Me + My Problems

Ok, I'm going out on a limb here.

A lot of you seem to have major problems with me being here, some even pm'd me to shout and complain.

So I'll try to address the most frequent complaints.

1. My "whiney Ninjas" post.
http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1389342#post1389342

I think that covers that.


2. Reports that I'm biased.
You could not be further from the truth. I have no bias against Ninjutsu, or its practitioners. Agreeing with someone's opinion does not = bias, it means I have an opinion - which I am entitled to. Complaints that I do not enforce the rules are simply not true. Just because we, and I say we because the staff discuss these actions and complaints, do not agree with your interpretation of the TOS, does not make us wrong. We wrote the TOS and know the rules we are trying to apply. Most of those who have complained about this, only did so AFTER breaking the rules themselves. The "If I'm going down, I'm dragging someone with me" attitude is rife in here, and isn't helping.

Reminder: Just because you cannot see a moderator action does not mean it did not happen. There are punishments handed out regularly that only the member punished and staff know it happened.


3. PM's telling me to get out of Ninjutsu, that I have no right to be here as I'm not a mod for this forum.

I started as a TM for a few forums. When I was promoted to GM, this means I am a Mod for ALL forums on MAP. I have additional functions available that the TM's do not. As such consider any GM as a Mod in any forum.


4. When am I going to ban myself?
Not going to happen. The Admins here have not pulled me so far on any of my actions, and have to date endorsed almost every one before I done it, and those not before, they endorsed afterwards in emergencies when actions were required and they were not online to confirm.

Now, a few points to finish. This thread will remain open on a few conditions.

1. You remain civil + polite.
2. Your post has a point.
3. You do not personally attack me or another member.
4. You can backup any opinion with a reasonably sensible justification.
5. Your point has not already been covered. This means you read the whole thread before posting.

 

Not about you being here, but the heavy way the GM's are policing this section.

I will now go back to lurking.

 

To be fair, I think the heavy policing is now necessary after all the warnings in the past. Mods in this section have been nagging for a long time about the ToS and very little has changed. Surely it can't be that hard to bare in mind the forum rules...

 

Hmmm...since YOU brought it up...

Okay... You banned me because I told someone to STFU, but later Flashlock made a post to Daniel (in the thread where he claimed to troll) to STFU but far more explicit. He then went on to attack Daniel in that post.

And you didn't do jack. Fact.

http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1371090&postcount=185

Now don't get me wrong. I really don't care if you banned me for a day or a lifetime. I understand you have a job to do... And I actually like Flash and his posts make me smile...but I just thought I'd point out one quick example of where your moderating is inconsistant and lacking, and why some people view you as biased.

Double standards suck don't they?

As for attacking...obviously you'll have to clarify as you seem to have different rules for different people.

For the record, IMO, if someone doesn't like you and tells you they don't like you, or thinks you have a flaw and tells you what they think your flaws are...thats not attacking...that's just giving an honest opinion.

~Nick

 

I'll be honest, I didn't see that. Now had someone used the report post function we would have seen it and dealt with it.

 

Maybe there's a difference in whether or not it's made personal. There's giving opinions on/pointing out flaws in a persons post, and then there's giving opinions/pointing out flaws in a person. A person you've never met so really have nothing other than their posts to judge them on. And then, there's telling a person how much they suck and know nothing, which never ends well

I also think it would be pretty impossible for one person to go through every single post made in this section in order to spot everyone who's out of line (unless they really didn't have a life at all). Just report the posts you feel break ToS and need mod attention(?)

 

V for Mod I think?

 

Hell no, I enjoy my freedom thanks

 

But of course, only thing is that the flashlock example I use was posted during Daniel's self-confession of trolling...so SOMEONE had to be reading that thread...apparently none too well.

I made no personal attack. This is where I find it odd.
If your boss was to walk up to you and say "I don't like the report you submitted." Who here views this as a personal attack and who views it as a statement of fact?

 

I agree, guys and gals, face it, you have rules in this forum, and, if you don't stick to the rules, then moderation is required, or it becomes a free for all.

Yes I agree you have your fair share of trolls, but think before you respond, 2 wrongs don't make a right.

I can personally vouch for Sarge, and have always found him to be a fair Mod, I think he has even banned me, and due to my superior self control , it has been that long since I misbehaved , I can't remember. (I know kick chick kicked me out once)

 

Thanks mate, that means a lot to get positive feedback.

 

Greetings,

I've only been a member here a short time, so I don't feel particularly...worthy of lodging complaints. However, I have an observation for what it's worth.

Enforcement of the rules is fine, but I am wondering if it really addresses the problem. If you've got posters who come here without any sincere intention to discuss Ninjutsu, but the rules allow that, then the rules are worthless. It is really easy to destroy topics (or sub-forums) without breaking the rules.

Don't get me wrong--I can have fine conversations with people who dislike BJK or other X-kans, as long as I think they are arguing merits of their positions, and not simply parroting the same old complaints.

Sgt_Major: As far as your 'whiney ninja' post. I appreciate that you apologized for that, but I do think you showed your bias. That's not necessarily a sin--everyone has Biases, but as a moderator you don't have that luxury. A moderators job is no fun, but if you want to sit in that chair you might have to sometimes stay above the fray, or make darn sure that there isn't an appearance of impropriety in regards to banning. Unfortunately, I think there is some imbalance (as others have pointed out). I am sure this is an innocent mistake, but those sorts of things can (and apparently are) leading to good, solid posters being banned and subsequently leaving.

The goal of moderating a board is to encourage good, sincere discussions, and if that goal isn't being met, something needs to change to fix that problem.

All of this being said...the Moderators shouldn't be in the position of baby sitting a bunch of posters acting like 12 year olds on a playground. If posters in this forum collectively raised our level of discourse, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

BudoStudent

 

The comment was made in anger. Bad day + pm abuse/complaints = bad mood Sarge.

Beyond that one comment, Ive never posted anything biased

 

Right--bad day, everyone has them. That isn't the point.

The point is that the rules and moderation is not addressing the problems of this forum. This, combined with your bad day, and some incidents (due to non-reporting) resulting in skewed banning are adding up to say "This forum has a problem."

My post isn't about criticizing Sgt_Major--it is about what moderators are doing to help make this forum a better place. Honestly, I don't think the Zero tolerance rule is working, because it isn't addressing the actual problem.

BudoStudent

 

So what do you think the problem is BudoStudent? If it isn't simply members not following ToS?

 

This forum does have a MAJOR problem.

We discussed this with the moderators of the forum a long time ago, and we/they tried to steer it round.

This didn't work and the forum got worse. Now we are using a Zero Tolerance Policy. This obviously will upset people, but those genuine posters should be able to see that we are trying to bring the forum around to a proper place for discussion in the long run and stay because of it.

 

Feel free to suggest something different then. We're all ears when it comes to possible solutions to this mess

Honestly though, if "good posters" didn't violate the ToS, they wouldn't be getting banned, it's that simple. You can't say "this forum's full of trolls and no one's doing anything about it" then complain when we start doing things about it. The zero tolerance policy is the most even-handed way of doing it that we could think of doing this. However, it's tricky to be even-handed when most of the GM staff don't really know the territory, posters are only reporting about a quarter of the violations, other sources have only been giving us the edited highlights (usually covering for their mates) and many of the forum's regulars have been sending abusive PMs telling us that "we don't practise ninjutsu" and thus have no right to be getting involved in this forum's issues

If there's bait being laid, report the post, don't rise to it, if there's an issue, report the post, don't fire back. We're genuinely doing everything we can to be impartial and to bring this forum back under control and we'd all really like to do it with a minimum of losses and bruised feelings, but we can't do that without some assistance from the posters in this forum