New forum for member feedback

[Tifabelle]

mako wrote:

Funny how none of the positive or helpful posts on the subject never got aired out or "leaked" by said informant.

Actually, they have. Just not in light of the recent event.

One's an explicit mention of rape referring to a forum member.

You keep saying that when it's already been discussed that it wasn't in reference to Rishi, but a quote by Rishi. In which case (in the point you made following this) the original reason for his infraction is moot. Omega didn't insult Rishi, neither did Ryu. But she was offended by both.

Then this is something that Ryu and Rishi seriously need to get to the bottom of because again. There is no rule here I am aware of, that states that if a certain member has creeped out another, they are hereby banned from ever telling black humor jokes on this forum ever again. I was also unaware that Ryu was under censorship and blacklisted in the way he could joke.

Sometimes people just don't get along. And that's separate from the fact that Ryu KNOWS (and has stated such) that Rishi doesn't like him and is creeped out by him. So I have to seriously question WHY he would make a tasteless joke in response to her. (Especially considering that was one of the reasons given the last time he seriously offended someone.) Maybe he needs to be told not to do that with her anymore. And if it continues, then serious action needs to be taken. So you say to Rishi, yeah it was offensive but there's nothing we can do. But do you want members feeling uncomfortable visiting and posting on the forum? Several "dark jokes" have been reported before. Ryu's is not the first, and I doubt it will be the last.

[Octo]

Well, we have three options I guess:

1) Ryu and Rishi and anyone else who has been offended by him resolve their issues in a nice civil manner - not PM if people don't feel comfortable with that.

2) Ryu is given a list of members that he has to make doubly sure of not posting anything potentially offensive/provocative. Which is problematic in itself as there are no set rules of what is/isn't offensive, and when you're talking about personal opinion/judgement then mistakes are going to be made.

3) Liberal use of the ignore button, which in this case would have to be extended to mods.

?

Thats all I can come up with anyway.

[The Man]

One problem with extending the ignore list to mods is that infractions come in via the private message system and adding someone to your ignore list means you don't get their private messages. Which means that if someone gets a warning from an ignored mod, they won't know they've gotten it.

But I guess we could just say that's their problem. If you get banned because you ignored a mod and didn't know you were infracted, tough luck.

That's why I always wanted to disable ignore list for mods, though. I guess it would be possible to program an exception for infraction messages, but I suck at vB programming so someone else would have to do it.

[Cookie Monster]

The problem is that there's no communication. The way I see it, if a member finds anything offensive, they should report it. I can only speak for myself, but I want to know when there's problem, and I think staff should be aware of it as well. Does that necessarily mean action will be taken on the reported post? No. If it doesn't break the rules, we cannot be expected to act on it. If you want to change the rules, or add a rule, make the suggestion. But, realize communication is key. If someone has offended you, try speaking with them about it, and do it with some sense of civility. If you feel that you cannot speak with this person for whatever reason, then just know you're getting in the way of the deeper issue getting resolved. It's not up to staff to fix your personal problems.

[Makoeyes987]

Arya Stark wrote:

You keep saying that when it's already been discussed that it wasn't in reference to Rishi, but a quote by Rishi. In which case (in the point you made following this) the original reason for his infraction is moot. Omega didn't insult Rishi, neither did Ryu. But she was offended by both.

I know that's not what the context of the post was, but that's what we saw and believed it to be, hence our immediate action.

Sometimes people just don't get along. And that's separate from the fact that Ryu KNOWS (and has stated such) that Rishi doesn't like him and is creeped out by him. So I have to seriously question WHY he would make a tasteless joke in response to her. (Especially considering that was one of the reasons given the last time he seriously offended someone.) Maybe he needs to be told not to do that with her anymore. And if it continues, then serious action needs to be taken. So you say to Rishi, yeah it was offensive but there's nothing we can do. But do you want members feeling uncomfortable visiting and posting on the forum? Several "dark jokes" have been reported before. Ryu's is not the first, and I doubt it will be the last.

Ask Ryu yourself. I can't speak to him in regards to that. And in regards to Rishi, I never said we couldn't do anything. We said there was no moderation action that we could do. But we're more than happy to mediate something that can allow some sort of resolution, apology and/or understanding about this.

But in regards to pen-to-paper referencing of the rules and infracting. No, that is not something actionable. We do not want members being uncomfortable, but we also don't want members expecting us to resolve every personal issue that comes their way, or censoring how people post. Likewise, we do not want to foster an atmosphere where the only way people resolve conflict is by using others as middlemen and reporting things rather than just being mature and talking to them as human beings.

[Octo]

Well, I don't think anyone should be able to ignore all the mods, so maybe just making sure that PM's and infractions are sent by a mod on the safe list would be a simpler option than having to code something?

It wouldn't be that hard to keep a list of who's ignored who would it?

[Strangelove]

Ma'at wrote:

No, hito. This situation is not the same. The previous situation involved a terribly timed joke that made a member believe their photos were being saved and distributed by a mod when they wanted them explicitly deleted. And these were mature photos of said member.

This is a bad joke that broke no rules whatsoever. The previous definitely is an insult towards said member and clearly trolling of the worst kind.

The situation at hand here is a personal matter that at best requires a sincere apology and open dialogue between the two so that there can be an understanding so something like this doesn't happen again, and no assumptions of bad faith between each other detracts from either being able to post freely here.

Equating them as being the same is not true.

Ryu saying something that other members have found offensive or creepy is something that has happened in the past, and it was what happened here again. To someone who Ryu himself already seems to have believed he was on bad terms with (unless that's something that he only came to believe after this started). I think there are similarities between them.

I'm not talking about rules or what formal punishments should be dealt out. I don't know if warnings or infractions or whatever would be the right thing to do. Just that, from the past events, he ought to have learnt to check his behaviour and comments towards certain people.

[Omega]

Whoa whoa whoa.

Not only was my infraction NOT for trolling/insulting (it was for inappropriate and disruptive behavior, which it was), there's not a reason to retract it. Like...at all. It was rightly deserved and there's a reason why I didn't fight it.

Secondly, this whole "we thought he was threatening Rishi" thing is a fallacious argument. Let's roll back a few months and look at the harassment thing with Tiff and Misty/Kobato. That was pretty bad and raised a lot of eyebrows over verbal harassment and flaming and so on. So somehow the correct response to thinking someone is THREATENING ANOTHER MEMBER WITH RAPE is to...infract them? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

And tbh all this reversal talk is making me think it's an end-around to doing something about the issue that multiple members seem to have with the behavior of another member who happens to be a moderator. Doesn't that fall under the "don't try to find or make loopholes" rule? I mean, Rishi has pretty much said that she's not coming back to the forum because of all of this - partially what I did, and partially what Ryu did, and partially how both of these things were handled by staff and their treatment of her and the other persons offended.

1) Ryu and Rishi and anyone else who has been offended by him resolve their issues in a nice civil manner - not PM if people don't feel comfortable with that.

see above - this won't happen because she's gone for good

[The Man]

We didn't think you were seriously threatening her with rape, but we though that was the essence of the joke behind your post. We didn't get that you were quoting her.

And I'm not really sure what loopholes Ryu's behaviour could be considered to be attempting to get around. As far as I know, making jokes doesn't currently fall afoul of any rules, even if they're stupid and offensive, and even if the person being quoted doesn't like the person making the jokes.

[Tifabelle]

Would it be possible for people to ignore a mod's posts but not their PMs?

Would you know (as mods) who is on someone's ignore list. Like say, if Road is on my ignore list, would he be aware of it? If so, then he would know not to be the person to infract or warn me for something because he'd know I wouldn't get the message.

[The Man]

vB doesn't currently offer an option for that. Of course, it could be programmed again, but again, the person who did it would have to be better at vB than I am.

The only way to find out who's on a person's ignore list currently is by running a database query. I could do that without any real trouble, but it would be a pretty big pain to have to run a query for every person we have to warn/infract. Again, it would probably be possible to code something into the board that would show us this information more easily, however.

[Octo]

Arya Stark wrote:

Would it be possible for people to ignore a mod's posts but not their PMs?

Would you know (as mods) who is on someone's ignore list. Like say, if Road is on my ignore list, would he be aware of it? If so, then he would know not to be the person to infract or warn me for something because he'd know I wouldn't get the message.

^This, I just said this That would be a simpler option than having to fiddle about with vbulletin

[Omega]

Nathan Explosion wrote:

We didn't think you were seriously threatening her with rape, but we though that was the essence of the joke behind your post. We didn't get that you were quoting her.

And I'm not really sure what loopholes Ryu's behaviour could be considered to be attempting to get around. As far as I know, making jokes doesn't currently fall afoul of any rules, even if they're stupid and offensive, and even if the person being quoted doesn't like the person making the jokes.

If I threatened to kill a member, and they reported the post, what then? =/

And it's not Ryu's behavior that I'm referring to in regards to loopholes - it's that of staff. Inappropriate and disruptive behavior IS a rule, and if not, then apparently I've been infracted before for something that isn't a rule.

[The Man]

Frog wrote:

If I threatened to kill a member, and they reported the post, what then? =/

My guess is that it would be infracted almost immediately. Though if there were reason to believe you were serious rather than joking, we probably would take it much further and contact the authorities. Again, this is why, because we thought your post was referencing Rishi rather than quoting her, it was infracted almost immediately. It's in the rules when you sign up - "you will not post anything that is threatening, harassing, etc." I can't remember the exact wording but I'm pretty sure it's part of the default vBulletin agreement and I'm pretty sure we left that part of it in there. If it's not, then it was a definite oversight on our part.

And it's not Ryu's behavior that I'm referring to in regards to loopholes - it's that of staff. Inappropriate and disruptive behavior IS a rule, and if not, then apparently I've been infracted before for something that isn't a rule.

I'm not really sure how staff has been intentionally inappropriate and disruptive? As far as I know we generally give people the benefit of the doubt on things like this when it's likely they could be doing something out of stupidity rather than malice. The "no loopholes" rule is there specifically for people who are being malicious.

[Cookie Monster]

Frog wrote:

If I threatened to kill a member, and they reported the post, what then? =/

And it's not Ryu's behavior that I'm referring to in regards to loopholes - it's that of staff. Inappropriate and disruptive behavior IS a rule, and if not, then apparently I've been infracted before for something that isn't a rule.

If the intent was serious, I'd say you'd probably be temp banned or permabanned. We knew the other post was a joke, and we know you and Rishi are friends. What we didn't know was that you were quoting her.