Daemon's ban

[Howe_zat]

Originally Posted by GeraintIsMyHero

Think you've missed a trick there Jake

Senior moment.

[Athlai]

I'd agree and kick up a fuss but Captain is enjoying his ban since he can get some work done.

[GotSpin]

Deserves a longer ban actually. Perhaps a year

[GingerFurball]

Originally Posted by Flem274*

Hey guys, your thoughts have been duly noted and raised in the moderator subforum. Thanks for the feedback, we do appreciate it and a good forum needs members who are active in site politics.

I can't voice my own thoughts on the ban specifically because the moderation team work as a unified front, but I think Howe makes some excellent points in the original post.

lol

[smalishah84]

yeah........bring Daemon back

and also Blaze18

[GingerFurball]

Originally Posted by smalishah84

and also Blaze18

Go **** yourself.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by Howe_zat

The more I think about Daemon's ban the more it seems massively harsh to me. Before I begin, I want to make a couple of things clear:

1. I don't usually argue with bans. One man's trolling is another man's arguing and it's not my decision which is which.

2. The link Daemon posted was absolutely not appropriate and needed deleting.

My gripe is that, once the link was deleted, did the site really gain anything out of banning Daemon for a month? It seems quite clear that, as a poster with no infractions and no history of troublemaking, Daemon wasn't attempting to defy the rules for the heck of it. He just posted something he thought was interesting and rather stupidly didn't consider how other people might react.

Now, if this had been the latest in a long string of posting indecent content, it'd be fair to say we'd be better off without him. But it wasn't, and I'm sure that if you'd simply deleted the link and given the lad a strong talking to, and perhaps an infraction, he'd know he'd gone over the line on content and wouldn't post like that again.

As it is I think we've lost a good forumer, perhaps permanantly, and what bothers me is that it could have been me. I don't think he posted it with the intention of causing distress, and so a member has essentially been banned for making a mistake.

Daemon himself thinks it was a fair ban, but even as a mod I think I'm inclined to side with you here slightly. He's far from a trouble-maker and I think banning him for a month for it will be a net loss to the forum. The post was relevant to the thread and he was hardly going to go around doing it regularly and bringing the quality of the forum down with it.

The ban was a function not of moderator opinion, though, but of the infraction system we put in place to instill consistency and prevent specific opinion of members and the biases they bring from clouding the issue of the offences. Under the rules we have, which he would've known, it was a fair ban. I do think it might have exploited (for lack of a better word) a little hole in the infraction system wrt "offensive material" though; it's something that'll be discussed in the mod forum and possibly altered slightly in the future. There's a big difference between posting something like that in a relevant thread without a warning and posting hardcore porn images directly for example, yet the infraction is the same, which is arguably a little off.

[Howe_zat]

Originally Posted by Prince EWS

Daemon himself thinks it was a fair ban, but even as a mod I think I'm inclined to side with you here slightly. He's far from a trouble-maker and I think banning him for a month for it will be a net loss to the forum. The post was relevant to the thread and he was hardly going to go around doing it regularly and bringing the quality of the forum down with it.

The ban was a function not of moderator opinion, though, but of the infraction system we put in place to instill consistency and prevent specific opinion of members and the biases they bring from clouding the issue of the offences. Under the rules we have, which he would've known, it was a fair ban. I do think it might have exploited (for lack of a better word) a little hole in the infraction system wrt "offensive material" though; it's something that'll be discussed in the mod forum and possibly altered slightly in the future. There's a big difference between posting something like that in a relevant thread without a warning and posting hardcore porn images directly for example, yet the infraction is the same, which is arguably a little off.

Thanks for that explanation, and I hope you do look into tweaking the rules a bit. I suppose that the main root of the argument here is how much power the mods should have to use their own discretion, as oppose to abiding by the letter of the infractions system. I'm inclined to think that the mods here are good enough to use their own judgement in the vast majority of cases, and the infractions sytem as it stands tends to restrict the solutions available to them.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by Howe_zat

Thanks for that explanation, and I hope you do look into tweaking the rules a bit. I suppose that the main root of the argument here is how much power the mods should have to use their own discretion, as oppose to abiding by the letter of the infractions system. I'm inclined to think that the mods here are good enough to use their own judgement in the vast majority of cases, and the infractions sytem as it stands tends to restrict the solutions available to them.

I'm a big believer in the infraction system (particularly given the constant feedback regarding a lack of consistency we were getting from the community before we implemented it), but we will no doubt hit a few snags along the way before it's perfectly set up for us and the needs of this forum. We need to make sure the infraction options we have at our disposal cover every eventuality, and we essentially hamstrung ourselves in this instance as we had only one infraction description that clearly fit the offence but the points allocated to it were really meant for something else. The system will work a lot better as it evolves - to use an analogy, we've done the equivalent of making negligent homicide and murder the same crime with the same sentence. We're working on separating them to avoid this in future.

[Prince EWS]

We've split the "posting offensive material" infraction option into two categories. The difference in interpretation will be based on intent and the level of offense likely to be caused.

Posting offensive material (heavy) - 40 points
This infraction option will be used if, for example, someone posts hardcore porn directly in a thread, tricks someone into clicking on a malicious link or posts anything we believe has the specific intention of offending the community.

Posting offensive material (light) - 15 points
This infraction option will be used in situations like the recent Daemon example, whereby someone links to something we don't consider appropriate with no warning, but is either not deliberate or not outrageously offensive.

As such, Daemon's infraction has been changed from being worth 40 points to being worth 15, and his ban has been reduced from one month to seven days.

[GingerFurball]

goatse link?

[cpr]

How many points for a Rickroll?

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by GingerFurball

goatse link?

I've edited that. Anyone who doesn't know what it is might google it, which wouldn't end well. I'd have to give myself a 15 point infraction.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by cpr

How many points for a Rickroll?

A RickRoll is fine.

[Howe_zat]

Originally Posted by Prince EWS

We've split the "posting offensive material" infraction option into two categories. The difference in interpretation will be based on intent and the level of offense likely to be caused.

Posting offensive material (heavy) - 40 points
This infraction option will be used if, for example, someone posts hardcore porn directly in a thread, tricks someone into clicking on a malicious link or posts anything we believe has the specific intention of offending the community.

Posting offensive material (light) - 15 points
This infraction option will be used in situations like the recent Daemon example, whereby someone links to something we don't consider appropriate with no warning, but is either not deliberate or not outrageously offensive.

As such, Daemon's infraction has been changed from being worth 40 points to being worth 15, and his ban has been reduced from one month to seven days.

Thanks guys. Good to know we can discuss these things, genuinely, and make an impact. And thanks to Cribb especially for his explanations.