Spam Removed - Conegamer

Ka-pi96 said: Just as you think spambots are getting smarter they go and do that

Putting "spambots" and "smarter" in the same sentence just doesn't feel right to me..

I feel Angelus' ban is pretty harsh to be honest. 
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/profile/102477/angelus/#content

How I interpreted it, I saw it as more of a joke, or sarcastic remark; granted I do talk to him frequently. You have users who are more jokey and sarcastic in nature than others, see Rol for example. 

Plus the other post linked was three days ago... seems a little far back, as I rarely ever saw someone get banned from that far back. 

All in all,  5 day ban for a jokey/sarcastic tongue and cheek comment and a 3 day old post seems rather harsh IMO. 

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=199360&page=1

Big problem mods. Check this out

I thought the same thing, kind of surprised he was banned for such an obvious joke comment. If anything I would have maybe given him a warning, though I'm not a mod so what do I know?

Honestly, that's pretty much the same thing I would have done, but I mean I'm not a mod either.

This is where the whole progressive moderator system has flaws. For borderline comments (from a sarcastic user as well) at best, it shouldn't be a straight increased ban IMO. 

It wasn't actually an increased ban length, if so the length should have been double what was given out. And one borderline comment is one thing, but numerous borderline comments in this vein (comments which he has a history of making) is enough to warrant a ban on this occasion. 

Suggesting a user is "high" is also not a good idea. Particularly when the posts are off-topic (the second needlessly go). Doing something once is one thing, but doing it repeatedly and in this context...that is why we Leadified went for the moderation this time no doubt.

You guys admit to some pretty big assumptions before you make your judment calls on this one. Obviously, the regular member doesn't have access to a user's moderation history, and to the mod team, that history helps define you (at least when it comes to making present moderation).

When we ban someone, what we're saying is this: What you just did is not acceptable or tolerable, and so you cannot participate with the larger group for a period of time. If you do it again, your punishment will be harsher. It's common sense really. If someone takes a cookie without asking, you tell him not to do it again (warning). If he does it again, you disclipline him in a way beyond the verbal warning (ban). And many times, it's not about the cookie, it's about the action (in this case stealing). The mod team, in some cases, must understand the "why" beneath the action. If you can get to the root issue and point it out, then the user has a better chance of not just getting rid of the symptoms, but getting rid of the core issue. Of course, it's up to each individual to recognize that and deal with that issue themselves. We can only point it out, give advice on how to not get in trouble again, and/or moderate it.

So this instance of Angelus being all jokey, that's not what we're looking at in the grand scheme of things. What we're seeing is a history of him demeaning others through name calling, making judgment calls based only on preference, making posts that delve into hate speech territory, and generalizing fanbases. Each of these instances are based on a moderation made in the last 5 months. So when he made two seperate comments trying to demean someone's intelligence by calling them high, we saw a continued pattern that needs to stop. But, as you said, it wasn't extremely overt (although he did do it twice) or horribly malicious, hence the 5 days.

As for that seemingly random post of his from 3 days ago, it wasn't the main reason for his ban, but instead serves as an extra layer of foundation so that Lead can issue a solid moderation that supports the ban reason (Great job Blue!). There are many posts that we view as a mod team that are toeing the line, or are incredibly difficult to moderate on their own. These posts, however, are not tossed aside. Instead, the mod team has a database where we keep these borderline comments that may be used in the future. So in this case, this old post was another piece of evidence that helped to cement our decision in making a moderation.

So while not every post is moderated, there are a number that we keep to help bolster our decisions if more issues are made later by the same user. Like we said, a user's history is very important in how we moderated. And these borderline posts can help to paint a clearer picture.

Hope that helps to describe how we work at least. No ban is a simple matter of one person issuing judgment (well, there are some that are more "Really? Come on man!!!" than others ).

Since a newcomer thread still isn't made yet, I have more questions!

In Rich response, I can't get the bold, italics, underline or strike through to always work properly

This text should be bold
this text italics
this text is underlined
and this strike through.

It shows up fine when I am in the reply screen but once I post it, the format disappears.. Any ideas of what I am doing wrong?

Especially when I want to strike through or bold a reply from someone else, it doesn't work either..

That is to do with some of the iffy formatting options, which are currently being fixed.