I want to add my thanks for the ban reversal.
Relax. She isn’t complaining about it. She simply sees no reason to thank you for un-doing something you should not have done in the first place. I tend to agree. And truly, if this were the only board that mattered, I find it unlikely the banning would have taken place to begin with.
That said, thank you for listening to your customers.
I appreciate that y’all are still willing to re-evaluate hasty decisions.
Who wants a mustache ride?
+1
The twee tends to filter that a bit…
It usually annoys the crap out of me when people get on their high horses and start spouting off about the ‘proud mission of this board’ and how we’re only here to fight ignorance. That being said, I’m going to do it.
You may or may not know this, but pit bulls (or any dog breed) do not have locking jaws. Pits have enough problems without people reinforcing this stereotype, especially on a board like this one with a proud history of (you can fill this in for yourself). Thanks for your consideration.
-A Fighting Ignorant
Regarding the actual point of this thread: Thanks. I do echo the other folks who would like to see some clarification of the rules moving forward.
It’s over, Dude. Why not just drop it. Seven is man enough to take a temporary suspension. As an admin himself, he has likely doled them out before, and for similar reasons. At this stage, since the banning has been reversed, just let it go.
Can’t. The whole thing is such an anti-climax that I can still feel the chip on the damn shoulder (“I apologize to you guys for the way we handled this.”? Really?) I need a real resolution to this story.
Because, Liberal, as we have seen in the original thread things do not get changed by just dropping it. Making a simple request then standing respectfully back and waiting for a response does not initiate change. Several posters screaming bloody murder initiates change. Yes, it is too bad that it must fall to such tactics, but why blame those who have seen reason fail too many times and now resort to escalation instead of those who choose to ignore reasonable requests and respond only when they cannot ignore escalation? This is not a singular instance, it is another example of what has come to be SOP.
Several reasonable requests have been made that the FAQ and rules be updated. They’re being ignored. TubaDiva posted to three threads in ATMB this morning. She could have addressed those requests. Most certainly she’s aware of what is going on in this thread. There may be an excuse for her to not respond to those requests, but I can’t think of one.
This is an odd question. I mean, I was under the impression that, at least as far as board behaviour goes, responding with bad behaviour as long as it was provoked didn’t actually make a difference as to whether you get moderated or not.
To give an example, I thought that were I to be horribly insulted in GD, or in the Pit in an un-Pit-acceptable way, and in turn I were to respond with a similar insult, I wouldn’t be “let off” just because I was provoked (or even baited) into it. That moderation doesn’t take “he started it!” as a reason to not moderate.
If that’s so, then it seems to me as though the context of the quote doesn’t actually matter, at least as far as moderation goes (blame for the situation and the like is of course a different matter). It would be nice to know, sure, though apparently knowing at least some of the context would be rule-breaking. But, even were Seven a horrible fiend, and Tuba a maligned innocent snapping once, I don’t think moderating history says that that context would make moderation of the quote any different.
Add me to the “thanks for reversing the ban but there shouldn’t have been ANY action taken in the first place” camp. Also add my name to the list of those who are pretty fucking annoyed that YOUR OWN MODERATORS don’t know the rules but that every single poster is expected to know them, and of course gods forbid anyone should actually, y’know, WRITE THEM DOWN SOMEWHERE. Is it cynical of me to assume that aside from bone deep laziness there’s a huge incentive for the mod/admin staff to continue enabling their own capriciousness and arbitrary prejudices and that this is motivating the resistance to codifying and clarifying the rules and mod action escalation schedule?
Also, I know from Giraffe that disciplinary actions can be made to show up in the user CP of the offender*–not having a disciplinary history here (that I know of) I can’t speak to whether or not it’s the case here, but given the sheer number of “I think I’ve only been warned once” posts I see I suspect it is not. I suggest that the staff implement this feature formally so that every poster can see clearly exactly what their status is regarding warnings and other disciplinary actions. As it is, it’s all too easy to suddenly make up some links to posts that didn’t get warnings and declare the poster to be a “troublemaker.” Being able to refute that with a clean disciplinary slate in the user CP would cut down on this sort of action tremendously.
*If Jerry isn’t sure how to do this, I’m sure Seven would be more than happy to give him the instructions.
Thanks, but I know that. I was looking for a metaphor. I might also have gone for minotaurs, even though they’re not real, either.
If that’s the case, we could look into that, although we also don’t want to give people with years-ago warnings the impression that they are on thin ice. Recently we started using the infraction system and hopefully that clears things up.
That sounds like a good idea if we were starting the board from scratch. But the board has been around since 1999, and I don’t think any of us are inclined to start such an undertaking. People can always ask us how many warnings they have - although I acknowledge they usually don’t do so unless one of us reminds them they can do that. 
Such as?
It works when you use the infaction module, which we recently implemented. I don’t know enough about the history of vbulletin to say much about when the infraction module became available, but I don’t recall seeing it on the old system. We aren’t about to go back and code all the old manual warnings by hand, but yeah, that’s why we implemented the infraction system. The staff and the poster both have a standardized record of every warning. Here is where we discussed it: Warnings/Infractions - Comments, Please - About This Message Board - Straight Dope Message Board
And here is a thread where I pointed out that we were using it: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11327693&highlight=infraction#post11327693
We’ve also said many times that posters are welcome to ask us if they have any warnings.
I’m not addressing the merits of any of the warnings here, but **Seven **lacks a “clean disciplinary slate.” The much-revisited “non-warning” from **Dex **was properly documented in a PM to **Seven **and reflected in his CP. Since he’s clearly got experience with an identical system on another board, I’ll assume he’s not disupiting that he got a warning that time. The warning I gave him predates the infraction system on this board, but it was clearly marked as a warning and he acknowledged as much here and elsewhere.
No. I’m. Not. Or do you really think that two examples of administrators asking for suggestions and one example of a poster initiated request = refutation for ten years of ignoring many other reasonable requests?
Let’s be clear here: what number would be sufficient, and what would you consider a reversal? I’ve overturned two or three warnings and at least a couple of thread closings based on reasonable requests.
I wasn’t addressing Seven specifically, but you’re welcome to take any opportunity to further your assertions–feel free, truly. Since you brought it up, however, it would be interesting to compare Seven’s disciplinary record with that of some other posters to see whether or not the infraction schedule is indeed uniformly leading to standardized consequences or if such a comparison would reveal a headscratching level of arbitrary action on the part of the staff.
I would suggest a complete overhaul of the rules sticky, to include any and all warnable, suspendable and bannable offenses and the escalation schedule leading up to banning. In the sticky it would be appropriate to append a screenshot of the applicable user CP page showing infraction status so everyone knows how to check it. Give every poster a clean slate going forward and implement the disciplinary schedule. I expect doing so would make y’all look like stand up guys for figuring out a sensible, uniform disciplinary schedule, clear rules and a clean slate. Goodwill toward the staff ensues. Since clear rules do not invite debate, less overall acrimony regarding rules lawyering and brinksmanship. Being able to publish the ACTUAL disciplinary record in suspension/banning notices results in fewer protest threads.
To echo a common theme–your system is broken and the worst thing possible is to go on repeating the failed policies of the past. You need to fix it.