…but he was banned anyway. Hey, it happens. The moderators have but a handful of tools to pursue a number of goals (at least since they’ve stopped directing electrical shocks to user keyboards - why we can’t bring that back?). Perception of fairness is one of these criteria and the board applied procedural fairness to longtime poster BG.
That said, BG didn’t get into mod faces and didn’t generate too much board drama. (Admittedly, some objected to his new thread style: I didn’t have a problem with it.) He may have been caught up in the rising civility tide.
Comments:
Maybe he was a problem poster, and my premise is wrong. Possible. Seriously.
If he wasn’t a problem poster, it could be argued that procedural fairness dictates that he be banned anyway. I say that if that happens a lot, you need to review your procedures. But I’ve looked at the list of banned threads since mid 2012 and I haven’t seen obviously comparable examples. So, no, it doesn’t happen a lot. I’d be worried if three more non-problem posters were banned through the end of, say, 2017. No evidence of that happening.
I say BG provided net positive value to the board. I’ll also say that he reined in some of the occasional nonsense that I saw a couple of years ago. This isn’t necessarily relevant to the ban, but I’d like to acknowledge it.
As a matter of best practices, I’d observe that posts of 2-3 sentences run a greater risk of ramming into mod electric fields among those who are not problem posters. Because decent posters naturally throw in substance and sometimes even softeners in longer posts. And decent posters don’t line dance. (Caution: problem posters generally lack self-knowledge.)
I opine that a big consideration should involve the amount of moderator attention certain snowflakes require. That’s not the only criteria of course. But if lots of mild maintenance posters are being banned, while high maintenance ones stick around, I’m guessing there’s some sort of procedural problem. I’m not saying we have such a problem.
Arguably, a rise in the civility bar could be consistent with a higher warning/ban ratio. Because borderline warnings probably don’t cause as much board drama as egregious ones. Arguably… otherwise.
Ban stats: Number of posters receiving official ban announcements in various time periods (I hope I counted correctly. Most of the banned are trolls, socks or spammers and do not receive ban threads.)
The one thread of Brain’s that I participated in, he basically dismissed me as stupid for my line of inquiry. He does seem somewhat inflated in the cephalic region.
Comes back, continues same behavior. What’s hard to understand?
The OP is asking the mods to be biased in favor of certain posters, which is what so many folks complain about. I don’t see why the rules shouldn’t apply equally to everyone.
Please think more carefully about banning longtime posters who contribute to what makes this board great.
I read the “Offered without comment” link posted by **BG **and don’t view that as a particular response to an individual poster but rather that author’s opinion that the debate is bogged down in semantics while people are dying.
Whether or not I agree with **BG **or the author of the linked piece, it is valid commentary. And BG’s “Offered without comment” statement is, at least to me, synonymous with a I couldn’t have said it better myself, a me too, or other such short platitudes that are commonly encountered in threads.
I don’t want an echo chamber here. I want to see differing opinions expressed, particularly in Great Debates. And that means I WANT to be challenged by opinions different than my own. I WANT to see what arguments others may have in favor of positions I support.
Sadly, it seems that the variety of opinion that makes this a vibrant place is getting lost, bit by bit.
Iggy
If that count is correct, it means TPTB have been banning 1-1.5 posters per month for the last five years. Not only does that sound like a remarkably low number, given the spirited nature of some discussions, and some posters’ knack for colorful comments, but it also shows a remarkable consistency, given the frequent allegations over the years that this or that Mod had it in for particular posters or topics.
I would slightly tilt toward keeping him around, but not nearly as much as I would have tilted toward Dio’s remaining, and I 100% would have kept Collounsbury around. Yeah, BG could be interesting, but he sure didn’t mind making really inappropriate comments in threads often.
And I had this great Pit thread (my first) ready to go and now I won’t be able to post it. Woe is me. Two warnings after 2 suspensions - pretty cut and dry. The only question is why the number was allowed to get to two.
No, in this thread I’m saying that if you continually ban non-problem posters and keep problematic ones around, you need to revise your procedures or rules.
But there’s no evidence of that yet. I see this as analogous to a single false positive. Worth monitoring, but that’s about it. Looking over the ban-list I saw a lot of posters I wasn’t familiar with (so I couldn’t judge), a few dip-sticks, and maybe a couple that I liked but who indeed caused issues.
Re: Dr. Deth’s point: yes, the more active you are the more warnings you will accumulate on average, for a given error rate. In BG’s case that could have been remedied somewhat with fewer posts with greater depth. But with most all problem posters, that sort of advice won’t help.
Re: LHoD: I sort of agree but I frankly don’t know how to operationalize rules that keep Collounsbury, Dio and BG around. I will opine that the first two were problem posters but that BG was not. His small number of problematic posts didn’t tend to trainwreck. I might be wrong on that last score: it’s a judgment call.
You were about to launch your first pit thread against BG? If so, I am getting dubious about my OP’s premise. [One suspension was for a week, the other was for a month. So the rules were evenly applied in this case.]
The why did you edit out the part of my post that showed why he was a problem poster? This is not something that happened overnight. He racked up something like 10 (or more) warnings and 2 suspensions. Then he racked up even more warnings.
What is your definition of a problem poster, if not someone who continues to break the rules even when he’s given many, many chances to stop? In fact, he once even responded to moderator action by insisting he could post whatever he wanted.
You’ve been told repeatedly that this is untrue. Don’t keep posting blatant misinformation in ATMB.
Warnings don’t expire, but there are plenty of “active and controversial” posters with no or only a few warnings, and older warnings have less effect than more recent ones.
Has any other poster received two suspensions before a ban? Usually it’s one suspension and then a ban. I was astonished that he got his second one-week suspension.
I have no objection whatsoever.