A plea for non-discrimination

[Turbinator]

Hmmm...

 

[Son Of Coco]

How do you find out how many infraction points you have again? I'm guessing it'd be reasonably easy to see and therefore I have none

Just wanted to know where to look though...

 

[GIMH]

Well first up you'd get an email from mod squad. Depending on who composed it, it might be as patronising as **** (for example I got one off Somerset once that was reasonable and I've had others that have been, well, ****ty). And it would also show up on your profile. If you have any infractions you'll have an infractions tab that only you and the mods can see.

 

[Jono]

Can't believe these ****ty discussions are going on months after the World Cup when it first really lit up.

Honestly GIMH, I have read some of Furball's posts, and I reckon he's a good bloke, but can you honestly state he hasn't intentionally tried to piss some Indian fans off in the past month?

If you're saying he's been banned when others have tried to piss English fans off on purpose and haven't been banned, then that's fair enough.

Regarding the idea that Tendulkar gets special treatment on here, I daresay its the intention behind the post that is the issue.

Sachin is a dick though. Rarely scores runs when I am at the ground. Even gets the flu when I fly all the way to England. Prick.

 

[Bun]

You were not given an infraction for insulting someone, it was for text speak. You've been asked repeatedly not to post in that manner before.

oh ok.. it was a joke btw...

 

[fredfertang]

There's not much left to say that hasn't already been said for our side by the membership. I know Fertang is referring to this post.



Viewed in isolation, that's not much to write home about in terms of bans, that's a "shut up and stop baiting". But it isn't in isolation, it is one example of the sorts of posts he has been making for a long time. When you lump in several posts like that with the personal insults and all the other rubbish, his coffin is nailed and he is getting a ban.

Yes I was referring to that post but the point I was more interested in highlighting was the treatment Stuart Broad gets. I know he's not the only other player to pick up abuse but currently I'd say he gets more than anyone else and what he gets is certainly more personal than the stick others receive.

Some of it of course is not really malicious and occasionally amusing but often it's just personal abuse for the sake of it. I find it irritating, but certainly not sufficiently so to either report it or rise to the bait, and of course we have the consolation of Broady himself having developed the welcome habit of ensuring his actions speak louder than the abuse he gets.

Which is why I really don't see the need for Tendulkar to have any special protection - his actions have screamed out loud for years.

Of course I do think he's entitled, like Broad, not to be personally abused (and for the avoidance of doubt I don't consider "buffoon" to be in that category) but it's absurd that a poster runs the risk of being banned/warned/infracted for, say, posting the following:

"Tendulkar has consistently proved this series that he's past it with the bat, is a passenger in the field, and should retire and stop taking a place in the team just to keep buffing up his own aura"

I hasten to add that that is an opinion I don't share at all, and said so when it was expressed to me last week by a local councillor (and a guy with his origins in India though that's by the by) but if that were to be posted here in CC I'm pretty confident that whoever posted it would be at best infracted, yet while I don't agree with it surely on a cricket forum its a legitimate subject for debate?

 

[Bun]

No fred, I don't think such a statement if made by you, will warrant an infraction. Mods as strange as they might act sometimes, aren't completely oblivious of the person's history who's making that post.

 

[Prince EWS]

You can criticise or abuse any player to your heart's content; we don't issue infractions for that. If someone wants to make a Stuart Broad joke or express their opinion of how Tendulkar isn't very good under pressure then both those things are absolutely fine. It's all about context and intent - if we believe someone is abusing a player to rile up other members then it'll be given an infraction - not because of the abuse towards the player, but because of the trolling nature of it towards other members. Even if someone posts something about Tendulkar and some idiot fanboy takes grave offence to it we'll still ignore it if we don't believe the post was made with the specific intention of riling up said idiot fanboy. You can't help it if people misinterpret the tone of your post and over-react, and we understand that, but equally it's pretty easy to tell when someone says something just to bait other members into reacting.

The GF thing wasn't handled very well - I'll admit that - but he did deserve a ban and the faults here lie in the communication we've had with him and the rest of the forum post-banning. He was extremely close to a one month ban in terms of infraction points and there were a few posts that had been reported as well as a few we had brought up ourselves in the mod forum that were pretty borderline. We thought about giving infractions to a few of them but by themselves they weren't that bad and we were no doubt conscious of what the impact of giving a minor infraction to a post would be for him, so we sent him a general warning telling him he was pretty close to a ban and that if he didn't change his antagonistic posting style he'd be on the way out. It had no effect and he continued to post in a way that we believed to be deliberately "trollish" towards Indian supporters, and there were another set of borderline posts raised in the mod forum, a couple of which we thought genuinely deserved infractions outright and a couple which just added to his general poor posting history and accumulated as evidence. As such we decided to give him an infraction, and the mod online at the time issued one for general disobedience.

Looking back on it now it probably would've been better to give infractions to some specific posts instead so it didn't look like he was being targeted without proper evidence, but it was the build-up of borderline offences and things we'd just let slide over and over that tipped the scale. Quite rightly he asked for a list of examples of his 'general disobedience' so the mod online replied to him with a few examples that had been raised in the mod forum where he'd said something antagonistic. From that has come the myth, partly caused by poor moderator communication I will admit, that he's been banned for insulting Tendulkar. Fact is, the Tendulkar post on its own wasn't even enough to incur an infraction for us - he had 28 (IIRC?) infraction points already standing and it was one of many posts that outlined the general antagonist nature of his posts and showed that he was attempting to do nothing but annoy Indian supporters. Without making that post he'd be on the same number of infraction points with the same ban length so to have it held up as the reason he was banned is factually incorrect. It's certainly not an infraction-worthy offence unless, as we've said, we're sure you're only doing it to antagonise other members.

 

[Flem274*]

Yes I was referring to that post but the point I was more interested in highlighting was the treatment Stuart Broad gets. I know he's not the only other player to pick up abuse but currently I'd say he gets more than anyone else and what he gets is certainly more personal than the stick others receive.

Some of it of course is not really malicious and occasionally amusing but often it's just personal abuse for the sake of it. I find it irritating, but certainly not sufficiently so to either report it or rise to the bait, and of course we have the consolation of Broady himself having developed the welcome habit of ensuring his actions speak louder than the abuse he gets.

Which is why I really don't see the need for Tendulkar to have any special protection - his actions have screamed out loud for years.

Of course I do think he's entitled, like Broad, not to be personally abused (and for the avoidance of doubt I don't consider "buffoon" to be in that category) but it's absurd that a poster runs the risk of being banned/warned/infracted for, say, posting the following:

"Tendulkar has consistently proved this series that he's past it with the bat, is a passenger in the field, and should retire and stop taking a place in the team just to keep buffing up his own aura"

I hasten to add that that is an opinion I don't share at all, and said so when it was expressed to me last week by a local councillor (and a guy with his origins in India though that's by the by) but if that were to be posted here in CC I'm pretty confident that whoever posted it would be at best infracted, yet while I don't agree with it surely on a cricket forum its a legitimate subject for debate?

You make some fair points there. I remember a large amount of Broad abuse when he first burst onto the scene. There has been some Broad trolling and baiting from individual posters---we have made it very clear to at least one poster that banging on about Broad further was going to land him in serious hot water---but if you think it is an issue then please report it, because we do listen to the forum. Thank you for not rising to the bait, it helps us out immensely.

I'd like to clarify here that abusing a player, while vulgar, isn't against the rules as such and never has been. It would also make moderating threads involving New Zealand test matches extremely tedious. However..

"Tendulkar has consistently proved this series that he's past it with the bat, is a passenger in the field, and should retire and stop taking a place in the team just to keep buffing up his own aura"

What is against the rules is trolling and baiting. The example post you provide is definitely not infraction worthy when viewed in isolation. It's a controversial post, and if it was the first post of a new member the last part of the sentence would ensure I'd be keeping an eye on him, but not infraction worthy.

If the poster were to consistently post that Sachin Tendulkar is a selfish person who takes a spot in the team for his own personal glory, then personally I would advocate we begin to look at our options and start issuing forum atmosphere warnings. Consistently poor posting is probably one of the most challenging circumstances to moderate, because being dense isn't breaking any laws, it's just annoying. The poster would likely get numerous warnings to improve their posting, and if they did not past examples (don't ask me to name names) show the poster would eventually be banned for forum atmosphere reasons.

The other side of the coin for tackling a consistent line of "Sachin is blah blah blah" would be, depending on other subtle factors, to start treating it as flamebait. There are so many subtleties in the difference between flamebait and stupidity that I'm not going to go into them, but we study each case and takes into account the context of the posting before making a call on whether trolling or natural stupidity is occurring.

 

[benchmark00]

Cliffs on Crabb and Flem's posts?

 

[Prince EWS]

Cliffs on Crabb and Flem's posts?

You can say what you want about whichever player you like as long as we don't feel you're doing it purely to antagonise fans of that player, even if a member misinterprets you and over-reacts.

I think that covers mine, minus the specific stuff I said about GF's ban.

 

[fredfertang]

No fred, I don't think such a statement if made by you, will warrant an infraction. Mods as strange as they might act sometimes, aren't completely oblivious of the person's history who's making that post.

I'd like to think so bun though I'm not totally convinced eg Burgey

You can criticise or abuse any player to your heart's content; we don't issue infractions for that. If someone wants to make a Stuart Broad joke or express their opinion of how Tendulkar isn't very good under pressure then both those things are absolutely fine. It's all about context and intent - if we believe someone is abusing a player to rile up other members then it'll be given an infraction - not because of the abuse towards the player, but because of the trolling nature of it towards other members. Even if someone posts something about Tendulkar and some idiot fanboy takes grave offence to it we'll still ignore it if we don't believe the post was made with the specific intention of riling up said idiot fanboy. You can't help it if people misinterpret the tone of your post and over-react, and we understand that, but equally it's pretty easy to tell when someone says something just to bait other members into reacting.

The GF thing wasn't handled very well - I'll admit that - but he did deserve a ban and the faults here lie in the communication we've had with him and the rest of the forum post-banning. He was extremely close to a one month ban in terms of infraction points and there were a few posts that had been reported as well as a few we had brought up ourselves in the mod forum that were pretty borderline. We thought about giving infractions to a few of them but by themselves they weren't that bad and we were no doubt conscious of what the impact of giving a minor infraction to a post would be for him, so we sent him a general warning telling him he was pretty close to a ban and that if he didn't change his antagonistic posting style he'd be on the way out. It had no effect and he continued to post in a way that we believed to be deliberately "trollish" towards Indian supporters, and there were another set of borderline posts raised in the mod forum, a couple of which we thought generally deserved infractions outright and a couple which just added to his general poor posting history and accumulated as evidence. As such we decided to give him an infraction, and the mod online at the time issued one for general disobedience.

Looking back on it now it probably would've been better to give infractions to some specific posts instead so it didn't look like he was being targeted without proper evidence, but it was the build-up of borderline offences and things we'd just let slide over and over that tipped the scale. Quite rightly he asked for a list of examples of his 'general disobedience' so the mod online replied to him with a few examples that had been raised in the mod forum where he'd said something antagonistic. From that has come the myth, partly caused by poor moderator communication I will admit, that he's been banned for insulting Tendulkar. Fact is, the Tendulkar post on its own wasn't even enough to incur an infraction for us - he had 28 (IIRC?) infraction points already standing and it was one of many posts that outlined the general antagonist nature of his posts and showed that he was attempting to do nothing but annoy Indian supporters. Without making that post he'd be on the same number of infraction points with the same ban length so to have it held up as the reason he was banned is factually incorrect. It's certainly not an infraction-worthy offence unless, as we've said, we're sure you're only doing it to antagonise other members.

You make some fair points there. I remember a large amount of Broad abuse when he first burst onto the scene. There has been some Broad trolling and baiting from individual posters---we have made it very clear to at least one poster that banging on about Broad further was going to land him in serious hot water---but if you think it is an issue then please report it, because we do listen to the forum. Thank you for not rising to the bait, it helps us out immensely.

I'd like to clarify here that abusing a player, while vulgar, isn't against the rules as such and never has been. It would also make moderating threads involving New Zealand test matches extremely tedious. However..

What is against the rules is trolling and baiting. The example post you provide is definitely not infraction worthy when viewed in isolation. It's a controversial post, and if it was the first post of a new member the last part of the sentence would ensure I'd be keeping an eye on him, but not infraction worthy.

If the poster were to consistently post that Sachin Tendulkar is a selfish person who takes a spot in the team for his own personal glory, then personally I would advocate we begin to look at our options and start issuing forum atmosphere warnings. Consistently poor posting is probably one of the most challenging circumstances to moderate, because being dense isn't breaking any laws, it's just annoying. The poster would likely get numerous warnings to improve their posting, and if they did not past examples (don't ask me to name names) show the poster would eventually be banned for forum atmosphere reasons.

The other side of the coin for tackling a consistent line of "Sachin is blah blah blah" would be, depending on other subtle factors, to start treating it as flamebait. There are so many subtleties in the difference between flamebait and stupidity that I'm not going to go into them, but we study each case and takes into account the context of the posting before making a call on whether trolling or natural stupidity is occurring.

Pleased to read this - that's what I believe moderating should be about - personally I disagree with the banning of the grumpy Scotsman, who I think is one of the most entertaining posters we have here, but then being a wishy washy liberal I disagree with most bans anyway

Kudos to both of you

 

[Prince EWS]

IPleased to read this - that's what I believe moderating should be about - personally I disagree with the banning of the grumpy Scotsman, who I think is one of the most entertaining posters we have here, but then being a wishy washy liberal I disagree with most bans anyway

Kudos to both of you

No problem at all. You can tell by the way that I run the site I own that I'm not too keen on bans either but the standard of cricket discussion on this site has always been so high that it's worth preserving, and if that means being harsh sometimes and setting stricter rules than elsewhere on long-standing members who stray a bit then that's what we need to do. I (personally) still consider GF a highly valued member of this forum so I hope he just uses the ban to re-evaluate what he wants to get out of this site and decide against the constant antagonist route. I get frustrated with a lot of the members he does too, and for similar reasons at that, but I don't come here just to wind them up and I don't think it's why he logs on either, even though his posts over the last month or two might tell a different story.

I'd like to apologise for my silence on this issue before today; my activity has been sporadic of late and I wasn't heavily involved in the original decision so I wanted to read up on it properly in the mod forum so I had my facts straight.

 

[four_or_six]

I've not really got a lot to say, as others have said it more eloquently than I could. As an Enland fan myself, though, I do want to point out that if anyone thinks remarks about Broad are bring made specifically to troll, please bring them to our attention. I am certain we have acted on such before, just the same as if someone posts in a thread not even talking about the player just to get a reaction out of other members by saying Sachin is a cheat, Murali is a chucker, Bradman is rubbish, or Andrew Strauss is a South African or any other trolling/baiting we take a dim view of it. It's not about protectionism for Tendulkar, or for Indian fans, it's just trying to avoid deliberate provocation and, we hope, just keeping banter instead.

 

[Sanz]

Who is more valuable in your opinion ? GF to Cricketweb or Tendulkar to Indian Cricket Team ?

 

[Flem274*]

Who is more valuable in your opinion ? GF to Cricketweb or Tendulkar to Indian Cricket Team ?

How is this post even remotely relevant or useful? Don't start Sanz, we don't need another moderation thread full of flaming. Post reported.

 

[Spark]

Love it when PEWS goes essaying, ends up saying whatever I want to say, just far more coherently.

 

[Sanz]

How is this post even remotely relevant or useful? Don't start Sanz, we don't need another moderation thread full of flaming. Post reported.

It was meant to be a joke and I can understand if you felt that it was irrelevant or useless, but accusing me of attempting to start a flame war with that post ? It should have been obvious from my posting in this thread that I have not taken side in this fight.

So yeah go ahead and infract me, ban me or whatever else you can do, I am trembling in my boots.

 

[Kylez]

It seems that a lot of the trouble and controversy that has appeared in the last few months has appeared after the introduction of the infraction system. It seems to have opened a whole new argument over what is infraction worthy and what isn't. Is the infraction system really worth having? I personally think it's a bit of a joke at times. We had a working moderating system before it's introduction, did we not?

 

[Prince EWS]

Let me just say that this thread will be moderated a lot more heavily than the rest of the forum because of its nature, so if you want to get into a pissing contest please do it elsewhere or you'll get in strife. This isn't a thread for jokes, provocation or insults. If there's any more of it we'll take action - don't bait, and don't take the bait either.