Politics and moderation

[JWeinCom]

Cerebralbore101 said:

JWeinCom said:

Wait... has anyone actually been banned for anti-rap sentiments? Or anything even vaguely similar? If you have to come up with hypothetical exxamples to show there's a problem, it makes it seem like there actually isn't one.

The point wasn't to show that someone has been banned for anti-rap sentiments or something vaguely similar. The point was to give an example of how many bans work by applying the rules in an unfair and open-ended manner. If you want actual examples of how the rules are applied in an unfair and open ended manner I bet you'll get to see them if a mod responds to my quote of their 4 example bans. Or I could dredge up old bans of my own and show how loosely written rules are applied to ban me. Or let's just look at perma-banned members that were long-time users and see how a "history" of bad posting habits led to the perma-ban. And of course the "history" of bans and moderations will have rules applied loosly or mods assuming they can read the mind of said user. 

But then again, I shouldn't even need examples because the way the rules are written in a murky, undefined manner right now, you can be banned for pretty much any post that is even slightly controversial. It's all up to the mod in queestion. And if you don't see how poorly defined rules is a problem I can't help you. 

This is a well known problem in law. Making rules that are very rigid makes them easy to skirt. I.e. if you ban a certain word people use synonyms. Making laws that are too open to interpretation make it harder to sidestep the rules but may allow too much discretion to whoever is enforcing them.

I doubt that the mods of a gaming forum, who do not actually make the rules, are going to resolve this problem.

If this actually causes a problem in practice then the rap example does not show it as nothing so benign has, to my knowledge, lead to moderation.