What'd they do, toss the newest and most expendable of the moderators into the ravenous maw of the implacable BD? How .... heroic. Well then, on to business.
Well we have never and will never get into the habit of listing on demand the reasons for banning someone,
And speaking as a relative n00b (let's see, July 2006 - yep, a veritable graybeard), your assertions of what never has and never will be done lack a certain
gravitas. My requests for perfectly reasonable information predate your advent. Do you recall the incidents leading to the formation of the original Mod Squad?
You are correct about the "have never" part. The "Code of Silence" has been a problem since the beginning. But that's hardly a justification for its continuation. It remains an affront to the membership of a board otherwise conspicuous for its general openness.
as I explained before there are a number of reasons for this, to name a few:
It may not be for very long and therefor would be very unfair to tarnish the name of someone who is going to be given another chance
It may involve other people and would be very unfair for us to give out information regarding others who are still with us
There are too many bans when you include the underage, spammers and multiple accounts for any one to have time to do such.
You've "explained" nothing. You offer little but airy generalizations. I'm interested in specific answers when the question is specific, and general answers when the question is general. What is the super-secret information you don't want to give out? Who do you think you are, eBay?
When someone is banned we do fully understand and appreciate that although they have behaved in such a way to warrant a ban, they to some are still good, decent people (not saying all who are banned aren't, you get the point)
Yes, and it's not relevant. I have no idea which are "decent people", and no intentions of making such evaluations. Nobody's asking for anyone's life story, or an evaluation of their worth rendered from On High, or anything except a specific "that the h---'s this about"? A simple question. Lacking simple answers, we peóns have to come up with our own theories. And we do. It would be overoptimistic to assume that those theories are flattering to the mods or their dedication to their work.
and not everyone will be aware of what went on to warrant such actions,
Hence the questions. You know, the ones which are never answered.
however those people need to respect that things did go on, whether you know it or not, and that warnings were given, discussions were held and at the end of the day, nothing changed and we were forced to ban.
There it is - the inherent fallacy. "Forced to ban". I don't buy it. Did some guy plant a bomb in the host's datacenter, planning to set it off by posting a trigger word here? That would constitute a "force to ban" situation. Anything short of that is a "choice" to ban. And choices should be both justifiable, and justified.
With the exception of underaged members, and those returning under new accounts once banned, we have to have a majority vote to ban someone, and these talks can at times go on for weeks at a time, we don't like banning people, and we won't ban someone randomly or because we don't like them,
Like it or not, evidence to the contrary has been accumulating. The mods aren't talking, but when I post things like this, I get PMs from other members, and they don't pretend that it's all so mysterious. Of course the banned ones can't send PMs but one of my e-mails is on file. I gather from these that I'm not the only member who thinks that the moderator's attitudes and techniques could use a bit of tuning.
Of course there are other members, maybe even a considerable majority, who see no problem. We get the usual LPSG suck-up posts from them on occasion. But a few contented
moo-ing noises from the herd doesn't mean that there isn't a problem.
there are many people here that you, I, other mods, other members think should be banned for one reason or another
I have no one in mind that I'd want banned. Even the insufferable twerps have their places. And even if I
did wish for someone to be banned, I wouldn't agitate for it to be done. Believe it or not, I'm not
quite so egotistical as to believe that anyone should be banned on my say-so.
I understand your anger/frustration at not always knowing why/how a banning came about,
It's not anger or frustration, it's annoyance. Annoyance at perpetual rudeness. Good questions deserve good answers, not excuses. And it's not at "not always knowing", it's at
never knowing.
but making snide comments about how much time and effort we put into trying to resolve member issues and such before we are finally forced into the situation of banning someone really isn't fair to the mod team.
Ah, and now the counterattack. Yes, it's
my fault, I'm the guy who isn't showing adequate - what? Respect? Abject submission?
Not gonna happen. Respect must be earned. The evidence for anything much which is actually respectable is slim. We read an occasional bit of self-puffery, about how much work it is, blah blah. Maybe true, maybe not - I see no good reason to accept it on faith.
Au contraire, it's the moderators who are showing inadequate respect to the membership. It's the membership which makes a board a success or failure,
not the moderators. Although the moderators can ruin a board all by themselves. (No, it hasn't happened here, but I've see it on other boards. As a general observation, it's hardly assailable.)
And there's nothing snide about pointing out a fact, a fact which you have already conceded - the moderators are simply unresponsive to legitimate inquiries. Fact. The claim of "secret treaties" or whatever falsifies that fact not at all.
Here's another fact. Although in this case I'm being perfectly fair - citation of relevant facts is rarely otherwise - I'm not generally obsessed with being fair to anyone is isn't being fair to everyone else. And "have never and will never" be.
_______________
And for our new viewers tuning in, I should point out that this isn't personal. I've never been banned, harrassed, or anything else (except of course ignored,
opt. cit.) by any of the LPSG moderators, past or present.
[End conspicuous display of fairness]
