Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Manchu wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
it's not really fighting the power when you're trying to hold the moderators to the very same rules they hold us to.

My point is, you don't get to hold anyone to any standard other than via hitting the yellow triangle or sending a (non-rulebreaking) PM.

wait the yellow triangle isn't for whenever posts something I disagree with?

 Grundz wrote:
wait the yellow triangle isn't for whenever posts something I disagree with?

It is sometimes used that way, which the staff might (in extreme cases) consider spamming the forum/trolling the mods.

 Manchu wrote:

 Grundz wrote:
wait the yellow triangle isn't for whenever posts something I disagree with?

It is sometimes used that way, which the staff might (in extreme cases) consider spamming the forum/trolling the mods.

Sure seems to be the case as some members just look for the slightest inkling to call on rule 1/2

Yeah, I have certainly noticed that and I clear a lot of alerts where someone is basically just offended rather than the post they're reporting actually being offensive. The staff knows those are two different things.

 Manchu wrote:
The staff knows those are two different things.

I beg to differ

At some level, these will always be subjective calls. That's an important reason why moderators share their opinions about any given issue and try to reach consensus "behind the curtain."

Ah well that makes sense, as I'm not a moderator i'm only subject to receive cut and pasted canned responses to a mailbox I cant read until a week later.

This is the screenshot of the post that was deleted for a second time, it did not contain any foul language.

http://s37.photobucket.com/user/bulimic_possum/media/dakka%20dakka%20screenshot/dakka_zpsedaefd49.jpg.html#/user/bulimic_possum/media/dakka%20dakka%20screenshot/dakka_zpsedaefd49.jpg.html?&_suid=13716557449910636853912276951

That's why I'm confused, it was deleted again for foul language without containing any and I again received a threat of the loss of my posting abilities. If reds8n just thought it was identical and deleted it on sight I guess that's an honest mistake but this is getting silly. It was editd and re-posted after confirmation that the issue was I was using ** to censor the swear word rather than let the autofilter do its thing but before I had confirmation fro manchu that the youtube link wasn't part of the violation.

I have received a warning once that other mods thought was a bit silly, so I don't know if every mod decision gets a consensus vote. But while I occasionally see something that might feel like a bad judgement to me, I have not seen any real signs of any kind of mod abuse. I think that is the important difference. There might be mods with different judgements, but they still do what they do because they are trying to do the right thing and not because they are drinking the frothy fascism juice from the fountain of Dakka.

Having met Yakface and Lego, and from my limited experience with them on here, I feel confident that our Dear Leaders would deal with any mods that wander too far from their little red book.

 Crablezworth wrote:
This is the screenshot of the post that was deleted for a second time, it did not contain any foul language.

Not sure why we are doing this both in PM and here BUT your screenshot clearly shows "bulls**t" in the first paragraph.

 Grundz wrote:
Ah well that makes sense, as I'm not a moderator i'm only subject to receive cut and pasted canned responses to a mailbox I cant read until a week later.

The canned responses come with warnings. On the fifth (!) warning, your account is automatically suspended by the site. You get time off and come back to find the warning PM in your inbox. If your account is suspended, it's our practice to also send an email to the address you provided upon registration and that is not canned.

 d-usa wrote:
I don't know if every mod decision gets a consensus vote.

No, we don't put every warning to a vote. That seems like a silly bit of rhetoric, d-usa.

 Grundz wrote:
The canned responses come with warnings. On the fifth (!) warning, your account is automatically suspended by the site. You get time off and come back to find the warning PM in your inbox. It's our practice to also send an email to the address you provided upon registration and that is not canned.

Really, because the messages I receive are 100% identical besides the link to the thread, which of course the post is no longer in.

 Cyporiean wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
This statement has never held more water than it has today after seeing a post from a moderator telling a user to leave the moderating to the moderators.

I don't understand your objection.

Mod spams a thread, User calls moderator on said action, said Mod tells user to leave the moding to Mods.

Moderator makes repeated calls on known scam artist to provide evidence of claims, knowing the scam artist is observing the thread. Moderator has already invested large amounts of time and personal effort to expose and confront the scam artist as a scam artist, for the sake of the community.

Poster feels Moderator has made the same point too many times and refers to it, openly, as 'spam', undermining the point raised by the Moderator and potentially providing the scam-artist with ammunition to claim 'victimization' and 'overzealous attack' by the Moderator.

Other Posters may not agree with the Poster and are mildly annoyed at the Poster for bringing a sideline conflict into the thread, seeing it as fueling the scam-artist.

This Other Poster would rather you left the Moderation to the Moderators. This Other Poster was very content with the points being raised repeatedly, this Other Poster wants the microscope hovering directly over the scam-artist for as long as it takes and cares not a jot that the scam artist is feeling victimized. This Other Poster is disappointed in fellow Posters providing potential ammunition to a scam-artist over a Moderator.

This Other Poster is happy to let the Moderator team sense-check each other on whether they are going to far or crusading, relying on the wide mix of personalities and their discussion in the moderator forum to lead to a sensible outcome.

 d-usa wrote:
not because they are drinking the frothy fascism juice from the fountain of Dakka

Not because we are drinking from that fountain -- but we drink from it all the same, eh?

2 things -

1. We tend not to publicly say what the user did in anything but the simplest, shortest terms if we have to redact the post. We do it this way because some people do not like being moderated under any circumstances, right or wrong, and we don't want things escalating in a public way causing further disruption or raising the anger level on anyone's part more than it has to be.

2. I am the Mod in question that Cyporean and Alf are referring to. Before I start I will say I like and respect both users quite a bit just for the record.

BUT

Cyporean, you didn't just say 'hey Tom you are spamming', you went on to go into exactly the kind of punishment I should receive and undermined not only me but all the Mods in doing so. This in itself would have been more understandable had you actually been correct in your assessment of the rule, but you weren't. Repeating a series of questions at the end of 4 or 5 posts dominated by completely new content and addressing not only the thread in general but stating why the small portion of content was being repeated is not spam.

To enlighten you, had I repeated only the same content with nothing new, then it would have been spam. Had I posted pictures or emoticons without anything to say, it would be spam. Had I unilaterally dominated the thread for pages on end responding to every last post and not being dynamic in how I was answering with no one else even getting the chance to speak, then it would eventually be considered spam.

In this case, you did two things wrong, first, you should have contacted me personally first via PM instead of making aggressive and inflamattory remarks that added nothing to the thread, and second you made an assumption that you understand the rules better than anyone else. Which as I indicated in this case you didn't.

What should you have done?

1. PM me to call me out and let me either capitulate or explain why it was not spamming

2. if you don't trust me to make the call, hit the mod alert button and let the other members of the team deal with it.

Whatever the case, it is not up to you to make the call unilaterally or to act as if you are objectively correct.

That being said, though I did not look at it that way at the time as repeating the questions was directly part of my point in multiple ways (illustrating to new readers what Dakka is actually interested in vs what RF says we are interested in, making sure AJ did not have a chance to let the questions sink too far behind the posts without answering in some fashion, and to illustrate how fundamentally evasive they have been on the simple questions while they and AJ are protesting transparency), I do realize that it was not taken in that way by some and it seemed just pointless repetition I guess to a small group of people like yourself, and obviously that was not my intent. So I adjusted the behaviour out of respect, NOT because I was rules breaking.

And that's that, I will however not take kindly to you going around saying I broke rules as a fact when you have no justification to do so besides your own personal opinion. Say 'Tom was annoying and spammy to ME' that's fine, but saying 'Tom broke the rules and got away with it and doesn't care' that offends me, undermines the 100's if not 1000's of hours I have spent enforcing those rules for the good of the site and also makes my job and the job of the mods that much harder.

That is not a price we should have to pay just because you decided you know better than everyone all by yourself.

Thank you.

 Grundz wrote:
Really, because the messages I receive are 100% identical besides the link to the thread, which of course the post is no longer in.

Again, you get a canned PM with a warning. If your account is suspended, we write an email explaining why and send it to the address you provided upon registration. The email is not canned.

...And we know Moderators are held accountable, we have one who fell from heaven, blazing with the light of endless wiener dog references, dwelling among us still...

 Manchu wrote:

 Grundz wrote:
Really, because the messages I receive are 100% identical besides the link to the thread, which of course the post is no longer in.

Again, you get a canned PM with a warning. If your account is suspended, we write an email explaining why and send it to the address you provided upon registration. The email is not canned.

Where would this email come from, because I 100% assure you that I never received one when you did it, I would have remembered reading it, it appears my spam folder predates the event so it didn't end up there either.

To be clear, I didn't bring names into this until Tom's post , after seeing Malfred's post, I PM'd the good Major explaining why I thought his post was spam, we bantered back and forth explaining our points, and I made a comment that I think there should be something clearer in the dakka rules about what to do when you see a rules violation based on my talks with Tom and a post that Manchu made on page 1 of this thread. I gathered my thoughts and put them here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/534744.page

 Grundz wrote:
Where would this email come from, because I 100% assure you that I never received one when you did it, I would have remembered reading it, it appears my spam folder predates the event so it didn't end up there either.

Taking it to PM.

 Alfndrate wrote:
To be clear, I didn't bring names into this until Tom's post , after seeing Malfred's post, I PM'd the good Major explaining why I thought his post was spam, we bantered back and forth explaining our points, and I made a comment that I think there should be something clearer in the dakka rules about what to do when you see a rules violation based on my talks with Tom and a post that Manchu made on page 1 of this thread. I gathered my thoughts and put them here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/534744.page

All of which are great points and I support them. It is super helpful if you guys point out things like this so we can adjust.. I myself edited some of the rules in the welcome thread to update them based on certain innocent ommisions, usually based on elaborating on specific circumstances.

And just to point this out to anyone reading this, Mods are certainly accountable for their actions, in fact we MUST be. Don't be afraid to hit the triangle, even on us. That being said you likewise cannot take for granted we will agree with your assesment (most Mods tend to very much try and walk the straight and narrow) but from time to time, we do slip up. Don't be afraid to triangle anyone, just make very sure you have a good, justifiable reason to do it.

Alf, though we did not entirely agree on certain points PMing me was appreciated and welcome, and I appreciate your attitude in regards to this disagreement between us. As I said, despite this issue, I am still very fond of you and Cyp.

 Manchu wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
This is the screenshot of the post that was deleted for a second time, it did not contain any foul language.

Not sure why we are doing this both in PM and here BUT your screenshot clearly shows "bulls**t" in the first paragraph.

You are correct, I missed that one. My apologies. I have re-edited the post so it says bullgak.

I'm really not trying to be catty but it seems like you're splitting hairs a bit if you yourself have no issue writing bulls**t (bullgak).

I'm not trying to challenge the dakka policy, just sorta pointing it out.

Thanks, glad we got that straightened out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:
I'm really not trying to be catty but it seems like you're splitting hairs a bit if you yourself have no issue writing bulls**t (bullgak).

Normally I wouldn't but I wanted to make it clear what the issue was since you apparently overlooked it.

Fair enough, I will be mindful of letting the filter do it's thing. Full disclosure I had posted the inital post on a local forum as well as here, the local forum doesn't have a filter in place so using the * is what they want over there.

 Manchu wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
not because they are drinking the frothy fascism juice from the fountain of Dakka

Not because we are drinking from that fountain -- but we drink from it all the same, eh?

People love juice, it's not a crime!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
I don't know if every mod decision gets a consensus vote.

No, we don't put every warning to a vote. That seems like a silly bit of rhetoric, d-usa.

I didn't mean this in any sort of rhetoric. I was simply trying to say that I know you might get slightly different mod actions based on which mod sees your posts, but that different opinions between mods are normal and not indicative of any kind of mod abuse.

Yeah, what I meant by consensus -- outside of the rare example of a strident disagreement -- is more about a culture or attitude about Dakka. I think the prevailing sentiment is, this is a place to have fun so we try to be as hand's off as possible.

 Manchu wrote:
Yeah, what I meant by consensus -- outside of the rare example of a strident disagreement -- is more about a culture or attitude about Dakka. I think the prevailing sentiment is, this is a place to have fun so we try to be as hand's off as possible.

And I think you guys are doing a fine job.

(I can has juice now?)

Mods ask for help/advice from other mods, and we chime in where/
when we can. There's no poll or anything like that.

To emphasize the glorious reign of Our Dear Leaders, I propose that we make a Dakka Dakka..."anthem" that celebrates the unparalleled and fearless leadership that our mods possess that leads our great community into a better future!

Dakka – our sacred forum,
Dakka – our beloved ammo.
An iron will, great glory –
These are your heritage for all time!

Chorus:
Oh Dakka, My Dakka,
You make me want to pull another Ghazghkull Thraka,
You are as cunning as Mork,
And brutal as Gork,
You make even make Abbadon look like a dork!

Sweeping Advance through all your foes,
So that even Daniel Mandelbaum will have to stay on his toes,
All the other forums will fall to your blows,
How do you do all this? Nobody knows!

Oh Dakka, My Dakka,
You make me want to pull another Ghazghkull Thraka,
You are as cunning as Mork,
And brutal as Gork,
You make even make Abbadon look like a dork!

- By Josef Gobbles, Head Turkey of the Administration of Dakka Propaganda

I propose we make dakka a cult!
The groundwork is all there...

Aaaand. We're done. Thanks