Tim?

What a smell of offence here .....

Not understanding anything what is going on here I can only join Ralf (Prieni) asking for more sensible information.
Otherwise it sounds rude and very personal fight.
With mod just having more rights.

It is a real pity that Tim is banned ! Sounds really wrong ...

You make it sound like an argument, which it wasn't. It was very simple. Tim was asked to place something in a more appropriate spot. That's all. The result was what you see, which is completely out of proportion.

The simple thing if someone wants to disagree is to discuss it, the usual reaponse would have been to say OK, that's fine, no problem.

Why the response was so extreme I cannot say because I simply do not know the answer.

And that is pretty much the whole story.

And this simple thing is worth of banning ? Heavy hand the mod has got !

PS. I do not make it sound I tell how does it sound to me

No Aiki, you haven't got the point. It wasn't the simple thing that caused the banning, it was what followed it, which you haven't been following and what followed it that you haven't seen.

We are apparently much less likely to ban here than at some other forums, so I'm told, and only do so as a last resort.

Anything that was done via PM is covered by our confidentiality rules and I cannot share that sort of thing, so I will have to put up with that.

Do you really think we ban people if there's no reason for it? Would not that be rather pointless and also rather difficult to explain to the rest of the team? Of course we don't. And you do know that really because everyone who wants to has been able to say what they wanted about this even when they really don't know much about it at all.

It doesn't look simple to me.


It could have been .... Why didn't you just move his thread/post if you felt it was in the wrong place?

Over at my forum Smeggy's, like most forums, including this one, there are several sub-forums. Occasionally, for example, people post a politics thread in general discussion. I simply move it and let the member know I've moved it. Job done. No one is offended.

I'd never dream of deleting someone's thread without warning and then telling them to repost it elsewhere. Especially as most people don't keep a local copy of what they post and many posts have some thought put into them.

If I moderated my forum like that I'd start to lose members.

I can assure you there was little thought in the post, but that's another issue.

Unfortunately this couldn't be moved like that, but it's all water under the bridge now anyway. I'm sure if you find one of your members stepping over the line Smeggy you will do something about it.

An afterthought, I might add that the original action was explained very nicely in a PM and if there was any disagreement with that then discussing it would have been a very sensible option. Putting things back if necessary is not a problem.

JR,
"OK, that's fine, no problem" is not a discussion. It is an usual response if someone obeys.

I think it is not the first time when someone does not want to obey.
Banning seems to be the quickest and most effective way to avoid further discussion. Especially if you think a storm to be rising from it.
It can be understood in a way. Like a work of a police....
It is hard to keep the balance

Still, if to do it too often (deleting posts, banning) it irritates people more and more. It does not make the forum more friendly or peaceful place.


I wish PUF to be a nice and peaceful place with lot of help and learning, also friendly chat.
Although I have not been much here lately, I have found several great persons from here, with whom I keep the contact. Tim is one of them. And pity - not the only one who has been banned or left.

Yes, JR, I do not know what was there about the PM-s. But these are PM-s. So the private content of those (between two persons) should not cause banning.
PM-s do not harm PUF as a whole. It is personally between you and Tim then ?

John claims...the simple thing if someone wants to disagree is to discuss it

That was not my experience, John, and you know it.

When I protested and explained my PP, your response was, and I quote.

"There is nothing to add to what I said before, just bear it in mind and let's move on"

So much for a discussion.

It is not my intention to add to your discomfort, John. I just want other members to know how it is when you fall foul of the Mods. Hiding it all behind a cloak of confidentiality also hides the truth of the matter.
I simply ask for more transparency. It would then not allow you to make claims that are not factual.

I've still not had an apology for that special pm you sent me.

Banning is quite severe punishment. It would be nice to tell clearly and to everybody, WHY was it done. It is just polite, not pointless !!!
Difficult - yes, but only if you start banning too often.

It is hard to tell anything, because we do not know anything.
And several people have asked for explanation.
It would take much less energy than keeping all this mess and storm.

It's pretty terrible forum software if you can't merge threads, move threads, move a post from one thread to another. You could have got him to repost before you deleted it though.

Yes of course, but I've never had an issue regarding anyone stepping over the line in regards to a misplaced thread or post.

Apart from the obvious 'no hate speech', 'no hardcore porn', 'no defamation' my simple policy is ..

"attack the argument, not the arguer"

Occasionally members do stray into getting personal with each other during the heat of a debate. A word in the thread is usually enough to cool things down. if not I lock the thread for 30 minutes to an hour, and then reopen it, but that is rare.

In terms of bans forums do this in different ways. I know of one large general discussion forum that operates a "so many strikes and your out" policy with bans progressing through 24hours, 48 hours, 1 week, 2 weeks, permanent. This is like someone getting a life sentance for 5 parking offences and is not conducive to a good and mature forum atmosphere.

I learned from the mistakes of that forum when I started Smeggy's and don't operate any kind of progressive banning policy.

If any member goes off the rails and repeatedly ignores any requests to behave with respect to the forum and other forum members then they will get a permanent ban, but this has happened, IIRC, twice in the history of Smeggy's, and only after a lengthy communication process with the member concerned. but in those cases there's never any public inquiry like this thread becuase the behaviour of the person who got banned was all too apparent by most forum members and they were glad to see them go anyway.

It's not easy running a forum John, and I do understand the need for confidentiality in regards to private communication when moderating someone. I highly respect confidentiality as Smeggy's. Problem is that's not so easy when a regular member of the forum ( two regular members? Robbie as well? ) has been banned no apparent valid reason. Often speculation can do more damage than the truth.

I agree it would be easier. Just as it would be easier to explain Doug's mysterious comment to thoramay, the thought for which I thank him.

The explanation is obviously that someone severly broke the rules in a deliberate way and continued to do so, continuing to add more and more inappropriate threads and new identities and basically abusing the system. The result: banning. Some people will have seen some of it, some will not because we were quick to respond and stop it. That doesn't tell you anything you couldn't have seen had you been around at the right time.

If people run amock on the forum they get banned.

Hopefully that will add clarity and explain also that the original issue had nothing to do with later events.

Why did a normally decent and productive member start to 'run amock' ?

Who knows Smeggy, alas not I. Some years ago someone else ran amok (I'll spell it right this time) and it always surprises me when supposedly grown up and mature people act like children. We have to accept that, discounting those who are just genuinely malicious, usually people act in a way that fits with themselves. In other words, they believe they are right.

Of course we rarely know who we are dealing with on a forum. Someone who pretends to be retired could be 10 years old, and any other permutation of that. Fortunately some people on this forum are actually real and we know them in one way or another. I've met Ken (gartmore) and he definitely exists. But things are not always what they seem.

Speaking for myself I have no particular axe to grind, so to be honest it does annoy me if it's suggested that I do. Even the notion that I'm firmly pro-Pentax is a bit more amusing if you know just a little more about me. But not here. This is Pentax User, and indeed I am a major user of Pentax. Always have been.

But that's enough of me. Take some of these random accuations with a pinch of salt, but it's good in a way that they have come out of the mix.

Amok. that's how you spell it. I didn't know either