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Everyone who hates a Mod should be able to do a Stickam or Paltalk roast once a month with at least 15 people attending. This should flush out all the un-warranted hate towards them stemming from certain users; mentalities on the forums and direct it towards a place outside of the main site.

Not serious.

At 6/2/09 01:28 AM, NEVR wrote: Mods aren't and shouldn't be EXEMPT from the rules... but yes, we do seem to get a bit of leeway with the minor rules. That isn't to say that it's alright, it's just what happens. The same happens with more experienced regulars from time to time.

Yeah, but I can see what she and some other people are getting at, if we're telling people things like "under no circumstances use this word" and a mod then turns around and does it with impunity, people are rightly going to get pissed. If we tell people that need to endeavor to be civil to each other, we then shouldn't run around telling everybody and their mother to fuck off. It's the same thing with the police if you think about it, cops get to break minor laws and people kind of resent that because they see it as "but if I DID it, you'd write me a ticket". But the cop can counter with "well actually, sometimes we just let you off with a warning for a minor infraction and call it a day". If it's minor stuff every once in awhile, a certain amount of forgiveness and leeway should go both ways. But mods shouldn't think or forget that a ban immunity and the trust of the admins means we can just do whatever and expect people to still respect us if we're fucking around too much with the rules.

Thing is, you guys seem to want us to loosen up on you, and at the same time be complete saints ourselves. Seems a bit like there's double standards going both ways here... but then perhaps I'm just picking up opinions of different people and stringing them together as one and the same, who knows?

I think there is a little of that maybe. Asking for mods who don't act like total pricks to you is a reasonable request, but if you're going to ask us to always be perfect and never make mistakes...well sorry, but that's just as unrealistic as if I came to you and said "you should be perfect and never ever make any screw ups or break any rules if you want to ever post here again". Shit happens, mistakes get made, that's life. The important thing is we should be willing to learn from it and put it behind us when and where we can.

At 6/2/09 01:43 AM, aviewaskewed wrote:

I think there is a little of that maybe. Asking for mods who don't act like total pricks to you is a reasonable request, but if you're going to ask us to always be perfect and never make mistakes...well sorry, but that's just as unrealistic as if I came to you and said "you should be perfect and never ever make any screw ups or break any rules if you want to ever post here again". Shit happens, mistakes get made, that's life. The important thing is we should be willing to learn from it and put it behind us when and where we can.

Can any of the users here be expecting that certain mods who many of us are complaining about be reviewed by an admin or other mods? is this topic really going to help any? of course mods make mistakes and break the rules. But the important thing is HOW often, and how serious are they? there have been complaints made about certain mods in this topic, and i really hope that those mods that were mentioned get reviewed by Wade. In any other form of business be it a teacher, doctor, cop, whatever would get revised due to having frequent complaints about said person.

It seems to me that users when modded are just left to their own devices, and can break rules without repercussions until they do something bad enough to get them caught. There really should be checkups on mods. Or mods can look over one another and report to wade or send a warning to the mod if there is frequent rule breaking done by a mod.

At 6/2/09 01:43 AM, aviewaskewed wrote: Yeah, but I can see what she and some other people are getting at, if we're telling people things like "under no circumstances use this word" and a mod then turns around and does it with impunity, people are rightly going to get pissed.

I try not to be hypocritical in anything that I do, and that includes banning users from the BBS, which is why I don't personally use those kinds of words.

The obvious problem is that some mods are against using certain words on the BBS at all, and other mods think that it's OK in some situations. We need to go one way or the other with the whole thing: either stop all of it completely, or get everyone to loosen up on it. Personally I always thought that there was a 100% no tolerance rule for those kinds of words being used on the BBS... but I suppose that's not the case.

But mods shouldn't think or forget that a ban immunity and the trust of the admins means we can just do whatever and expect people to still respect us if we're fucking around too much with the rules.

Yeah, agreed.

The key word there is respect, though. I'd like to think that if I mod the forums with integrity, I'll gain more respect from the userbase. Sometimes this isn't the case, sure, but for the most part it seems like a solid theory to fall back on. Ultimately, it's easier to mod the forums if the users respects you, because then a warning WILL suffice instead of a ban in a lot of cases.

I really don't know, sometimes it seems like mods swear a lot and can be jerks, but most of the time it's really funny. Everyone really has different opinions, it's too hard to fit it in for everyone.
I'll come back to this thread with more when I can think of it.

At 6/2/09 01:59 AM, Sawke wrote: Can any of the users here be expecting that certain mods who many of us are complaining about be reviewed by an admin or other mods? is this topic really going to help any? of course mods make mistakes and break the rules. But the important thing is HOW often, and how serious are they? there have been complaints made about certain mods in this topic, and i really hope that those mods that were mentioned get reviewed by Wade. In any other form of business be it a teacher, doctor, cop, whatever would get revised due to having frequent complaints about said person.

We're always looking at that kind of stuff, and the admins are always reviewing who's doing what and if it's consitent with NG rules, policy, and just how they want the boards to be.

It seems to me that users when modded are just left to their own devices, and can break rules without repercussions until they do something bad enough to get them caught. There really should be checkups on mods. Or mods can look over one another and report to wade or send a warning to the mod if there is frequent rule breaking done by a mod.

Again, I don't see this happening like you're making it sound. I see SOME mods OCCASIONALLY breaking rules, but it's not habitual from my view like you seem to think. Not to mention, this goes back to you guys don't know what all is going on with the team, and we can't always tell you what's going on because well, this kind of stuff tends to be privileged information and it's not something the average user should be concerned with. Plus it's also about respecting people's privacy and what not. So like I say, I think the fact that so many mods are paying attention to this and commenting on it is encouraging, but you can't expect fundamental changes immediately, and you can't expect that we're going to start telling you things that are on a "need to know" basis when, quite frankly, you don't need to know.

The only reason that I myself don't go on the BBS much is because it is getting pretty big and it seems the user themselves just piss me off at times.

Not to stir up shit or anything, but I find it slightly disheartening that the mods who are regularly replying to this are NOT the ones who are having issues raised against them.

I guess the biggest thing that annoys me is how unprofessional the moderators are, not that they have to be business like, but ban messages that simply say "Fuck you" in them are not acceptable.

It also annoys me to no end how spam is defined, spam is spam wither a "respected" member of the community made it or not.

Oh and to follow up getting banned for a comment left on a mod's user page or a PM is fucking ridiculous.

At 6/2/09 01:28 AM, NEVR wrote: Thing is, you guys seem to want us to loosen up on you, and at the same time be complete saints ourselves.

I got banned for the slightest mistake, and at the same time mods are 'humans too'? Somehow I get the feeling nothing will change.

At 6/2/09 01:28 AM, NEVR wrote:

Thing is, you guys seem to want us to loosen up on you, and at the same time be complete saints ourselves.

I think it's more that if you're going to be so strict and demanding about the way we post, we should expect the same from you. If the rules were to be loosened, and we weren't banned so often and you were less strict, we'd be fine with you messing around and being silly. I have absolutely no problem with moderators making silly threads just because you're having fun, it's when you do this and expect us to be oh so perfect and ban us for the stupidest of things.

At 6/2/09 09:12 AM, Jin wrote: I got banned for the slightest mistake, and at the same time mods are 'humans too'? Somehow I get the feeling nothing will change.

I doubt it ever will as well, but at the same time there's always a slight chance ;)

Nothing will change, the likely hood this thread won't get closed by Poozy with something to the effect of "Suck my cock" is unlikely as well.

At 6/2/09 10:00 AM, Davidzx wrote: NOTE: Im not complaining, im merly answering jonas's question about better moderation

If I would stop getting BBS bans based off of chatrooms and off-topic sites.

Whatever would happen in another site should not revolve here, if I should act negatively in any way to someone else on another site without it carrying back to the NG BBS. Most of the bans ive been getting were complete jokes as a result of poor moderation.

Personally I don't think idiots should be modded out of popular choice.

Thats basically what I think should happen, people shouldn't ban as a result of a joke or act in a chatroom or off-topic site.

You should not ever receive any type of ban for anything off site. Period. I've talked with Wade about this time and time again, because of PSP, and other users and it's very clear that anything that happens off the site will not affect anything on site.

I think the only exception to this is obvious stuff like having a signature linking to warez/roms off site, or hosting a website that has site attacking tools or something, and that's pretty damn rare.

Again, if someone is banning you on site because of something that was said in Stickam/Paltalk, contact Wade.

Though in all fairness, you have a pretty crappy rep in chat David. I hardly chat with you, mostly because you auto block 90% of the chatroom, then proudly proclaim it. If you're not there to chat with people and build friendships, don't bother coming in. Oh, and you should probably ding via IM, I was going to help you out with improving your flash and VAing, but you left before I could post my long response on how to improve your stuff. OH WELL.

What about getting banned from the BBS for PMs or comments left on user pages?

At 6/1/09 08:12 PM, Sensationalism wrote: I've never see idle be nice, always so mean.

Hahaha, awesome.

At 6/2/09 12:46 PM, CanadianSnowman wrote: What about getting banned from the BBS for PMs or comments left on user pages?

That's on site, that's completely different. As for you complaining via PM, I generally have no problem with it, because I can always delete the PM, Block you, or laugh at you. All viable options, however coming on to my user page just to publicly leave a comment is about the same as showing up to someone's birthday party only to call their mother a drunk, and eat some of the cake without utensils.

While the party will recover, we're left seeing you as someone whom goes out of their way to cause misery, and therefore not only are justifiably banned, but likely well deserving of it.

So in short, stay off of user pages for complaining, and PMs shouldn't bother mods unless it's threatening or something. Just my thoughts on it.

But the user page system has the ability to ban users on it, there should be no reason why a mod should abuse his power on the BBS when no infraction was committed on the BBS.

I shouldn't be banned for 3 weeks on the BBS because I say tell Poozy to suck my dick on his user page, he should delete and block me from commenting on that system.

Why don't we ban people from the BBS when they get their spam flash blammed while we're at it?

I'm with David on that one, I've been banned twice now for doing stuff on Stickam.

As I recall, the last one was for having a negative opinion on a certain shitty mod that I and many others should be demodded. Unsurprisingly when someone told him this he served me a 3 day ban.

At 6/2/09 01:42 PM, CanadianSnowman wrote: But the user page system has the ability to ban users on it, there should be no reason why a mod should abuse his power on the BBS when no infraction was committed on the BBS.

Here's how I look at it, and I do have an example for this (I'm not going to use names because I don't want to kick a hornets nest) now you tell me if you feel I overstepped here or not, let's roll it:

Awhile ago a user was banned by me, little ban, nothing big, he proceeded to send me at least 5 harrassing PM's every day, even though I kept trying to explain the ban as politely as I could, it kept up. So ultimately I extended his ban a wee bit to teach him better manners, and then blocked him. That should have been end of story THEN this individual comes onto my userpage, not to comment on the blog at hand, but to continue to insult me and take the issue public. There is no call for that. None. As I've said, people want to talk about us having respect for them, but you need to respect us too, it's one thing if I make a blog that's talking about the issue, or my problems with a user or the users in general, but if it's completely unrelated, I think I'm justified under the rules (where it says don't complain or harrass moderators about your bans) and Wade did back me up on that situation when I contacted him. I don't think you should really be banned if YOU use your PERSONAL userpage to air grievance, that's your space and go ahead. But if you come onto the personal space of a mod when they've made it clear they no longer want to discuss the issue, well, you're being a little twit and I think we have a right to up your ban a bit and tell you to cut that shit out in the future. A ban shouldn't be that big a deal, especially if it's only a couple of days that you need to spend your down time running around and trying to crap up other people's fun.

I shouldn't be banned for 3 weeks on the BBS because I say tell Poozy to suck my dick on his user page, he should delete and block me from commenting on that system.

I don't know about three weeks, but I do think Poozy is within his rights UNDER THE RULES to up your ban if you're using his user page to harrass him. We're VOLUNTEERS, this isn't our job, we're just like you but with more buttons, we come here for the same reason you do, to have fun. Why do we have to be treated poorly because you don't like our decisions? I don't understand this. If you think we were wrong, you should first try to POLITELY contact us and try to resolve the issue. If the mod in question hasn't resolved it to your satisfaction (or worse, just blows you off and or acts like a douche) you should try to contact an admin or another mod about it. There is no call to turn around and act like an asshole back and say "I shouldn't be banned for being a dickhead to somebody on their userpage". The rule as I've understood it FROM WADE is that if it's related to the site, if it's harrassing a mod about a decision, the mod has the right to up your ban or not up your ban at their discretion.

Why don't we ban people from the BBS when they get their spam flash blammed while we're at it?

That would just be ridiculous. It's also completely irrelevant to what you're saying, by your own admission you went on Poozy's userpage to be a problem, and be a problem because of his banning you. The rules are clear that the mod team doesn't have to take that, and can defend themselves against such actions at their discretion.

Want politer mods that don't feel like you guys are a chore? Then part of that is going to need to be being politer users who try to resolve your issues with mods like adults and not angry little kids with no manners.

This is some of the problem I see some of you bringing up here and that just ain't cool to me. You want us to act better, but then you also want us to let you get away with more, and have less responsibility to act decently. Do you guys asking for that REALLY think that's fair?

I was using a hypothetical case.

I still don't believe mods should have the extra right to not only kick a user of their user page but ban them from the BBS.

They're not on the BBS at that point they're just normal users like everyone else on their user page, butthurt over a bad comment or a spammer should not extend to other sections of the website.

It again would be like I made a spam flash about Wade's wife, I get banned from the flash portal but to top it off I get banned from the audio one too, the two have nothing to do with each other.

User pages and the BBS have nothing to do with each other.

Sorry for the double post, it would help if we had an edit button.

Also as a BBS mod your job is to keep the BBS clear of spam and violations of the rules extending a ban to someone to teach them respect isn't something you should be doing.

Every ban message should have a link to the corresponding BBS rule broken, that's what I always thought.

Not ban messages like "I'll teach you!" or "I FUCKED YOUR MOTHER!" or "Fuck you, I'll teach you to spam me!!!"

At 5/31/09 11:00 AM, Jonas wrote: I'm noticing that some users aren't enjoying the BBS, or worse leaving, and that's not best thing to see

A lot of these users are the generic "The BBS has gone to shit, back in my day..." type. I personally think the 05's just want something to bitch about :)

At 6/2/09 02:07 PM, CanadianSnowman wrote:

Well, I still think you're wrong. I still don't believe mods should have the extra right to not only kick a user of their user page but ban them from the BBS.

I tend to think a very small extension IF the ban was already extent is ok. If you are on that page to complain about an existing ban that IS a violation of the rules. If it's just generally to hate on the mod in question, then yes, the comment should be deleted and you should only be banned from the user page. Maybe I wasn't clear enough on the difference at first? So sorry if I wasn't, legitimately.

They're not on the BBS at that point they're just normal users like everyone else on their user page, butthurt over a bad comment or a spammer should not extend to other sections of the website.

Like I say, I believe if it's a case like I had, that person has had it made clear to them the mod is no longer going to discuss the ban situation with them, and the mod is not opening that discussion up to the public, that user should NOT come to the userpage and shit all over it about a ban unless he wants an extension to be a possibiity. But if the mod is trying to justify GIVING a ban based on what happens on a user page, then no, it's wrong and that should never ever happen. But extensions of existing bans, those are legal under the way the rules are set up now. So my advice is like I say, try to privately and politely contact the mod about the ban, and see what you can do. But don't EVER make your ban complaints public on a mod's userpage. Yes? Fair? Good rule of thumb?

It again would be like I made a spam flash about Wade's wife, I get banned from the flash portal but to top it off I get banned from the audio one too, the two have nothing to do with each other.

That you'd have to take up with Wade, and that's really not the point of this topic. This isn't an open discussion about the portal, it's about the BBS. Wade is a staff member and doesn't want his family made fun of, so to my mind it's his and Tom's call to ban people who do so, but it doesn't relate to this thread.

User pages and the BBS have nothing to do with each other.

They do if a user is commenting on a ban from the BBS. Same as if a user IM's a mod to harass them about a ban. The rule has always been as long as I've been here, and it's still in the main rules, that we can take action on that at our discretion, because we're volunteers and the admins don't believe you should get to trash us for just doing what they asked us to do.

Sorry for the double post, it would help if we had an edit button.

Give it up, never gonna happen. Too easy to abuse. Proofreading before you post would be just as helpful.

Also as a BBS mod your job is to keep the BBS clear of spam and violations of the rules extending a ban to someone to teach them respect isn't something you should be doing.

Ah, but as I've pointed out multiple times, harrassment of a moderator, ESPECIALLY when it's done by ON SITE MEANS, violates the rules. Let me pull that line up for you:

Insulting or harassing the moderators or administrators.

Now, perhaps that should be modified and made clearer to state "about a ban you received" I'd be all for that, but that rule does give us the right to ban you, as I have been told again, by Wade, if you're using outside means to wretch about a ban you received. If it's just general complaining, you should be able to do that. So when these extensions happen, they are within the rules.

Every ban message should have a link to the corresponding BBS rule broken, that's what I always thought.

Not a bad idea, I know my ban messages are pretty clear on what you've done wrong (or I endeavor them to be) and usually have the text that got you banned qouted so it's good and clear. Not always, but usually that's how I do it. I also as I've said numerous times welcome questions as long as they're not personal attacks, whenever somebody doesn't understand a decision I made.

Not ban messages like "I'll teach you!" or "I FUCKED YOUR MOTHER!" or "Fuck you, I'll teach you to spam me!!!"

Yep, those are definitely unacceptable and shouldn't be happening. Mods are supposed to be more professional then that. Bans are supposed to be informative, not something to make the mod giving it or people who can read it chuckle. If you can be informative AND funny, coolness. But you HAVE to be informing the user what they did wrong and it HAS to be a violation of the rules.

At 6/2/09 02:34 AM, aviewaskewed wrote: So like I say, I think the fact that so many mods are paying attention to this and commenting on it is encouraging, but you can't expect fundamental changes immediately, and you can't expect that we're going to start telling you things that are on a "need to know" basis when, quite frankly, you don't need to know.

I think that the general demand here from the majority of the users are that they would like more warnings before bans. Is it that hard to figure out a way to comply with this request? it doesn't sound so difficult to me.

At 6/2/09 02:09 PM, CanadianSnowman wrote: Sorry for the double post, it would help if we had an edit button.

An edit button for users won't happen, possibly ever. Too much potential for abuse.

See flash swf. updates.

At 6/2/09 02:37 PM, Sawke wrote: I think that the general demand here from the majority of the users are that they would like more warnings before bans. Is it that hard to figure out a way to comply with this request? it doesn't sound so difficult to me.

Not really for me, I tend to warn people in a thread if they're doing something wrong to knock it off or deletes and bans will be a comin. It tends to work out good. Some people may or may not be doing that, and of course the problem with a mass system like this is you're talking about asking volunteers to put out more work to remember who they've warned vs. who they haven't. Perhaps we could get liljim at some point to encode a warning system that would work like the ban system insofar as we could press a button and you get a warning PM sent, and then we have it in your history that you received a warning so if you keep up the behavior, we will ban you next time out. But I tend to think the way I do it now where I will either speak with a user in a PM, or I will just make a post in the thread saying "chill out and stop the crap" is fairly effective. But that might just be me being biased cause ya know, it's my idea and my way, haha.

At 6/2/09 02:36 PM, aviewaskewed wrote: Insulting or harassing the moderators or administrators.

General Overview
These are the NG Forum rules.

That line you quoted is forum specific. It applies only to insulting or harassing on the BBS, not anywhere else. If mods insist on being right at what they did, I'm pretty sure this thread has failed its objective, if there were any at all.

At 6/2/09 02:53 PM, Jin wrote: General Overview
These are the NG Forum rules.

That line you quoted is forum specific. It applies only to insulting or harassing on the BBS, not anywhere else. If mods insist on being right at what they did, I'm pretty sure this thread has failed its objective, if there were any at all.

Hopefully Wade will pop his head back in, because again, Wade has always made it clear to the mod team that if somebody is harassing us via PM or user page we can extend an existing ban, at least that's what he's told me. Like I say, I don't understand why anybody thinks they should have the right to harass us anyway. You want respect, you should be willing to give it too. I'm also loling at some of the information I get researching some of you guys that are debating about this issue. It's very educational to figure out the motives behind it ;)

Regarding PMs and bans:

I will only lengthen bans for people if they send me death threats over the PM system. I do not do this regularly, and it is last resort to get them to stop before getting Wade to intervene.

I do get death threats--I take those seriously.

That's all I'm going to say.