. I personally would have made the same comment fiz did regardless of what was posted as it was repeated many times with no additional content.

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Pfeiffer clearly knew why he received the warning ( Calling out a moderator, etc ).  He's more concerned about the definition of spam, lack of transparency on modding a post or thread, and is concerned about the lack of uniformity with moderation.

 

 

Not trying to step on toes here, but saying "might" is a cop out.  Moderation needs to be clearly defined because everybody will have different perspectives.

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Under the definition you're trying to apply there, Baboon, someone agreeing with a suggestion on the suggestion board isn't "additional content".

 

Would that be spam?

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☾☆ Chairman Emeritus of Mensa HQ ☾☆

"It's not about the actual fish, themselves. Fish are not important in this context. It's about fish-ing, the act of fishing itself." -Jack O'Neill

iMZejv3.gif

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Under the definition you're trying to apply there, Baboon, someone agreeing with a suggestion on the suggestion board isn't "additional content".

 

Would that be spam?

Depends entirely upon the content of the reply. 

 

"+1" would be considered spam, you could've easily clicked the "like" button instead of a spam post. 

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Celebrating is fine, repeatedly posting the same thing is not, that is spam, as you were informed by fizban. In response to your question, if you had all put the exact same 'hurrah, we won' you would also have received the same response.

According to the rules here it is not defined as spam. Nor is it spam by the common real definition of spam.

 

A 'Flood' is also wrong as that is defined as one user reposting multiple times in a short period of time. So not a flood.

 

I believe your mod crew may be unfamiliar with a tightly not group with its own culture. In this case the posted material was celebratory and no user posted it more than once.

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This is getting ridiculous now. I don't care how it works in other games, here, if your post offers no contribution to the discussion at hand, and is simply a direct repeat of something someone else just said, whether a quote or a copy and paste, it is regarded as spam by the moderation team. It doesn't matter if it is from another games culture, or you have been doing it for 7 years in your back garden, if it is a direct re-post of what someone has already said, it is spam. We are lenient on this to an extent, but when you get 5+ in a row it becomes ridiculous and adds nothing it should and will be stopped. Please refrain from doing this in the future. By all means, roleplay and post that ASCII, just add some more original content to your post. Thank you. 

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Then I suggest that you have the forum administration update the rules as posted on these boards.

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☾☆ Chairman Emeritus of Mensa HQ ☾☆

"It's not about the actual fish, themselves. Fish are not important in this context. It's about fish-ing, the act of fishing itself." -Jack O'Neill

iMZejv3.gif

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It does add something baboon. It is contibution. It is not against the rules. It is not spam nor flooding.

 

Please refrain from making a big deal out of something that is fun.

 

What you are doing now is modding arbitrarily and that is not really cool. It is counter to the health of your forum and the game.

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According to the rules here it is not defined as spam. Nor is it spam by the common real definition of spam.

 

A 'Flood' is also wrong as that is defined as one user reposting multiple times in a short period of time. So not a flood.

 

I believe your mod crew may be unfamiliar with a tightly not group with its own culture. In this case the posted material was celebratory and no user posted it more than once.

If you want to talk about culture, then we should be allowing /b/ to come in and spam desu. Is that where this is going next? There is really not much difference.

Edited by Ceres
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It does add something baboon. It is contibution. It is not against the rules. It is not spam nor flooding.

 

Please refrain from making a big deal out of something that is fun.

 

What you are doing now is modding arbitrarily and that is not really cool. It is counter to the health of your forum and the game.

 

Trust me, I know more than anyone about soft modding and keeping the game fun, that is half the reason I was appointed and I was very against heavy handed modding and am in favour of letting people have fun. However blatant disregard for the modding staff, who put their own extra time and effort into running this forum effectively, is 100% not a good thing and is detrimental to the health of the forum. You need to now take a step back, look at it from a mods perspective and "check yo self". As we have said, any post in the awards thread that disregards what we have said and is a clear attempt to annoy the modding staff will receive a warn. 

 

We are not making a big deal of anything, you are the guys that made this thread. We are also not modding arbitrarily, we have said our piece and as mods are all agreed. In the future please try to make better contribution to the community in your posts to avoid further warns. 

 

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