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joelespinoza
08-13-2012, 08:15 AM
So I just got perma banned from reefcentral over the silliest thing.... Do you figure they teach their moderators to be total assholes, or do they come that way?

Floyd R Turbo
08-13-2012, 09:22 AM
It's nurture but I'm sure they search for nature in the selection process! Same username? What did you get banned for?

joelespinoza
08-13-2012, 11:54 AM
Yea, same username.

I had a URL in my signature on reefcentral, linking to one of my own posts on reefcentral, and I got an infraction for that. I questioned the moderator, Dave, about it in a private message, asking him why it was an infraction to have a URL in my signature if it was not commercial and he basically told me if I had read the user agreement I would know. Here is all it says about URLs and signatures in their user agreement:

"An avatar or signature may not contain commercial names, graphics, logos or URLs."

I pointed out this can be taken only one of 2 ways:

An avatar or signature may not contain commercial names, commercial graphics, commercial logos or commercial URLs.

Or

An avatar or signature may not contain commercial names, any graphics, any logos or any URLs.

Then I said that clearly the second meaning was not correct, because saying you cant have any graphics in your avatar is simply silly, and if it was correct 90% of the people on reefcentral (everyone with a graphic as their avatar) should recieve infractions. So clearly whoever wrote the user agreement either wrote it incorrectly, or they had a different meaning then he took from it, and then he should go ask what the person who wrote it meant.

He came back and basically said I was wrong and that he didnt have to check with anyone to know that. I then responded by telling him that they should either correct the way it was written so it was clear what the meaning was, or stop punishing people for a rule that was unclear. In response I recieved a 1 week ban.

When my ban was over I responded back to him and said: ok I will know in the future to never try to discuss anything with a moderator here. Thank you officer.

I never was inpolite, I never cussed at him or called him any names other then officer, and none of this happened publicly, only over private messages, however now I am:

You have been banned for the following reason:
Detriment to the site

Date the ban will be lifted: Never

It does kinda crack me up that calmly discussing an issue with a moderator over private messages is considered a "Detriment to the site"

Floyd R Turbo
08-13-2012, 12:10 PM
What f-ing B-sh-t. You are right on to question that. I have a technical writing background and you are 100% right that there is more than one way to interpret the line in the user agreement and the mod you PMd with just doesn't understand that.

I know other people that have been dinged for URLs linking to RC threads/posts. I think that's just silly but at least a polite explanation that "we don't want to have to verify that URLs in signatures indeed do link to RC threads (as you can make it look like one and it can go elsewhere) so we just disallow them completely" would just not be that difficult.

The "officer" comment makes me chuckle though, the implication here is that he is a cop (which they are) and he I'm sure took that as sarcasm and RC mods don't put up with sarcasm.

joelespinoza
08-13-2012, 12:41 PM
What f-ing B-sh-t. You are right on to question that. I have a technical writing background and you are 100% right that there is more than one way to interpret the line in the user agreement and the mod you PMd with just doesn't understand that.

I know other people that have been dinged for URLs linking to RC threads/posts. I think that's just silly but at least a polite explanation that "we don't want to have to verify that URLs in signatures indeed do link to RC threads (as you can make it look like one and it can go elsewhere) so we just disallow them completely" would just not be that difficult.

The "officer" comment makes me chuckle though, the implication here is that he is a cop (which they are) and he I'm sure took that as sarcasm and RC mods don't put up with sarcasm.

Yea, and clearly not, the mod in question was Nanook, I was going to try to find whoever runs the site and ask them if they know what kind of asshattery their moderators are up to, and if they are ok with it, but at this point its just to much effort to run through a proxy IP address, make a temp email address and register a new account just to ask another moderator what the site owners name is and how I can contact him.

I can sort of understand how they dont want random clickable URL links in signatures, however the one in question was not even a clickable link, it was simply an address you had to copy and paste. So saying you cant have a link of that variety to another forum post on the same forum is just inane.... Especially since thats clearly not the original intent of the writer of the user agreement.

I think its especially funny that there are several people who use a scannerbox as their avatar, which is technically both a URL and a graphic, and according to his (wrong) interpertation of the user agreement that should be double infraction, but apparently that doesnt bother him.

SantaMonica
08-13-2012, 01:24 PM
I'd say you were on a list of scrubber users that needed to go.

Floyd R Turbo
08-13-2012, 02:04 PM
I doubt it had anything to do with that. RC mods are just power tripping jackwagons, at least some of them are. Some are just fine.

joelespinoza
08-13-2012, 06:27 PM
I doubt it had anything to do with that. RC mods are just power tripping jackwagons, at least some of them are. Some are just fine.

Ahh so true, I think this is the case with most people who are ONLY moderators on websites. I assume they must have no power in their real lives so the one tiny place they have some power they become total tyrants.