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Forums - General Discussion - Banned (almost)....Warnings on Vgchartz? This is not a bad mouth the staff thread. Please do not ruin it for people who want to talk about this.

Kudistos Megistos said:

OP needs to learn a few facts about VGChartz

1. VGChartz is a huge site with a low moderator:poster ratio, meaning that the moderators don't know most of the people they're called to deal with (even if they have over 1000 posts) and that they don't have much time to investigate the situation they're supposed to moderate. Confounding this is the fact that VGChartz is full of schoolchildren and people who act like it's 10 years ago, back when the internet was SRS BSNS and no-one was able to tell what was a joke and what was serious (and always assumed the latter, no matter how obvious the satire or sarcasm were) . Most of the time, mods are called to intervene in arguments between people they don't know and spend a few seconds skimming the last few posts, making a snap decision without any knowledge of the context. It's easier to do this and pacify the whiners than it is to spend time coming to an informed decision.

2. Following from point one, there are great advantages to be gained from becoming a prominent poster with tens of thousands of posts. In this case, moderators will usually take your side in an argument unless they have a specific grudge against you, even when it is obvious to an outside observer that you are the one in the wrong. A high post count means that you're a more valuable member, after all (1).

3. Also following from point one, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If someone is beating you in an argument, be sure to report some dubious complaint to a moderator before one of your posts gets reported. The more you bitch and whine, the more likely it is that the person you're arguing with will get banned!*

 

*Just remember point two. This "squeaky wheel" thing doesn't work when the person you're reporting someone who is well-known and doesn't have an especially bad reputation. In these cases, squeaking will make the situation worse because you'll be seen as a trouble maker and an "uppity" newcomer.

 

Rainbow Yoshi said:
I almost got banned for saying that the Falklands were British.


How frightful. The Falklands are British and have been since before Argentina existed.

Unfortunately, the remnants of fascist propaganda and lies still exist in the Argentinian education system, and they believe that they have some kind of divine right to the islands just because they're nearby.

Of course, if the Argentinians wish to take back a few small, rocky islands full of English speaking Brits, they are  welcome to try. The last time they did, they were humiliated and their government collapsed.

BTW, does any system exist to bring moderators to account for such blatant abuses of power? And if there is, does it actually work? Or do the people at the top just stick together (like in real life)? It seems absurd that moderator could get away with using their powers to ban or bully people who don't agree with their political opinions or who state facts that the moderators wish were not true.

1: This is untrue. While a high post count can indeed allow you to scrape by in situations of questionable judgement, repeated offenses even by people in the 10k (or near there) club will lead to those members often being called out. SNESBoy still sits on the verge of permaban, for instance. dtewi was tossed over the side altogether

2: The only recourse is the admins, and they too are obviously imperfect, whether that be from personal biases in some cases or mere ignorance of the problem in others, but egregious abuses can be dealt with. As you said, squeaky wheel...



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

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Mr Khan said:

1: This is untrue. While a high post count can indeed allow you to scrape by in situations of questionable judgement, repeated offenses even by people in the 10k (or near there) club will lead to those members often being called out. SNESBoy still sits on the verge of permaban, for instance. dtewi was tossed over the side altogether


It's not untrue. It's a generalisation that has exceptions, but it's a decent rule of thumb.

There are a few members with high post counts and a poor reputation, it's true. But it is also true that, with all other things equal, a member with a higher post count and who is more well known by the moderators (as long as he is not one of those well-known for being a troll) will have an advantage when dealing with the mods. I have experienced this myself more than once. I have an argument with another member, we both act as bad as the other, but the more established member doesn't get a temp ban.

And I also wonder whether this SNESgirl, or whatever their name is, would be on the verge of a permaban if they did the same things but only had a few hundred posts. I somehow doubt it.



outlawauron said:
ClaudeLv250 said:

My favorite illogical ban was this one. A user with a slant against Nintendo liked to make threads that were clearly biased. He got called out on it and he eventually agreed that he would think his posts through before starting shit again. A day later he made that thread, I replied with a facepalm - some people never learn. Nordlead banned me with some leap of logic that facepalm pics are the equivalent of flaming. We had an argument through PMs where he continued to rape the English language further and shame dictionaries into sad, irrelevant tears by inventing meanings for words to justify the ban. Eventually I left it alone, you can't really argue effectively with someone that has no concrete understanding of words. I'm not surprised that he's no longer a mod.

 


You got banned for this? You were being condecending, but since when was that a bannable offense?

3 day ban. Exact message

"Flaming (your entire contribution was to say people "failed". Next time try contributing to the thread instead.)"

I didn't even say anyone failed!



Tag - "No trolling on my watch!"

ClaudeLv250 said:

Nordlead banned me with some leap of logic that facepalm pics are the equivalent of flaming. We had an argument through PMs where he continued to rape the English language further and shame dictionaries into sad, irrelevant tears by inventing meanings for words to justify the ban. Eventually I left it alone, you can't really argue effectively with someone that has no concrete understanding of words


 

What kind of screening procedure, if any, does the site have for appointing moderators? Hell, how is it decided who can be a moderator?

It seems ridiculous that someone with a fundamentally poor grasp of logic and communication could be allowed to make these kind of judgements.



Kudistos Megistos said:

ClaudeLv250 said:

Nordlead banned me with some leap of logic that facepalm pics are the equivalent of flaming. We had an argument through PMs where he continued to rape the English language further and shame dictionaries into sad, irrelevant tears by inventing meanings for words to justify the ban. Eventually I left it alone, you can't really argue effectively with someone that has no concrete understanding of words


 

What kind of screening procedure, if any, does the site have for appointing moderators? Hell, how is it decided who can be a moderator?

It seems ridiculous that someone with a fundamentally poor grasp of logic and communication could be allowed to make these kind of judgements.

The best moderations I've seen are where the mods ban based on inferral and peoples "intent" rather than actual written evidence, talk about reading between the lines sometimes...



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slowmo said:

The best moderations I've seen are where the mods ban based on inferral and peoples "intent" rather than actual written evidence, talk about reading between the lines sometimes...

Yegads!

Doesn't bringing "inferral" and "intent" into the mix allow mods to do whatever the hell they like? Unless you're referring to cases where there is no reasonable doubt as to what the intent was.

I mean, pretty much any post on a controversial topic (and everything is controversial on vgchartz; you people will get mad over anything) can be interpreted as trollling if the mod is at his "time of the month". When people start reading between the lines, they can read whatever they want.



I probably should have been banned a few times but have yet to. I try to explain myself as much as possible in most of my posts instead of just saying things like EA Sucks! Although I believe my very first post went along those lines. I joined to make a post in EA thread and no one replied after my post. Luckily it seems my post kills off the thread so if I did make a post that is potentially bannable then no one notices it since the thread is dead.



I've gotten in trouble before. Me and MontanaHatchet got into an argument and I think he was banned for being sexist.



 

Reputation proceeds me, they told you I'm crazy, I swear I don't love the drama it loves me <3

BUY TAYLOR'S NEW ALBUM REPUTATION!!

Lol I decided to check my mod history expecting to see a blank slate, but to my surprise I see:

"Other (The word "coon" is offensive. Don't use it.)"

This was back in June. Funnily enough, I was using the word to describe something I was offended by.



I am the Playstation Avenger.

   

spurgeonryan said:
adriane23 said:
Lol I decided to check my mod history expecting to see a blank slate, but to my surprise I see:

"Other (The word "coon" is offensive. Don't use it.)"

This was back in June. Funnily enough, I was using the word to describe something I was offended by.


And now you just used it again! Lol, lets hope they are not watching.

Damn I did! Well, maybe it'll be overlooked since I was quoting Kantor. If not, fuck it.



I am the Playstation Avenger.