TOMBOT and john justin should not be mods

what name did 'some dude' used to post as?

alex in baltimore

I know no one gives a shit about my opinion but i want to echo what grady and curtis were saying upthread, that 1 of the major grievances w/ ur modding tom is the pleasure you take in it and the need to be super hardman about it, i know thats ur ilx persona and some ppl eat it up and think its lolarious, but id be willing to swallow shit i disagreed w/ u about a lot more easily if it was done a less gleefully

I don't see why this shouldn't cut both ways. If you don't like the way your judgement gets questioned here all the time, I'm sure there's an IDM or computer code or military or sci-fi message board out there that would be happy to let you moderate with impunity. Why do you speak like you've always been a moderator, always will be and it's beyond discussion, or like if you weren't, another mod behave exactly like you, otherwise there'd be chaos and panic in the streets?

^^ this is frankly pretty fair too

these meta arguments are bullshit and a waste of time but i want to cast a vote of confidence in tom's modding. also i totally approve of him laying the smackdown on the creepier/more pathetic sections of ilx. tough luv innit, some people clearly wouldn't get the message any other way.

Everyone gotta realise that it must be hard for Tom attempting to continue as the less popular half of a once-successful double act. Anyone would turn into a vindictive drunken crybaby once in a while under those circumstances.

I don't really have a clue what's been going down here (hey Curtis can I have a 77 invite please?) but I think Tom's pretty restrained when you consider the amount of personal shit that gets thrown at him and never gets mentioned in these arguments.

(xpost - how's that for timing?)

Tom's pretty restrained when you consider the amount of personal shit that gets thrown at him

chicken/egg

In any case it should be pretty obvious that a temp ban is both a warning and a 'take some time to cool down'. It'd be awesome if we actually had a yellow card graphic to go with it.

On a personal level I've realised that getting into prolonged and aggressive arguments with posters over mod decisions is a waste of time when one calmly argued response usually does the trick, but I can't really blame other mods for flipping out occasionally given how infuriating moderating this place can be from time to time.

Matt, I've done yellow carding too, though it's not combined with a temp ban.

Can we have a feature when, instead of a ban, all the usual text on ILX is replaced with 'HEY EVERYONE I'M NOT DOING ANY WORK' in massive letters, preferably flashing in six different colours?

Accompanied with music

In any case it should be pretty obvious that a temp ban is both a warning and a 'take some time to cool down'. It'd be awesome if we actually had a yellow card graphic to go with it.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but sometimes the person getting the most heated and deserves a warning or some time to cool down is the guy banning other people. I feel like there should be a better recourse than everyone dealing with it and shrugging, "Oh well, the guy in charge is being an asshole today, and can you blame him? Being in charge is hard work." Who watches the watchmen, etc.

"Oh well, the guy in charge is being an asshole today, and can you blame him? Being in charge is hard work."

not reflected in politics threads funnily enough

there should be a better recourse than everyone dealing with it and shrugging, "Oh well, the guy in charge is being an asshole today, and can you blame him? Being in charge is hard work."

That is an excellent response! Especially if the alternative is a dozen threads of bullshit meta whining.

Or you know, shrugging and just getting on with whatever tedious work task you're actually being paid for.

people being all precious about this remind me of me when i complained about noise board modding setting dangerous precedent.

i agree, this is all your fault

excellent

Don't get me wrong, I shrugged it off the first 50 times that I read a thread and thought "Hmmm, 2 guys were being dicks here, but only one of them seems to be getting banned and having their posts deleted and the other one is free to stir shit on other threads, I wonder why that is." It just gets a little old, watching this one-sided dance over and over, and get worse over time now. And again, I don't generally take a lot of interest in board drama, but if the excuse continually being made is "Not many people care about this," then I'm going to have cankles and gr8080's and whoever else's backs when they speak up about it, preciousness be damned.

you don't actually have to watch the one-sided dance over and over if you don't want to

i'd be a lot more worried if it wasn't the same people getting banned every time and the same people complaining every time. that suggests a fundamental disagreement in how ILXors (and moderators) should be allowed to behave but not something that can ever really be resolved (so everyone just goes round in circles every few weeks). the number of mods and the number of banned/complainers seems roughly the same and it makes ILX seem an incredibly tiny place as opposed to somewhere you could get a response as big as to a poll like the almost complete lack of moderation is one of ilxs real strengths (agree/disagree?)

do you still have all 82 of those email accounts?

oh ye have little faith

mothers against drunk modders sez don't mod drunk

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/madd-ad.jpg

can we just get to the stage where we agree to track the 53 that voted yes and ban them as a subtle warning?

Yes, your poll was very big, now stop waving it around like that.

Is the idea that this isn't a problem that deserves to be discussed until or unless more than half of all the hundreds of people who look at different parts of this board for different amounts of time care about it? If only one person has to complain about a meta post for there to be a delete or ban, why do we need to reach some magical quota number of complaints to address a persistent issue regarding those deletions and bans?

kind of curious what the rationale behind no admin log is? there was one in old ilx and I don't recall it ever causing a problem. I guess I can understand keith's rationale for not letting the general public see who took the action, but also don't like the general mysterioso secrecy having no admin log entails. it's like an insurance policy against mods getting crazy.

I also don't like the idea of banning people "because they're dicks". unless someone's specifically and clearly broken a published ilx rule then let them be. but we're in the bizarro world now when general site modding is in question and jw lobbies to have lj unbanned from noize borad.

make that "having an admin log is like an insurance policy against mods getting crazy"

xpost to some dude: partly because of the inherent hierarchy re mods and non-mods. partly because different boards have, for better or worse, established different cultures so consistency is never going to happen (see banning on noise board being seen as just a bit of fun, which would never done elsewhere). what's the alternative? everybody's requests are granted meaning constant loop?

Edward there is a whole thread about this where all the arguments are put forward. Admin log has been developed and will be rolled out shortly, as Keith said upthread.

maybe we could have a list of posters that will be banned for the smallest provocation of any sort, and a list of posters of whom the smallest provocation of any sort will result in a ban.

that would clear things up much more quickly than going over what is/isn't "meta", and would, let's face it, be a hell of a lot more accurate in any case.

^^ I like this idea. Make the "inherent heirarchy" into a flowchart we can all look at and understand.

yeah lets have a "permanent probation" list and a "do not touch" list

let's use "quotemarks" more

darraghmac otm (first time for everything)

"quotation marks" are a "useful" way to "set off" "titles" of things like "lists" and not always "indicative" of "sarcasm" you "limey"

xpost- steady on, that's edging on meta snark territory.

max is so "feisty"

I try and moderate fairly as much as possible and I certainly don't victimise people based on my personal opinions of them but I'm not going to give a Nude Spock alias the same benefit of the doubt as, say, some perfectly innocuous dude who posts on sports threads. Some people are more likely to be regarded with suspicion by mods than others, usually as a direct result of their own behaviour.

Nude Spock could post about snooker for weeks without bothering anyone, but as soon as someone found out who he was, he would be banned because mods are not prepared to put up with him any more and are not willing to treat him like any old poster. That's one extreme, but some people are closer to that extreme than others. Dom is one of them. It's not like "ooh this poster is being victimised when others are getting off with impunity". We've actually been pretty fucking lenient with Dom all things considered and that's because when he's not being a dick he makes a strong contribution and starts a lot of decent threads. I don't ever want to have to ban him on a permanent basis, I just want him to stop being such a creep.

Also the passive-aggressive stuff here is really annoying. I'm trying to answer honestly and fairly here so please stop.

(Disclaimer, not seen the 77 thread in question, I'm speaking in general terms here)

some perfectly innocuous dude

going on the future username list

matt i commend u as i always have for actually responding with paragraphs in a reasonable tone instead of one-line condescending snark

Yeah, me too. I will say, though, that Dom's mischief is generally kind of impish and benign, even when it has a target that's someone else on the board. It's usually the response to his antics that makes it all seem like some kind of crazy blood feud.

Mac: But our shenanigans are cheeky and fun
Thorny: And his shenanigans are cruel and tragic

I'm not saying Tombot's modding has been unfair, but I do agree with the people who say that the way he posts about his modding, which makes it look like he gets personal kicks from it, isn't good behaviour. It makes it look like his modding decisions have been made for personal reasons even if that's not true. I don't think that's a good behaviour from a moderator, because it makes his actions seem suspect, and if you can't know the exact reasons behind them except for some aggressive posts on random threads, can you really blame folks for thinking he's not a fair mod? That's why I too think that a more "objective" admin log, which would just state "person X temp-banned for reason Y", would make moderation feel more fair.

I don't think admin log is a good idea anyway; my opinion is that it will create more of the above nonsense rather than less; we'll see, I guess.

What are you basing this assumption on? Like Edward said, we used to have have an admin log in old ILX for years, and I can't remember it ever causing any problems.

Worth noting that the people that are being given grief above are in favour of having admin log. It's mainly me, and to a lesser extent some others who don't want it.

As far as I know I've never been banned or moderated for any reason, but I am in favour of the admin log and, in general, cool-headed behaviour from the mods, even when they know they're right.

Also the passive-aggressive stuff here is really annoying. I'm trying to answer honestly and fairly here so please stop.

sorry if anything i've posted came off like that matt. my post was serious, but i don't think anything said here has been in reference to your modding.

i also agree/sympathise with just about everything you've said wrt the frustation of modding, but posting here without mod powers can be a pretty frustrating experience too.

(Disclaimer, not seen the 77 thread in question, I'm speaking in general terms here)

-- Matt DC, 28 August 2008 13:58 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i don't usually have any problem with tombot's modding either, but this was some next level bullsh1t, and maybe you should have a read before excusing it with the normal (probably understandable) mod replies.

Just to be clear, this doesn't mean I'm against banning people for being creeps, just that those decisions should appear to be made on objective basis.

(x-post)

we used to have have an admin log in old ILX for years, and I can't remember it ever causing any problems

jesus h christ. you're saying that because we had an admin log nobody ever started complaint threads about people they liked getting banned?

admin log will make zero difference to the frequency of such threads and ban decisions (but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be a neat thing to have).

Well yeah, but I don't think the problems have really decreased after losing the admin log, and certain problems which the admin log could solve (the question of the objectivity/transparency of the mods) seem to have increased.