Suggestion What about...

[The Chairman]

moderators?

clubs?

forums?

What do you have to say about the rest? the bannings thread is starting to slow down a tad.

 

[chrpai]

Are you a moderator? It says "Senior Member" under you handle, is this a mistake?

Perhaps if you read his entire post instead of just looking for sound bites to flame someone with you would realize that he said he moderates another non-diving board that is much bigger then scubaboard.

 

[Boogie711]

Jeff answered that question. And I must say that I agree with him.

So asking questions which may be embarassing to Scubaboard management is a violation of the TOS?

Geez - I'm starting to remind myself of Genesis or Popeye here, and that is NOT my intent. Those of you who know me would hopefully think I'm a nice guy, but I don't take well to getting a runaround.

Again - you know, I understand your privacy concerns. I think they're unfounded, and very poor policy, but I can live with them. But you know what? Even using those guidelines, this whole 4 day situation would have easily been avoided if whoever yanked the original thread replied in a PM that said "Cobaltbabe has been suspended. The reasons are confidential, but you're welcome to email and ask her." Or something like that.

 

[Warren_L]

Are you a moderator? It says "Senior Member" under you handle, is this a mistake?

No, not on this board. Yes, on another board. Just offering some friendly advice. That's all. If Netdoc is interested, he'll ask. If he's not, I won't speak another word about it.

 

[Ontario Diver]

Well Pete, I've tried to stay out of this but there are some issues in here I must comment on. Please note that I have some background in IT legal issues and HR issues but they are Canadian in nature and as such there may be some differences between legal systems... I am not (nor do I want to be) a lawyer.

I feel it is a serious breach of privacy and confidence to divulge any information on why someone has been banned or disciplined to a third party.

I don't think that this is what is being asked for. I think that what has been asked for is public acknowledgement that the ban has taken place. Since most of us are using "Board names" anyway - referring to that name does little to impact privacy issues.

In addition, my attorney says that I would be culpable for a host of issues raised by any such indiscretion. He feels that a court subpoena would be the ONLY reason to publicize the process, including revealing any moderators involved and/or their reasoning for instating such.

I find myself wondering why an attorney would state that board users only have the "rights" that you give them and then state that you are culpable for actions surrounding those "rights". You can't have that both ways. As for liabilities, any plaintiff would have to show damages and malicious intent. Damages for being punted from Scubaboard would never get off the ground. Face it, there aren't any. Second, Malicious intent goes *poof* when the actions are openly admitted to and given a blanket *note - not specific- * reason. Attempts to hide or ignore the issue could be construed as malicious, but since there is no harm done - really who cares.

Fortunately, as agents for SB I can discuss any details with my management team, as long as they remain my management team. !

They are not agents unless they are being "given consideration" in some manner. Volunteers cannot be agents. If you give them extra disk space or something - they are being "paid" ; so you might want to do this.

I am open to changing HOW things are done, but the administration of this board will remain an enigma to most. As my attorney put it, the only rights anyone has on the board are those that I extend to them. He was fairly aghast at how open I have already made the inner workings of the mod squad thus far, but was impressed that I actually had the guts to do it.

This is a common legal advice issue. It boils down to "people can't sue you for what they don't know about." Pete, it may keep you out of court but it doesn't build trust. In my time, I have noticed that most folks have a severe distrust of "secret proceedings".

The ownership of this board is caught between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, silence over the moderator activities protects the mods/board from the hassle of trying to justify their reasonable actions to a potentially unreasonable crowd with limited knowledge of the issue. In the worst case however, it becomes a shield from scrutiny that allows mods to act on personal feelings rather in the best interests of the board. When the party line is "I'm not going to talk about it" - human nature is to assume the worst.

Personal loyalty is a fine thing until it gets in the way of admitting mistakes.
If a moderator makes a mistake and is called on it by a member - admit it and fix it if possible.

If a thread is pulled - hide the postings and post a message from a "board moderator" userid that the post is either being looked at, has " been pulled to give the users a chance to cool off", or "has been pulled for TOS violations." and leave it at that. A note to the thread "starter" is nice, but often unnecessary. If someone wants to know they can ask. The solution is to explain but not debate.

If a user is banned, fine. But if another user asks - acknowledge that the user has been banned and state that it was for TOS violations of the nature of "harassment", "inappropriate posting", "multiple userids", "spamming" etc. You don't have to lay out everything but a little bit of information more than "because I said so" goes a long long long way to building trust.

I have not seen any postings stating that the mods do not have the duty to pull threads, posts, or user ids. The concerns are always around the secrecy that surrounds the workings, activities and results of the mod squad.

I'm not trying to cause grief. I'm concerned about where this is going.

This is my last comment on the subject.

 

[jonnythan]

there is always an explanation to the offender and the membership at large. And this applies equally to matters of discipline with the membership. Note - not all the nitty gritty details need to be disclosed, but there MUST be some sort of explanation.

That one little detail... a simple statement to the effect of "xxx was banned for xxx behavior"

Pete, I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to do something like that. I honestly can't comprehend what problem you might have with it. It's so stupidly simple, and it would entirely eliminate all of this foolishness.

 

[Warren_L]

That one little detail... a simple statement to the effect of "xxx was banned for xxx behavior"

Pete, I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to do something like that. I honestly can't comprehend what problem you might have with it. It's so stupidly simple, and it would entirely eliminate all of this foolishness.

Exactly my point. So simple. Really.

 

[Spectre]

That one little detail... a simple statement to the effect of "xxx was banned for xxx behavior"

I've been through that a number of times. Read the bannings thread.

 

[Dee]

DL.....a few thoughts

Hmmm.... I have to say I disagree with this one point. Not the part about having specialists but having them moderate in the area of their expertise would be bias. For example, a Mod who is, say, an LDS owner given the task of moderating a discussion about whether to use an LDS or LP would probably be bias towards the LDS side (naturally). It's possible for the Mod to abuse his/her position when involved in a topic that's near and dear to the heart. If a Mod's job in the real world is diving-related, IMO they should not be a monitor of a related forum. They can instead be a valuable resource for a different Mod who is responsible for monitoring that forum and also be free to post within that forum. (ie an LDS owner-Mod could post but not monitor the ads section)

It's common for a Mod to excuse themselves when we find ourselves with a conflict of interest. For instance, Natasha steps away from moderating most of the dive trip threads. Or when a thread starts getting nasty and one of us has been involved in the thread, we'll announce that we aren't unbiased enough to moderatoe that one. And yes, it happens alot....we are human, too.

And in response to the other thread (that I stopped reading at about pg 6 yesterday), I think bannings should be a last resort thing. IMHO suspensions are more the way to go with perhaps different lengths of suspensions for repeat offenders depending on the violation. If, of course, someone just doesn't get the point a banning would be the ultimate outcome but if someone loses their cool in a thread one week and then 2 weeks later errs in an ad posting, I don't think banning the person would be appropriate. If the first event lead to a short suspension and then the person committed the same violation a few weeks later, a longer suspension would be warranted.

So do we. We don't even like to give suspensions. But when a member has been asked time and again to play nice, to follow the TOS, not to describe their sex life, etc. and they continue to do so, we have no choice. And every single person who has been banned has gotten a notice as to why. This instance of so many members being banned at one time is a first. But there was reason for each one at the time. We have room for improvement and we are changing the whole process. What will not change is banning will continue to be a last resort.

Another thought on the bannings/suspensions. Perhaps a Mod could allow the person access to their profile settings so should they be unavailable to other members due to screwing up, they could at least change their settings so they could: update their e-mail address and activate the "receive e-mails from members" stuff so Board members in good standing would still be able to reach their friends. I think some of the upset involved with the recent bannings were due to the fact that Members felt punished by not being able to reach their friends.

First, a Mod doesn't have to power to allow anything. There are only 5 'super Mods' in management with the keys to get information about members, such as their email addys, and to alter their preferences/settings. I don't know what's involved exactly but the program the board uses doesn't always allow a sort of pick and choose settings on each member. I understand why folks were upset when their friends suddenly disappeared. But good friends would have exchanged emails and phone numbers in order to stay in touch with each other in case the board went down. I know I have gotten this contact info from those I 'talk' to on the board.

And none of this "guilty by association". If both parts of a couple are on the Board and one screws up, the other shouldn't be punished for it. Or anyone else be punished (for being friends with the violator) unless they themselves earn it.

If we could trust that the banned member wouldn't have access to the board through her/his partners account then I would agree with you. We take these instances on a case by case basis, depends on the circumstances. And despite popular opinion, no one is punished for being friends with a banned member. Besides, if it were possible, do you honestly think we could even try to keep up with who knows who?