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Anyone else coming off a forum suspension? What are the rules? (1 Viewer)

Z

zftcg

Footballguy
Hope y'all missed me. I got pinched by the mods for a joke I posted in the Politics Forum a couple months ago. It was a thread about Melania Trump's disappearance (remember when that was a thing?) and I made a joke connecting it to the pee-pee tape. Not my finest work, granted, but it was mostly a throwaway line, and it honestly never occurred to me that it was all that offensive, certainly not enough to get me banned for six weeks.

Anyway, I'm not here to relitigate the issue -- in another lifetime, I used to moderate a BBS, and I always hated it when people whined endlessly about suspensions, or created alternate accounts to get around them. Mostly, I'm just glad I have my privileges back in time for football season, which is where this forum is most valuable.

Nonetheless, I'm a little confused about what I'm supposed to take away from this experience going forward. I had emailed the mods when this first happened but never heard anything back, and I couldn't find anything about it in the Website Questions forums, so I'll throw the question out to you folks: What exactly is the standard we're supposed to follow around here? Are there posted Terms and Conditions? Is it the usual practice that you can be suspended with no previous warnings? Are there stepped up punishments for future infractions? Is any of this written down anywhere?

I generally consider myself to be pretty good at knowing where the line is when it comes to humor, but I admit, this experience has me a little wrong-footed. I like being able to joke around in my posts, but I feel like now I'll be constantly looking over my shoulder. Not only was I wrong about where the line was, but I have no idea where the new line is, or who's drawing it.

 
@zftcg I had forgotten there's a "warning points" thing listed on our member page. I'm not sure if they use that feature. Does yours show anything? 

 
VandyMan said:
@zftcg I had forgotten there's a "warning points" thing listed on our member page. I'm not sure if they use that feature. Does yours show anything? 
Click to expand...
This is what it says:

Warning issued by FBG Moderator

June 3

Penalty

Given 0 points which will never expire.

Restricted from posting - 1 month and 7 days

Banned - 1 month and 7 days
Click to expand...
So it looks like they didn't bother with any warning points, just went straight to the suspension.

 
General Malaise said:
You have nearly 3700 posts here.  You should have a general idea what will fly and what will not.  Be civil, try not to create headaches for mods, add value where you can and your leash will be longer.  Do the opposite and your leash is shorter.  IMO.
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Joe buys you lunch and now you are towing the company line?   :D

 
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Yea, I just came off a 3 day ban for I have no clue what.  It seems like they're deliberately trying to push traffic away from this site.  It's not enough that FF is losing popularity and their core clientele is getting older, all that is taking too long I guess?

New business model maybe?

 
General Malaise said:
You have nearly 3700 posts here.  You should have a general idea what will fly and what will not.  Be civil, try not to create headaches for mods, add value where you can and your leash will be longer.  Do the opposite and your leash is shorter.  IMO.
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It’s not quite that simple. Yoga pants were civil, and added value, etc. etc. Yet are now banned. I do agree, however, that 3700 posts should be enough time to figure out what flies and what doesn’t. 

 
James Daulton said:
Yea, I just came off a 3 day ban for I have no clue what.  It seems like they're deliberately trying to push traffic away from this site.  It's not enough that FF is losing popularity and their core clientele is getting older, all that is taking too long I guess?

New business model maybe?
Click to expand...
I doubt the forums figure much into the business model at all. They make their money on the memberships, no?

I think @General Malaise hit the nail on the head when he said, "Don't create headaches." When I was a mod, my general rule was that I wanted to spend as little time as possible dealing with the forums (it was a small part of my job), so I would default to whatever would allow me to do that. Mostly, that meant not getting too into the weeds of specific posts. But if an individual poster was causing me enough problems that I was forced to spend a lot of time dealing with him, then the equation flipped and the easiest thing was just to ban him.

FWIW, I think what happened in my case was that another poster was badgering Joe about the tone of some of the posts in the Melania thread, so he went in there and cleaned up a little.

 
James Daulton said:
Yea, I just came off a 3 day ban for I have no clue what.  It seems like they're deliberately trying to push traffic away from this site.  It's not enough that FF is losing popularity and their core clientele is getting older, all that is taking too long I guess?

New business model maybe?
Click to expand...
it's in your warning log that you can see. circumventing the language filter basically.

 
zftcg said:
I doubt the forums figure much into the business model at all. They make their money on the memberships, no?

I think @General Malaise hit the nail on the head when he said, "Don't create headaches." When I was a mod, my general rule was that I wanted to spend as little time as possible dealing with the forums (it was a small part of my job), so I would default to whatever would allow me to do that. Mostly, that meant not getting too into the weeds of specific posts. But if an individual poster was causing me enough problems that I was forced to spend a lot of time dealing with him, then the equation flipped and the easiest thing was just to ban him.

FWIW, I think what happened in my case was that another poster was badgering Joe about the tone of some of the posts in the Melania thread, so he went in there and cleaned up a little.
Click to expand...
Why anyone would want to mod a forum for free is beyond me.  I did it for 6 months and resigned. And it was a Labrador Retriever forum.

 
Scoresman said:
It’s not quite that simple. Yoga pants were civil, and added value, etc. etc. Yet are now banned. I do agree, however, that 3700 posts should be enough time to figure out what flies and what doesn’t. 
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Well, that was my point. I thought I had figured it out, and I wouldn't have thought that a mildly bawdy joke about a public figure crossed the line. I still have no idea what standard I violated. Are we not allowed to mention the pee-pee tape? Joke about urination? Or is it that we have to be nice to the First Lady?  :shrug:

 
zftcg said:
Well, that was my point. I thought I had figured it out, and I wouldn't have thought that a mildly bawdy joke about a public figure crossed the line. I still have no idea what standard I violated. Are we not allowed to mention the pee-pee tape? Joke about urination? Or is it that we have to be nice to the First Lady?  :shrug:
Click to expand...
Based on what I have seen in the politics forum, all but the last.

 
Da Guru said:
Why anyone would want to mod a forum for free is beyond me.  I did it for 6 months and resigned. And it was a Labrador Retriever forum.
Click to expand...
LABS SUCK! GOLDENS RULE!  :lmao:

I'm totally with you. I loved that my former employer had built such a strong community, but I hated that I had to spend time policing it. That's why I'm generally sympathetic to anyone who's willing to take on that task. Personally, if I were in Joe's position I would focus a lot more on tone between posters (since that's what generally causes forums to descend into cesspools) and have a lighter touch elsewhere, but it's not my call (and again, thank you Jebus for that). 

 
Osaurus said:
Too much fur flying?
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Yes..and they have way more members than this forum.  It was worldwide. You have people from Australia and New Zealand arguing and insulting each other while we are sleeping here so it goes unnoticed for hours and hours.

 
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zftcg said:
LABS SUCK! GOLDENS RULE!  :lmao:

I'm totally with you. I loved that my former employer had built such a strong community, but I hated that I had to spend time policing it. That's why I'm generally sympathetic to anyone who's willing to take on that task. Personally, if I were in Joe's position I would focus a lot more on tone between posters (since that's what generally causes forums to descend into cesspools) and have a lighter touch elsewhere, but it's not my call (and again, thank you Jebus for that). 
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Totally agree.  I could care less about yoga pants and stuff like that as long as they were no nudity and tasteful.  It was the in-member bickering and insults that break down forums if let go too long.

 
zftcg said:
I doubt the forums figure much into the business model at all. They make their money on the memberships, no?

I think @General Malaise hit the nail on the head when he said, "Don't create headaches." When I was a mod, my general rule was that I wanted to spend as little time as possible dealing with the forums (it was a small part of my job), so I would default to whatever would allow me to do that. Mostly, that meant not getting too into the weeds of specific posts. But if an individual poster was causing me enough problems that I was forced to spend a lot of time dealing with him, then the equation flipped and the easiest thing was just to ban him.

FWIW, I think what happened in my case was that another poster was badgering Joe about the tone of some of the posts in the Melania thread, so he went in there and cleaned up a little.
Click to expand...
You may want to reread the bolded that you wrote. You already mentioned how fun it is to be a mod and you have been around the block here enough times to know the appropriate content, which evolves over time. If you aren't sure, post it in the test forum and see if it sticks, then you should be good to post it here.

 
Scoresman said:
It’s not quite that simple. Yoga pants were civil, and added value, etc. etc. Yet are now banned. I do agree, however, that 3700 posts should be enough time to figure out what flies and what doesn’t. 
Click to expand...
I miss Yoga Pants as much as the next guy but I also understand why it needed to go.  

 
I'm not advocating for no moderation of course.  I actually like the fact that I can freely browse this forum with family in the room.

However, imho the move to almost G rated content has gone too far.  And from a business model perspective, I'd have to think that traffic to these forums correlates pretty well with membership to the site.  And I also think that FF is losing popularity and that being so strict in the forum rules that PG is now to edgy will only drive more people away.  Plus as many have noted, these types of forums really don't have the appeal to the young they did for our gen.

And I'm not hating on FBGs at all.  I love this place, have been coming since day 1 almost, and consider this board a great community.   And while I realize that the community will end eventually, I'd like for it to hang on as long as possible.  This really is a special place on the innerwebs. 

 
General Malaise said:
You have nearly 3700 posts here.  You should have a general idea what will fly and what will not.  Be civil, try not to create headaches for mods, add value where you can and your leash will be longer.  Do the opposite and your leash is shorter.  IMO.
Click to expand...
I don’t know man I’ve received 2 lengthy suspensions for using naughty language.  A few days or a week, sure, but 3 months or more seems excessive when compare to some of the stuff people say to each other around here 

 
James Daulton said:
Yea, I just came off a 3 day ban for I have no clue what.  It seems like they're deliberately trying to push traffic away from this site.  It's not enough that FF is losing popularity and their core clientele is getting older, all that is taking too long I guess?

New business model maybe?
Click to expand...
Soccerguys.com plan is almost come full circle. Prepping the eventual change to cater to the soccer nerds, who typically are more of the pansy variety.

 
i got a warning point from joehan for inapporpirate language but to this day i dont know if it was for swearing or just for the way i basically assault the english language in general but either way i probably deserved it take that to the bank bromigos 

 
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