Can someone please explain to me why Kate has been banned?

I see nothing offensive in what she was posting this afternoon at all, and while I understand that Kate divides opinion a lot, I can't help but feel that this action is malicious, or certainly appears to be. Moving threads to the TMI board is fine, but why the ban? Who even did it?

I have to say, from the admin log the reason given for the locking of the "what do you tend to masturbate over" ("no one needs to discuss this") is kinda wtf, and I say this as a guy who's been accused of being uptight about people who like to knock back a bottle of masturbation now and again

I think it's well out of order. (I also think the admin log should name the admin concerned each time.) a; what if people DID want to discuss that?, and b; Kate's house-bound due to illness at the moment, and this just looks like nastiness, cutting her off from a method of communication in a community that she's been a part of for nearly a decade. I'm seriously pissed off about this.

in a less furious way I agree w/Nick - I don't think it's anybody's place to say "no one needs to discuss this" - I mean you could say "no one needs to discuss this" about a good 3/4 of the stuff we talk about around here

at the very least I demand that the next time there's a thread about eighties music it gets locked with a "no one needs to discuss this" explanation in the admin log, I mean c'mon now, in your heart you know I'm right

Whilst I agree with the principle let's not ruin a good thing.

im going to take a wild guess and say she was TEMP banned because a mod had better things to do than continue moving multiple threads on the same subject to TMI?

No, no, no, it is a vendetta against a dying woman.

oooh gotcha

I for one welcome this new Nazi ILX

i for one enjoyed the lock it was a nice return to jewess harvell style modding

I think it's well out of order. (I also think the admin log should name the admin concerned each time.) a; what if people DID want to discuss that?, and b; Kate's house-bound due to illness at the moment, and this just looks like nastiness, cutting her off from a method of communication in a community that she's been a part of for nearly a decade. I'm seriously pissed off about this.

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She has swine flu. Seriously.

I think kate should be unbanned btw

for one enjoyed the lock it was a nice return to jewess harvell style modding

ahh the glory days of Delete Fucking Everything as default setting

The admin log makes clear that the threads were being moved to Kate's board. The reasons for/against the move should certainly be up for discussion, I think, but I don't really get the outrage over a tempban for behavior that's resulted in many a temp ban before.

To say nothing of Temp bans or tempBans.

admin log should say who and actually why instead of a wee insult or something yes

apparently it's bad for mods if we do that

Yes that was my decision. It is to prevent people being able to find a way to take revenge when they're angry about something.

let's just suggest ban everybody to be safe

I don't even know who mods are; mostly I don't care, as I'm not really affected by moderation at all. But I just thought this was unreasoned and appeared very mean - move the thread, yes, fine, but a word of explanation and the repeat threads wouldn't have been made and no one would need to have been banned. It seemed a very childish and reactionary way to deal with a situation (and a situation that wasn't even a situation anyway).

I'm not in any way saying that people should all get along and be lovey-dovey happy families; in any large diverse forum there are bound to be personality-clashes and disagreements, but for god's sake just ignore or stay away from people you don't like, rather than aggravate and then ban them.

x-post; Keith I can see that reasoning; from a transparency POV I'm not sure I agree, though; I'd be MORE aggravated by being anonymously moderated in a way I thought was unfair.

It seemed a very childish and reactionary way to deal with a situation (and a situation that wasn't even a situation anyway).

this is really how all bannings have been up to this point

Well, as I say, I don't really keep count - I think I've only ever clicked SB about four times, and I don't routinely check any other forums / areas on here than ILE and ILM (and occasionally ILP), so I'm totally not up on regular meta behaviour / moderating / bans.

Nick, it's a fine line. I think this incident has just been one big unfortunate thing, and people are trying to sort it in the background, but it won't happen instantly, partly because it's bedtime in some parts of the world.

The transparency/anonymity thing is tricky, though I have explained my reasoning elsewhere (I'll see if I can find it). To play the counter example, much as I appreciate people are angry about this, why would it help to have the moderator's name (not withstanding the fact that the moderator has actually owned up to it)? Is this to give people the satisfaction of having a go at the individual rather than the reason for banning? Anyway, I'll see if I can dig up the old thread.

no particular opinion on the details in this case nick, but what kate did is the kind of thing people have got timeouts for in the past.

mods can bear a grudge or take revenge based on a whim and on the quiet though

Conrad, technically that is true, but they don't often get away with it, c.f. this current situation.

i don't think the person that did it meant to anonymously snipe and would admit to it if she or he was awake, and yeah there was some personal attack-type stuff that merited a time-out. this is like the most reasonable ban since the beginning of bans imo

basically kate was warned that the mods didn't want to deal with an inflammatory clusterfuck thread about why ILX does/does not discuss masturbation/foreskins, and kate still insisted on trying to start that discussion, and history has shown you shouldn't fuck with mods when they don't wanna deal with shit

can't tell what side of the issue you're coming down on here, Crutis

what is a yellow card?

just a nice note to tell you you're doing a good job, keep it up

think curtis is describing how moderation currently works, rather than making a point about how it should

yes

If other people have had timeouts for this kind of thing in the past then I guess that's fair enough.

The anonymity thing for me would be about knowing who to go to for an explanation as much as accountability. In this case it looked to me as if someone had banned Kate purely because they didn't want to see her talking about masturbation. I appreciate that having the mod's name could EASILY turn into a blame shitstorm.

As I say, moderation normally doesn't affect me in the slightest; but I saw this thread, thought it was an interesting idea, went out for an hour, came back, and thread had gone and I saw Kate on Twitter saying she'd been banned; knowing how ill she's been this week and how reliant on things like ILX for human interaction I thought it seemed mean.

Several x-posts in there.

Well, in my personal opinion, I don't think what's happened here has been great, but the best we can do is to dig ourselves out of it without an enormous scene. Not withstanding this, I think the way that moderation and self-moderation has worked in the past while, probably six months at least, has worked very well, and has had the least amount of meta-action on mod boards for probably five years. Not saying there's not an issue currently, but I don't think the system needs changed because of one incident.

Having real trouble digging out that old thread, Nick... Can't remember what it was called! I think it was about admin log.

As for swine flu - that's bloody awful and I hope she is OK.

Banning and stuff seems fairly common these days, it's sort of overzealous but at the same time I don't think anyone who was banned could say they didn't do anything wrong. It's just you know, should anyone be banned? lol even if they are an idiot.

Nick - it's kind of all over the place, but it starts here...

can we ask about admin log here w/o getting threads locked?

Banning and stuff seems fairly common these days,

I was thinking it was fairly UNcommon these days!

well I mean relative to a time when nobody was ever banned no matter what

a load of old bullshit

why isn't Tuomas sharing his thoughts on this thread

xpost:

See, that's the kind of post that is most unhelpful at all. What specifically do you think is a load of old bullshit? My post? Local Garda's post? This whole thread? The concept of board moderation? If you're just going to say "bah, bullshit" without being specific it kind of sets you up in mods' minds (at least my mind) as someone who just likes to complain for the fun of it, and I'd be inclined to tune you out in the future if you actually did have something serious to say.

bannings and yellow cards are bullshit or at least that they can be given by an anonymous person for whatever reason with no explanation is a load of old bullshit

don't want to set myself up in mods' minds as someone who deserves to banned or yellow carded again (I have a yellow card just now) or maybe I do as it's a load of old bullshit

don't mind being tuned out for the most part

guys its a temp ban. what is that? 3 days? who cares?

you don't care that's cool I don't really car either but I do think it's a load of old bullshit

history has shown you shouldn't fuck with mods when they don't wanna deal with shit

http://www.theuglytruthaboutmanagingpeople.com/images/UglyTruthCover.gif

Personally speaking I am happy to own up to any mod action I initiate (and most other mods are) but I can see why Keith wants anonymous modding. Given the sort of creep we have had to deal with in the past - and these are usually creeps hiding behind their own anonymity. As I said before:

This has nothing to do with any of the regular posters and more to do with the possibility of having to deal with a particularly persistent and vindictive troll and/or complete nutter who then decides to, for example, bombard them with email viruses or slander them all over other parts of the internet. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't (and we've come close on a couple of occasions).

I think that's pretty reasonable.

Outside of the noise board and some of the other more raucous sub-boards I can't think of any instances of someone being banned for no reason and with no explanation. Certainly not from the site as a whole, and I think all sitewide bans in future should be accompanied by a sensible explanation fwiw.

Alright can this get locked too or am I going to have to start posting abt masturbation?

harbl in otm shocker, can she be a site mod please

guys its a temp ban. what is that? 3 days? who cares?

who cares about ilx but speaking up for housebound flu sufferers who only have 1) ilx and 2) masturbation for distraction needs doing

; )

I'm not sure if Kate needed to be temp banned for a thing like this, but if she was warned and still went on, fair enough. However, I can see why she got upset, since locking a thread on the basis that "no one needs to discuss this" is not something any mod should do. I don't think people really want to go back to the days of Jess style modding.

I have no problem with anonymous modding, I think the mods are mostly doing a fine job, and don't need anyone pointing a finger them. Also, I think it's a good idea that mods write an explanation for the mod action, so we won't get endless threads like "Why was thread X locked?" or "Why was poster Y banned?". Just write a rational explanation, not a smug line like "you don't need to discuss this", and I'm sure everyone will understand, so we won't get storms in a teacup like this one.

"pointing a finger at them"

i wasn't around for the last 24 hours or so so I missed most of this but:

It seemed a very childish and reactionary way to deal with a situation (and a situation that wasn't even a situation anyway).

this is really how all bannings have been up to this point

― ∑(∂u∂e) (Curt1s Stephens), Sunday, July 19, 2009 3:25 PM (4 hours ago)

really dude? or are you just trying to make sure you get a chance to jump on the "all mods are nazis" bandwagon before it leaves the station?

sorry i dont mean to just single out crutis but fuck does every controversial mod decision have to turn into a big ol circle jerk thread about how we are all doing a terrible shitty job? its fucking boring, and its also bullshit.

yep bullshit

stop trying to make this bullshit thing a thing

if it's such bullshit, ya probably wouldn't be reading it, conrad.

ok guys, here is the deal, which i stated on an earlier thread:

i locked the original thread. i should not have done this, and i had no intention of starting a clusterfuck. it was a poor decision, yet a reversible one. when this was called out, it was unlocked and moved to iltmi. i banned kate because she continued to bring the matter up after it had been resolved, after she had been extremely been rude to a mod who had nothing to do with the lock, and after she had been asked to move on and cut it out. i have no vendetta or grudge against kate, but, as has been pointed out several times, people have been temped for behavior like this in the past. i am sorry she is ill, but that also had absolutely nothing to do with it.

You see, that seems reasonable; my issue was that I could see no explanation for the actions that had occurred, and thus it seemed a spiteful act rather than a reasoned one. Is this incident enough to negate anonymous modding? I don't actually think so, having read around a bit; BUT I do think mods should log reasons as clearly as possible in the admin log, even if only to prevent confusion like this in the future.

(Lock?)

Kate has now been unbanned, hopefully we can draw a line under this now.

I think everyone agrees the initial thread lock was a mistake but, well, y'know how most of you have bad days and shout at people who don't deserve it? Mods get those too occasionally. Evil giant Nazi robot lizards are only human. I hope you all realise from this episode that this why all mod decisions are reversable and mods are accountable to other mods.

:)

I wasn't saying that all mod actions have been childish, I was saying that this banning was done by the same standards as all the other bannings

so I'm not just trying to make sure (I) get a chance to jump on the "all mods are nazis" bandwagon before it leaves the station I'm trying to calm this dude down and make it easier for you mods

and you know I don't have personal beef with you or any of the other mods john. I hope you don't think that my contributions to these threads are out of malice

Thanks crutis, you're always trying to make it easier for the mods and everyone else.

uh I was actually trying to

listen, I know you hate me because I found the secret boards and that made you take time off to work on ILX. I didn't know that that would happen when I found the secret boards. It wasn't till like 3 months after the fact that stet told me that had happened and it made me feel like shit. I know I made things difficult for you but I didn't mean to.

Wow don't worry about that, that was a year ago. Had forgotten about it until you brought it up.

sorry curtis but you quoted this:
It seemed a very childish and reactionary way to deal with a situation (and a situation that wasn't even a situation anyway).

and then wrote underneath

this is really how all bannings have been up to this point

― ∑(∂u∂e) (Curt1s Stephens)

that sure does look a lot like you're saying all bannings have been dealt with in a childish and reactionary way

not sure how you thought it would be read in any other way?

i think everyone who posted on this thread did so with the best of intentions so lets lock it and move on

I meant that if you thought kate's banning was "childish and reactionary" then you'd probably think that the other bannings were childish and reactionary. It was v poorly executed sorry.

And sorry keith, didn't mean to freak out like that. Glad you're not mad!

listen, I know you hate me because I found the secret boards and that made you take time off to work on ILX.

Curtis, this isn't actually true in any way whatsoever, you know?

i think what curtis was trying to say is that the bans have been consistent at the very least

that's what stet told me I thought. But I probably shouldn't be making a big deal out of it.

yeah crut if thats the case i totally misread your intentions (same way just1n3 did). sorry for the misunderstanding. xposts

it was my bad, need to think before I post!!

I hope you all realise from this episode that this why all mod decisions are reversable and mods are accountable to other mods.

Good to hear this. It's about time stickman got his permaban lifted.

i believe the thread question has been sufficiently covered.