I feel like there's way too much defensiveness when it comes to discussing bans, rules, and moderation from both mods and users.
I can't speak for every instance, but if you've been banned, the moderator who banned you probably had a reason for doing so. Whether or not you agree with that reason doesn't matter, the point is that that moderator is just doing his or her job. If you have questions or concerns about it, confront the specific moderator in question about the issue through PM's and do it in a polite and civil fashion.
People need to realize that bans aren't the end of the world. If you get banned from the BBS for a week, so what? There are other things you can be doing with your time, so why make a big deal of it? This goes for getting your thread locked, as well. Getting your thread locked is a hint to you that those types of threads aren't acceptable here. Again, you may not agree with it, but it's not your prerogative to claim otherwise. So, if you have a question or concern, there's no reason to be overly defensive about it. You can argue your points respectfully, but there's no reason to say things like "OH MODERATOR X IS A FUKKIN NAZU."
Insults and defensive bitching will get you absolutely nowhere and it makes it all that much harder for the mods that are just trying to do their jobs. The worst case scenario of debating the issue respectfully should be that your ban doesn't get lifted. Big deal.
But, this respectfulness goes both ways. To abide by gumOnShoe's warning, I won't name specific instances, but I will say that I have seen some cases where mods reply to users in a very disrespectful and defensive manner. I understand that it must be a stressful job to be dealing with arrogant, self-important teenaged brats hiding behind the anonymity of the internet to be internet tough guys day in and day out, but that's the responsibility that mods take on when they accept the job.
I also understand that it's very tempting to reply arrogantly to the arrogance of another, but that's just not a good way of dealing with the situation especially if you're a role model. Now, it would be easier for me to get this point across if I were to give examples, but I abstain. My point is that if mods want to attempt to stop users from being disrespectful to them, they need to abstain from wording their arguments in ways that are disrespectful to the users. Working insults into your arguments isn't going to help the situation. To a third party it's a very amusing to watch, but it just escalates the situation far beyond where it should end. A very good example of that is how people in this thread, in other threads, and very much so in places outside the BBS are arguing and complaining about this issue incessantly. They complain that the mods act disrespectfully and in what seems to be a biased manner and that creates an absurd level of unneeded tension. And, in a lot of cases, what the users assume to be the case, such as "mod x is biased against thread type x," isn't even the reality of it, but no one can see that because there's not enough respectful dialog.
And I can tell you from a regular's perspective that it's not just the rowdy, rule breaking users that express thoughts like this outside of the forums. There are many, many people who don't have an extreme passion for the issue, but they are unhappy with it or other issues regarding the mods at one level or another. And, none of those issues can be resolved until there's a mutual level of respect between the users and the mod team.
Also think, if you have the urge to act disrespectfully towards disrespect, then you can be sure that that's the exact same case for the users. It's hard to bitch about stone cold straight logic without looking like a fool. It's extremely easy to argue with defensive arguments loaded with insults (even though the arguments may have some logic in them) and get the majority of the userbase on your side. Because, when moderators do throw out insults in response to users, they look more abusive then when users return the same kind of response. It just perpetuates the exact us and them attitude that we're all trying to eliminate.
We need to stop insulting each other, we need to stop being defensive about our opinions, and we need to be willing to have an open dialog about things that have happened in a way where we're attempting to look for a resolve to the tension and not just the end of the conversation.
