Re: Address MOD Questions....?
 

I personally emailed him.

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After the fact. WELL DONE!

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From what I hear you didn't do it until a big stink was made about it, and certainly not before or at the same time you pulled the plug on him.

Just sayin'...

The wheels are comin' off the cart. Weeeeeeeeeeee...

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No offense, but I imagine this is another reason why the "don't talk about banned/suspended members" rule is in place. You guys aren't looking for dialogue, you don't like IB and are looking to jump on them. Although I don't agree with a lot of the way this site is managed, were I in IBobi's place and found out this morning about the thread in Other, the first thing I would have done would have been to remove it (as it was clearly against the rules) and lock down Geoff's account so he didn't recreate it while I was deciding the next step.

Then I'd take a couple of hours to think things through to make sure I didn't make a major decision too rashly (such as just deciding to ban him outright without giving appropriate consideration to his history and position here) and make sure I composed a professional and polite email.

I agree that there are a lot of things to criticize here, but the way they handled that thread and subsequent communication doesn't bother me in the slightest.

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This a blatant lie though Wally. Why lie to us and then ask for examples? I gave him what he wanted.

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What's a reasonable period of time for taking action and then sending a communication about the action? I think half a day is fair.

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I agree. Some of the stuff this past 24 hours is just rude and petty.

IB has made mistakes, or let their admins make mistakes, but a little patience and civil behavior has a better chance of making positive changes than this blaze of glory crap.

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rabble rabble rabble

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I'd agree with you, if it weren't for the last 5 years. There has been 5 years of civil and polite requests. 5 years of people mysteriously being banned without contact or notification. 5 years of being ignored. And apparently 5 years of an abusive mod/admin. At this point it's all moot. The toothpaste is out of the tube. It ain't going back in.

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An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure


I applaud mods and admins that want to step up and correct this problem but did everyone in charge have to ignore all the signs and wait until things got this bad. I think the idea of mods having a term the serve is a great idea but it matters little at this point. I don't think the mods are tyrants and I've never had a warning or exchange with any of them that I can recall. I have however witnessed the short tempered and shortsightedness of mods on occasion.

I want to say it's just an online forum and everyone should just lighten the fuck up. I've posted just over 5,000 times in 14 years and I can't bring myself to say that. I really feel for the members here would were much more active and bonded with people here over the years while witnessing poor mod decisions that should have been addressed by IB LONG ago.

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I know everyone wants to blame IB here, but to be fair... many moderators and admins have been in place before they bought the site, and I was under the impression that there's discussion about each action. Since there's a moderator forum where these discussions are supposed to take place, do the other moderators actually agree with the suspensions or bans that have come down in the last couple years, or is there no one actively arguing against some of the actions?

The fact that there's a page listing so many moderators and administrators that are supposed to be active members of the community yet 3 month suspensions or warnings about too many threads being started by the same person are considered legitimate infractions makes me sad.

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Well, as already been mentioned, there was Geoff. Regardless of the right or wrongs of the issue, it's somewhat embarrassing since he had actually created this site. He cared for it for a long, long, long time. He made the thread and wasn't being rude or disrespectful. This, again, is another one of those situations where perhaps an outright ban wasn't necessary? You guys have effectively banned the person who actually gave you reason to be here in the first place. To me, that's another one of those big red warning flags.

I don't think that's fair at all. I don't know how the system works here, but a couple of forums I've modded at have it pretty simple - When you take action, it automatically sends whatever message you care to send. It's all part of the same process of filling out the e-form as to why action was taken.

I don't really think there's this 'blaze of glory crap' going on. People are fed up, and considering the abuse of power, the lack of notification, the non-existent way to approach admins or mods and gain clarification... that's the petty stuff. It's an internet forum. And it's growing deader by the day, unfortunately. For one thing, this is DVDTalk... and digital is growing and growing and causing people that much less of a reason to check out our site.

Sites like DVDTalk do NOT thrive MERELY on the reviews, such as freelance contributors as myself help to provide the site with. No, sites thrive when they offer the whole package... and a large part of that package, believe it or not, is actually the forum communities that come with any given site. That is no longer a draw. This forum misses a lot of reported info in regards to DVD and Blu, because people just aren't contributing like they used to.

It's a real shame. A real BIG shame. People such as myself are hoping to allow this site to thrive for as long as we can help it to (the DVDTalk writers, that is), and these issues on the forum are allowing it all to collapse from under our feet... and there's nothing we can do about it.

This quote was just practically flawless. You can't just stifle all this stuff and believe it's going away. A lot of people on this forum kept in contact with each other outside of the forum itself. This WAS a tight-knit community. Now? Well, again, I only joined this thread very recently because I've held my tongue for a really, really long time, and as a contributor to the site myself, I have to fight for it, because I love DVDTalk.

First, it truly is sad that nobody on the mod team had stepped up to the plate to address concerns. If they did, then they shouldn't have allowed their voice to have been steamrolled.

Second, I don't really think term limits on mods/admins would be a good idea. There's no need for that... we just need to have the garbage taken out, essentially. I'm sorry, but what kind of excuses have I really been reading here? We've gone from, "Nobody should be having action taken against them with out least some kind of notification", to "Hang tight, it takes a few days for new policies to be drafted and put in place." We've gone from acknowledging the issue, to a 'we're implementing new rules' message. Some wires are getting crossed. If the mods and admins aren't on the same page, then that needs to be corrected, and quick.

Finally, yes - This is just an internet forum. Considering the mods themselves are chiming in to say they're just volunteers - which I highly appreciate, since I know how much of a hassle it is from personal experience - I really can't figure out why they're taking this stuff as seriously as they are. The bans, the no leniency policy no matter what, etc. I mean, again... they banned the man who made this site. I mean, what? My mind has been blown.

EDIT:

By the way... does Internet Brands really even realize what's going on? If they do... their ultimate priority is to ensure traffic to the site, no? THIS BEHAVIOR IS DRIVING PEOPLE AWAY. This petty stuff is ultimately costing IB their bottom line, after all is said and done. Would IB appreciate that? Would they even care, might be the better question, though.

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There is discussion about any member who is suspended or banned. Even when admins make a call to click that little magic suspend/ban button in the control panel, they start a thread or add to an existing thread about suspensions with the evidence that caused them to make that specific call.

What we're looking at now is more consensus from more mods at the site. Some of the lack of this was due to inactivity by some of the mods here. They just don't check in as much as they used to, so they don't get involved as much in the "should so and so be suspended?" conversations. With new mod blood coming in we're hopeful that more opinions can be voiced at the table when administrative action is called for.

There are some rules here at the site that are a result of this being a for profit site. A lot of those rules were in place when Geoff ran it. Maybe that's one of the things stifling the community here. It seemed to work under Geoff for the most part though. Maybe it's the penalties being enforced. I think the added consensus from more active mods can help this or at least clarify why something was done.

On a personal note, things have been crazy here over the past few weeks, but I'm not ready to give up on this site. I want to give management a chance to fix things before I say it's over. Obviously I'm posting about it, so it must mean something to me (especially since my activity has been dropping over the past few years). I've spent 13 years of my online life here.

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Yeah, this place has lost its luster.

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Is it that difficult to apologize to a long term member for suspending him over a stupid discount office supply post and maybe just say that the reactions on both sides got a little out of hand, suspend the long term member and the admin from posting for two weeks and move on?

How about suspend the creator of this site for 24 hours, email him about how that thread wasn't cool and delete the thread?

For real guys, you could do better.

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I think that a number of things happened all over a strange decision that baffles me to this day.

I know if I worked for a company and found out we had a large discount on something that I think my friends here at Dvdtalk would want I would hope I could post it since I get exactly zero financial benefit from it and be safe from being suspended or banned.

It just shocks me that more than one Mod/Admin would agree it was a valid thing to do.

I would not be angry if they thought I was wrong to post it and deleted it and maybe even warning me that they thought it was over the line. I guess i just can not get past that to suspension or banning of people.

When I started my thread in Feedback awhile back to help make BluRay more obvious to people who came to the website I did it because I have been here along time and would hate to see it do badly. I want to see traffic get better.

Other websites are not what will hurt this one. It is decisions that push people into thinking that leaving is the right thing to do based on decisions that are made here.

I really hope that positive changes are made and Dvdtalk prospers as a result.

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I may be wrong but I believe that the admin has essentially chosen not to inflame matters and is undergoing a de facto self-imposed suspension for as long as it takes to sort out the various changes. Regarding the long-term member, he will of course be invited back in due course and I think that it will probably be sooner rather than later.I tend to think that reactions did get out of hand and I am sorry that it came to that. I doubt that I am alone in that feeling. I don't know whether we will ultimately move towards one of the proposed systems of posting full details of every suspension - including maybe posting details of incoming emails etc - but I think that something of that kind would certainly open a few eyes had it been in place with regard to some of the past suspensions that have been alluded to here. See RandyC's earlier post for a nice exposition of an oft-repeated course of events. However, raking over the past, except to learn from history, seems unlikely to advance matters a great deal although there is some value in letteing off steam/venting.Yes! And I sincerely hope that we will... once we have:
a) recruited sufficient active mods so as to ensure that no-one person is left with the major part of the job of "policing" the site (from spammers, trolls and other miscreants and setting aside the occasional scofflaw)
b) formalised the system for ensuring that all suspendees are reviewed by at least two mods and receive the appropriate and timely communication.
Why is it taking so long? See part "a" :(

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I am sure it is a tough unpaid job so I do feel for you.

I hope no matter what the change or changes it works out to improve the website and how everyone interacts with each other.

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It may be a bit late at this point. But I'm sure it couldn't hurt if some form of apology was issued to a couple long-time members who were treated poorly and banned without recourse or further communication (until much later). A self-imposed ban can also be looked at as someone just avoiding this storm and avoiding any blame until it blows past. As I said, it is probably too late for most who were in the know, but it can't hurt.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, if I ever got a threatening pm like some other posters here have, I wouldn't need a ban or suspension to get me to leave for good. Then again, if I owned a business and I had an unpaid or paid employee who was hurting my business, I'd probably take care of that as well. :shrug:

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I was suspended about a two months ago with zero notification .. I will admit possible cause, but I am not sure what the reason was since the thread in question that was locked the last post by a moderator was that I got a warning ... then a week later, I was suspended.

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Going back through a record kept in the mod forum, my understanding was that

a) an admin emailed you immediately on your suspension at the address the board held for you although it was subsequently found out that there was a problem with the address/email box:
b) a day later you asked a mod what had transpired and he was able to tell you and we then found the message about the delayed mail (possibly in a spam filter).

I think that a lot of time these days we find that members have not updated their records here with details of new/primary email addresses. Through other interactions, individuals sometimes have a contact point and don't think to check against what is recorded by the board software.

I would hope that any reasonable observer would agree that this kind of "failure" can't really be laid at the door of the mods/admins. And I now wonder just how many of the people who think that we didn't try to contact them using the details available via their membership here still have an out-of-date email address on the system...

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You are right, my email was out of date ... so , pretty much not being contacted was my fault. Not sure if this is or is not the case with anyone else though. Since you have it, I would appreciate it if you would resend the email to my updated address as I am still not quite sure why I was suspended. The only thread I can think of was closed with a warning for me and 2 other users.

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Glad we resolved that one!I'll ask the original sender if they have it. From our notes it was due to a spat of some kind and you weren't the only one suspended. Hopefully those involved can be more precise. As it has already been a couple of months or so, I hope you'll forgive any intervening delay in attending to this.

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Hmmm...that could be the case for some of the others as well. I certainly would not blame a mod for this. Of course, I don't think this problem is about the moderators in general. They have actually always been great on this board. It seems to be just a small one or two that are causing the problems (combined with the years of frustration with IB's lack of commitment to this place).

However, this highlights a failure of this forum. Sure, users should probably make sure they update their information. But the forum is losing significant business over this and users will always be users. I would think the burden is on the forum owners to stop ill will amongst its customers. Some of the many ideas mentioned in this thread would easily avoid this problem (i.e. try contacting the member before any threads are deleted, post what happened in a locked thread, allow suspended members to use in-forum messaging services while they are disputing their suspension or ban, etc etc). Right now, the banned or suspended member has no recourse and no information. That is a problem.

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Wait. Suspensions were being doled out by a single decision maker? It all makes sense now.

And did I read that right? Geoff Kleinman was banned? rotfl