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Author Topic: Something happened yesterday on LAF that should greatly concern everyone  (Read 1406 times)

Offline FramFramson

  • Elder God
  • Posts: 10681
  • But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back
Something concerning happened yesterday on LAF.

One of my longtime friends on here, and a longstanding poster who has been very helpful to other members on many occasions was banned yesterday,with no warning or apparent justification.

While he was blunt and butted heads with other users at times, and was apparently considered a "troublemaker" by many among the moderation team, there was no warning or explanation offered for this ban, nor is one apparent when reading any of his posts. He was subjected to a "review" by the moderation staff several months ago and put "on notice", but he was not banned at that time. We both so far as to review his posts for the last six weeks or so and saw nothing that seemed even remotely like a justification for a ban, nor were any of his most recent posts deleted or any PMs (nasty or otherwise) sent.

Also, not only is he banned in the regular sense, he has been IP banned and tied to a redirect such that he is not even allowed to VIEW the forums. Even were a posting ban merited, this just seems silly, if not downright vindictive.

Unlike many other forums, there is no banlog or disciplinary log to record staff decisions in this respect nor are our moderators really answerable to the community for their decisons in any public way. So, as far as he or I can tell, this ban is arbitrary and not linked to any recent transgression.

This is disturbing.

There are many other people on here have similarly run afoul of a moderator in the past, and certainly that means some posts get deleted at times. Fair go. But this would be a new direction for LAF. So I have to ask - Are we going the way of TMP or other such places? The way of the popularity contest, where anyone who the staff dislike or find "troublesome" will be summarily given the boot?

*I* am one such person, and I can think of a fair number of other longtime members whose work and comments I enjoy and who also meet this description. Perhaps the staff feel they've solved their problem by banning the most "troublesome" of us, but how long will it be before another one of us is seen as the new "top troublemaker" and subjected to the same apparent caprice?

Of course the moderation staff are within their rights to ban anyone as they please - this is a privately owned forum. But just because you CAN do something, does not always mean you SHOULD. I would like to think that the LAF membership and staff are broad-minded enough that different viewpoints and a diverse conversation be allowed, even if it leads to a little friction or a mod having to occasionally delete a post. And I would hope that the moderators would be fair-minded enough to avoid banning someone just because they disagree with that person or seem them as some sort of community irritant.

I am going to be very blunt myself here: The moderation staff of LAF have it DAMNED EASY. I have been a moderator myself on several other large forums (including one of larger size and membership) before and let me assure you that what is considered bad behaviour by LAF standards is the very height of civility elsewhere. Of course LAF has rather stringent rules to fence things off from the outset, but LAF is EXTREMELY fortunate to have such the civil, mature membership it does. The mods here simply do not have to deal with vile hateful tantrums, frequent personal threats (to themselves or other members), embittered tirades, mental meltdowns, manipulation, concern trolling, abuse of the post reporting system in ancient personal grudges, or plain old cruelty and meanness in all the abundance the internet can provide. On top of that, the mods made things even easier for themselves when they simply banned all-non-wargaming discussion outright, no matter that this was already only allowed in a single small quarantine. In fact you don't need to have been a moderator in the past to know this - we're all big boys, we've been to other places on this here internet and we know what passes for "conversation" in most places.

The mods are fond of saying "you don't have to come here" implying that if you don't like their moderation, you should just leave, but I happen to like it here and I do NOT in fact see why a moderator has more right to this than I do. The moderation staff were not decided upon by the community, they were appointed by the former owner. More importantly and less personally, I don't want LAF to turn into one of those other awful boards, but moderation which gets personal rather than remaining impartial is one huge cause of forums going down that route. Maybe if the staff are tired of dealing with threads criticizing their actions they should think about why they seem to come up so often and talk with us instead of just locking and deleting everything. If a moderator finds their job here to be burdensome, perhaps they should rethink the way they wish to support this community.

Personally, I don't think I've EVER seen anything banworthy from a LAF member in the five or six years I've been here, outside of spambots or brand new posters with obvious and serious mental problems. Even the more annoying members or the ones I might disagree with are for the most part civil and helpful and still contribute. And while my tolerance obviously exceeds the mods' in this regard, it's still not all THAT far off from where the existing LAF rules are.

My friend isn't even seeking reinstatement (if anything, he figures this will simply mean more time for painting and to hell with the rest), so neither he nor I are here to grovel for that. We just want some answers instead of this just being swept under the rug as any minor troubles or arguments here on LAF usually are.

Also, for that reason, I am appealing to Chris directly (as the moderator of this subforum) to not just delete or lock this post and pretend nothing happened, while quietly making another little black mark next to my username. I have let this habit drop in the past, because I don't really mind if a few posts are deleted now and then, and there's nothing wrong with moderators demanding that conversations remain within certain limits laid down by the rules. But this affects more than just my friend or I, it affects how the whole board is to be treated from now on, so I hope I - and others - will be allowed to speak about this openly and without suppression. For my part I will pledge to remain civil so long as a civil discussion is allowed.


tl;dr. Are the mods just hellbanning people they don't personally like or who they consider to be trouble now because that's easier than actually functioning as a discussion moderator, on a board where that's already a relatively easy task? Is it an unpopularity contest, where if someone is disliked by enough members that even if they break no rules and the majority of posters still get on just fine with them, they can be banned anyway? Is LAF just going to be the staff's personal club (as far as I know they're not the ones paying the rent now)? Is that where we're going?
« Last Edit: March 03, 2018, 03:32:28 AM by FramFramson »


I joined my gun with pirate swords, and sailed the seas of cyberspace.

Offline Connectamabob

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1028
Re: Something concerning happened yesterday on LAF
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2018, 02:41:01 AM »
While I'm not privvy to the circumstances of the banning, I do notice that all of his posts and threads have also been deleted. All of them. He wasn't just banned, he was Ministry of Truthed out of existence. There is now no evidence of him ever having existed on these boards, including no evidence of anyone having been banned at all.

It really cannot be understated how INCREDIBLY DISTURBING that is.

There is no way to make that act look good. Memory holing a members entire post history is only justifiable in two cases: if the poster is a spambot, or if the poster has done literally nothing but troll post in their time on the board. And even the latter is not a good idea unless the troll posting involves really horrible stuff. This is one of those things that makes you the bigger bad guy, even if the other guy was in the wrong. It's so extreme that it almost has to be something personal, not just a case of a poster having been warned one too many times.

The member in question had their occasional friction (or so I gather? I got on with him fine, and never saw him do anything bad enough to even get him a warning on other boards), but they were for the majority of their part a productive and helpful member, and deleting their post history destroyed a lot of good information to get at what must have only been a tiny handful of bad interactions. If he crossed some line one too many times, then put a "Banned" tag next to his name. If he had a blow up and started, I dunno, threatening violence or making racist rants or something, then just replace those posts with a moderator's note explaining the ban, and leave the rest.

You might well say "if you don't like how our mods do things, you don't have to be here", but if you delete all traces of such interactions, no one can make an informed decision about that. You create a system where nobody knows if the mods are good or not, so the mods can be anything. This sort of anti-transparency action is incredibly creepy in a mod for exactly the same reasons it's creepy in a government or corporation or church. It's not just an open door to abuse of power, it actively implies said power is already being abused, and there is no way to justify it without digging that hole deeper.
History viewed from the inside is always a dark, digestive mess, far different from the easily recognizable cow viewed from afar by historians.

Offline FramFramson

  • Elder God
  • Posts: 10681
  • But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back
Re: Something concerning happened yesterday on LAF
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2018, 03:17:37 AM »
HOLY MOSES. As of a couple hours ago, that was NOT the case.

Wow, this is even more disturbing. Especially considering there were hundreds of posts in there full of useful technical information.

Okay, this is disgusting. Whoever's behind this ought to be ashamed of themselves, this is nothing but someone abusing their power to carry out a personal vendetta. Perhaps that someone saw this thread and deleted the posts to "cover their tracks" as it were, as any member could look at that last month of posts and see clearly for themselves that there was nothing banworthy in it. The person - or persons - who has done this should NOT be a moderator anymore if we want to have any trust in the staff. Period.

No point in keeping the name secret anymore. It was Scurv. Go ahead and search - he does't exist as a member anymore and every post he ever made has been deleted. Everything. All the 3D tutorials, all the technical help posts, all the project builds and advice. Even if you hate him (stupid, but to each their own), there's zero justification for robbing the members of these resources.

I think Nick should be EXTREMELY concerned that this is one of the first acts of the moderation team under his new tenure... or is Nick actually behind this? How do we even know?

Am I going to be banned now and all MY posts deleted? How far are you willing to go to try and hide this and "make it go away"?

« Last Edit: March 03, 2018, 03:22:46 AM by FramFramson »

Offline Elbows

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 9452
Yeah, that's not a great way to start off the new LAF.
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Offline FramFramson

  • Elder God
  • Posts: 10681
  • But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back
I still can't believe they actually Damnatio Memoria'd him. This is pure vindictive nonsense straight out of the Armintrout playbook.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2018, 03:30:26 AM by FramFramson »

Offline beefcake

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 7413
I've always had positive interactions with Scurv and while he was not everyone's cup of tea I also find it rather troubling that this has happened. He had a great amount of knowledge in 3d printing which will be missed. removing all posts... unnecessary to say the least.


Offline Dewbakuk

  • Administrator
  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5775
Right, I’m going to lock this thread short-term, not because of any Stalinist agenda but because of time difference. It’s the wee hours of the morning here so there won’t be a proper reply from Admin for quite some time and it would be a pointless echo chamber until then.

The one thing I will say was that the deletion of the posts was done at Scurv’s request yesterday.
So many projects..... so little time.......

Offline Westfalia Chris

  • Cardboard Warlord
  • Administrator
  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 7474
  • Elaborate! Elucidate! Evaluate!
To clarify the above and to put things into perspective, this is the forum's stance:

Over the course of almost 12 years, we have had to issue bans to three forum members (including the member in question here).

In all three cases, the person in question repeatedly and consistently caused unrest, grief and complaints on the forum by his behaviour and willful ignoring of the forum rules designed to create an open, civil atmosphere on the forum.

In this specific case, the said person has accumulated a history dating back more than five years, in which he

  • attacked other forum members in open threads and via PM
  • insulted and subjected to verbal abuse moderators trying to resolve issues
  • repeatedly derailed and prompted the closure of threads not to his liking with aggressive, unreasonable and inappropriate measures.


His case was repeatedly and controversially discussed by the forum team. He received multiple, increasingly stern warnings over the years, to which in some cases he responded with insults, this culminating in an ultimate warning last fall which reserved the right to ban him without further notice in case of repeat offence.

We acted with great leniency over the years concerning his behaviour, but despite our consistent in dubio pro reo approach, said person persisted with his blatantly anti-social and incisive behaviour. While the timing may appear unfortunate to some and dubious to others, it is not a decision we arrived at lightly and are deeply concerned to have had to take, but in the interest of preserving the forum's overall well-being, it was an unanimous decision to enforce the ban.

Following the ban, we received a request by said person to remove his postings and topics, too, which we were not obliged to observe but chose to do so, as we did with not publicizing the decision with respect to not unduly shaming said person. It was said person's decision to request this, and we respected his request.

I do not think that further discussion will benefit anybody, and it will definitely not change the decision in question, which was made for the reasons listed above. Also, some may consider the insinuation that we will introduce an arbitrary "rule of terror" to be beneath the dignity of anyone involved and an insult in itself. This was never and will never be the case on LAF, and any case brought to our attention warrants a detailed, individual look.

Banning a member has always been, and will always be, a matter of last resort, in this case due to years and years of intransigent aggressiveness, insults and abuse with little regard for and increasingly less respect for the ideals of LAF.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2018, 02:42:11 PM by Westfalia Chris »