Mods and their madness

I've got to get this out. I have had this bottled up since you mods and admins started your crazy semi-to-full abuse of power, and know I need to state my opinion.

This all started with something that seemed to be a good idea. The mods would be cracking down on total spammers and abusers. This I agree with. At the time the spam level was off the chart and it needed to be downed. The moderating team did their job, and I applaud them for that. The board needed it, and they went above and byond William's parameters.

BUT... This was when the some of the mods and adminns began to abuse their power to ban. They banned too many people, some of them quality posters, and then neglected some of the spammers. They went after the ones people complained about and did not go after those who they saw being major trolls. This, IMHO, is outrageous. If you're gonna ban quality posters, at least ban da trolls too.

Because of the administrative actions, many people have left, once again many of them being quality posters. The board is suffering because of poor planning on the part of those who oversee this board. I hope I speak for many when i say that this is extremely.... how to say..... foolish... that many are leaving as a result of a good thing.

Thanks for your time. I hope the mods and admins take this into consideration in a topic in their private forum.

Feel free to post your thoughts,
HLW

P.S. If you feel the need to, go ahead and ban me. I was thinking about leaving the board anyway.

people need to stop complaining about stupid stuff like this. If you dont like the way things are handled here then leave. And 99.9% of the people who get banned deserve it. So I dont see a problem with it.

Wow man, you realy said what was on your mind. Umm, many of the mods IMHO are doing a good job. WOS is a great mod, and I can go on but I wont. Mods dont be offeneded cause I mentioned WOS.

Some memebrs did leave and wwe did lose good posters suchas FM. But I do agree that soem are getting away with it but the mods are cracking down on them. I appauled you courage to post this which might be you last post. If so goodbye HLW.

Ocelot, it ain't the fact that they cracked down. It's the fact that some of them are basically killing the board, member by member that gets me a little hot under the collar. This was a great board when I started here. Really was. Then they started the Take Back ATS campaign. Which was excellent. But they started abusing their power and it's gotten to be too much for me. We've lost Lupe and FM, both of whom had some tempers on 'em, but overall were good posters. Hate to say it, but I gotta go against the tide and fight for what I believe in.

Signing off,
HLW

Originally posted by High_Lord_Warrior
Ocelot, it ain't the fact that they cracked down. It's the fact that some of them are basically killing the board, member by member that gets me a little hot under the collar. This was a great board when I started here. Really was. Then they started the Take Back ATS campaign. Which was excellent. But they started abusing their power and it's gotten to be too much for me. We've lost Lupe and FM, both of whom had some tempers on 'em, but overall were good posters. Hate to say it, but I gotta go against the tide and fight for what I believe in.

Signing off,
HLW

I belvie this is how Lupe was banned. Realy was Lupe a good member? There are a few member that are around that should be banned, but I can live with them.

at this point I'm beyond caring what happens to this stupid username. I'd rather go out a fighter than a follower.

HLW

This whole thing has gotten way out of hand

The mods are abusing the power granted to them by Simon, who I am sure expected them to behave responsibly and reasonably.

Obviously as this is a privately owned site, we have little right to demand change of them, however, I feel we must put forward the opinion that they are taking their campaign too far. I only hope they will listen.

"Take Back ATS" has become little more than bullying - FM was banned because he showed as much respect for the mods as they did for him, and for the rest of the community they serve. It all began with the Moron Award - FM should not have been subjected to such humiliation, and it's no wonder that he became abusive, if indeed he did at all ( I have yet to see any evidence of such behaviour ).

Can I ask the mods who they are taking ATS back from? And who will it belong to? To the vast majority of posters, who are mature, civilised, and make a valuable contribution to the board? Or to the priviledged few, who want to run a website - aimed at exposing corruption and abuse of power in government - like a fascist state?

I havent been on as much since the start of the Take back ats campaign. I thought that the mods started to back down a little from their 1st stances.

"people need to stop complaining about stupid stuff like this. If you dont like the way things are handled here then leave. And 99.9% of the people who get banned deserve it. So I dont see a problem with it."

Ditto.

there will be nothing to expose if you turn into the enemy. i think that the mods have taken things a bit too far. i know this is a freesite, and i know that they can just as easily wipe me aside, but ima say what i will. so far, i haven't seen any proof of FM going on an 'unprovoked' attackthat wasn't initiated by other foolishness. all i can say is, i will argue with people to defend or rectify a point made or point dulled. but when other people start acting dumb about it, that's when i let it go. there is no reason to drag on about text on a screen. everyone here is mature enough to know what they're doing so as not to f*ck up. so far i haven't got into heat with anyone, but i'm sure as saddams days are numbered in the double digits, that sooner or later i will face it. consequence means nothing.

I dont know if they are definitively banned.

Banning is an ancient celts punition for valourous warriors who make a mistake...

Right now there are approximately 27 members (logged in, I didn't even look at the number of guests) at the message board. The numbers have been exceptional high the last few weeks to the point it has caused sporadic problems. It would seem that your concern is unfounded.

You say we have banned quality while overlooking some deserving. Who would you suggest, I mean, if you held the staff and all?

29 members, 15 guests.

Ocelot, it ain't the fact that they cracked down. It's the fact that some of them are basically killing the board, member by member that gets me a little hot under the collar. This was a great board when I started here. Really was. Then they started the Take Back ATS campaign. Which was excellent. But they started abusing their power and it's gotten to be too much for me. We've lost Lupe and FM, both of whom had some tempers on 'em, but overall were good posters. Hate to say it, but I gotta go against the tide and fight for what I believe in.

If thats the way you feel, then so be it. I dont agree with everything the mods do, but I think they do an all around good job here. I've been posting here since the Fall of 2001, and I've seen many members come and go. I've seen some things that I dont agree with but hey, this is the best website for topics like these on the net period. The majority of members here contribute a great deal. If a couple of them need to get banned to make the board a better place then so be it.

Originally posted by High_Lord_Warrior
We've lost Lupe and FM, both of whom had some tempers on 'em, but overall were good posters. Hate to say it, but I gotta go against the tide and fight for what I believe in.

You "believe in" unchecked abuse and intollerable behaviour?

As many know, I'm no longer an Admin. I voluntarily degraded myself to Moderator partially because of the kind of intolerable whining displayed in this post. I've been involved in managing digital communities since the early 1980's, and I've seen a lot happen. However, I've never seen quality people complain about idiots being banned. And this holds true today, only the potential firebrands are complaining about the loss of the fools that were removed.

No user has been banned for simply posting too much.

No user was banned for simply being annoying.

No user was banned for having irritating ideas.

Users were banned for rude abusive behavior or repeatedly ignoring the terms of use.


You're just trying to raise rabble with this stupid baseless post. No one is attempting to enforce thought management on ATS. If you really have issues with the manner in which this forum is maintained, then I urge you to spend time looking for something better.


As for FM and humiliation, no moron "award" can equal the trouble he built for himself. He was always a problem posted, bordering on troll, from the moment he arrived here.

I dont want to get too involved here since I'm pretty new to this board and to any board for that matter. I think they are doing a good job with keeping things in line without using too much authority. If they seem to come on strong at times I think it's just because they are very opinionated and know how to get their point across. When you are in real life it's easy to make a point using facial expressions or tone of voice, but its much more difficult with a keyboard. The majority of the people on here seem to be very intelligent, and should be responsible for their own actions. Like I said I'm fairly new so I dont know how it used to be or about the prior bannings, but for the most part I like the way things are run here. HLW, I don't think they'll ban you for expressing your opinion and I hope you dont leave.
Just thought I'd throw in my two cents.

YO Highland chill you have to admit since some of the recent banning the site has gotten better. I fell that non of the banning were totally uncalled for. You must remember that most of the warnings and obscenties that are deleted are in the shadows and not many ppl know it. So someone could be very hostile towards someone and noone would ever know it if the mod deleted it. Just keep in mind that. Also the mods here on the most part are pretty outstanding ppl being a senior member here ive gotten to know most of em and i dont think they would ban peopel just because they are spitefull. Yes u might remember bout a month ago that i was a flaming activist against this till i talked to the admin and explained a few thing. Also HLW the more we protest the less ppl will be banned addiing to the trouble on the board. HLW you are damaging the respectablilty of the community by al this inside feuding. SO do me and the rest of the board a favor save your protest till there is sometin truly to protest about.

Looks liek your "Crusade" is over HLW. I like others do not agree with every single thing that the mods, and admins have done here. No one agrees 100%. But ever since the Take Back ATS capaign, more stupid and rude members were banned. Without the "harshness" of them the following morons would sitll be here.

1.) smokeweedallday

2.) ToothFairy

3.) The fake Truth

4.) And soem of those McQqueen Scion people.

I for one do not want racists running all over the baord. I am sorry that FM was banned but he was abusive towards people, adn the "moron" award just snapped his sanity away. Lupe was annyoing and posted a similar senseless and pointless thread like this one.

Like in the words of William "Think before you post"

The mods are great, and I may not like all of them, they are doin a good job.

What an interesting mod bashing thread

I don't think you guys realise the amound of debate that goes into a discussion about banning. Its not just a few of us deciding, we all ahve a good rant for a extended period over people first. There were 23 posts in the kill tyler or not thread from all mods.

As typical for this type of conspiracy board people are making boogy men out of situations where they don't have information on the background.

Tyler was banned for abuse, but because we liked him we let him back in, since then he has added very little to the board and indeed hijacked threads and continued to abuse the mods.

FM was the same, he was unable to contain his ego enough to stop abusing others.

I liked and supported tyler, FM, and Lupe, privatly utuing the last two to be careful in their posts and supporting them in cosmic. But you can't hold their hand forever when simple politeness is asked for.

What do you want us to do HLW, just ignore him? We tried that and it didn't work. He didn't want to change. Do you think you would get away with it in your society, no someone would slap you around a bit if you tried it at work or school. So why should it be different here?

As TC said we are now a major community in size and as a result can afford to knock out the rotton eggs once in a while for the benefit of the majority of posters.

Before TBATS we had streams of crappy posts and many threads derailed with abuse. Now we don't.

You have to pull some weeds to get a nice garden.

Personally I like the way things are heading, the mods actually care about the board and as we seem to be the major contributors as well have a stake in its survival.

One of the benefits as mentioned earlier is the quick response time to crisises such as toothfairy and the hackers. Before our new admins we often had to wait days for someone to be booted, now we can control it more quickly.

I deleted tylers posts with the nude 'soldiers' in it and i would do it again. It destroyed a serious and interesting thread about women entering the military. Personally I am not interested in polluting ATS with such juvinille crap and there are many sites where you can go to see nudes if you want to swim in the filth. Lets keep it out of ATS.



[Edited on 20-3-2003 by Netchicken]

Sorry to cause such an argument, guys. I just had to get my opnion out.

If it would be OK, I will leave the topic here for a few more hours and then delete it myself. While I still do not give up my opinion, I admit that obviously the majority of the members are against me. I will never really think of some of the mods the same way as I did when I started, but does my opinion really matter? No. Just have to make it know.

Keep in mind: Very rarely do I admit defeat. This could have very easily gotten me banned, but for my fellow members' sake and the sake of this board, I will give and and deleted this topic soon.

Signing off,
HLW