I remember you from way back when I posted in the Fujifilm forum, as well as the comments section of the news site. I recall more than once thinking you were rude to someone or another, or trying to ignite some sort of flame war.
That's not to say you deserve a permanent ban, obviously, but so far only you've said your ban was unfair. Also, I'm pretty sure they now hand permanent bans like candy given the future of DPR, I wonder whether you'd have received that had the same situation unfolded a year ago.
Seriously, I wonder why anyone who has a posting history of posts with actual content should ever get a permaban. Just as in real life, we have to deal with all kinds of personality types here. And just as in real life it takes a bit of give and. Just because someone is a bit prickly, or has a weird sense of humour, or is 'rude' by someone else's social standards is not a reason for excluding them from a community. Abuse, hate speech and bullying is a different matter, obviously.
I have no idea who you mean. But DonB could have used your advice back then to have a sense of humour when anyone pressed his buttons. He had a very thin skin and was too easy to stir up :-)
I see there are 263 pages worth of "David...." LOL!!!!!
Phil sold DPR at the peak of the 2007 bubble, just before the global economy imploded, and before smartphones decimated the camera business. He made out like a bandit and I cannot imagine that Amazon ever recovered what they paid for the site. Obviously for a company like Amazon it's just a blip on the balance sheet but it still makes me smile.
Who was the Moderator? I found one moderator abused his authority. He gave me 3 temporary bans and several warnings for next to nothing. His reasoning was I was not nice. The idea that you received a permanent ban over something so inconsequential 5 days before the end is a prime example of moderation abuse.
It was obvious that what he thought was not nice was different from what I thought. :-) One time he said I was too direct. Well, that's the way I write. I'm a retired engineer! I'm direct and to the point.
Some would say that "abuse, hate speech and bullying" are the three main pillars of "rude". Which means that if you're going to say that it can be okay to be rude as long as it doesn't qualify as "abuse, hate speech or bullying", well, it's going to be somewhat subjective. Hence all the back-and-forth about different views of various moderator decisions at DPR.
I'm not suggesting that there aren't degrees of discourtesy that may fall short of "abuse/hate speech/bullying", but I do think it's possible to have robust discussions without resorting to discourtesy or various other rhetorically dishonest or disagreeable methods.
What I think that leads back to is your earlier remarks about the need for clarity and transparency, to reduce as far as possible the subjectivity of the calls moderators have to make. I.e. clear published statements about what's acceptable and what isn't.
I would love to have those if possible, but it is difficult to actually frame them. It's also useful to have a distinction between 'rules' and 'guidelines'. One thing that makes it easier is to have an attitude that we're not dealing in punishment, just trying to keep the place pleasant. Someone permabanned for 'implied sarcasm' is likely to feel pretty upset about it. On the other hand, if there just a little private message suggesting that went a bit far, most reasonable people wouldn't be so upset. I think a lot of the angst is caused by a punitive mindset and some moderators playing cop.
I think what I'm saying is 'if you step the wrong side of this fuzzy line we'll shoot you' is likely to produce a different atmosphere to 'if you step on the wrong side of this fuzzy line we'll have a word'.
No problem at all. My only issue was that this is a common bullying tactic. The person posted knew that having two accounts was a permabanning offence, so what they were trying to do was convince the mod that we were the same person so we'd be permabanned. It's kind of like in football taking a dive to get someone sent off.
It works when the mods are not well managed and too stressed, so that they don't investigate properly, just take someone's word for it.
The best I ever saw the mods were cops. They were not judge and jury. They could issue warnings, they could 'snip' bad content in a post, but had to give reason, like "Mod edit - racist comment". They could not delete posts or threads, and could never ban someone. That power belonged to the judges, the admins.
The site had a separate section for politics, and the rules were looser there. You needed thick skin to stay there very long. Post a thread in the wrong section and it would get 'towed' to the political section. Post in a running thread a political comment and it would get snipped.
Admin and mods had their private chat space where they met to discuss problems, make decisions on bans, and keep everyone on the same page about rules and policies. They also heard appeals from members when needed.
They used a point system, like some state's driver's license. So many points for each offense, too many and get a 7 day ban, then a 30 day one, and if you couldn't change your ways then the next one was forever. Banned people's names remained up, so everyone knew who's been naughty.
I think the biggest problem DPR had was the mods had too much power and the admin was too lazy to keep them in line.
