Subjective vs. Selective Banning - US

I want to bring some attention to the blatant bias and subjectivity we're seeing in the moderation over at Lonely Hearts, specifically regarding Ashley Vaughn79.

The moderator herself actually admits that she’s in a foul mood during the first half of the day, which means she’s being harsh with points and handing out bans... then in the second half, her mood shifts, and suddenly she’s all about being tolerant toward off-topic chatter in certain threads. It basically depends on whatever mood she happens to be in. So, depending on when you decide to post and what kind of temperament she's displaying, your chances of getting banned fluctuate wildly. On top of that, there are days where she lets certain people turn specific threads into a complete chatroom, while others get slapped with an automatic ban for doing the exact same thing. Of course, you have those users who get banned instantly, and then there are others who can get away with almost anything because she just looks the other way. So much for impartiality and having consistent standards for moderation here in the US...

Looking at the last 50 posts in the search results, 16 have been deleted—either by me or by latica—due to various off-topic nonsense.

You took your first ban right along with pantera after you two basically hijacked the entire thread.
Instead of getting buried under a mountain of off-topic warnings, you just got a one-day ban, same as him.

Once the ban expired, you showed up with this post, which I decided to just delete, thinking you’d finally take the hint. But fine, I'll let it slide this once since you literally just got back from being banned:

Hey everyone, I'm back! 🎉 Just wanted to wish you all a great day (while I'm actually still here 😬),

I am absolutely thrilled to wander through this new, modern forum layout, stripped of all the chatting and spam, and instead enriched exclusively by meaningful posts that actually make sense. 🎉
If that were actually true, anyone could see it just by browsing the current topics. I welcome this initiative that went into effect yesterday.

I also want to apologize for yesterday's online chat between pantera and me, and for strictly forbidding you all from joining in. I believe it was more of a system issue than our strict Prohibition. It's common knowledge that the forum gets hit with massive traffic around 1 AM, and people literally swarm the threads. So, I believe the system simply crashed due to the surge, which is why you couldn't join. Basically, the reason was a sudden influx of users causing a system crash at 1 AM.

Since I'm feeling generous today, I'll give a special shout-out to the biased, hypocritical crowd and their counterparts—the sycophantic, suck-up types.

Looking forward to this new era of forum posting! 🎉

After that, you moved on to this other thread, which latica also deleted, giving you a second chance to stop the behavior:

I don't think anyone can fault you for the way posts are flying in 🤷

I really admire such an objective and totally unbiased assessment of "flying posts" and chaos, based mostly on "I woke up in a bad mood so I'll just let it slide tonight." How sweet 🔝

Bravo, keep it up 🎉

Then, on the next thread, you wrote:

ruggedmaker32 said:Hmmmm, what year was that again 🤔?

Actually :idea: 02/22/2022, but instead of reading meaningful posts that actually make sense, I'm stuck reading online chats and spam 🤷

Neroli said:Hey ruggedmaker32, what exactly are you reading lately? 🤔

Neroli basically called you out for not staying on topic, which got the discussion back on track, so we just let it slide without jumping in immediately.

And your little tantrum ends right here with a warning, since you decided to go at it again:

What, abuse moderator tools?? No way, definitely not 🥳 ...why would we? 🤔 Every single post actually makes sense and stays relevant to the subject, how could it be any better? :ch eer:

I don't think I need to argue this point anymore.
We've been warning people for a while now that threads are getting too cluttered.
Depending on how much off-topic junk there is, we either delete the thread or, if it's just a few posts, we ask everyone to get back to the main point before taking actual action.
Sometimes off-topic stuff hangs around for a bit before we notice, because believe it or not, we aren't sitting here monitoring this 24/7.

Yeah, moderation in the US is lenient. No, you aren't going to get a strike for every little thing.
But you will get one for acting out like this and then talking trash about the mods when you won't stop.
The luck of the draw was that Ashley Vaughn79 handed out both warnings since she's the one active on the forum right now.
But I stand by what was done. Honestly, I think you got off easy.

Emily Fisher23 summed it up well.

Generally speaking, I don't mind people critiquing the moderation or venting about how things are run, but doing it with this much attitude in almost every single thread is a bit much.

The mention of the time of day was regarding the topic of the day, which resets roughly every 24 hours.
It just feels different if a thread gets shut down first thing in the morning versus later in the afternoon once the discussion has actually had some time to breathe.