what is the point of bans?

i don't really get it, there are some users here that get banned every other day, ie. myself, elmo, bret. does that stop any of us from spamming this place? does it stop bret from posting nonstop gifs? the point of a ban is to prevent someone from making the same mistake in the future right? well its not really working. it doesn't put anybody 'in line', or at least not the majority of people here. its pointless imo.

also, why do i get a personal attack for making fun of someone who doesnt even post here?

I vote we ban ubar and see what difference is made to the community.

in b4 someone bans him to prove the point

No, but it gives the rest of us a break for the duration of your ban.

No, it's a punishment for your shitty posting.

ban free for 10 months

was going to make this point.

how long have you been with your gf? i'm asking cuz i think there is a correlation there.

my name has two t's

edit: but yeah i agree completely with op. i made a lot of great arguments about changes to blackcat and grunge and they were like "yeah i agree wow brett you're sexy as fuck" but they dont do anything about it.

yeah i agree wow brett you're sexy as fuck

So argue to James or Cam.

just send them our convo. isn't it your job to be trying to improve the forum or something similar? don't be lazy

your whole argument during that discussion in tinychat was to unban you because you felt that insulting ppl and their significant other wasn't bad and was lulzy... to you maybe but to the ones you insult it's not. and most of that convo was you telling us to unban you... being more demanding than anything.. if you don't want to be banned quit doing that.. or keep track of your points like chrono does.

no that was not my whole argument at all. in fact, repeatedly i said this was not about me, and i realize i will not be unbanned


i appreciate you paying attention to what i was saying though

Vastly overestimating mod powers

bacong can we talk

Bacong can we go camping and talk?

it's not about the bans, it's about the infractions and the points, and that's just because every single moderator here sucks balls

Jesus e_d, all you do is complain about people calling you a spic and the mods not doing anything about it. Chill the fuck out and take it in stride.

There really isn't a point to bans. They don't serve as much of a deterrent, they just tend to irritate people slightly and then they don't post for 12 hours.

I would be much more receptive to a moderator personally contacting me and addressing specific problems they have with my recent posting. That way we would both be on the same page, and much more likely to be receptive. It sure beats randomly mod-raping a poster who has posted in the same style consistently for 6 months with 4-7 infractions back to back.

Bacong usually has the right idea, but even he can be a retard about it. An infraction shouldn't be flippant, moderators should treat them as last measures and be more apt to use warnings and actually discuss things with the posters who are, apparently, disrupting the forum. When you treat someone like a human, and not like a peon that you have absolute control over they are much more likely to take what you say seriously, and actually consider it.

When you disrespect me, consequences will never be the same. You dun goofed. I backtraced it.

No, but, really, you can't expect someone to act civil when they're treated with no respect to begin with. What message are you sending when someone F5's the page and they have a ban prompt with no explanation and 5 PM's they can't access? They have to sit through a ban that they don't understand, because nobody talked to them about their posts that may be generating unwanted reaction, critique, or response?

Just send a fucking PM with the posts and talk it out. This isn't the type of forum that is high-traffic and full of old people, children, and internet ignoramuses. We all know how the gig works, and we all know each other on a level that's significantly more personal than most online communities. So, it's not hard to see why most of the things that are inflammatory here don't matter in the scope of things. It's even easier to see why it shouldn't be an issue for a mod to have a regular conversation with a member about their conduct without having to pull the LOL POWER HUNGRY card and just shitblast them with pointless infractions and 1-day bans.

not really, besides, how the fuck would you know what I report? I always report legitimate offenses

Because you usually make a big scene after you report shit and it doesn't go how you like. lol.

no, I may make scenes about it because the faggots don't do anything and it's supposed to be against the rules

Against your perception of the rules. Rules are always malleable, and never absolute. Rules are guidelines. On 5/8 they're loose guidelines at best. Nobody is ever actually making racially charged comments at you, they're jokingly making fun of you because it results in Eternal_Rage, and everyone thinks that's pretty funny.

If they thought it was funny because someone called you a "spic" that'd be a whole different story, but that's never what happens.

Because mods have never PMed you and you weren't a dick about it when they did.

Sounds like you need to work on your modding, if that's the case.

Ok.

Seems to me that you know that your behavior will generate infractions, yet you are indignant when the infraction is given. The onus is on you to post within the rules for acceptable conduct. The moderators are incredibly tolerant here. If you're banned on 5/8 there is no doubt that you deserve it. Man the fuck up.

Why did you underline that part, and then not even respond directly to it? Hmm OK. Anyway, I'll bite.

I appreciated your post until the last line when you posted a fallacious, run of the mill internet tuff guy line. This discussion isn't about me and whether or not my posts warrant infractions or bans, that's just a circumstantial ad hominem.

I need not be the subject of the discussion to engage in the discussion, and my post is clearly addressing the issue of bans in general, and not as they apply to me specifically. However, in being banned more than most people, and getting a fair amount of infractions I think it gives me a very clear insight on what does NOT work, and what could work as an alternative. If you want to address that then feel free. If not, GTFO.

Sorry about that, I got carried away.

It the simplest terms. The rules are posted and the are very clear. It takes a lot to receive infractions and even more to accrue enough points to be banned.

I believe that the administrator and moderator decisions are entirely reasonable and both within the posted rules and the spirit of what 5/8 should be.

It's healthy to question decisions when it seems necessary, but most (all) of the recent objections are not in that category.

I don't agree. It only takes 5 objectional posts, at minimum, to receive a ban. Somehow I accrued these in a matter of minutes by posting in the same way I have been for the past 6 months.

The mods will chalk it up to be "we can't read every post, so you just got unlucky", but I know that isn't the case. I'm not saying it's a conspiracy, but it seems odd that I would get infractions from multiple mods separated by minutes in threads I already frequent in, they frequent in, and I habitually make posts of the same vein in.

So, really, it comes down to the mods failing to communicate. If someone had a problem with my posting, or anyone's, they simply need to send me a PM and say, "Hey, uh, ya, you're crossing the line in that thread. Knock it off or infractions will be dealt." That is a respectful, concise, effective way of rectifying a behavior. It isn't insulting, it doesn't come across as haughty, reactionary, and power tripping. It comes across as a mod trying to preserve a dynamic in a thread. That's fine. Use the PM instead of aimlessly infracting posts you "stumble upon".

Unless the mods can ensure complete consistency they need to be less trigger happy and more human. I doubt anybody is opposed to that, I doubt even the mods are opposed to that. Infractions need not be the basis of forum civility and functionality, and they never will be an effective way to operate the forum. They're not even a bandaid solution, because they don't solve any problems or rectify behavior. They usually confuse and create an upset, because they're consistently 'random' and unfair in how they're dealt.

You don't agree, which implies that you don't understand the posted rules?

How can everyone but a very significant few not understand that certain behavior is not tolerated? Hardly anyone gets banned due to points. If there were many people complaining and being banned then I could see that the moderators were not doing or performing their job properly.

Are your really this dense or do you just like to argue? If it bothers you so much maybe this isn't the place for you.

you drew attention to yourself in that thread by reporting a post that made a remark about your appearance. that post was taken care of as well as yours... the fact is you had several posts in that thread.. and there was a post made by me for that type of posting to stop within the pic thread but you kept on... we have asked numerous times for you, brett and ubar to quit calling ppl fat, ugly or insulting them. yet you are quick to report someone else when its done to you. double standards chrono? the fact that there was a new pic thread made was because of the old one was getting full of posts like that.

People insult me all the time and get away with it. I report it out of jest and mostly to make a point that people frequently will get away with things even when reported if they aren't me.

All my infracted posts are purely reactionary, and thus shouldn't really be taken as an attack on a person, but more or less, a justified response to their behavior. If you want to infract someone, infract them. If you don't want to infact anybody, send a PM and solve the problem rather than simply irritating people with senseless infractions.

If you never infracted anything I reported I'd be happy, so long as I knew you'd treat every report the same way. The problem is you flippantly decide when and where to enforce the rules, and therein lies the problem.

We all know the rules are loose guidelines, yet, you will tightly cling to them when it coincides with your actions, and reject them the rest of the time. Consistency, I say, CONSISTENCY.

And if you cannot provide consistency, which we know you (and the entire mod force) cannot, then deal with the members like people by personally discussing the issues.

I understand the rules, but the rules are not an end all or even an adequate description of what is and is not acceptable on 5/8. I've described why in my previous post.

If it bothered me in any significant way I wouldn't post here, the fact that I'm offering a suggestion that will rectify the root of the problems rather than amplifying and complicating them...doesn't mean I am brought to tears when I get banned.

sure, calling me a "lowbudget bastard whose mother is a fucking whore and is a retarded dipshit who doesn't know the meaning of life" is a racial insult and nowhere offensive

OK

i was consistent, i infracted the attack on you.. as well as the ones you made. you seem to be sidestepping the fact that you have been asked numerous times to quit with those kinds of remarks... and not just by me, but by other staff members too. its funny how you get butthurt and defriend ppl on facebook because of that so you report them out of jest and not out of seriousness then? joke reporting? you give e_d shit about his reporting of posts.. but i remember lots of times that you IM me to tell me that you reported something and you have even linked me the post you reported and demanded that I infract that person for said post. Matt, you can't have it just your way like a spoiled little kid... you can't expect someone to "punished" for an action that you yourself do and yet you don't want to accept the consequences when you yourself do the exact same thing and do it a lot more than 99.9% of the rest of the userbase.

Where'd you get that quote from?

Consistency isn't infracting every reported post, and infracting a post that was reported in a single instance. It speaks to your actions as they relate to the board as a whole, and all posts made.

Clearly, you can't read either, or are just misreading what I've presented. I have no issue with any report I make never being infracted, so long as I know nothing I post is infracted. If you cannot offer that, then the entire system makes no sense. So, if I see that I am infracted for a specific type of post, and an identical post of that nature is made and nothing is done it shows a lack of consistency. This has nothing to do with my personal motivations, or lack thereof, in reporting the post, it's a demonstration of the inconsistency in the moderation, and the root of the problem. (Read the solution above)

Also, I'm not sure what Facebook has to do with 5/8, but I delete people on Facebook when they disrespect me, because that's not something I am prepared to deal with or take in stride on a social networking site I visit to communicate with friends. 5/8 is a different story.

So what's your point? You know yourself what acceptable posting is, and you choose to push the limit. If it's even in the questionable area you must realize that you are on shaky ground, if you receive or protest an infraction.

I see that you mention a root problem. Can you elaborate on this? Please be as detailed and as specific as you need to be to describe it. That's why this sub-forum exists.