Can we have this talk?

[JayTL]

Can we have an open discussion? About moderators, with moderators. I'm not looking to start an argument, nor am I trying to call out any moderators (1. I don't know who I would even call out, and 2. Yes, I got banned for that before). I'm a fairly opinionated person. I also like to have discussions. I don't need to agree with anyone to have a conversation, in fact I actually love a debate. Which is why I hate what happened to me a couple months ago in the SW prequel thread. Not the petty arguments I was banned for. I get that. But the personal attacks. Because I'm not a fan of a series, I was insulted, threatened, etc. I am very opinionated. I will also defend myself from personal attacks. I get called a child, when the other party acts a certain way, I will call out that action. If someone gets offended that I call them a baby while acting like a baby, well that's on them. I understand why I was banned. But then the reason given to me is

If you’re going to report people, your own behavior better be above reproach. You’re doing as much trolling and name-calling as anyone in the SW prequel thread.
Date the ban will be lifted: 09-05-2021, 06:00 PM

Thought that was weird, because I don't report posts anymore. I haven't since I was banned for…reporting too many posts. I figured reporting was a method of notifying the mods of "hey, I thought is post is breaking the rules, wanna check on that?". So I'm assuming the reasoning was because they guy I was arguing with got banned and we got the same "reasoning" message.

But herin lies the problem: I won't have that discussion with that mod. For 2 months I couldn't. Did I deserve the ban? Probably. Did I want more clarification? Yes. Did I do anything about it but wait out the two months? I became more active on other forums (mainly reddit and twitter) because this was my main site to talk movies. From what I'm seeing, things aren't getting better. People getting banned and then half a page of users are wondering why. Posts get deleted and people wonder why, so they repost. Then get banned.

The mods don't owe any explanation. The admins don't owe an explanation. But why not try to smooth things over and make a post that says "Hey I deleted some posts, because of XYZ…cut the crap". Or a PM to a user "JayTL, cut the crap". The fact that there's no real way to engage the mods besides reporting a post (which would get you banned if the wrong mod sees it), or posting in a thread asking why the mods haven’t done anything yet (also can get you banned.)

And now the point of this post: What I think the site can do better, and what I will do to be better:
I think this site needs more transparency, or maybe even "ambassadors", users who but have more visibility but less power (can't ban, but can delete posts...someone who can keep the peace) than a mod. I don't have any issues with any specific mods. I have no idea if any specific mods have issues with me. I've gotten some passive aggressive "ban comments". It'd be nice to see who sent it, and I would love the ability to respond. But I can see that being abused/give the mods some unnecessary abuse. I'm a grown up and I can have a grown-up conversation with the mods regarding my behavior and improving the forum. Anyone can see when I edit my posts. I can offer an explanation. Why not have the mods do so too?

So things I will do to be better: I can have a temper…But I'm also super respectful to other people's opinions. I will never judge or downplay an opinion. I will feel free to post my own opinions with that same respect. If I get any personal attacks, or posts responding to me in a negative way, I will not respond to that. I will not report the post, I will just put the user on ignore and move on. That goes for posts like the one quoted underneath. I can have conversations about movies I like, dislike, looking forward to, and movies I'm not looking forward to (although with that last example I might not have much to say).
I like this site to have conversations. It's big enough to have varied opinions and good conversations, but it's small enough to get to know users (as opposed to something like Twitter or reddit where you just kind of say your peace and maybe someone will respond)

Wow, I really touched a nerve there didn't I? You do a wonderful impression of being a whole lot younger than you claim to be, you know. Well done, you.

And I'd be the first to affirm that Star Wars is aimed at a younger audience. Just not as young as you.

(for what it's worth, that post is still up after all this time. No effort to advance any movie discussion, just insults)

I hope this thread can stay up. But I also hope for a lot of things. Please don't take this as a post of my thinking I can run this site better or telling the Mods how to moderate. I'm just hoping to create a discussion and maybe both the users and moderators can learn something, and maybe come to some mutual understanding.

[mwynn]

Lets see how far or not so far this goes. I was banned for posting an image with the word **** in it. Since then I have seen two users post similar images. Both Images are still active. There needs to be some flow, and if that is a thing it needs to be in the rules.

[JayTL]

I'm not looking to argue, and sometimes I come off that way. That's a me thing. I'm very sarcastic at times, and that doesn't come off well at a computer screen, talking to people who don't personally know me.

I don't know if mods are just "patrolling" threads, deleting posts, or if they have to wait for someone to report something. But it's weird to see an argument/debate get deleted in one thread, but outright trolling/arguing/fighting continues in others

[kylor]

I also don't think what happened to Rodney was fair regarding a ban over reporting potential thread-crapping. The thing is, sometimes we can do things that might violate a rule and we didn't realise it. It'd be nice to get a warning to say "Hey, please delete this" or at least tell me where and what I did wrong so I might fix it and avoid doing that in the future, instead of resorting to a straight ban without warning, and sometimes the ban reasons do not clarify this either, and you are left wondering why and what you actually did.

The rules do state to report something that you think is violating the rules, so it might be investigated. Rodney did that (perhaps not through the report button, even though the rules do not explicitly state that reports must ONLY be made through the report feature). He made a thread for it right here in the feedback forum. A warning and a simple lock and deletion of thread would have sufficed. Rodney was only following the rules as he saw them and was banned for what I would see as following rules of reporting something that he "thought" is/was a rule violation. And thread-crapping isn't tolerated and is present in the main forum rules list.

I also find there are quite a few inactive staff, there's at least 8 staff in the movies section for example that haven't had any activity for a long time (at least no new activity shown from their profile). I feel like this could be improved upon. A bit of streamlining or something.

It'd also be nice if there were staff that could respond to feedback forum threads (not this one in particular but threads in general) because there are quite a few that don't get any responses. A simple message such as "This has been looked into and reviewed, and either A) the feedback was taken on board and accepted or B) the feedback was taken on board but didn't work out." would be great and professional. And then a simple thread close and archiving after that message as to not clutter the feedback sub-forum.

I could go on more about other things but I want to try and remain neutral and unbiased here, so I'll leave that noise out. I'm not saying I don't appreciate what this site does or the staff who run it/help run it, because it must not be easy to maintain a site that is quite large on this scale, undoubtedly it can get very busy and hectic at times. But I will just say this one thing in the nicest way possible: a little bit of polish and professionalism could go a long way.

That's my two cents. I did say to mwynn that I would chime in if Jay made a post, and so I have. Peace.

[BluBonnet]

Well said, Kylor. Trying to get to a place of better mutual understanding should be a win-win proposition.

I've been a moderator in other bulletin boards. It's easy to assume someone is acting with some nefarious intent or something, when there's only miscommunication, and I say that about bulletin boards in general, not singling out this one in particular.

[ronboster]

I think everyone is making fair and reasonable points.

Keep in mind relative to requests for changes, the amount of time it would take to accommodate your request...then multiply it to dozens and dozens of examples that happen every hour on this site.

I'll give you one example:

Asking for a mod to send a PM when they delete a post. Just using my time as a mod at AVS...when you come upon a problem post an hour or two (maybe a day) later...there are dozens of other posts that also responded to and maybe crossed the line. This doesn't even take into account if the offending post is responding to something that happened a day or two ago...you then have to go back and read what happened that lead to that post (for context).

You can imagine how much time it takes. These are not paid employees working 8-5, they are volunteers that have a life outside of this forum...so telling your wife you'll get to X or Y...or you child, daddy will be there in a minute etc etc. You get the point.

So deleting post (and all that follow or came up before) is (at times) the most reasonable thing to do vs sending a PM to each person whose post was deleted (you can imagine the number of rebuttable PM's that follow).

IMHO, that's why the mods say "don't respond to offending posts, use the report post link". I also, think the response of "it's in the rules" may come across as not wanting to deal with the issue, but is the correct response in most instances (and yes, the most expedient) .

This is just one example of what may appear to be a reasonable request, but really is a time suck for the mods. I'm sure there is a middle ground in all this like issuing a statement in the thread that posts where deleted and general reply (that also has it's backlashes for the mods). I know some mods do note in the thread why posts are missing etc.

Just my two cents.

[kylor]

I understand that it can be very time consuming and can respect that in regards to a staff member handling multiple issues. However, there are a lot of staff members. In the movies section alone, there are 23 moderators. Unfortunately, like I said in my previous post, at least 8 of them do not appear to be active. A streamlining of this, swapping them out for active staff might help keep things active and orderly, and would certainly help ease the burden of having one moderator have to handle a ton of issues. For this I can understand the large amount of staff tethered to sub-forums, providing they are active and it is not left to other staff to pick up on issues that 8 inactive staff could be around to handle as well.

And a DM isn't necessary. As I've also previously stated, explaining it within the ban reason would also be very helpful, and maybe making the ban a 24 hour thing instead of being a week or a month by properly weighing up the situation and severity of the action made. In the case of Rodney in which I brought up, and factoring in the time consumption, I might have provided a simple 24 hour ban as what he did was not severe at all (although I personally could not justify banning someone who was just following the rules) and within the Ban reason I would explicitly state which rule on the forum rules list was violated, providing a brief description of what exactly they did based on that particular individual situation, and how they might avoid that in the future.

Again, just my view point and I respect that staff make the decisions they feel is right at that point in time. I find it always best to make a decision logically and rationally, leaving bias and personal opinion/feelings out of the equation for the most professional approach.

[strumdogg]

You keep saying "staff" and "professional," but as ronboster correctly pointed out, they are mostly *volunteers.*

I'm sure they are doing their best under most circumstances, and it would probably help a lot if users of the site acted with more "professionalism" (something I myself have forgotten on a few occasions).

[kylor]

I have been a moderator and admin on various sites and places over the years. I have always done it for free and have always been professional about it, as have other staff that I have worked with (and still do in some places).

I also was not aware it was possible to volunteer to become a staff member here. All I can find on that is in this thread:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=193798

Where it states:

The rank of Moderator and Super Moderator are appointed specifically by Administrators.

Perhaps there is more information on that somewhere where I haven't looked.

Even so, a basic sense of professionalism would go a long way. Even working for free, you can still at least give a valid reason to a ban, and bans here do not always contain information at all and in some cases even provide biased personal opinions unrelated to the rules themselves.

Although even if staff were paid, I think things would still be in the same state as they are currently in, possibly even worse.

I do think the rules themselves could use some clarification/updates in some places to be more clear as well, as I have no doubt there have been many bans that have been unjust logically and rationally in regards to how other people have interpreted the rules (Rodney being an example of this).

No disrespect to anybody here though. Good points have been raised across the board here so far.

[strumdogg]

I just meant that using a term like "staff" tends to imply they are employees getting paid for their moderation efforts. I can't speak to specifics, but my sense from conversations with folks who have first-hand knowledge is that most mods are normal users who have been asked to volunteer their time to perform moderation duties, when available. Implying that those types of folks are employees of the site would be incorrect, and could cause incorrect assumptions by other "normal" users.

With that all being said, and with humans being humans, to expect 100% consistency of moderation would be questionable at best.

[JayTL]

Originally Posted by ronboster

I'll give you one example:

Asking for a mod to send a PM when they delete a post. Just using my time as a mod at AVS...when you come upon a problem post an hour or two (maybe a day) later...there are dozens of other posts that also responded to and maybe crossed the line. This doesn't even take into account if the offending post is responding to something that happened a day or two ago...you then have to go back and read what happened that lead to that post (for context).

So deleting post (and all that follow or came up before) is (at times) the most reasonable thing to do vs sending a PM to each person whose post was deleted (you can imagine the number of rebuttable PM's that follow).

IMHO, that's why the mods say "don't respond to offending posts, use the report post link". I also, think the response of "it's in the rules" may come across as not wanting to deal with the issue, but is the correct response in most instances (and yes, the most expedient) .

I would never expect a mod to do all that. But a deletion, and then a post in that thread would work better, and be less time consuming.

Kylor is better at talking than I am, so I defer lol

[mwynn]

I was a mod on another site, it has been awhile but I am pretty sure there is a note option when something is moved or deleted.

[mwynn]

Rodney has been banned again for reporting posts.

If you can't contribute anything positive to the thread don't respond at all - just report the post if you think it should be reported.

This is like someone being arrested for reporting a crime.

[kylor]

Why must people get banned for following the rules?

Mwynn has already quoted one of the rules.

Here's the other one:

Use the Report Post option via the icon to report any rule violations rather than responding to them directly.

It's not just with Rodney either. I am sure this has happened to other users as well.

Rules:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/faq.php?fa...forumrulesfull

Obviously there are rules that the moderators/voluntary staff team are enforcing that are not openly stated. This is why I firmly believe the rules could use an overhaul to contain this kind of stuff. Some more transparency couldn't hurt.

If this is what currently covers these unwritten rules:

Blu-ray.com reserves the right to revoke or deny to anyone for any reason at any time without warning or prior notice access or membership to this site and its public forums.

Then that is not clear at all. If these rules were clearly written out, people could better understand and interpret the rules and as a result would lead to less issues in the long run.

[JayTL]

Originally Posted by mwynn

I was a mod on another site, it has been awhile but I am pretty sure there is a note option when something is moved or deleted.

I'm a user and not a mod. When I edit or delete a post I can put a reason. Which means a mod can as well

[JayTL]

Originally Posted by kylor

It's not just with Rodney either. I am sure this has happened to other users as well.

I have been banned for reporting posts. For "abusing" the report button. For not reporting a post, but the ban message said I reported posts (the one quoted above). For not reporting a post, but "calling out the mods" (wherein I said I will not report a post, but a users conduct was abhorrent)

I don't know if it's a rogue mod, a power trip, or they're just following rules I do not know. But the report button is more harmful than helpful. I created this post to get some feedback (and give some feedback), from moderators and admins, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

[kylor]

Originally Posted by JayTL

I have been banned for reporting posts. For "abusing" the report button. For not reporting a post, but the ban message said I reported posts (the one quoted above). For not reporting a post, but "calling out the mods" (wherein I said I will not report a post, but a users conduct was abhorrent)

I don't know if it's a rogue mod, a power trip, or they're just following rules I do not know. But the report button is more harmful than helpful. I created this post to get some feedback (and give some feedback), from moderators and admins, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

I understand; it is a shame that it wasn't made clear to you what you did. It seems to me like you have to learn unwritten rules through trial and error for the most part, and that shouldn't have to be the case.

It could be mentioned in the rules to only report one person at a time, and only once per person. This would effectively be the same as saying "do not abuse the report feature". It should also be mentioned in the rules that reporting another user should ONLY be done via the report button, and not via any other means (such as private messaging mods directly/posting threads reporting someone in the feedback forum). Again, simple but effective information can avoid so much hassle that isn't needed and can also be avoided easily if handled correctly.

I am sure that at least one staff member has seen this thread, as I have been quoted in an elusive thread by a staff member, so my deductive reasoning leads me to believe it is a quote from here. Hopefully the issues and points raised can be addressed in a peaceful and professional manner, so we can get to the bottom of all of this and make the site an overall more pleasant and better experience for everyone to enjoy.

[Lemmy Lugosi]

Originally Posted by strumdogg

.... to expect 100% consistency of moderation would be questionable at best.

No one would/could reasonably expect to have 100% consistency. How about 95-98%, though? That can't be that difficult. "All moderators must operate under the following stated rules, etc, and only in the following circumstances..., etc".

If they can't have some consistency (almost) all the time, they might as well pack up this ode to physical media right now.

[StarWarsIsAwesome123]

Rodney got banned again because he reported JediJones, who is an actual threadcrapper and a nuisance. Why the hell is there a report button if we can't even properly use it without getting banned ourselves?

[jayman3]

Originally Posted by StarWarsIsAwesome123

Rodney got banned again because he reported JediJones, who is an actual threadcrapper and a nuisance. Why the hell is there a report button if we can't even properly use it without getting banned ourselves?

They banned Rodeny for reporting JediJones, who was also (rightfully) banned for their thread crapping. Like, I get punishing the offender, but the reporter too? Ludicrousness.