I got Google Banned from TV Tropes

Noimporta

It was Fighteer,

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

InsanityAddict

Huh, the dude has an ED article all to himself. I thought that site's attention to TVT drama had passed. 

EnvyTheJealous

Noimporta wrote: »

It was Fighteer,

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

So, what, I'm just screwed, that's it?

Noimporta

Yarp.

On the plus side, think of all that free time you can waste in other things.

Bee

Fighteer got away with more questionable bannings when he wasn't the top dog on the site.  At this point it's literally his house.

InsanityAddict wrote: »

Huh, the dude has an ED article all to himself. I thought that site's attention to TVT drama had passed. 

Mostly, and they discourage entries for individuals unless they're particularly notable on the site.  I mean, the last spat of them came from a recently-banned troll and vandal throwing a shitfit at everyone who slighted him, and it was bad enough that the other banned guy who maintained the ED page got fed up with it.

InsanityAddict

Ah, sad. ED stuff written by people who are themselves assmad are the shittiest. I mean, more shitty than usual. 

EnvyTheJealous

Bee wrote: »

Fighteer got away with more questionable bannings when he wasn't the top dog on the site.  At this point it's literally his house.

InsanityAddict wrote: »

Huh, the dude has an ED article all to himself. I thought that site's attention to TVT drama had passed. 

Mostly, and they discourage entries for individuals unless they're particularly notable on the site.  I mean, the last spat of them came from a recently-banned troll and vandal throwing a shitfit at everyone who slighted him, and it was bad enough that the other banned guy who maintained the ED page got fed up with it.

What's that guy's deal, why is he such a jerk?

KilgoreTrout

EnvyTheJealous wrote: »

Bee wrote: »

Fighteer got away with more questionable bannings when he wasn't the top dog on the site.  At this point it's literally his house.

InsanityAddict wrote: »

Huh, the dude has an ED article all to himself. I thought that site's attention to TVT drama had passed. 

Mostly, and they discourage entries for individuals unless they're particularly notable on the site.  I mean, the last spat of them came from a recently-banned troll and vandal throwing a shitfit at everyone who slighted him, and it was bad enough that the other banned guy who maintained the ED page got fed up with it.

What's that guy's deal, why is he such a jerk?

Fuck if I know, although he's the reason that I stopped posting in OTC some time ago. I don't remember the exchange we had, but as I recall I got a PM saying basically "Either stop arguing with the people you're arguing with over the thing you're arguing about, or I'll make you regret it."

He isn't a good mod.

Now, to play devil's advocate, I had this friend once who was a mod on this one board and told me that moderating is very stressful and sometimes it isn't easy to remain totally impartial and fair. And it wasn't like she was a bad or tyrannical mod; quite the opposite.

To STOP playing devil's advocate, that explains why some people are ban-happy or will threaten you with a ban or suspension at the drop of a hat, but it doesn't excuse it. If you can't be impartial and fair to everybody, if you let your personal feelings affect how you mod, then you should not be moderating. At the very least, you should step aside and let somebody who is less frustrated and stressed out handle things while you calm down. (If that's impossible because there aren't enough mods, then, well, there ought to be more mods.)

I noticed a comment about Fighteer being top dog (next to Eddie, I assume, although I guess maybe he's more hands-on than Eddie). A possible solution to this problem (which is not unique to TV Tropes, unfortunately) is to have NOBODY be top dog, to have all mods be equal. Like have a system where a mod can't suspend or ban anybody by herself, where all the mods look at the situation, talk it over, and vote on what should be done. There's a better chance of cooler heads prevailing and forum members not being unfairly punished that way.

Naas_Human

I think Eddie isn't in charge there anymore or something.

KilgoreTrout

Oh, okay. I'd like to think that he's maybe not quite as bad as Eddie, but even if he were, that wouldn't be saying much. >_>

EDIT: I see Morven is still part of the staff. I remember reading a discussion he took part in either here or in HH and thinking "This guy seems all right." Agree/disagree?

Stormtroper

Morven? She's pretty cool, both as mod and as user.

I'm not sure about Fighteer. He's unreasonable, but not to the point I'd say trying your luck with him isn't worth the effort.

glennmagusharvey

I noticed a comment about Fighteer being top dog (next to Eddie, I
assume, although I guess maybe he's more hands-on than Eddie). A
possible solution to this problem (which is not unique to TV Tropes,
unfortunately) is to have NOBODY be top dog, to have all mods be equal.
Like have a system where a mod can't suspend or ban anybody by herself,
where all the mods look at the situation, talk it over, and vote on what
should be done. There's a better chance of cooler heads prevailing and
forum members not being unfairly punished that way.

This is basically how I used to do things here on IJBM -- I'd create a thread for each situation that came up and would try to secure a majority vote of the active mods (or the ones who responded at least) before doing stuff.

Though there was a time when some mods got sick of dealing with the drama and left, if I recall correctly.  Also had some problems with one former mod who was a bit overzealous and other similar situations where a mod would take an action that other mods didn't agree with.  One problem with this model is that it's easy for indecision to drag on.  I think at least one of the former mods here got tired of this.  So obviously what I did isn't the ideal.

Bee

I'm quite sympathetic to how mod troubles can make just about anyone short-fused.  I've moderated places that were nowhere near as prone to trolling as TVT, and it soured me to the experience badly enough that when you guys offered to make me a mod here I turned it down very quickly.  But we've also had other ex-TVT mods here and on HH that never got half as unreasonable.

KilgoreTrout

Stormtroper wrote: »

Morven? She's pretty cool, both as mod and as user.

lrdgck

(I think Morven is a guy. Mentioned once everybody thinks he's a woman, I too had thought so. The handle and choice of avatar make that sort of impression. But I might be wrong, you never know on the Internet.)

vandro

I think Morven always struck me as a dude. But what do I know?

KilgoreTrout

Hmm, now that I look at his Troper page it says "Me. Morven AKA Matthew Jude Brown..." (There is also a link to the gender identity thread, but I can't find Morven's post in it.) Anyway, I figure if a person identifies as female they aren't going to give their name as "Matthew", so probably a guy.

Central Avenue

Morven is transgender and refers to herself as "she" in internet contexts but still presents as male (Matthew) in the real world.

Hope that clears things up.

Noimporta

I'm quite sympathetic to how mod troubles can make just about anyone short-fused.  I've moderated places that were nowhere near as prone to trolling as TVT, and it soured me to the experience badly enough that when you guys offered to make me a mod here I turned it down very quickly.  But we've also had other ex-TVT mods here and on HH that never got half as unreasonable.

Yeah, to be completely fair to the TVT mod staff, there was a period of time where the forum got ultra toxic: Trolls abounded, the shitposting was rampart, the SA thread was a super hot topic, some people were disgruntled, some people got super defensive about it, others started flaming everyone to appease their new SA overlords. Add the closure of IJBM to that, and I would've probably gotten less compromise friendly in that position.

EnvyTheJealous

So...I'm still screwed?

glennmagusharvey

EnvyTheJealous wrote: »

So...I'm still screwed?

If your goal is to get yourself unbanned from TVT immediately, then yes.

You might have better luck if you at least wait a few months.  I don't know if they clear out old IP bans or such, though, and presumably if they did they'd probably do it on a case by case basis.  Maybe if you tried again to appeal after a while (though I'm not too sure how it works) and showed some sort of indication that you'd been looked at regarding whatever emotional instability they perceived you as having, or otherwise showed that you'd changed whatever it is that they didn't like (how?  I'm not sure)...

As I mentioned earlier, your best bet is to simply detach yourself from whatever activities you were engaged in at TVT.  If there are specific threads where you'd like us to help you leave a note telling other people that they can find you here, I or someone else with an active account can certainly help you with that.  I can also help recover anything that you can't view anymore, such as if you posted parts of a fanfic or other creative work on the forum.  It's probably a good idea to do a quick inventory of what you're missing, and figure out what you can and what you can't recover, rather than to try to pin your hopes on getting unbanned.

FYI, while I have an active account there, I have basically no leverage with the mods.  I know a handful of them, but none of the present admins, and I have little recent presence outside a select few threasd.  I can suggest who may be of a more reasonable or patient sort, but I can't appeal on your behalf since I know almost nothing about your case (and it would take far too much work on my part to compile all your info, analyze it, and coalesce it into an arguable case, assuming it's something that might work in the first place, not to mention that I might be invading your privacy by doing so).

EnvyTheJealous

glennmagusharvey wrote: »

EnvyTheJealous wrote: »

So...I'm still screwed?

If your goal is to get yourself unbanned from TVT immediately, then yes.

You might have better luck if you at least wait a few months.  I don't know if they clear out old IP bans or such, though, and presumably if they did they'd probably do it on a case by case basis.  Maybe if you tried again to appeal after a while (though I'm not too sure how it works) and showed some sort of indication that you'd been looked at regarding whatever emotional instability they perceived you as having, or otherwise showed that you'd changed whatever it is that they didn't like (how?  I'm not sure)...

As I mentioned earlier, your best bet is to simply detach yourself from whatever activities you were engaged in at TVT.  If there are specific threads where you'd like us to help you leave a note telling other people that they can find you here, I or someone else with an active account can certainly help you with that.  I can also help recover anything that you can't view anymore, such as if you posted parts of a fanfic or other creative work on the forum.  It's probably a good idea to do a quick inventory of what you're missing, and figure out what you can and what you can't recover, rather than to try to pin your hopes on getting unbanned.

FYI, while I have an active account there, I have basically no leverage with the mods.  I know a handful of them, but none of the present admins, and I have little recent presence outside a select few threasd.  I can suggest who may be of a more reasonable or patient sort, but I can't appeal on your behalf since I know almost nothing about your case (and it would take far too much work on my part to compile all your info, analyze it, and coalesce it into an arguable case, assuming it's something that might work in the first place, not to mention that I might be invading your privacy by doing so).

Well, I don't have an IP ban, I can still access the site I just can't go into my account anymore. I tried using different IPs to make another account to appeal, but, it's no good.

KilgoreTrout

Central Avenue wrote: »

Morven is transgender and refers to herself as "she" in internet contexts but still presents as male (Matthew) in the real world.

Hope that clears things up.

Oh, okay, thank you.

EDIT TO ADD: To say something more relevant to the original topic, I feel like if I were banned and eventually made it back, it wouldn't be the same. Like right now I'm a fan of Darths & Droids, but I don't want to post in the forum thread about the comic because Fighteer posts in there all the time. And after he threatened me, I really want as little to do with him as possible, and I don't feel comfortable interacting with him and trying to act like it's no big deal or like nothing happened and everything's cool.

EnvyTheJealous

Okay, it's been well over two months, think I can go back?

glennmagusharvey

I have no idea. I have no influence with the mods there, nor have I observed any patterns of peope being banned or unbanned.