Moderator bans

How is it that there isn't a system for reporting the moderators themselves?

From what I can gather, this implies they essentially have a free pass to act however they please. Does this mean they can engage in trolling without facing any consequences whatsoever?

If I recall correctly, Mr. Ex once mentioned he’s got two strikes against him🤷

There are plenty of rules meant to keep the mods in check, but they almost never actually hand out penalties because those guys just look out for their own.

I’ve tried reporting a moderator twice now for being straight-up abusive. One time, the guy was actually calling the users monkeys...
It wasn't even just that they dodged the punishment; I actually watched them laugh off my report afterward like it was some kind of joke. 😉

There’s a way to flag content for the moderators, but you can only actually issue those flags if you're a supermod or an admin. 😉

Michael Sanders13 said:If I recall correctly, Mr. Ex once mentioned he’s got two strikes against him🤷

having 4😢
Look, like I already said, the bans are there, but the moderators can't just hand them out themselves—so wasting your time clicking that little report triangle is pretty much pointless. If you see someone posting garbage, just take it straight to the PM or the admin instead. Honestly, that's my recommendation. Jerry Garcia I'm telling you right now, mark my words—it's actually going to work.😉

Seriously, we're basically one step away from a total meltdown!

I'm standing right there with you on this, it's only right...

- A moderator on the forum can issue a warning card to any user without any issues whatsoever.
- However, a moderator isn't able to hand out a warning card to super-mods or the admin; that's technically blocked by the system.
- You have to understand that the whole point of a warning card isn't to act as a punitive measure. Rather, the goal is simply to alert a user—or even a mod—that their specific post violated our community guidelines. The idea is to provide a nudge so that the individual doesn't find themselves making the same mistake down the road.
- In actual practice, we don't really go around handing out cards to fellow moderators; instead, we just delete the offending post and send a polite private message to let them know why it was against the rules. Moderators generally understand one another, and in about 99% of cases, they'll just offer an apology via PM and ensure the error isn't repeated. At the end of the day, the objective has been met. Isn't the true purpose to achieve a desired result rather than just focusing on the act of punishment?

I feel like I’ve been called out, so I might as well say my piece.

I’ll admit, I genuinely didn't realize you could actually issue a strike against a moderator.

But honestly, I don't see a single one of Ego's posts on that controversial thread as anything resembling trolling. I'll leave it to the admins to review the situation and make their final call.

A moderator CANNOT issue a penalty to another moderator. I have absolutely no idea why driftingdriver thinks otherwise.

A moderator CAN request a penalty for other moderators from the admin, and they hand them out without much questioning. There are several moderators who have an enviable collection of penalties, not just Mr. Ex.President.

I haven't handed out a single one in my five months here, but if any of the moderators asked me, I wouldn't hesitate to issue one. Just because someone is a moderator in, say, a food section, doesn't give them the right to act out in the automotive section.

Actually, people acting as moderators should generally be model forum users anyway (that doesn't mean moderators have to be perfectly sanitized, obviously. Let's give them room to say something sharp occasionally, penalize them, and move on. The problem only arises if it becomes a pattern, which I've never seen happen as a rule)

driftingdriver said:- A moderator on the forum can issue a warning card to any user without any issues whatsoever.
- However, a moderator isn't able to hand out a warning card to super-mods or the admin; that's technically blocked by the system.
- You have to understand that the whole point of a warning card isn't to act as a punitive measure. Rather, the goal is simply to alert a user—or even a mod—that their specific post violated our community guidelines. The idea is to provide a nudge so that the individual doesn't find themselves making the same mistake down the road.
- In actual practice, we don't really go around handing out cards to fellow moderators; instead, we just delete the offending post and send a polite private message to let them know why it was against the rules. Moderators generally understand one another, and in about 99% of cases, they'll just offer an apology via PM and ensure the error isn't repeated. At the end of the day, the objective has been met. Isn't the true purpose to achieve a desired result rather than just focusing on the act of punishment?

So why isn't this standard applied to everyone else here? Especially when someone hasn't even had a major infraction prior to this, and there isn't even a pre-existing rule being broken.

To be specific, I ended up being targeted by a moderator named "Fisherman" because my signature included the phrase "faking shit." I posted it on the forum and was immediately slapped with a red card and a 90-point deduction, under the justification that "faking shit isn't a stamp, it's an insult." Fine, if that's how we're playing it. But then we hit a glaring inconsistency: that exact same phrase appears in the discussion threads—specifically in the BB section—well over 200 times. Some users have used it dozens of times without a single person being penalized. Once my ban expired, I actually received a PM from the moderator saying he wanted to let me cool off; he claimed he punished me because he "considers" it profanity, yet he didn't remove it from my signature because other moderators don't share his opinion. In plain English, that means my ban was completely arbitrary.

I feel like I was unfairly banned and docked 90 points for no real reason. Even if I did technically violate a rule, I wasn't the only one doing it, yet I'm the only one being held accountable. Given my clean record leading up to this, a simple private message warning me about the language would have sufficed instead of an immediate strike.

Ever since that happened, I've come to the conclusion that moderators act as if they are above the law. They hand out strikes and bans far too hastily, yet when they commit their own infractions, they seem untouchable. It feels like there is a double standard where they aren't subject to the same scrutiny.

I am all for having rules, and I firmly believe they must be followed, but those rules should apply equally to everyone. If you break them, you should face the consequences. I think the current culture among the moderation team is flawed; a moderator should set the standard for basic human decency for the rest of the community, and they should be held to the exact same disciplinary standards as any other user, if not higher.☕

driftingdriver said:- A moderator on the forum can issue a warning card to any user without any issues whatsoever.
- However, a moderator isn't able to hand out a warning card to super-mods or the admin; that's technically blocked by the system.
- You have to understand that the whole point of a warning card isn't to act as a punitive measure. Rather, the goal is simply to alert a user—or even a mod—that their specific post violated our community guidelines. The idea is to provide a nudge so that the individual doesn't find themselves making the same mistake down the road.
- In actual practice, we don't really go around handing out cards to fellow moderators; instead, we just delete the offending post and send a polite private message to let them know why it was against the rules. Moderators generally understand one another, and in about 99% of cases, they'll just offer an apology via PM and ensure the error isn't repeated. At the end of the day, the objective has been met. Isn't the true purpose to achieve a desired result rather than just focusing on the act of punishment?

- Correcting an inaccurate statement: I was warned by the admin that what I previously wrote wasn't true. I actually tried to assign a strike to a moderator myself, and it turns out the system technically prevents it. My apologies to everyone if my claims caused any confusion.
- So, that leaves us back with what I suggested earlier: deleting the post and sending a PM to the moderator, which usually gets results.
- If that doesn't work, then sending a PM to the admin will surely resolve the issue.
- As for the rest of my previous post, my position remains unchanged.

You hit the nail on the head when you said: I DON'T THINK SO.

And here we run into the classic issue of definitions—"An Internet troll, or simply a troll in internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and usually irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on..."

That exact definition applies perfectly to this specific thread: Ego drops in out of nowhere, throwing out controversial takes even though people have already politely pointed out at the very beginning of the thread that his questions were already answered. In fact, there are even links right there—official ones, no less—providing the answers he’s looking for.

Ego doesn't respect that; instead, he just keeps circling back to his own agenda, which means his true goal is the "intention of baiting other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on". In my case, it works; I have an emotional reaction, and as a result, I’m the one who gets a penalty.
I suppose I should realize that trolling is practically encouraged in this thread since the standards aren't applied equally, so I’ll keep going. I get penalized, while Ego doesn't get a single reprimand.

Look, if the general game being played is "we are the mods, we are above you, screw you, we do whatever we want"—well, fine, I get it. You hold all the power over this little digital box.

It’s just fascinating to me how the vast majority of these same people spend their time bashing the Republican Party, Americans, Jews, and whoever else, yet they refuse to act in the real world exactly the way they behave here. Honestly, those people hold power in their own domains, and from what I can see, there is absolutely no reason why they wouldn't abuse it. ☕

If you really want to implement some kind of fair disciplinary system for moderators, then I think the power should actually lie with the community. Now, let me be clear—I don't mean just one single user, because that would obviously lead to abuse. Nor am I suggesting two or three people, but rather something more substantial, say about 50 different users. If those 50 users, all operating from unique IP addresses and using distinct usernames AT THE SAME TIME, were to issue the exact SAME penalty to the exact SAME moderator on the exact SAME day, then well, I’m sorry, but that moderator is going to have a serious problem explaining themselves.

Maria Thompson2, let's take this step by step:

We can't—and honestly, we don't want to—set up a system where users hand out warnings to moderators. There’s no real need for it, and it wouldn't actually fix anything. It would just create more headaches... if it were even technically possible to build such a feature.

Regarding these specific threads, I've read through the posts. I can't say I disagree with redmarlin3 🤷. Look, I have the ability to issue a warning or jump into a thread and flag someone without giving a second thought to their username color, but in this particular case, I just don't see why Ego deserved a strike 🤷. I'm sorry you feel differently, truly, but I hope you can accept that someone reading this completely neutrally from outside the topic might have a different perspective than yours.

I really don't know what else to tell you, other than this: a moderator will be flagged outside of their own sub-forum if serving a moderator decides it's necessary and takes the request to the admin.

I’m in agreement 👍 (with Maria Thompson2)
It honestly escapes me why there's this assumption that warnings are reserved strictly for moderators, as if the rest of us aren't equally expected to maintain some level of decorum.
Furthermore, we shouldn't overlook the fact that strikes aren't merely polite suggestions; they carry weight through a points system that can ultimately culminate in a permanent ban—making them, by definition, a penalty.
Personally, I have never once ignored a moderator's warning, whether it was posted publicly or sent via PM, even in instances where I found myself fundamentally disagreeing with their perspective. I believe most reasonable users operate with that same mindset, and it stands to reason that a formal warning should be a mandatory prerequisite before anyone is handed a strike.

ego posed a totally legitimate question, which you answered by basically pivoting to some weird internal dispute involving religion...

Then, in your next post, you start mocking him just because he made a typo.

After that, you're venting again, bringing up Muslims and Jews even though ego was asking a perfectly valid question.

I'm not even going to two posts like this. It's pure trolling, plain and simple.

In this post, you called the moderator an illiterate, blind troll—now I’m actually thinking I was being too soft, especially after seeing this.

I'll leave this to the admin.

Look, if you guys aren't feeling the vibe here, what are you even doing? Go chase the admins out of Seattle or wherever else you feel like running to...
Just move on to some other forum, there are plenty of great ones out there, and this one isn't exactly seeing massive traffic anyway
so what's your deal?

It’s the exact same story—everyone constantly votes for the Republican Party and then they turn around and complain about it.
People seriously need to "check themselves before they wreck themselves"

ps. Honestly, if I were the admin of this forum and people were sending in this many complaints, I’d be absolutely mortified.
I would just shut the whole thing down and make it private for the mods only.
I think that would actually be the peak of beautiful online communication. No trolls allowed.

Jerry Garcia said:Maria Thompson2, let's take this step by step:

We can't—and honestly, we don't want to—set up a system where users hand out warnings to moderators. There’s no real need for it, and it wouldn't actually fix anything. It would just create more headaches... if it were even technically possible to build such a feature.

Regarding these specific threads, I've read through the posts. I can't say I disagree with redmarlin3 🤷. Look, I have the ability to issue a warning or jump into a thread and flag someone without giving a second thought to their username color, but in this particular case, I just don't see why Ego deserved a strike 🤷. I'm sorry you feel differently, truly, but I hope you can accept that someone reading this completely neutrally from outside the topic might have a different perspective than yours.

I really don't know what else to tell you, other than this: a moderator will be flagged outside of their own sub-forum if serving a moderator decides it's necessary and takes the request to the admin.

It isn't inherently an issue when a "fresh face" jumps into a thread to view things objectively. The real trouble begins when someone crashes a heated debate mid-stream, and even when you politely point out, "Hey, we've already covered that, here is the context..." they refuse to look back. Instead, they insist on pushing their own agenda because their attitude is essentially, "forget you all, my opinion is the only one that matters" (which, honestly, makes it quite clear why they chose their current handle).

And what is the alternative then? To do nothing? If you take that route, you'll almost certainly trigger an "emotional reaction" designed specifically to "incite unrest," which ultimately just ends up feeding the trolls.

hollowtrucker77 said:Maria Thompson2, I’m honestly not sure if what you’re suggesting is even technically feasible
from a software standpoint, one moderator can't just hand out a ban to another moderator directly.
However, a mod can certainly report another mod's activity to the admins, and at that point, a ban is almost a statistical certainty.
It is an undeniable truth that moderators get a slightly larger margin for error, mostly due to professional camaraderie and the simple fact that they have to wade through absolute nonsense all day—which, let’s be honest, causes anyone to lose their cool occasionally, because at the end of the day, they are just people, just like the rest of us.
The moderator handling a specific PDF can, in any given situation, demand that the admin issue a ban against another moderator who is causing issues.

All right, let’s just drop my suggestion regarding the cardboard boxes. It's simply unfeasible, and frankly, we aren't going to make it happen.

Sash, what exactly are you getting at here? I’ve been reading over your post, and I have to ask—what is this idea of exercising a higher dose of tolerance just for the sake of being collegial when someone is being absolutely verbally abusive? It seems a bit misplaced, doesn't it?
It’s quite a heavy thing to say—claiming there was no Auschwitz—to someone whose own parents were essentially sacrificed just because they stood up for their beliefs, belonged to the opposition, or dared to be part of the "wall" faction.
He had the nerve to call our war of independence a mere scavenger hunt—and he said that to a man who actually bled on the front lines back in '91. I went over there because I truly believed in defending my country, not because I was looking for an opportunity to line my pockets.
Imagine the sheer audacity of someone bringing up such things to a man whose own grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz—a man whose father barely escaped with his life, only to be met with the chilling denial that even the tragedy occurred.

There are three specific individuals among our regular contributors here on the forum—people I know quite well by name.
It seems we’re seeing another instance where there's a distinct lack of tolerance being applied; typically, a person like that would be banned immediately, yet this second individual just keeps right on posting. Sure, they might run into trouble once, but then they simply spin up a clone account—one that somehow manages to dodge the ban entirely. Honestly, it feels like you’re dealing with clones upon clones, even though under our community guidelines, having multiple accounts is strictly forbidden. And even if you try to call them out on this endless cycle of secondary accounts, all you get in response is a shrug and a dismissive, "Well, what can you do?"

That is precisely why I went looking for a permanent seat at the Politics table. It’s also the reason I had to give Ego a much-needed reality check regarding the current state of the Religion section—though, if my observations are correct, Shady has actually started heading in the right direction, and honestly, more power to him. That situation is exactly why nobody bothers showing up over by the Wall; frankly, I doubt anyone ever will. It’s quite telling when you realize that even those who clearly understand religious history—people who likely have entire college degrees in the subject—seem to avoid that area entirely.

Colleagueship? On this forum, much like in the rest of America, the issue isn't actually the laws themselves. They never have been. The real problem has always been that nobody bothers to enforce them—or if they do, they just bend them to suit their own whims. And the second someone dares to step up and say, "Hey, hold on a minute," that’s when everyone suddenly retreats into a sense of misplaced professional courtesy to protect one another.

Please forgive my bluntness, but I truly believe that if there were a bit less professional courtesy among our politicians, the average American would be living a much better life. To be honest, whenever I hear the word "collegiality" tossed around in Washington, it actually makes my skin crawl a little; I can't help but blame that very sense of politeness for much of the mess we find ourselves in today.
Do you really think an average user shouldn't be allowed to quote whatever nonsense catches their eye? By the very nature of being here and actually wanting to engage in a conversation, one is practically obligated to quote the garbage being posted. Besides, as far as I can tell, none of you are bound by some legal contract that prevents you from heading over to the "moderators" sub-forum just to say, "Well, it's been lovely, but I'm out!"

To my fellow moderators: please, let’s maintain some level of professionalism here. If you have stepped up to take on the responsibilities of a moderator, then I ask that you act with the dignity the role requires. It’s quite simple—if you can't handle the pressure, perhaps this isn't the right role for you. Now, if someone has truly messed up, we shouldn't be looking for excuses or playing favorites. Some people seem to think that because they've become close buddies with a rule-breaker, they should just overlook everything—as if they'd be willing to share more than just a hobby or a conversation! That’s not how this works. If you are holding a moderator position, you need to enforce the rules fairly. Whether it's issuing a temporary ban or letting the admin step in to deliver a reprimand, we have to stick to the standard.
Look, you can at least be honest enough to admit that you’re playing by the exact same rules as everyone else; if you're going to act like you're above the fray, please, just spare us the moralizing lectures. You handed out a ban? That's that. You hold the power here? Simple as that. When you run into someone who carries even more influence than you do, you just bite your tongue and move on. Period. Who cares if your "rights" were violated in the process? It really isn't worth the trouble.

I’ve already told you the truth: you aren't colleagues. You aren't friends, and you certainly aren't comrades. You’re just moderators—essentially nothing more than machines designed to enforce the rules. Oh, so redmarlin3 messed up? Well, of course, she’s such a precious little angel that we could never possibly hold her accountable; instead, we’ll just run straight to the admin.

Well, look, this is simply the status quo in America, and there really isn't any reason to expect anything else from a forum like this. Personally, the only thing that truly gets under my skin is when someone tries to shove the idea down my throat that the Wallers, Americans, or Muslims are inherently malicious just because they stick together; honestly, you should just ignore them! They engage in all the same activities that are openly acknowledged here on this forum or throughout the country—it’s just that we happen to do them much more efficiently. There is no genuine outcry here regarding "rights," "justice," or the plight of the oppressed; those are merely the desperate cries of losers.

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hollowtrucker77, please don't take this personally; I suspect your intentions were purely good and you simply wanted to provide some clarity. What we are seeing here is something being forced upon us, and it's becoming increasingly obvious.