Moderation on Dumpshock, Should there be an appeals process? Options

[Cain]

Okay, after recent events, some question has come up about how the moderating staff does things and why they do it.

Speaking as someone who's taken warnings before, I received two warnings in the same day for essentially the same thing: saying one word (not a PA, not even snark) to a Shadowrun notable. I don't want to post the details in public, but I will send them to anyone who asks in a PM. At least one mod has gone on record to say that the moderation is uneven. Some people have felt targeted by the mods, and even go so far as to state that they feel like Dumpshock is kowtowing to the official CGL party line. At the very least, the thread that was temporarily locked and then reopened would not have been locked at all if the private communication were from WotC.

I think we all agree that this is a bad thing. Dumpshock should be inviting to all. And while I can respect the fact that the mod team does the best they can in that regard, something needs to change.

First of all, I suggest that they increase the size of the mod team. Bull has said publically there are only 6 active mods right now. That seems low. We need more, and we can get them the same way we got the last batch: via recruitment drive.

Second, I suggest that there be an appeals process put in place, so people can challenge mod calls. This can be done via email, if need be. If a decision was made in haste, it may seem too harsh after a good night's sleep. I also suggest that public discussion (via the News forum) be available so other people can chime in.

Will these solve the issues? Probably not completely. But I think it's a place to start.

[nezumi]

These sound like reasonable ideas. I'm not sure what would be involved in the appeals process, but I always assumed if a mod hits me with something, and I feel it unjust, I'm free to refer it to the other mods for correction or clarification. Unless you're referring to a trial by your peers (lol) I don't know what you'd recommend there.

On the flip side, I'd also like to say the mod team has done, IMO, a fantastic job handling things so far. The dumpshock group can be disagreeable, or even downright vicious, and the mods have permitted a lot of freedom in that, even though it probably gave them more work in the long run. So definitely, the mods deserve a round of applause for generally being level-headed and at least trying to be fair in the face of general dumpshock hysteria.

[fistandantilus4....]

To give you a general idea of how a ban or warning works, generally someone is online, they see a post or thread that is an issue, and they put it up for review in our private section. If it's particularly blatant or agregious, they'll act immediately, taking action they feel is appropriate, while following the above (a general; "Hey guys this is what happened, this is what I did, whacha think? Here's the link")

That's basically what happened here. Something came up that was a pretty hot topic, it got the short term reaction, then was looked over and evaluated. We generally vote on the issues that we see, which of course is also subject to some issues based on who is available. We all have Real Lives out there somewhere on other things we have to do and can't always be present. I work on the night shift and came home to this at appx 0500 my time. Fun stuff.

As to an "appeal", generally when we do ban someone, we send a notification to their e-mail, and the person is free to respond. I've personally had a number of conversations with people while they were on breaks. Some we rescinded or changed, such as one with multiple account issues, most were left as they were because the violation was pretty cut and dry. So yeah, there is an appeals system. It hasn't been formalized, but we tell each person we block, or even PM, 'this is what you did, this is what we did, if you have an issue, e-mail/PM as appropriate'.

I can't really comment on increasing the mods at the moment. Just isn't something we've worked on in a while. We added a few people a while back with some varying results. Something we will probably look at again, but it doesn't have bearing on the current issues. Besides, one thing at a time.

[Method]

I concur with those above. Nothing would kill productive conversation on these boards like some kind of draconian "if statement X then punishment Y" type of policy. We have moderators because human judgment (while fallible) is still the best system.

Also I think this point from the main thread needs to clarified:

That, and Frank coming around again and again, seemingly immune to restrictions placed on the rest of us. Oh, he's a real rebel, that Frank. Could it be that the delay was caused by a lingering admiration for his brass balls?

If you think Frank is getting preferential treatment because he is buddies with the moderator staff, than you definitely don't fully understand the situation. Frank has been boycotting these forums for months because of personal incompatibilities with specific moderators. There is no love lost between them. If you ask me, the fact that they possess the objectivity to allow him to express his opinions despite past personal conflicts speaks volumes about what a great job they are doing. While I have great respect Frank's insights and creativit, I'm not saying this to defend him or his statements. He certainly doens't need my help for that. Rather, I think that any implication that the mods are giving him some kind of special favoritism is a gross mischaracterization of their good work, and should be noted as such.

[fistandantilus4....]

His comeback post is being looked at as well. Basically, I let Frank know where the line is. Up to him if he wants to toy with it anymore. I don't expect it worries him to much since he hasn't been around much before this, and that's fine. I'm not big on censoring what someone has to say unless we've explicity stated before hand "Don't say this", and they have agreed to that.

That would be the case with his multiple religious statements.

That isn't the case with his posting of "The Letter".

IF there is a change to the ToS regarding things of that nature, you can be sure that we would announce it quite clearly to everyone before hand.

[Cain]

As to an "appeal", generally when we do ban someone, we send a notification to their e-mail, and the person is free to respond. I've personally had a number of conversations with people while they were on breaks. Some we rescinded or changed, such as one with multiple account issues, most were left as they were because the violation was pretty cut and dry. So yeah, there is an appeals system. It hasn't been formalized, but we tell each person we block, or even PM, 'this is what you did, this is what we did, if you have an issue, e-mail/PM as appropriate'.

I can safely say that when I've been warned, I have never received an email from Dumpshock. What I do get is a PM, which I cannot access because my account has been locked. So, by the time I figure out what I did wrong, the suspension is already over. And unless I miss my guess, my email hasn't changed since 1995 (and I've received other board emails before). No accusations, just sayin'.

But anyway, to get at what Fisty is saying, the problem is that sometimes moderation is uneven. Some people claim they're being targeted while others are let go with admonishments. The mods hunt for reasons to ban their targets, and let things slide from others. I think more mods would help this problem: more perspectives can't hurt, and might see a post differently. I also think that once we have enough mods, they should discuss things if there's a questionable issue *before* banning someone. For example, banning a spammer is perfectly cool; but banning a new poster should entail at least a littel discussion.

[FrankTrollman]

Everything Cain is saying is true. And then some. Even an email from the dumpshock moderators, rare as it is, comes from a no-reply account. There's really nothing whatever that we can say in private if we don't like or understand a decision. And even public discussion cannot occur within the context of Dumpshock itself until whatever punishment the moderator (singular) has inflicted is already over and done with.

You guys asked me to please not say nasty things about you on other forums. While presently impossible, that is a perfectly reasonable request for one friend to make to another. Which makes it extremely puzzling to me that you would even ask such a thing. Because as you doubtless recall: We are not friends.

I am very well acquainted with bridge burning. I've done it myself, and I can recognize when other people do it as well. And our bridges were well and thoroughly burnt. By you. With extreme prejudice.

I have been given several warnings and suspensions, not for doing anything in particular to offend the ToS (though let's be clear: I've done those too), but simply because one moderator or another was annoyed with me. I've been accused of bullying and baiting for writing out factual mathematical probabilities for generating success on dice rolls. That's not bullying. Threatening people with suspensions when they are talking about factual reality from a mathematical perspective - that is bullying. The absolute last straw was Bull banning me for talking about how the 4th edition D&D rules work in a 4th edition D&D discussion in the Open Gaming section. That was an insult which I will never forget or forgive.

That when I came on a year later to post links to the graphics files for a shadowrun boardgame that I was distributing for free, I was accosted by mods and told straightly and directly that I was held to a different and harsher standard than other posters and that I would get more warnings and an eventual permaban simply for being myself was a tremendous insult. Your definition of "flame baiting" to include "being Frank Trollman" was an intolerable insult. A calculated insult. But not, in fact, the final straw. The final straw had already occurred. We already were not friends.

Dumpshock is yours to do with what you like. You can suspend or ban my account for any reason or no reason at all. And you do. You can say any nasty thing about me that you want, or host people saying any nasty thing about me that they want. And you do. But you don't own the rest of the internet. You've made me not like this place. And I don't like this place. I do not come here to hang out or read articles or engage in open discussions. You've made it very clear that you don't want me doing that, and you've made it unpleasant enough for me that I don't want to either. And I don't. But if for whatever reason you come up in any other context in any other part of the internet or the real world, chances are pretty good that I will discuss one or more of your faults. Because you have them. And we are not friends.

This is the kind of thing that should have been discussed in email. It should have been discussed in email 3 years ago when you started jerking me around. But it could not be, because you guys have made yourselves inaccessible. And you're still inaccessible. And we will not come to an understanding. And I will not stop talking smack about you if and when you come up in other contexts of the internet, and you will not stop talking smack about me if and when I come up in conversation on Dumpshock. This is going to be the status quo for the foreseeable future. Because we are not friends. Because you cannot offer or ask for truce as a friend, nor would I trust you to deliver such. Because you really, truly have nothing to offer me that I want to convince me to sign such in a purely mercenary context. You burnt your bridge with me, and now it is gone, and you don't have anything to offer me to build it back.

-Frank

[krainboltgreene]

As someone who has done this extensively let me leave two pieces of advice:

1. Treating a web forum or other form of entertainment/discussion like a corporation or government (Appeals, etc) is a bad way to handle things and will eventually end up the same way every time.

2. Solving a problem with more potential problems is a really bad way to solve a problem. ("Recruiting" more moderators). You don't need an army of moderators because the current stack of moderators are overmoderating/moderating horribly.

[Cardul]

2. Solving a problem with more potential problems is a really bad way to solve a problem. ("Recruiting" more moderators). You don't need an army of moderators because the current stack of moderators are overmoderating/moderating horribly.

Really? Or is it a case of six moderators, hundreds of new posts a day, so they cannot be everywhere, and
so when they DO see something, they hit it hard?

The Battletech Forums, which have a much smaller post count per day, have probably twice as many moderators.

[Stahlseele]

And it's much less fun to post there. *pouts*

[nezumi]

Are moderator e-mail addresses posted somewhere on the website?

[krainboltgreene]

Really? Or is it a case of six moderators, hundreds of new posts a day, so they cannot be everywhere, and
so when they DO see something, they hit it hard?

The Battletech Forums, which have a much smaller post count per day, have probably twice as many moderators.

I had a big post with statistic to prove my point, but really I don't think I need to.

Not with the RPG.net Forums having the same amount of moderators as Dumpshock for the most active portion of their forum and it has more posts hourly than I'm betting Dumpshock has on a mildly active day.

This post has been edited by krainboltgreene: Mar 29 2010, 01:37 PM

[fistandantilus4....]

Mine is.

First, to Cain, I personally try to make sure that any ban includes an e-mail. 'Cause yeah, hard to get a PM when you can't log in.

To Frank, and following up on said e-mail, my dumb mistake that I simply didn't notice that it was a no reply e-mail. My e-mail that I have had for years is on my account name.

As to mod enforcement: With the newer batch of mods, we have a straight forward Terms of Service that we go off of. That's what we issue warnings for, although there is often debate as to whether or not something acutally applies to those conditions.

We do issue warnings that people don't see. Generally, the only person that knows they've been warned is the person that recieved it. The rare exception is when it's something very blatant and flagrant. Case in point to this latest batch, Frank's was public, a number of others have been handed out privately.

We do sometimes quarantine a thread. We never delete them. We don't edit other people's posts, except in the rare exception of someone posting a link outside the ToS. We don't erase content.

Because we generally warn in private, I don't doubt that it does sometimes look like we are targeting specific people, because there are a number of violations that no one ever sees a public response too. They do happen. Users PM or Report posts regularly. Those Reports go to all of us automatically in our inboxes, so yeah, we do get them, and we act on them. We don't always issue warnings for every little thing because frankly, we don't actually want to jump down people's throats for every little thing. We try and allow some leeway, and understand that people are going to be cheeky and snippy and that's about what we should expect from people who are playing shadowrun and taking the time to debate it.

Could we use more mods? A couple, sure. Do we have a pressing need? No, not really. It would be nice, because differing opinions help a more well rounded consensus, and frankly we don't have the free time to be online all the time. We've had other moderators who stepped down, mostly for lack of time to do the work. Having a few more wouldn't hurt, but it isn't the problem.

As Frank has pointed out, we do have legacy issues. There have been a lot of issues in the past with heavy handed moderation. A lot of what Frank is referring to was also before our latest batch of mods, including me. People quit moderating because they were tired of doing it, tired of the fights, and tired of having to spend the time dealing with things like this, when all they really wanted to do was relax. So yeah, Frank may well have had issues with heavy handed moderation. He's a prime example of why now we're careful to be quite clear on what and why we issue warnings. And yes, for bans, they are supposed to be a consensus, except in the case of a spammer, or someone who literally asks for it. In Frank's case the other day, a mod saw something they thought was a violation, they quarantined the thread for review, and the put him on hold. Yeah, it said until 2037. It was still temporary.

The reason however that Frank is so close to a permaban isn't because of heavy mods, it's because of how he posts. I respect Frank's writing ability, I've personally asked him questions on rules. But like the man said, we don't have to be friends. We do have to be within the rules here, and that's what he's receiving warnings for.

Well damn, that ended up being a lot longer than I meant it to be...

[FrankTrollman]

And because of the frankly bullshit email from no-reply, we have to continue hashing problems out "in public."

Here's the latest no-reply email from the mod staff:

Hi Frank.

This is the second warning issued in response to religious comments, as I noted in the thread. When we tell you that something isn't appropriate for posting, and let you off of a ban so you can return to the forum, don't go and post about that very same thing again.

As I noted before, this warning now puts you at #9 out of 10. So this is the last one.

That's fucked up for several reasons. Most specifically, it's fucked up, because I did not break the ToS. The ToS says that you are not supposed to discuss religion "unless it has to do with Shadowrun." Now personally, I think Randall's religion has to do with Shadowrun. Why? Because it is one of his five points for why he decided to keep a known thief in charge of the company that makes Shadowrun. It's his longest of his five points. It's incredibly relevant.

When someone does an immoral thing, and they happen to be religious, it's no big deal. It doesn't even rate a mention. Lots of people, indeed most people, are religious. And we don't comment on it. And if someone does something immoral, and they talk about their religion and their contrition and such, that's generally not worth talking about either. It's a fairly standard response. We might have a discussion about whether they "really" thought that they had done wrong by Jesus/Buddha/Mictlan or not, but then again we might not. People who acknowledge they've done wrong and go before their church and ask forgiveness could be sincere, or they could be conning people into trusting them again. Without further information I couldn't judge and don't really care.

But here's something that's not like that at all and is in no way OK: a man does something that is wrong, and then he says that he did it because of his religion. Now we're in crazy town, because the person has not just asked for forgiveness or made a religious plea of possibly questionable veracity - they have stated that their own immoral actions were the dictates of the creator of the universe and beyond human morality and law. That's... incredibly dangerous. But more importantly, it's incredibly relevant.

We aren't talking about religious intolerance here. We aren't talking about bringing up religion that does not "have to do with" Shadowrun. We are talking about an event related to Shadowrun, to all of Shadowrun, that is religious in nature. The nature is: Randall Bills aided someone in taking other peoples' money. And he justified his actions with religion.

This isn't mormonism related, and I never mentioned his mormonism. I'm pretty sure the LDS church's actual stances on theft and tax evasion are pretty squarely in the "render unto Caesar" school. This is religious insanity related. Randall Bills said that his immoral actions were rooted in his own personal religious (and therefore not subject to rational argument) convictions. That means that he was either lying, or he's totally intransigent in his position. And that's incredibly Shadowrun related.

So to have a mormon moderator give me not just one, but two warnings because the guy whose destructive, and I dare say non-biblical religious revelation is threatening to drive Shadowrun production off a cliff is something that I think needs to be talked about? That's balls deep in insanity peppers. This is exactly why I don't frequent these boards. Individual moderators are allowed to go off on vindictive tirades that end up with users getting administrative warnings that they cannot appeal appended to PMs thy canot read or emails that they cannot reply to. That's totally unacceptable. And I don't even understand why you guys think the setup is OK.

-Frank

[fistandantilus4....]

Changes that Randall Bills has said that he has received a sign from God that he will not make

1. Personal attacks, flaming, trolling, and baiting are prohibited. This includes any form of racism, sexism or religious intolerance.

So to have a mormon moderator give me not just one, but two warnings...

The first warning was for the much more expressive post previous to this which was most definitely a ToS violation. The Second warning was for coming back after I took you off the ban I and others did not think you'd earned, and you continued with what I'd just warned you for.

Individual moderators are allowed to go off on vindictive tirades

Not individual. As with other violations, it went up for review by others. Following up on a Warning we told you we would issue if you continued is no where near vindictive. Nor does three sentences constitute a tirade.

I do agree that you should have been able to respond. I did not realize that the method I was using was going to shoot you a no-response e-mail. Simply did not think about it. However, my e-mail is available and you don't have to be able to log in to see it.

[Cain]

Well, I don't know how you guys do things here; but according to Bull, you have 6 active mods for all of Dumpshock. I can't even count how many they have for RPG.net. Granted, RPG.net is a much larger site, but 6 seems a bit low-- and according to Bull's statement, at least one/sixth of your moderating staff agrees. Certainly, more mods would help the "real life/real job" issue; some can be on while the others attend to reality. You also said it'd help the perspective issue. So, I can't see why selectively adding a few mods would be bad-- hell, *you* were added as part of a public recruitment drive, IIRC. I'll agree that a good vetting process needs to be done, but that also shouldn't be hard.

I'll also add that more transparency would be good. RPG.net handles things by making a small but public announcement when someone is banned/suspended. It's off in a sub-forum where few people read, but it's there, along with the justification. Otherwise, people might think that you're cherry-picking reports to go after select people. For example, right now there's a guy I've reported who has been making personal attacks left and right; but as far as I can tell, he's gotten nothing worse than a warning. I know this isn't RPG.net, but they've got their modding down to a fine art, and there's worse places we can take lessons from.

Finally, like I said before, I've never received an email for any warnings. And it sounds like there's been a problem with the system, if someone as savvy as Fisty could make the mistake of sending a no-reply email. Not to mention the fact that I've received warnings twice in the same day for the same thing, which indicates to me that there was a breakdown in moderator communication. I won't even get deeply into the calls I think were unfair, such as the "Implacable" comment and the time I was accused of promoting piracy by saying it existed.

[FrankTrollman]

I do agree that you should have been able to respond. I did not realize that the method I was using was going to shoot you a no-response e-mail. Simply did not think about it. However, my e-mail is available and you don't have to be able to log in to see it.

This is simply not true. You actually can't see your email, and you need to log in to a account in order to send you one through the board. And it still doesn't even show what that email address is. I have very little faith in your ability if you persist in these delusions. If there is any contact information for any of the moderators anywhere on this site, it is incredibly well hidden. And the thing is - this isn't even the first time this has come up. Exactly this transparency problem was the reason I left three years ago, and that decision was a great decision on my part.

1. Personal attacks, flaming, trolling, and baiting are prohibited. This includes any form of racism, sexism or religious intolerance.

Is this some kind of joke? Religious intolerance does not look anything like the sentence fragment of mine that you wrested out of it's context. Religious intolerance looks something like this:

All muslims are terrorists.

Religious intolerance does not look like this:

Osama Bin Laden has said that his Islamic faith is an integral part of his decision making process for continuing to assist people in committing terrorist acts.

And my own comment was a lot more like the second than it was like the first. I did not say that Randall Bills was bad because he was religious. I said that Randall Bills was unlikely to budge in a deal breaking decision because he claimed that decision was religiously motivated. That's not the same thing. At all.

But really, that's all beside the point.

The point is that even after having the basic inadequacy of your moderator communication system brought to light repeatedly over a period of years, you still haven't done shit about it. And that's inexcusable. And I am going to leave again and talk smack about you on other forums. Because we aren't friends, you have faults, and you've made it incredibly difficult, hostile, and unrewarding to try to talk about them with you here.

-Frank

[Wandering One]

New here, yes, but to the subject of contacting administrators, something I'd like to note. I initially had problems getting the verification to my aol.com account. I dislike giving out any of my other accounts as that's the one I use for possible spammage (that you do or don't is beyond the point, that's my dump account). It, for whatever reason, wouldn't process to it. Not the first time in the 17 years I've had it misbehave but frustrating.

To the point, I attempted, in any way, to find or contact a moderator to discuss and correct the issue. I could not find an email on the main site to discuss the issue with. I could not PM a moderator (or anyone) due to being a 'newbie'. I could not post since I was unverified. There was noone to email or contact in the help section. If this information *is* publically available, it was not easily findable, and perhaps that should be doublechecked to be made a lot more obvious.

[Valashar]

Mine is.

First, to Cain, I personally try to make sure that any ban includes an e-mail. 'Cause yeah, hard to get a PM when you can't log in.

To Frank, and following up on said e-mail, my dumb mistake that I simply didn't notice that it was a no reply e-mail. My e-mail that I have had for years is on my account name.

Since it's a continuing back and forth in this thread that those who have been banned point out how they can't respond to a no-reply email and obviously can't log on to send a PM, and mods have either not responded or, as above, pointed towards places where the information that could be used to respond was available, I logged out and followed every visible link from the forum page.

In regards to fistandantilus4.0's assertion that his email is there and available without logging in, I could not find this. Your account name is 'Fistandantilus4.0' and nothing else. Nothing that finishes an email address. And the logged out cannot view user profiles at all. The link to 'The Moderation Team' at the bottom of the page is the same. Useless unless logged in. And I found no link that included any form of out-of-forums contact information.

[DireRadiant]

Log out
Go to main page
Click on The Moderating Team
Click On Forum Memeber Name OR click on PM button
You get to a page requesting you log in. - Oh Suck.
But wait!!!!!!!!!

On the bottom of this page is a set of useful links...

One of which is the "Contact the Forums Adminstrator "mailto:" uri!

Kind of obscure, but it is there. It does show up when you attempt to use the board to communicate at the step where you'd fail because you do not have an account. And I can understand why an email address is not on the site somewhere easily scraped.

Edit: It would be useful if the Help Topic "Contacting the moderating team & reporting posts" either included the email uri, or there was a separate topic for contacting forum administration.

[Valashar]

A javascript-enabled link buried at least two levels deep (depending on what you did before getting to the error page), which opens up a default email app (which I had to dive into my settings to reactivate since I was sick of getting a useless (to me) app opened on repeated occasions) instead of simply showing a visible email address. That is not a transparent contact method.

Transparent would be what Dire has in his last line. Either a visibly shown contact address on the front page and the help topics, or a separate thread that can be posted in without logging in. And wanting to avoid spam posters isn't a legitimate reason to not have one of those, as most forum code bases have moderator controls that can work against that.

In any case, that's my two posts worth. So I'll fade back from here.

[Sponge]

Now personally, I think Randall's religion has to do with Shadowrun. Why? Because it is one of his five points for why he decided to keep a known thief in charge of the company that makes Shadowrun. It's his longest of his five points. It's incredibly relevant.

You keep claiming this - but the letter pretty clearly states that Randall's religious beliefs allowed him to put aside his anger and personally forgive Coleman, and that his business decision to keep Coleman on was based on all the other reasons he cited. Two entirely separate things - and yet you keep trying to paint Randall as some religious nutcase by claiming he's acting on "signs from God". THAT is a personal attack, and could be confused with religious intolerance as well - but that's merely unsubstantiated conjecture of cause & effect.

[fistandantilus4....]

Thank you, you're right, there are definitely some valid issues here. We're looking at those now, including:
1)Admin contant, both Warning and function related
2)mods - #s. We've had mods come and go for a while now. We started a general "who's still up for this" a few days ago, so we'll see where that puts us first.
3) Reporting - More to show on the public side.

[Caine Hazen]

You keep claiming this - but the letter pretty clearly states that Randall's religious beliefs allowed him to put aside his anger and personally forgive Coleman, and that his business decision to keep Coleman on was based on all the other reasons he cited. Two entirely separate things - and yet you keep trying to paint Randall as some religious nutcase by claiming he's acting on "signs from God". THAT is a personal attack, and could be confused with religious intolerance as well - but that's merely unsubstantiated conjecture of cause & effect.

Keep it on topic here...

We have engaged discussion of theses things behind the scene... hell, Cain's unusually reserved tone has set things off back there (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) But we'll let you know when we make any desicions. I think the first thing we'll really hardcore adress is getting a hold of mods and admins; because it is true that it is a bitch to get us...

[Bull]

Also, to address Cain's comment about our Mod Staff.

We currently have 16 listed Moderators. That number is a bit of a lie, however. Often, Moderators get busy with real life and step back from their duties. In the past, we've left them active, to allow them to pick up when things get better for them. Often, that doesn't happen though.

Of those 16, there are only 6 or so that are even semi-active on the boards, and only about half of those 6 are on regularly to handle regular moderation duties.

Bull