Jk Idc, I just will secure the debates against Mall.
I am being banned over pure lies.
Posts
Total:
141
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@Lunatic
I'm not moderation so I can't say anything about that and who the target was lol, but a moderators job is to protect the user but allow an environment to debate and clash freely with mild restrictions. That's not my decision though to decide that info
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@thett3
This isn't against the rules just because it annoys you
Targeted harassment of any member prohibited, as is inciting others to do so at your behest. This includes wishing or hoping that someone and/or their loved ones experiences physical harm.
-COC
-COC
Wrong
A recent example of targeted harassment against voters: complaining with obscenities and drama that someone's vote was not automatically deleted for being against him. This further doubles as low level vote tampering, via informing any other potential voters what to expect if voting against him; while insisting in the vote request thread that they've troll voted (implying it needs a counter vote in his favor, when their questionable vote already is) https://www.debateart.com/debates/2114/comment_links/28755 (note, this was posted within minutes of the vote in question, denying any possibly for the admin team to review and delete it).People complain about votes all the time. He has a flair for the dramatic,so what
Fair enough
A recent example of targeted harassment via the forms: Derailing a thread with insults rising to the level of extravagant made up stories about users (if not lying, it's doxxing to have spied on them braiding their hair and giving each other manicures) basically because they play board games without you. https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/4593/post-links/191128Same thread: Threatening to ban someone, which is impersonating moderation. https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/4593/post-links/191181"Impersonating moderation" lol
I've gotten banned for this too. I think it's bullshit, but it's a rule
Accusing another member of getting a cut from a gofundme which you insist was a scam: This raises the seriousness, as it's accusing a third party of criminal activity. https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/4593/post-links/191270GTFO of here. It looks like the post was deleted but he's entitled to have his conspiracy theory about an event that happened like six years ago. Mikal is not in any legal danger due to this post, the way you've worded it is incredibly dramatic
Targeted harassment
"Multi-accounting and any action indistinguishable from it is prohibited."Technically forgiven, but still of note with recent complaints of it not being rewarded. Coordinating with someone for them to make fake accounts to give him a bunch of free wins, is still within the purview of this crime.I dont know the context of this, if true its worth of a ban, but you also say it has been forgiven? If it has it shouldn't be relevant
We were only lienant because of his activity. Users have been perma banned for doing this as well, we let RM off the hook.
"Doxing is strictly forbidden. Without their express permission, you may not post, threaten to post, nor encourage others to post, anyone’s private or identifying information no matter how it was obtained."Doxing another user: While this is from a while ago, it does feed into history of poor decisions, particularly as related to being fixated on certain people.I support a zero tolerance policy for actual Doxxing, but all he did here was threaten to Doxx someone (which he should not have done, either.) It's from October 2019, almost a year ago. It's not relevant to banning him now and shouldn't be considered
Yes it should. It was from a long list of things we were there that accumulated to a longer ban, so it can be in play. It has happened to me
TLDR this site barely exists anyway and Rationalmadman is a key member, if this is all you've got you're clearly banning him mostly because he annoys you and he's right that the "charges" in general are trumped up, and two months is way too long
tl;dr, most of what he did is breaking the rules of the site and some rules might need to be changed. regardless he broke the rules and his accumulation of breaking the rules led to 2 months
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@RationalMadman
Mikal unbanned you from the discord. Not sure if you care, but he told me to tag you and let you know.
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@Lunatic
That is not the issue, unless me coming there is a condition to avoid a ban here.
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@Vader
Do you know that the accusations are lies? As in when he says I impersonate moderation, I literally didn't, same with the coordination and doxxing.
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@RationalMadman
Like I said, I don't know every little thing about the verdict (eg; multi, impersonating). All I know is the doxx (which is a viable for ban due to the threat of it) and the whole issue
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@David
@Barney
@Speedrace
Can we get an official response to the status of this? Ragnar has provided a little bit of why the ban is going through, and it's been pointed out that there is some holes in it. At the very least is there consideration going into the length of the ban? Because two months seems extremely long. Is there any sort of trial system allowed in the rules? I'll be the first to point out when RM says something ridiculous but after reviewing the reasons for the ban I am not entirely convinced it is necessary. At the very least a slap on the wrist ban, but 2 months seems excessive.
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@Lunatic
@thett3
It's okay just relax. Even I am relaxed at this point about the ban. One thing I want to say to everyone is that I have spoke to Hamburgler on discord and I believe his story 99% now. Obviously there is a room for doubt but I definitely would believe it vs doubt it. I am sorry to all involved. I am a prick who was wrong.
I am relaxed, just asking for an answer. Last time I brought up an issue with a ban Ragnar was also the only one to give a semi decent response, it would be nice to hear from the other mods.
It appears RM is having a virtual one-on-none conversation. Let him rant, but then, doesn't being banned mean one has no access to the site?
RIP
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@fauxlaw
Look at him squirm. He obviously has a severe addiction. Some time away from the site would do him some good.
You know sometimes life is a sick and twisted joke. The only ones who have been nice to me or remotely open-minded during this time are the people from DDO I resented. I appreciate this experience a lot, let me know where I really stand with people and now I understand exactly what the DDO crowd were saying about DART. There is something seriously backstab-oriented about DART's social landscape.
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@Lunatic
That's weird?? I don't remember the ban being about doxxing or coordination with banned users.
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@Barney
When is the ban effectivity?
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@Lunatic
Oh lol RM just lied about what the ban is for. I just reread the PM we sent him and it talks about much more than doxxing and the coordination (those were more like passing remarks) and was mostly focused on the harassment. 2 months is standard as you'll get more time if you've committed other offenses in the past
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@fauxlaw
It starts tomorrow
Goodnight
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@Speedrace
That's weird?? I don't remember the ban being about doxxing or coordination with banned users.
The other one was general inquiry about the severity of bans in general, and how much discretion is applied vs how much is followed by arbitrary rules. I in general think stricter rule enforcement aids to the general low activity of the website. I'd be more vocal about this but it's a thin line of deciding whether I care enough. If I knew a significant amount of members would flock here it may be worth the time assuming I am not ignored in the appeals.
To phrase a better question; is moderation open to changing policy that broadly or is it a futile matter?
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@Speedrace
2 months is standard as you'll get more time if you've committed other offenses in the past
2 months is standard for what? Doxing?
What is RM's new Pfp?
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@Lunatic
To phrase a better question; is moderation open to changing policy that broadly or is it a futile matter?
We're always open to discussion and policy change. What do you have in mind?
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@RationalMadman
You know you can always be open to talk to me if you want. I know you aren’t fond of me, but you can always talk to me. I’m not closing my doors to you because of this ban
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@bmdrocks21
For real. It's kind of sad
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@MisterChris
It is. He had admitted it before, when he swore off the website. However, that might have just been a ploy to get the 25 likes achievement.
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@bmdrocks21
I'm not sure what that was either, but it was entertaining. Anyway I'm hoping RM will make a bunch of alts and cause havoc so I can watch and eat popcorn
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@Barney
We're always open to discussion and policy change. What do you have in mind?
Incoming wordy post! Also Ragnar, I know we communicated a little earlier on discord and some of what I said there may be repeated to an extent, but this is due mostly to the fact that I am hoping the other mods will also read this an opine.
So all of this is going to be philosophical and based on my personal experiences and understandings of course. But my feeling is that overall, over-moderation on a website like this creates a distinct problem that I think clashes with the nature of what the website is intended to be. Now we are working with a very small group of people I realize so I don't want this to be construed as me saying moderation here bans more frequently than you probably do. I've mostly been active in the games forum, so I am not always privy to the details of what goes on elsewhere here until I occasionally glance.
But I think the aim should be towards a more laissez-faire attitude in general towards moderation. Obviously discretion should be used to an extent. Referencing our conversation earlier, you mentioned I could say "Hey fvck face" to you and not be banned if it is reported until it becomes such an issue to an extent where it is spammed; but I don't know if that's the general vibe that is felt whether it is true, or not. This could be in part due to multiple moderators giving an entirely strong police force appearance. One of my first interactions with moderation that struck me as weird was a heated argument I got into with Wylted in a mafia game (warren's office mafia) where Wylted was dishing some heat on me, and I started dishing it back. Standard mafia aggression ya know? Speedrace actually stepped in and mentioned that the behavior was un-acceptable. Me and Wylted were both confused by this, and despite having just argued with each other, actually teamed up on him on the subject of policing words. Eventually speed conceded this issue, and I am not bringing it up to bash him in the slightest, I love speed and think he's awesome. I am slowly working my way to a point here, but I don't want to tangent on this too much at the same time. I have seen you (ragnar) slide into forums where things have been ridiculously reported and I can practically see you rolling your eyes at the report. I'll link this as an example since I used it earlier: https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/4154-someone-is-secretly-admiring-me-on-dart?page=4&post_number=97. That is to say I think you agree with me in general that you don't want to over-moderate.
However I think the impression comes off indirectly regardless. When the website first started up, I remember there was a lot more DDO refugees sticking around then their are currently, and besides maybe RM and ethang, I remember the general consensus of hope that airmax would resume moderation here. I think it's safe to say that in general airmax was a well received mod besides a very few obvious people who didn't take to him like those mentioned previously. And while I am a good friend of his and trying hard not to come off as biased here, I think the reason he was successful was because he was real in the way he moderated. He treated people and situations like they were real. Imabench was universally banned more than any other member on the website, but he was very well received by a good portion of the member base. While I am sure he is mostly a different person now as he and we all have grown, I don't see him making similar posts to what he did on DDO here just for the lack of caring and the knowing that it wouldn't be received as well. I think the laissez-faire way to mod would be to maybe slap someone on the wrist more, the way he was constantly wrist slapped, but in general let things go easier. The supadudz situation; I remember opining strongly on that and maybe you guys didn't understand why I was so vehement about that. I mean supa himself didn't even seem to care. Even RM is telling me to "relax" implying he doesn't care all that much anymore, but that's not even really the point. I can't see airmax having banned supa for a week for responding to a user he had past beefs with because the context was friendly toned in nature, and didn't have anything to do why the "restraining order" was implemented in the first place. Again supa didn't care, but these types of bans are a slippery slope, and I feel the reason many people won't join this site in any contributive capacity.
I quite literally have talked to people from DDO about this and many say they don't join or participate is simply because there are too many moderators. I personally like and respect each moderator here; I have nothing but good things to say about the three of you. That said I kind of agree with the statement that one would probably be better. We are all inclined to confirmation bias towards friends, and that can kind of be a slippery slope. I was offered a moderation position myself, and while I highly appreciated the offer I didn't accept. I know I am not capable of making the mature decisions that airmax had to deal with, and it would be against my nature to not ban people like RM who seem to constantly be making issues. But really it's people like RM, imabench, YYW, (insertaggressive vocal user here) who make the site thrive.
Widely my point can be ascribed to say that "drama" is good, but that sounds a bit over simplified, because you can easily counter that by saying "we don't ban drama". That may be true, but that's not the sense that is portrayed, and it isn't necessarily true all the time, because if you can amount a hundred small offenses to equal a huge one, it's easy to justify a ban on someone like RM by dismissing him as "always just being a problem".
Some of my best growing experiences on DDO come from the "beefs" I've had, and eventually learning and growing from them. If I was banned (and I can certainly tell you, in my history on DDO I certainly had many instances where a ban would have been justified) for 2 months I don't know if I'd have overcome some of those beefs and made as many friends from the site as I have now. I can seriously say that at least half of my closest DDO friends were enemies at some point. Times change. People change. Opinions change. We aren't always not prideful enough in the moments to admit were wrong, and it takes time and reflection to change your mind on a subject. As moderator in a large group of people who are friends that generally agree with each other, I can easily see myself falling victim to unintentional confirmation bias and largely dismissing something as a "persistent problem" that get's solved with a ban. There is much much more to say on this and I am not sure I am making the point that I am trying to make as efficiently as I would like. So to stop from blabbering I'll summarize what I think would fix the appearance of "over-moderation".
1. Go down to 1 moderator
2. Use a lot more discretion in both banning, and choosing ban lengths.
Number 2 is most important here. When banning someone think about a situation. Supa's is the easiest to refer to in this. Ask yourself "Was this really that bad? Does this person need a week to feel like a child in a corner, or 2 months?". This will take a lot of putting yourself in the persons shoes. "Should I really ban supa for a whole week because he replied to a user in a friendly tone that he once had beef with?" Just think about the situations a lot more I think. Because I think that's the main reason why old DDO users won't stay here. This is a lovely looking site and the owner did a fantastic job putting it together, from what I've gathered about the activity and conversation with others, I am left to deduce the reason people aren't more vocal at times is fear of moderator related retribution (even if, like I said that isn't necessarily the case). I have a general feeling that I can't speak the same way that I did on debate.org, without consequence. That freedom of speech was one of the biggest attractors on that site for me. I could beef hard with someone and months later be friendly with them. You just can't get that type of relationship with most people on facebook, and that's why DDO encouraged intellectual stimluation alongside social networking. I want to say "Your wrong douchebag, and here's why your f'ing wrong" without being blocked by that user. Then later I can re-read that post realize I was a douche, and re-evaluate my opinion in a way I couldn't if a restraining order or something was placed on me and that individual barring him from letting me see and reflect further on his opinions.
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@thett3
RationalMadman has been banned for 2-months. This is primarily due to the following..."Targeted harassment of any member prohibited, as is inciting others to do so at your behest."This one goes on endlessly. Claiming victim to the moderation team regularly via insisting roughly half the active user base are actively bullying him; while regularly being the instigator of conflict and following people around complaining at them obsessively.This isn't against the rules just because it annoys you
A recent example of targeted harassment against voters: complaining with obscenities and drama that someone's vote was not automatically deleted for being against him. This further doubles as low level vote tampering, via informing any other potential voters what to expect if voting against him; while insisting in the vote request thread that they've troll voted (implying it needs a counter vote in his favor, when their questionable vote already is) https://www.debateart.com/debates/2114/comment_links/28755 (note, this was posted within minutes of the vote in question, denying any possibly for the admin team to review and delete it).People complain about votes all the time. He has a flair for the dramatic,so what
I already already explained in the quoted text why it's problematic on multiple levels.
A recent example of targeted harassment via the forms: Derailing a thread with insults rising to the level of extravagant made up stories about users (if not lying, it's doxxing to have spied on them braiding their hair and giving each other manicures) basically because they play board games without you. https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/4593/post-links/191128Same thread: Threatening to ban someone, which is impersonating moderation. https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/4593/post-links/191181"Impersonating moderation" lol
"I don't care but your ban isn't based on me saying that." I read like informing someone they were to be banned. Reading again, I see other posts referring to him having been banned from a game, and I realize this was an error from me missing an important piece of context to the statement. This part of the complaint is hereby dropped.
Accusing another member of getting a cut from a gofundme which you insist was a scam: This raises the seriousness, as it's accusing a third party of criminal activity. https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/4593/post-links/191270GTFO of here. It looks like the post was deleted but he's entitled to have his conspiracy theory about an event that happened like six years ago. Mikal is not in any legal danger due to this post, the way you've worded it is incredibly dramatic
At this point, even RM is apologizing for this on multiple levels. ... Claiming the person he was talking to had done wrong, is a much lesser thing that what this rose to with the accusations against someone long gone so unable to defend themselves.
"Multi-accounting and any action indistinguishable from it is prohibited."Technically forgiven, but still of note with recent complaints of it not being rewarded. Coordinating with someone for them to make fake accounts to give him a bunch of free wins, is still within the purview of this crime.I dont know the context of this, if true its worth of a ban, but you also say it has been forgiven? If it has it shouldn't be relevant
Only mentioned due to RM making recent complaints of it not being rewarded.
"Doxing is strictly forbidden. Without their express permission, you may not post, threaten to post, nor encourage others to post, anyone’s private or identifying information no matter how it was obtained."Doxing another user: While this is from a while ago, it does feed into history of poor decisions, particularly as related to being fixated on certain people.I support a zero tolerance policy for actual Doxxing, but all he did here was threaten to Doxx someone (which he should not have done, either.) It's from October 2019, almost a year ago. It's not relevant to banning him now and shouldn't be considered
It does feed into history of poor decisions, particularly as related to being fixated on certain people. As for why that matters, it's written in the CoC: "The specific consequence will depend on the severity and frequency of the violations, along with user history, context, and other relevant factors."