So, I did not really mind moderators given the right to administer temporary forum bans, considering that they can already suggest and get an Administrator to do it for them behind closed doors in a skype chat somewhere.
What currently bugs me is Cannon's previous assurance that posting in their own sanction thread after being banned, requesting clarification for the ban and contesting it I am sure, by inference would be allowed.
' Wrote:Account name: .Mimic.
Duration: [color=#33CC00]48 hours
Reasons: For posting under an Alt account whilst banned.
Comments: Obviously this is a no-no, this suspension is pending an Administration review.
The only reasoning given is for posting under an alternative account. Nothing else.
Not to mention, Waratah's reasoning in his original sanction sounds legitimate. "I could make this for you...and it will actually be a professional effort." Seriously? He could easily be advertising his products professional nature. (In fact, that is his reasoning.)
This sounds utterly draconian, and should be reviewed. If you cannot describe your products as an actual professional effort, then something is wrong.
The .Mimic. account was indeed used to post in the Media section following the ban of the .Watarah. account, saw it myself. According to Athenian, that post was invisibled once it was spotted by one of the higher-ups. So, that being said, the ban was indeed broken.
The reason for the ban in the first place, that's another kettle of fish entirely.
' Wrote:The .Mimic. account was indeed used to post in the Media section following the ban of the .Watarah. account, saw it myself. According to Athenian, that post was invisibled once it was spotted by one of the higher-ups. So, that being said, the ban was indeed broken.
The reason for the ban in the first place, that's another kettle of fish entirely.
Waratah's post was not just an advertisement of his abilities, but a deliberate attempt to try to steal a customer from Makc_RU, from a thread Makc_RU created in which to discuss the work with his client. Furthermore, his post was, and we have past history to show this, a snide attack on Makc_RU.
Lately those two forum members have attacked each other in the Media Center regularly, often breaking the forum rules while doing so. Warnings were given both in threads and in PMs to both members. These warnings were ignored, and both received tempbans. After this, Makc_RU had significantly lower amount of fighting, rule violations, etc. Waratah's behavior was unchanged. His tempban was issued for the reason stated, as well as the behavior he had been exhibiting between the two tempbans he received. Further actions are being considered while we take into account his behavior in that section over the past year. It has not been pleasant.
Makc_RU has also since received a 2nd tempban for his behavior in deliberately trolling and insulting Waratah. Both forum members are currently under review taking into account their history. These two forum members are the sole reason for the moderator team beginning a crackdown on the Media Center section.
This should explain the first part of your question.
As for the case with the Mimic forum account. While it is perfectly acceptable to debate your sanction in the thread, this should not be done during the course of your tempban. The reason for this, is that tempbans are meant to cover all of your accounts. However, tempbanned members still have full PM rights, with which they can discuss the issue with the moderators, or appeal to the admins. After the tempban is up, they can also pursue the issue in their sanction thread.
Lastly, I'd like to remind everyone, that tempbans require the approval of both the moderator giving the tempban, and one other (and we require that neither of these people are involved in the thread/violation), and we encourage new moderators to have the approval of two others instead of just one. This is not the case of one person thinking they did something bad and acting on it. We looked at the history of these two forum members as well as the listed offense, and, in these cases, we had 4 different mods/admins in agreement, with more agreeing post-ban on the action that was taken.
There is nothing fishy here, even if it looks that way. These two forum members have taken repeated advantage of the minimal moderation of the Media Center section, breaking rules, flaming each other, and insulting people in that section, for a very long time. Both of them know quite well that they have been doing this, and know when and where they have been doing this. The only surprise was that it took the moderation team so long to act on this situation, which stemmed from the problem that few of us are active in the Media Center, which resulted in little moderation of the section, along with the lack of documentation/record keeping of offenses of these two until recently (when we started the MC section crackdown).
Although Waratah has been aggressive and hostile in the Media section for several months now, if he didn't earn the ban this time, he's earned a fair few for the posts that the mods didn't see.
No offense to the guy, he's just too aggressive in general and never backs down from a fight.
' Wrote:
As for the case with the Mimic forum account. While it is perfectly acceptable to debate your sanction in the thread, this should not be done during the course of your tempban. The reason for this, is that tempbans are meant to cover all of your accounts. However, tempbanned members still have full PM rights, with which they can discuss the issue with the moderators, or appeal to the admins. After the tempban is up, they can also pursue the issue in their sanction thread.
I hear what you are saying, but if you went off previous allowances to post in your sanction thread then how can you rightfully be punished for that? It is like being told you are allowed to do something in the past, and when you do it you suddenly cop punishment for it under a new rule not so publicly announced or known.
Also, I think I forgot to quote that sentence, but if you invisible a post of Mimic posting in the media section, and I assume he was not trolling with that post, then why would you invisible that post, and then rely on it for a sanction on top of a sanction?
Edit:
[11:21:00 AM] Waratah: mimic never posted in the media thread just in Waratahs ban thread because waratah acc couldnt post due to gag.
[11:24:46 AM] Waratah: also Garret Jax will confirm this, i only posted using Mimic because i felt it unfair that i was gagged as waratah without being able to defend myself
' Wrote:I hear what you are saying, but if you went off previous allowances to post in your sanction thread then how can you rightfully be punished for that? It is like being told you are allowed to do something in the past, and when you do it you suddenly cop punishment for it under a new rule not so publicly announced or known.
Waratah's original ban was not extended when he posted on the Mimic account. The main account was banned only for the 48 hours originally imposed. The tempbanning of Mimic did nothing but enforce the previously levied tempban on his account. So Waratah was not punished for using Mimic, and the posts he made in his sanction thread with it were not logged as offenses. Posting in your sanction thread is fine. Doing so during your ban, is not. It's the same as people not being allowed to post in sanction threads as proxies for people that are banned. If the banned member wishes to talk to an admin, they may PM them, or post in that thread after their ban is complete. This is true of both normal admin bans and of tempbans. Furthermore, the Mimic account was supposed to be banned along with the Waratah account at the start, but was not, which was an oversight.
' Wrote:Also, I think I forgot to quote that sentence, but if you invisible a post of Mimic posting in the media section, and I assume he was not trolling with that post, then why would you invisible that post, and then rely on it for a sanction on top of a sanction?
I removed it from my post, since I was not personally involved in the catching/invis'ing of that post, in fact I was asleep at the time. If Athenian did it, he can point out where it was done. Finding invis'd posts is very difficult, since they don't show up on searches, even for moderators (phpbb fail).
Related to this topic, I would like to add that I have also been sanctioned for things that I do NOT remember doing or saying, and the posts where I allegedly said it were invisibled.
If you are going to sanction someone for something, dont hide the evidence.
About the 2 moderators that must agree.
2 is not a lot. What if there is a "dream team" of two moderators who are friends and know each other for years and do each other favors and are equally biased towards the same people? Chances are pretty high for that happening if you require only 2.
' Wrote:Related to this topic, I would like to add that I have also been sanctioned for things that I do NOT remember doing or saying, and the posts where I allegedly said it were invisibled.
If you are going to sanction someone for something, dont hide the evidence.
Forum rule violations are violations/rules because they should not be present on these forums. So of course we remove those violations from view, but keep them invisible instead of deleted, so as to have documentation and record keeping, and so that we can show evidence when requested. This is especially true of spamming threads, trolling, flaming, or insulted. The first is obvious, the latter is because, if they are left there, they anger those it is directed towards, which further fans the flames and makes the situation get worse. Also because we do not ban people for first offenses. Only for repeat offenses. We are not going to just leave the threads there so that they continue to cause trouble, hate between community members, or further spamming of threads that should not be spammed.
' Wrote:About the 2 moderators that must agree.
2 is not a lot. What if there is a "dream team" of two moderators who are friends and know each other for years and do each other favors and are equally biased towards the same people? Chances are pretty high for that happening if you require only 2.
There is no "dream team" among the moderators. Even if there were, the other moderators and admins would notice this easily and stop it from happening. Moderators and also admins are not free of scrutiny from their fellow teammates. We have a policy in the Moderator chat (and I assume the admin chat as well); If we think you (another mod/admin) did wrong, we make sure you know we think you did wrong.
If the situation you use as your example were actually happening, you'd see a heck of a lot more tempbans than you do. Malicious banning tends to be very obvious, as well as fairly continuous/regular. No one here has been "regularly" banned.
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