Mass Dispatch: The Latest Happenings On The RealGM Forums

[ReturnofMVP3]

I have felt personally that there can be some descrepancies when someone says something when it's about a team the mod is a fan of. For example I know when I made a comparison to Beasley smacking himself for taking an ill advices shot being no different than punching a fire extinguisher, a Knicks fan who is also a GB mod decided to give me a suspension which led to my first strike.

Maybe the ban was deserved but since he was also a Knicks mod/fan it made me feel like he just targeted me because I said something he didn't like about a player on his team.

I would like to suggest that if someone says something that falls into "team or fan base baiting" that the mod who reviews the post be an impartial mod. So for my case maybe tsherkin or a mod who wasn't a Knicks fan checked my post.

That is just a suggestion to stop the thought people are being targeted by mods of a specific team that they may have said something Ill adviced about.

[tsherkin]

Howard does review strikes, RoM. Even when the mods edit out the content of a post so it can't be viewed normally, the admin staff can still see the original. He'll occasionally overrule us on a strike or a ban if he doesn't feel it was merited. Sometimes, things will be downgraded to a "soft strike" if the poster is generally not a problem clown and it's their first offense and something comparatively minor. Howard does a lot to prevent people from getting to ROA if he can.

In your case, your second strike actually came as a result of a personal attack, the strike for which I issued, and that led to your ROA.

Also, you technically got THREE strikes on the GB, because moocow's warning was never recorded as a strike. Your first strike was actually from me as well, for derailing and backseat moderating. That was after Knickstape warned you for baiting. Since your ROA, you have a warning from Brooklyn_Yards for trolling on the Knicks forum, which led to a 7-day suspension. You always have another warning from Homo_Sapien.

In your particular case, you have a long history of antagonizing Knicks fans that spans a variety of different mods, so there's nothing about your warning history which isn't above board.

I hope that helps clarify things for you.

[tsherkin]

anything for you tsherkin

Daaawwwww....

[ReturnofMVP3]

Howard does review strikes, RoM. Even when the mods edit out the content of a post so it can't be viewed normally, the admin staff can still see the original. He'll occasionally overrule us on a strike or a ban if he doesn't feel it was merited. Sometimes, things will be downgraded to a "soft strike" if the poster is generally not a problem clown and it's their first offense and something comparatively minor. Howard does a lot to prevent people from getting to ROA if he can.

In your case, your second strike actually came as a result of a personal attack, the strike for which I issued, and that led to your ROA.

Also, you technically got THREE strikes on the GB, because moocow's warning was never recorded as a strike. Your first strike was actually from me as well, for derailing and backseat moderating. That was after Knickstape warned you for baiting. Since your ROA, you have a warning from Brooklyn_Yards for trolling on the Knicks forum, which led to a 7-day suspension. You always have another warning from Homo_Sapien.

In your particular case, you have a long history of antagonizing Knicks fans that spans a variety of different mods, so there's nothing about your warning history which isn't above board.

I hope that helps clarify things for you.

Thanks tsherkin,

I wasn't trying to bring up my own history into this though just an example of how I thought things could improve, it looks like measures are in place so that's good. the Brooklyn yards ban was simply for posting in the Knicks game thread and I only posted there since I couldn't talk about the game thread in the general board. As far as I'm concerned, I can live with the rest of the warnings but can't justify that one myself. I still post in the Knicks board though, and enjoy there posters so I'm not trying to fight with them .

Once again thanks for clearing it up, glad Howard has final say

[tsherkin]

Thanks tsherkin,

I wasn't trying to bring up my own history into this though just an example of how I thought things could improve, it looks like measures are in place so that's good. the Brooklyn yards ban was simply for posting in the Knicks game thread and I only posted there since I couldn't talk about the game thread in the general board. As far as I'm concerned, I can live with the rest of the warnings but can't justify that one myself. I still post in the Knicks board though, and enjoy there posters so I'm not trying to fight with them .

Once again thanks for clearing it up, glad Howard has final say

Howard's presence is important for many reasons, but specifically because he is our objective final point of evaluation. He's got a broad, top-down view of how he wants the GB to operate, and that lends him the ability to handle individual cases with perspective that the mods, even the globals, can never really match. We're out there dealing with various posters, lots of nonsense repeat offenders, first-timers, whatever, all that jazz... and he's what ties us all together, while keeping us from burning out from the sheer volume of foolishness we encounter. We've got a good crew; we're human and make mistakes sometimes, but we also look over what the rest of the team does to make sure it's all getting done the right way.

We try really hard to avoid bans which make no sense, we try to make everyone as aware as possible of the policies. We give second chances that most people don't really see or remember, lots of stuff. We also try to keep perspective in a thread; when there are gonna be like a billion warnings in a given thread, you'll notice we typically lock the thread as a whole instead of going after the entire poster-base within that thread. It's little stuff like that we try to do so posting on the GB isn't entirely like living in occupied France, you know? We have to have a strong policy because there are a large number of posters who can't seem to grasp that the GB isn't their buddy's basement and they have to have some sense of decorum and respect for the other posters around them, but we try to at least enable and facilitate conversation and good discussion.

Cheers.

[Droseisthe1]

Any plans to introduce an anti-and1?

I'd like that

Maybe like a "swatted" or "denied" option referring to a block

[Dr Positivity]

I personally feel my perma ban and multiple rejected appeals is unfair. I was banned in October 2012 with no general board warning or 3 strike rule leading to it. I called Yuri Valtin a clown after he went out of his way to bait/provoke me and after I mixed him up with another moderator YogiStewart who'd insulted me recently (thus assuming he was a repeat provoker and it made me more upset) and I was banned immediately as a one and done. I hadn't read the GB policy thread which I believe was brand new at the time so I wasn't on guard and thought a warning would be the worst case scenario.

I have otherwise been a stable poster for 30k+ posts. Yes I have a few infractions but haven't had a warning since December 2012 (which was for posting an img with curse language in it).

[RIPskaterdude]

I love Howard Mass

[HornetJail]

I personally feel my perma ban and multiple rejected appeals is unfair. I was banned in October 2012 with no general board warning or 3 strike rule leading to it. I called Yuri Valtin a clown after he went out of his way to bait/provoke me and after I mixed him up with another moderator YogiStewart who'd insulted me recently (thus assuming he was a repeat provoker and it made me more upset) and I was banned immediately as a one and done. I hadn't read the GB policy thread which I believe was brand new at the time so I wasn't on guard and thought a warning would be the worst case scenario.

I have otherwise been a stable poster for 30k+ posts. Yes I have a few infractions but haven't had a warning since December 2012 (which was for posting an img with curse language in it).

Pretty much the same deal with me, all GB suspensions etc came from one particular mod which I had rather heated but mostly civil discussions with. The same particular one that has banned a good portion of Bobcats/Hornets fans from the GB. Ended picking a couple of "cheap" strikes after that, and that was it. One was for linking a .gif to a stupid thread and the other was for spelling a certain s___ word with a plus sign instead of a "t". Both things are regularly overlooked there. tl;dr- consistency is key if you're going to crack down on moderation.

[jeff1624]

Geez, thanks howard mass... now Rich is gonna have a big head all week. What a bad time to be a Nets fan. First Kidd, now this. Ughh


(Nahh, I'm joking, Rich is awesome)

[jeff1624]

EDIT: Forget it. Not worth it.

[Driguez]

How about adding a And 1 button to the app?

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using RealGM Forums mobile app

[Devilzsidewalk]

Any plans to introduce an anti-and1?

I'd like that

Maybe like a "swatted" or "denied" option referring to a block

getting kinda close to the reddit-esque threaded forum style. My theory is that you end up with less meaningful debate and more "pay attention to this controversial/humorous post!"...posts.

[ReturnofMVP3]

Earl Asks:

As you have seen there is a thread where people are trying to bring back Adrian _05.
What will it take for him to be allowed permission to post on the off topic board once again. Seeing some of the new posters that we have gotten on the OTB board have made us realize that Adrian isn't as bad as we thought he was. It can be said that the worst poster in the OTB is running away with the award this year.

Howard's Response

When a user receives an individual board ban, they are assigned a first appeal date. The user in question has a first appeal date of June 30, 2014 which means they are eligible to appeal their board ban from our General Off-Topic Board.

It is up to the user to write up an appeal stating why they should allowed back on the forum. I then review the appeal and make a decision.

Thanks for responding to my question.
Its on Adrian if he wants to appeal.

We both know that was my question that you stole. Way to get put in Mass Dispatch on someone else's thought. I thought we were friends, how could you.

[ReturnofMVP3]

How about adding a And 1 button to the app?

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using RealGM Forums mobile app

realgm doesn't make the app, tapatalk does. The only way you will ever see an and1 feature is if Realgm makes their own app or tapatalk adds a karma type system that realgm adopts.

[tsherkin]

I personally feel my perma ban and multiple rejected appeals is unfair. I was banned in October 2012 with no general board warning or 3 strike rule leading to it. I called Yuri Valtin a clown after he went out of his way to bait/provoke me

You broke the rules. GB policy makes it explicitly clear that the actions of others in no way exonerate you from committing infractions against the TOS. Be the bigger man. More to the point, if you have a problem with a regular mod, go to a global. Don't sully the board with nonsense personal attacks and expect there to be no consequences. You had 5 warnings from 3 different mods on three different boards before you even changed your username from Dr Mufasa. Don't act like you're some remarkably clean poster with no history of trouble. Since that nick change, you have an additional 3 warnings from 3 different mods, and a 3-day suspension.

You've been repeatedly breaking a variety of different rules all over the boards, and you've paid the price for your actions. Further, per policy, your warnings which came after your ROA on the GB have invalidated any appeal that you've attempted to put forth.

You don't have "a few infractions," Dr Positivity, you have 8 warnings. That is a large number of infractions against the TOS, and reflective of a negative pattern of behavior, for which there are lingering consequences.

Both things are regularly overlooked there. tl;dr- consistency is key if you're going to crack down on moderation.

You broke the rules. You received warnings within the scope of board policy. Like every other fan base that decides that they don't want to read board policy and gets hammered with warnings, the Cats fan base felt that they were being targeted, but they were not. We've seen similar complaints from Miami, Detroit and New York fan bases, among others, but that's simply from the posters failing to take the time to do their due diligence and read the GB Board Policy and Reminder threads. The GB is a very different posting environment from the team boards.

As was the case with the other fan bases, it's noteworthy that most of the posters who ended up getting ROA were recidivist offenders with multiple warnings, and thus it was no surprise that they had issues. You fail to mention, though, in your off-hand comment, that the mod who did most of those warnings and ban requests is the same mod who went out of his way to help Liver_Pooty get back onto the GB.

You also forget to mention that you have warnings from two other mods besides the one who got you on the GB, one for baiting Hornets fans and one after your ROA for baiting on the Heat forums, which really reinforces that the pattern of behavior that got you banned in the first place was set before and continued after the warnings you received on the GB and thus not at all out of character. This is a theme; the posters who get banned and remained off of the GB are almost universally posters with notable warning histories, often both before and after their issues on the GB.

As to your comment about consistency, we do what we can. The GB has 11 mods and over 3.6 MILLION posts across nearly 61,000 threads, many of which happen during off-hours and are missed by the mods. Rather than hunt and peck through all of the old posts in the forum, we deal with what is reported and what we see in the course of our browsing... as we volunteer for an unpaid job to help try and maintain the quality of the forum. Problem posters who wish to complain about their lot after obviously breaking the rules never seem to respect that. You should focus less on complaining that you got warned within policy for breaking the rules and more on amending your behavior so you don't continue to move along the ban scale for RealGM in its entirety. v

[spearsy23]

Is posting amount taken into consideration at all when issuing bans and suspensions? I understand time is probably the biggest factor, but it seems someone who posts extremely frequently, and probably adds more to discussions than most, is much more likely to be punished despite being a higher quality poster than a random ballboy who has posted five times but already received a warning. I mean two warnings in a year (I believe that's the policy?) isn't much leeway when someone is posting 20 times per day.

Edit: also, how do you get a third gen board warning with only reading access?

[ElectricMayhem]

Edit: also, how do you get a third gen board warning with only reading access?

Vindictive reading. When you read with a stink eye, a stare, a glare, a condescending squint, or even google glass, they know....Oh yes, they know.

[SOUL]

We need a seedy underbelly section of the website where teams can just flame/troll each other respectively,of course.

I understand why that would never happen though.

[Sofia]

We need a seedy underbelly section of the website where teams can just flame/troll each other respectively,of course.

I understand why that would never happen though.

so the OTB?