I've seen moderators engage in a pattern of behavior that takes threads off topic, sometimes intentionally to deflect important questions. I've seen some engage in a pattern of behavior where they use insulting language towards members. "Thief", "Piranhas", "Spammers". Yet no bans for them even though we finally have a mod (akaLTD) admitting he lost his cool on several occasions.
When KentE resorts to his seemingly never ending verbal diarrhea, then you know he has no good explanation. If he had a good reason, it would be a sentence or two, not an essay. The others usually don't even bother giving any reasons. And when they do, it's a failure. Hoan had his reasons scrubbed because they were embarrassing to R+ while another moderator frequently gets it wrong and never apologizes.
The fact was that when somebody asked reasonable but tough questions that had no good answers to them, the mods and cheerleaders took it personally and got emotional. They turned their frustration on the questioner, claiming that the person was intentionally creating trouble in the RingPlus utopia. One mod in particular often claimed that the negative talkers would be responsible for the downfall of R+! Talk about cognitive dissonance!
This tactic of labelling those asking tough questions of wanting RingPlus to fail was disgusting. Asking hard questions was all about wanting R+ to face reality because we wanted it to survive.
And here we are, proven 100% correct. R+ did so many things wrong and were so far out with their numbers, it beggars belief. It was a monumental failure of basic business planning, operating and execution.
Yet there are some who still declare "I believe in Karl", proclaim that he is a "genius" and promise to follow him in whatever he does next. :woohoo:
The question I have is, who moderates the moderators? Why was the clearly disruptive statement by Jamielih allowed to stand while other relatively innocuous posts were deleted? There is no rhyme nor reason to it and oft-times, actions are purely vindictive.
The_Uncomfortable_Truth called it "circling the wagons".
jamielih was wrong to moderate the responses to his comments.
In my thread, aided by a cheerleader, KentE did not address the simple point about moderator conflict of interest when moderating replies to their own comments.
The fact is that research has shown that the human mind does not fully mature until the age of 25. Hoan displays this amply, as does jamielih to an extent.
The others are varying in their maturity, but they all failed to remain unbiased. I suspect they wanted to please Karl in hope of some Silicon Valley type payoff.
It seems the goal of the discussion here is to see whether "guidelines" were "fairly" applied or not.
I have no information on the specific cases mentioned but on the general question of whether laws, rules or guidelines are fairly applied, my experience from other areas of life is that they are not.
in a place where I worked I had occasion to interact with two separate Ombudspersons (one of each gender). The first issue was one I raised and in that case, the Ombudsperson not only violated written confidentiality rules but proposed a "solution" that to my mind involved committing fraud. The second related to an issue raised by a direct report. In that instance, the Ombudsperson attempted to intimidate me by clearly overstating the reach of the function's authority and making demands that obviously were not based on any direct or delegated authority. When I declined to comply and responded that I would formally contest each of these demands and call for a review of the Ombudsperson's actions, the Ombudsperson backed down, which confirmed by view the person was a bully and deliberately abusing the power of the office.
I once filed an arbitration claim and the arbitrator ruled against me on a point of law. In researching the matter, I determined there was a conflict of interest involved and brought it to the attention of the party paying the arbitrator's fee. The answer I got was "let's not go there."
I subsequently obtained conclusive evidence the arbitrator had engaged in ex parte exchanges during the proceedings. The cost of [strike]perusing[/strike] pursuing this matter through other channels made it impossible to take it further.
Some years ago I helped a family member with an issue in small claims court. The judge was rude, inattentive, and appeared to be emotionally unstable. Two months later I was surprised to see that judge was arrested for breaking and entering. Apparently, the judge was dealing with some health issues and the matter was quietly dropped.
So on the question of whether the forum guidelines have been applied in a less than Solomonic fashion from time to time, it would be truly amazing if that were not the case.
On behalf of all the people who've been banned more than 5 days ago and cannot ask for themselves , when will the bans be lifted? Given the sheer volume of names issued bans, it's inconceivable for them all to be permanent.
I think fairness requires that members be notified of the duration of a ban since there are obviously different periods including permanent bans.
There is a thread on the forum that talks about some of the processes and procedures that are supposed to be followed. That thread includes a link that describes the functions and authority of Moderators and the Ethical Committee. Item 4 of the Moderators' powers specifically lists a sequence of time periods that suggest a degree of progressivity in the banning process. Permanent bans require the approval of the Ethical Committee which includes, if I understand it correctly, persons who are not "normal" forum members. Of course, it is also stated that the Moderators' powers are subject to change at the discretion of RingPlus. Since that post is dated June 2016 it certainly may not reflect the current situation.
In one post there is a reference to RingPlus sending an email to an affected member.
Of course, as in many things in life, there may be a difference between what is supposed to happen and how a given situation is handled.
It would be nice if a link to our discussion could be posted "over there" so the members could have access to more information. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wants to keep their RingPlus forum membership, as I expect the link would be removed and the person who posted it would be banned.
Isn't it interesting that so many of us "disruptive" people are here, yet this forum seems to be surviving nicely without moderation?
Fairness is NOT a part of the ban equation. No forewarning is given. No emails/PMs are sent. There are no gradations or progressions applied. As of late, it's blatantly obvious the bans are one and done. It was the 6th day into my ban when I asked mylesCam to inquire about the duration. Had he not been able to do so, it'd never been lifted. There are many others who've been subjected to the one and done. That, my friend, is far from fair.
Question: If the US Supreme court members had been moderators on the R+ forums, would they have done a better job than the mods spoken about in this forum. My answer would be obviously not, for they, though considered some of the best judicial minds in the country, are obviously not beyond being biased and flawed.
To quote from Oldbooks: "It seems the goal of the discussion here is to see whether "guidelines" were "fairly" applied or not.
I have no information on the specific cases mentioned but on the general question of whether laws, rules or guidelines are fairly applied, my experience from other areas of life is that they are not."
So, if we take it for granted that is no perfect justice, no perfect moderator, and no perfect application of rules, then the question is: were the R+ moderators as a group considerably worse than what the members of this thread have experienced on other forums or in other contexts? Most members of this thread evidently think this is the case.
Personally, I have had little experience with online forums, but, like most, I have experience with many areas of life where rules exist and are applied by someone deemed worthy of the task. I, also, note that, though, not banned from the R+ forum, some of my posts were deleted. That said, and correct me if wrong, I have not seen in this thread a comparison of the R+ mods with mods in other forums or contexts, which, given the implication that the R+ mods are much worse than desired, would seem appropriate. Thus , what group of persons could have done a better job of moderating the R+ forum?