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Looks like Gwar made the wrong enemies, for someone who alwais came across as intelligent he fell for troll traps quite regularly, still being baited into arguments should not get you in trouble – it should get the other guy in trouble for instigating.

DLS: at the end of the day, it was still considered a personal attack, weather it was ment for humour or not mate.

But the problem is, alot of people who flaimbait on here tend to try and make thier comments more funny to avoid it being pulled, thus where the problem starts.


Sure, Gwar will be a pain for MOD's, but all the time he is keeping OT and not brekaing rules he does not deserve to be treated differently.
The people who flamebait should catch the punishment instead.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit: Gonads, if flamebaiting was taken into account, why such a harsh punishment?
Im more than willing to spend a few hours tracking back through his posts to find out the posts before hand the led up to it.

Failing that, i can allways just drop a pm or 3 and find out why alot quicker.

HoverBoy wrote:Looks like Gwar made the wrong enemies, for someone who alwais came across as ib=ntelligent he fell for troll traps quite regularly, still being baited into arguments should not get you in trouble – it should get the other guy in trouble for instigating.

Its nothing to do with intelligence , its called patience.
Being trolled in numerous threads + usually trolled for 12 + pages EACH all at once , you would have to be a SAINT to be calm.

Oh grow thicker skin everybody. Y'all taking this waaaaaay to fethin' seriously.


[EDIT]: HA! HBMC - 1, Word Filter - 0. I'd better edit that...

... -_- iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii *sigh

fine fine....

Damn it Luna!

Thankee HMBC, you are right.

And JD, I see what you're saying, but it's hardly your place to say what is or isn't a PERSONAL attack on Gwar!.

Which you quite clearly aren't.

Unless of course you are...

Oh no I've confused myself!

HB, you have been around here for a while mate, you know the gak that goes on just like everyone else

why ignore it?


at the end of the day, people will just give up on it and leave, which isnt really a good thing

Yea why is it okay to complain about actions of GW and not Dakka itself?? We're all human after all....mostly!

And JD, I see what you're saying, but it's hardly your place to say what is or isn't a PERSONAL attack on Gwar!.

Which you quite clearly aren't.

Unless of course you are...

Oh no I've confused myself!

Actually, all members are at liberty to report any rules being broken by members, thats what that alert mod icon is for
So yes, it is my place to say it, and also, since Gwar isnt here, im going to make sure i do.

*le sigh*

Fine, do as you must, read into what you will as you will quite clearly not be happy with what was clearly a joke.

Gwar! will be missed if he doesn't come back. I'm backing the MODs on this one. My final word on the matter

Hmm i see...

As i reccolect luna, the matter was pretty much ignored.

Everyone in this thread needs to calm down.

IF you EVER have a problem with ANYTHING on this site, INCLUDING how the Moderators are Moderating, by all means, feel free to contact the OWNER about it.

As a matter of fact, EVERY user that gets a ban (temporary or permanent) is advised to contact Yakface to discuss it further, if necessary.

No user is permanently banned WITHOUT Yak's agreeing to it.

Most users are OK with this.

Most don't even contact Yakface, to the best of my knowledge. (Well, the one's that are temporarily banned.)

Most users don't create multiple accounts (against the rules here) to post odd 'farewell' messages.

There are a lot of discussions behind the scenes about this type of stuff.

Users who receive longer bans are the ones who have received multiple warnings and/or suspensions to begin with.

Again, though, ANYONE who has ANY problems with ANYTHING on Dakka - contact Yakface directly.

He's a nice guy - he'll answer any questions you might have.

OMG! Alpha is flaming us! Quick! Flame him back.

Alph, just lock the thread. You know this won't end well.

However, while I'm here, +1 poast.

End well? It didn't start well.

Catch up Cheese. You're falling behind.

It started just fine, I brought a message, thats all.

Cya Gwar. You made some interesting posts.

Also who is the next poster to step up and annoy.. first stelek then Gwar, who will be next?

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:
Many users believe that dakka is one of the least moderated forums (in terms of intervention by the moderation team) of the major GW based forums. I've seen it posted many, many times over the years. That is what we are aiming for, and in no small part it is because the dakka users are self moderating and help new users with the style of posting present on dakka, and because when needed the moderators stop the inapropriate posts and users from dragging dakka down.

Aye this I would agree with 100% my first forum was Neoseeker, that was a interesting first forum to be on back in 2002, and it taught me a lot of Net ettiquette and what can happen with rogue Mods etc, so this place to me is like a play park in comparrison.

I also can understand the time thing, former mod on a GW forum, current mod on a MMO forum, its more time consuming that a lot of people realise.

To be fair with pics, it doesn't take much to doctor them in paint, or replace the f-word with something more PG friendly like feth or frell.

Hope he comes back though, have always found Gwar to be a nice fella in the forums, even if I'm in a minority.

JD21290 wrote:Sure, Gwar will be a pain for MOD's, but all the time he is keeping OT and not brekaing rules he does not deserve to be treated differently.

Firstly, it's worth pointing out that suspensions are generally not publicly discussed, as they're ultimately no business of anyone except the poster in question. It's only happening in this case because Gwar chose to make it public, and because people chose to make an issue of it without having the full facts.

However, you're absolutely correct: so long as he was following the rules, he didn't have a problem. Even better, in fact, he was cut some slack in this instance despite previous infractions, because his behaviour had been so markedly improved. But those previous infractions do still count, which is why this particular situation led to a suspension instead of just a warning.

It's worth reiterating again that a suspension is not handed out on a whim. If a poster is getting a month-long holiday, it's because they have done something really naughty, or (as is more often the case) they've broken the rules on multiple occasions previously.

The people who flamebait should catch the punishment instead.

They certainly should also be punished appropriately. Instead, though? Certainly not. It's the responsibility of each poster to police their own behaviour first and foremost. But if you can't control your own behaviour when somebody you don't know and will probably never meet says something you find offensive on the internet, then one of the mods has to step in and do it for you.

The mods do also police flamebait behaviour. That doesn't mean we always see it, though. Dakka's a big place. If an offensive post isn't reported, and a mod doesn't happen to read that thread (or is skimming through in a hurry due to, as previously mentioned, doing this for free in what spare time we may happen to have available) it may very well be missed.

So, if you see something that you feel should be actioned, hit the report button and someone will take a look. But don't be surprised if you don't actually see a result. Most of the disciplinary work goes on through PM or email. So the fact that you haven't seen someone taken to task in public is no proof that nothing was done.

A moderator said:

There is no feud between the Moderators and Gwar! or any user.

Gwar! was suspended not banned. The suspension was one month because of (a) a long history of previous shenanigans, and (b) his action in creating a sock puppet account to announce his suspension.

Gwar! can come back if he wants to.

Personally I think he will, because DakkaDakka is a sympathetic site compared to many, and he has a rep (good and bad) and supporters here. If you want him to come back, you could email him to say so.

Like any user Gwar! can appeal to Yakface and Legoburner by emailing webmaster@dakkadakka.com. It would have been better to do that than to kick off in public. It was also a mistake for him to send in a message via another user, that was adding fuel to the fire. (I'm not blaming the user.)

Gwar! was not the only user who fairly regularly got trolled. The moderators act to defend any user who gets trolled, often without the need for an alert. Being trolled does not authorise a user to retaliate on their own account.

(Blah blah Alert button, etc.)

You can complain about unfair moderation by using the webmaster@dakkadakka.com email address. The Moderators do not see those messages. You should bear in mind that what you see as unfair is not necessarily unfair when considered within a wider context of which you may not be aware.

I don’t know what else to say. Several times previously I have made long posts explaining how moderation works and the Dakka philosophy. On the whole there is a light touch. Very few decisions are controversial. The number of lengthy suspensions or outright bans is small. Moderation of individuals is usually done privately to avoid embarrassing them.

It's worth looking at other sites to compare moderation styles.

They certainly should also be punished appropriately. Instead, though? Certainly not. It's the responsibility of each poster to police their own behaviour first and foremost. But if you can't control your own behaviour when somebody you don't know and will probably never meet says something you find offensive on the internet, then one of the mods has to step in and do it for you.

While true enough every user should vet thier posts 1st before posting, it should be worth noting that even the most quiet people on dakka can get pissed off with people baiting them.

Usually people will do it if things are not going thier own way, knowing what will happen.

Not everyone will stay quiet and ignore it for long, lets face it, everyone has a breaking point which will time from time be reached.

Fair enough, both the user and the person responsible for the flame baiting should be punished, but the flame should get hit with a heavier punishment, even more so if they do it on a regular basis.

It just seems that ive never actually seen a single person recieve any punishment for flamebaiting (dont judge just yet, let me go on)
The only time i have seen such a thing was simply when someone implied i had been sending them messages (i wont name names) and i actually got a MOD to check this out (after i had been warned about messages by said MOD)
After a few checks he could see i had never sent that user a message before.
even so, i had reported it to a MOD for flamebaiting, i actually recieved a warning on the word of another user before this was checked out, and never did actually get that warning removed as far as i was aware.



On a side note and much lighter, i do understand that MOD's do work thier arses off on here for free, and i do appreciate it, i just feel that people who provoke others should bear the brunt of the punishment.

Thanks insaniak

Kilkrazy wrote:A moderator said:

There is no feud between the Moderators and Gwar! or any user.

Gwar! was suspended not banned. The suspension was one month because of (a) a long history of previous shenanigans, and (b) his action in creating a sock puppet account to announce his suspension.

Whilst not taking a side here, Gwar would like me to point out he was banned/suspended for a month before the sock puppet account was created. So he feels that the MODs do not collaborate over this issue.

Please don't shoot the messenger.

BrotherStynier wrote:Whilst not taking a side here, Gwar would like me to point out he was banned/suspended for a month before the sock puppet account was created. So he feels that the MODs do not collaborate over this issue.

I can see how that could be confusing.

Without going into detail, the second account and subsequent grandstanding affected the discussion as to whether or not the suspension was appropriate in this instance.

Beyond that, if Gwar really wants to discuss this he would be better off emailing Yakface or one of the mods rather than relaying through other posters.

Blam!

The principle of moderation decisions being kept private works both ways. That is why Gwar! ought to have contacted Yakface directly.

I assume that Gwar! is reading the forums as a guest, and sending in public comments via you. I think this is unhelpful. The discussion should be done privately via the webmaster@dakkadakka.com address.

Well Gwar informs me that he has sent three emails to Yakface, one about the refund and DCM cancellation and two regarding the ban neither of which have been answered. If you or any other mod would like to discuss it with him his address is gwarthetrolle@gmail.com

This is all very strange. Getting real time updates from Gwar! via brotherstyner--wtf I think someone might be a bit over-invested in dakkadakka. A long break could be healthy.

olympia wrote:This is all very strange. Getting real time updates from Gwar! via brotherstyner--wtf I think someone might be a bit over-invested in dakkadakka. A long break could be healthy.

QFT
Also some time spend enjoying the hobby would help him relax, maybe try and learn how to ignore trolls.

People either aren't reading what was posted above about 'how' Moderation works here, or they are and they aren't understanding it, or they are and they don't like it.

That, coupled with the seance that's taking place that's channeling Gwar!, means at this point, I think it would be WAY more beneficial for all concerned to take any and all issues they have directly to Yakface.

(KK) Just to add -- It is the Thanksgiving holiday in the US at the moment and Yakface is getting ready to move house, so he is probably too busy to read his emails right now.