Politics / World, The Provence mod, systematic trolling

coastalorca19 said:Give a Nobel Prize to the Add to Ignore List function. 🙏 Since the mods won't deal with all the obnoxious, low-life comments, I'm just over it. I’m not usually one to report posts, but when people are allowed to troll, provoke, and insult everyone across basically every sub-forum—it makes me not even want to bother replying. I might pop into the Religion section a few times a year, but even then, it's just for a second. I know plenty of Reddit communities that went downhill for this exact reason. Honestly, the "ignore list" is a lifesaver, except for that one annoying issue where someone quotes the person you're trying to block.

That's pretty much my headspace too... sometimes I get pissed at myself for getting sucked into useless arguments, even if I do it less than I used to.
The thing is, an ignore list isn't a real fix—not when people can just quote the trolls anyway.

I'm not gonna sit here and say I love how Sam Alvarez4 writes, or anyone else's style for that matter, but what can you do? Like someone mentioned earlier, it's not like it's easy for the moderators either.

Check out this example from the thread about Iran where a user got correctly flagged for failing to provide links for some pretty obvious claims:
original post : Quote : Quote

Quote: balkanunited said:Late 1970s Women in Iran Early 2010s

42.3% Literacy(15-24) 98.5%

69.4% Literacy(>15) 80.7%

48.845 Students 2,191,409

2.4% Graduates 18.4%

19.7 Age at 1st marriage 23.4

Just showing a few stats on how much society has progressed
after tossing out that corrupt, traitorous puppet
the so-called Shah, and seeing the changes
in Iran following the Islamic Revolution.

And here is a totally fair reaction from the moderator, TheProvense

warning
Active Infraction (points: 30)
Breaking forum rules
Expires
20:17 01.02.2018.
Left By
TheProvense
20:17 02.01.2018.

Also, check out Sam Alvarez4's claims, which had zero evidence behind them.
I later pointed out that those claims were shaky at best.

Sam Alvarez4 said:Wrong.
The British were actually pulling the strings behind the Islamists and their Marxist allies back in '79.

France made a mistake by taking in Khomeini at the request of the late Shah.
Basically, Pahlavi thought that by distancing himself from Iran, he’d quiet down the Islamists.

Once the Islamists took over, Khomeini—unlike Pahlavi—didn't have a single doubt about wiping out anyone standing in his way. Just like Khamenei hasn't had any doubts today. I mean, he hasn't since '81, ever since he took power.

Jack Cook7
That's factually incorrect.

Khomeini was living in exile in Iraq / Majaf from around 1964.
...
Back when Saddam sent Khomeini to France in 1978, Pahlavi was seriously ill with cancer, and for years (since about 1974), he was barely even lucid enough to make a decent decision.

Besides, even the first Prime Minister, Sadr, ended up in France after his sudden death.

Still no word from the mods, even though I actually dropped links while Sam Alvarez4 just threw out random claims that are basically impossible to verify.

==========

Hey, supermods/admins,

can someone check if my reports on Sam Alvarez4's posts reached the mod queue? There aren't many reports, aside from those three I mentioned above—and then poof, they magically vanished from those threads. Now there's only...😢

Hmm, honestly, my memory's a bit fuzzy... can you guys tell me how many reports I filed regarding Sam Alvarez4's posts yesterday and overnight? I get this feeling that someone is scrubbing the reports. Just give me the number, you don't have to say which specific posts they're for.

Sam Alvarez4 said:Look, after all that nonsense about how insignificant I am, I just gotta ask my colleague quoted above.

... while I couldn't care less about the Bulgarian language—never even brought it up—it seems I'm always some kind of "kook" when it comes to French.
And yeah, I chime in on Spanish stuff regularly too.
As for English, I jump in here and there whenever people's sheer ignorance sends my blood pressure through the roof.

So, what's your take? Do I have some weird obsession with women's rights in Bulgaria or the Bulgarian language itself? Or am I actually having an issue with women's rights in France? 😬

I didn't even mention language, so I won't go there, but hey, glad to see you're such a fancy polyglot. 👍Bravo for you!
But regarding women's rights—since you're bringing it up so passionately—you talk about how pathetic or non-existent women's rights are in Iran that it made me wonder: what about women's rights in Saudi Arabia? They aren't exactly at a "representative" level either, if they aren't even worse than in Iran.
As for women's rights in Bulgaria or France and all that, I'm assuming I can still drive cars, go to the movies, and that some prude cop isn't going to whip me on the street just because I'm not wearing a burqa or showing my ankles...?

Looks like the bullying just won't stop.

KLCCLK, since when did being ironic count as trolling?
On the topic: "Politics/BlsokoPolitici/Why bother explicitly using feminine nouns for professions when it's totally unnecessary?"

Man, I’m actually getting slapped with two warnings for posts that have already been deleted! Seriously?

KLCCLK said:Hey Jack Cook7,

Yo, just a heads-up—you've caught an Active Infraction over on Reddit.

Reason: Trolling

This Active Infraction is worth 35 points and could land you with restricted access until it expires. Just a heads-up: serious infractions stay on your record forever.

Original Post:
Since you only provided a link to a forum thread without any specific text to rewrite, I can't craft the post for you yet! Please **paste the actual text** from the thread that you want me to transform. Once you do, I'll jump right in and rewrite it using that rambling, punchy, and super casual voice while making sure everything is set firmly in the US.

Quote: I don't get it. said:Hey Klonka, are you a guy or a girl? Honestly, as a dude, I don't give gender equality a second thought—I figured that kind of stuff hits a lot closer to home for women, right?

So, why are we still stuck on this whole male/female binary thing? Seriously, why?

Maybe Klonka is just bouncing around the 60 mark, so does that mean we've officially scientifically discovered gender categories now?

Do you even realize how aggressive and discriminatory that question of yours actually is? 🙂

PS: Klonka, I’m totally backing you up on this. These intrusions are absolutely insane. Honestly, I'm just disgusted that stuff like this can even happen in 2017. We seriously need to band together and actually do something about it next year.

Best of luck!
Reddit

Looks like Klonka totally skipped over my post. No reaction at all!

Klonka
🤣

Another yellow card:

Quote: KLCCLK said:Hey Jack Cook7,

You just snagged an infraction over on Reddit.

Reason: Trolling
-------

-------

This Active Infraction is worth 35 points and might mean you lose access until it expires. Serious infractions stay on your record forever.

Original Post:
http://www.reddit.com/showthread.php?p=67251957

Quote: Lord Byron said:In a society where a whole bunch of traits are still being pushed in mainstream media with stuff like "do it like a man!", any push for equality is honestly pretty welcome.

Yeah, that’s straight-up discrimination. 👍

We should probably pass some Human Rights laws to ban all that and only allow statements like:

"Go ahead and do it like one of those 60 gender-fluid identities that you couldn't care less about and will totally ditch the second another group offers you enough cash."

The movie "Die Hard" (which is actually a mistranslation if you think about it, but let's roll with it) should really be translated as:

"Evidence of how the paleo-animal leftovers of our distant, primitive binary ancestors refuse to rationally accept the progress of civilization—specifically, the idea that violence is unnecessary to achieve what's obviously only possible if you possessed at least one third eye."

All the best,
Reddit

So, looking at both posts, it's clearly an ironic jab at this gender ideology that denies biological binary and treats gender as a social construct—something they then try to force people into using a Procrustean method.

So, I've got a few questions for KLCCLK:

(A). If someone can be dead serious about questioning the binary nature of sex, why is it a punishable offense to use irony regarding the same topic?

(B). And if irony isn't supposed to be punished, why aren't my two posts treated with the same seriousness as all those other people advocating for gender as a socially conditioned construct?

(C). Or does this mean it's now illegal to even mention non-binary sex/gender constructs? Unless, of course, you belong to that chosen elite class that the media talks about every single day?

(4). Or is clear irony just automatically flagged as trolling now?

It's worth noting that these posts were made on Dec 28 and Dec 30, while KLCCLK handed out the warnings on Jan 03 at 1:00 PM—just five hours after the last warning from TheProvense on Jan 03 at 8:00 AM.

That really makes me suspect these warnings are just a way for certain moderators to settle scores regarding the thread I started about how moderation works on Politics/World (and other subreddits), where certain people get special treatment while everyone else gets scrutinized over every little thing.

This is especially obvious in threads that oppose Western liberal ideology, which I can easily prove with a mountain of warnings like these two I just caught on exactly those kinds of topics. Any kind of ironic distance—not to mention satire regarding liberalism—gets hit with a pile of warnings.

If that's how it works, then please, just add this to the Politics rules: "Mocking the postulates of liberal ideology is not permitted."

It's important to point out that I've noticed a specific pattern in moderation, which I could demonstrate perfectly if I actually had access to all my warnings, the penalty descriptions, and the discussions. Unfortunately, regular users don't have access to a panel showing more than five previous warnings, and PMs fill up way too fast, so proving this is basically impossible right now. Unless, of course, a super-mod or an admin decides to pull the PM and warning archives from the backup.

Anyway, here’s how the game is played:

- some moderator picks a fight with me for whatever reason and starts handing out bans—whether they actually make sense or not.
- once I appeal and start making a scene, a second moderator takes over the banning duty, then a third one steps in...
- and of course, the rules magically shift to fit the moment. (Basically, they'll punish you for anything just to pad the stats.)

The goal is simple:
- paint the user as a troublemaker.
- rotate through different moderators handing out the bans so nobody can claim there's any bias.

This thread is a perfect case study for all four tactics:
- inconsistent criteria (look at what happened with Sam Alvarez4)
- bending the rules, even digging up old posts for "re-reviews" (shoutout to KLCCLK for providing such a clear example)
- just piling on the bans to prove a user is problematic, aiming for a cumulative ban, then using the sheer volume of strikes to "prove" the user is bad.
- swapping out moderators to make it look like everyone agrees on how much of a problem the user is.

In this whole mess, my hands are often tied because, like I said,
- users don't have access to old bans to actually analyze how the mods are behaving.
- most links in the ban notices are one-way streets that lead to private messages (even if the content technically exists in the archives).
- the only paper trail is the penalty notice in the inbox, which fills up so fast you're forced to delete stuff.
- and often, the banned posts contain links to the exact posts that triggered the reaction, but those links mysteriously "disappear," just like I demonstrated with Sam Alvarez4.

So, the only way I can actually bring this into the light is exactly what I'm doing now: posting everything in a thread like this where the mods don't have the power to delete it.

So, I’m asking KLCCLK to weigh in on questions (A), (B), (C), and (D) above.
And specifically, how does the actual penalty only arrive five days later, after a whole string of bans from TheProvense?

Since I can't jump back into TheProvense's second thread about bans, I'm heading back here to Vol. 1

original post :

TheProvense
Look, regarding Sam Alvarez4, I'm telling you right now—she has zero special treatment on this site. Not from any mod, and she definitely doesn't have my protection..
The easiest fix would be to just say, 'look, if they won't play fair, just ignore them,' but we all know that's never going to happen..

I've laid out the facts, and the fact that most users on Politiik / svijet isti just ignore her pretty much proves my point. So, here it is:

(a) failing to provide links for claims made
(b) being totally condescending, dismissive, and aggressive toward anyone who disagrees with her—whether they're challenging her personally or questioning her sources

Hey, I don't have a problem with people being intense, provided everyone else gets the same freedom to talk like that, which I've shown plenty of times myself. But it’s super sketchy when the crackdown only seems to hit one side. Personally, I don't recall seeing Sam Alvarez get even a single warning card in all these years (not that I was keeping a formal log or anything)

original post :

TheProvense
You just love to troll and twist things to fit your narrative, let's not pretend otherwise. This whole thread is a perfect example—you're acting like me handing out today's warning for missing links is some big win for you, like, "oh wow, look at those results!" It's funny how you frame it that way, probably because you think I'm just being a nuisance with all my warnings and little cards over people forgetting to cite their sources..

No, TheProvense, I actually DID forget to include the link for that last quote, which is why I got my fourth card. And yeah, the card was fair, I already said that.

But that doesn't change the main issue with Sam Alvarez. She doesn't get penalized for not citing where her info comes from. For instance, AFTER I got banned:
original post :

Sam Alvarez original post : Quote: Tyler Johnson11 said:Check this post
Not a single link for those claims??
Just spreading lies and misinformation. Pure propaganda! How else am I supposed to put it?
Why is this being allowed?

right here for example.

So, providing a link to a claim is basically just linking to a Twitter account. That's like me giving you a link to an article on CNN and saying, "here's the proof that the earth is flat." Is that a link? And she only started actually providing stuff after I went on this massive rant.

Of course, there was no warning card issued.
original post :

TheProvense
Look, when it comes to deleting posts, that’s just standard moderator stuff. It’s totally normal intervention, nothing shady, conspiratorial, or "against the rules" of the site...

I didn't say they were, but it's pretty telling that those posts vanished right after I flagged them in this thread (or via the report button). The catch is, you can't tell if someone has been reported through the flag system, so I was just waiting to see how things played out here.

I can't even tell if Sam Alvarez4's quoted posts have disappeared:

- maybe Sam Alvarez4 just decided to delete them herself after an hour or two (but only after I quoted them here, which is a fact)
1. maybe she saw me quoting them in this thread, realized they were actually wrong, and wiped them herself
2. maybe someone whispered in her ear to delete them, so she did
3. maybe a moderator stepped in and deleted them instead of her, unrelated to this specific thread
4. maybe a moderator nuked them because of this thread, just to protect her from getting banned or questioned about why she hasn't been banned yet.

Only that last one—option number 4—is debatable, man. The reality is the posts were still within the window where the original poster is allowed to edit or delete their own stuff, at least that's what I know. I have no way of knowing who hit the delete button, but there are logs on the server, so it could be checked.

I still think that despite her long history here, Sam Alvarez4 isn't getting any bans, which really speaks to the moderation policy over at Politiik / svijet isti. You guys prove me wrong—show me that she actually *has* been banned. In this whole exchange, she hasn't been penalized at all, even though she clearly broke the rules as I see them.

So, either I'm totally misreading the rulebook—in which case, please explain it to me—or the mods are playing favorites. The only thing that's certain is that Sam Alvarez4 has zero strikes, while I've got one.

Since according to KLCCLK's standards, irony and trolling are punishable offenses, I’m going to drop some of Sam Alvarez4's posts where the irony is blatant, and—surprise, surprise—she didn't get banned for them. Let's try to make the rules consistent, shall we?

Now I just have to wait for the window to close where a user can manually edit or kill their own posts.

And yet it moves.

From my previous post:

Jack Cook7

Regarding the part where I address Sam Alvarez4's post:

Sam Alvarez4 Quote: Tyler Johnson11 said:Check the post
Not a single link to back up those claims??
Spreading lies and disinformation. Paid political propaganda! How else am I supposed to explain this?
Why is this even being tolerated?

right here, for example.

That specific post has vanished/been deleted, and the attached link "here" just led to https://twitter.com/CSDHI

which is just the main Twitter account for one user—which, like I said, is technically incorrect.

Honestly, I don't know if she was acting crazy because the post is gone, and I don't have the technical tools to monitor everything else this user posts, especially stuff that gets nuked.

But hey, there you go. We can keep diving into the criteria for moderation and/or trolling and/or irony.

Right now, here’s what I’ve got:

Private 03.01.2018. 13:01 02.02.2018. 13:01 35 Trolling KLCCLK
Private 03.01.2018. 13:01 02.02.2018. 13:01 35 Trolling KLCCLK
IL - State of Israel,... 03.01.2018. 08:53 02.02.2018. 08:53 30 Breaking forum rules TheProvense
Private 02.01.2018. 12:43 01.02.2018. 12:43 30 Breaking forum rules TheProvense
Private 02.01.2018. 12:42 01.02.2018. 12:42 30 Breaking forum rules TheProvense
(can't see the last initial warning), 35 points.

35+30+30+30+35+35=195 points.

More coming soon.

Don't overcomplicate things or take advantage of everyone's good intentions here. This thread exists so people can share their views without constantly attacking the moderators. Your specific points are valid and will stay put, but as for everything else, the moderation stands and I have nothing more to add.

On another note, the report button isn't just there for decoration. If you aren't using it, this thread isn't a substitute for the actual tool.

Regarding the political moderation, we might need to lock this topic down.