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If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Comments
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And if you could really get Google banned for "even a sliver of drama or problems", most of the YF regulars would have to be banned. I just don't see that drastic a change happening.
I think the staff may be too comfortable with the Google Block. It's kind of like the Abyssal Nova attack in Hitsotensoku.
Although it's horrible and you should save it for the worst of your
enemies, sometimes you use it on the less intimidating folk just because
you want to show how serious you are when they were breaking the rules,
or to show your wrath as somebody not to be fucked with or challenged.
And in general, most people banned from the forums don't even edit the wiki anyway, except for troper pages.
And I would imagine that they would Googleban somebody from the site to
prevent them from finding out what others are saying about them.
We don't ban people for criticising us, and we never have. We don't ban people who haven't broken the rules pretty badly, except a couple of times when we made mistakes. The Google ban is used because it prevents ban evasion. And no, we wouldn't Google ban somebody from the site to prevent them from finding out what others were saying about them; that would be stupid.
"We don't ban people for criticising us, and we never have. "
Fast Eddie banned at least one user (Starscream) for bitching about how he changed the site's layout every days (remember that?). There,s also that MOleman guy (who is an idiot, but bear with me) who seems to have been banned simply because he voiced his displeasure at the YMMV separation.
As for Moleman, as I understand it he was banned for posting an aggressive rant, having already been banned once previously for rude edit reasons. It wasn't the criticism he was banned for, but the attitude and the language.
^ Why?
"but the attitude and the language."
Considering the rant in question was deleted, that's a bit hard to judge (yet another galling flaws with you guys moderation style).
I'd accept that explanation more if that kind of deleting didn't almost invariably result in stupidly long "What happened to [guy]/[thread]???" threads. which often have flame wars.
Nope.
OK, this being IJBM, I have a complaint of my own: I'm bugged somewhat by the attitude towards bans that I see around here. Like, for example, there seems to be this idea that you are entitled to a formal warning by PM, and if you don't receive one, it's wrong to ban you. That's not how it works. You will get banned if Eddie (or Janitor) thinks you need to be banned, or if one of the mods believes you to be acting in a way that the admins would think you needed to be banned. Warnings are a way of trying to make it so that such bans are not needed.
Along the same lines, sometimes people react with hostility towards being warned, or freak out over the fact that, now that they've been warned, they're at a greater risk of being banned. I don't understand this attitude. A warning is just that: a warning. It's not an attack, or an insult, or a passive-aggressive way of telling you to go fuck yourself. It's our way of letting you know that you are behaving in a way which the people running the site deem unacceptable, and which will result in a ban if you don't stop. It's not a concrete "you will definitely be permabanned the next time you put so much as a toe out of line" thing, it's a heads up.
We don't like banning people. We'd rather we didn't have to. And I have to say, actually telling people off (rather than simply warning them) is my least favourite aspect of moderating, and I only do it when a troper is persistently causing trouble and won't acknowledge that they're in the wrong, or will acknowledge it but won't stop being it.
And, you know, this idea that by receiving a warning, you've used up your chance. That's not the idea. The idea is that you are behaving in a way that will get you banned, and the warning is our way of letting you know that it will get you banned and giving you a chance to stop. If you don't stop, or if you do it again when you know it's not allowed, you have only yourself to blame. And I mean, really, it's not exactly difficult to refrain from being rude, which is all the vast majority of warnings are about.
I realize that it's the admins' prerogative to do what they want with their site, but the way things are being done does not work.
I don't think this is the way it should work. Tvtropes has much looser enforcement of the rules, the rules are somewhat loose themselves, and there are unwritten rules that must be obeyed. In forums where all the rules are clearly spelled out, and there is some sort of infraction/warning that is always adhered to, things tend to be both more orderly and more understandable. If user X is banned, on this hypothetical forum the mods can state that he used up all of his infractions/ had committed an automatic ban action, whereas on tvtropes people can be banned and people could be generally mystified. I remember when Myrmidon was briefly banned for making a snowclone (which could be a whole other complaint, considering this is the only case I can remember someone being banned for this, even though there are others who have made many snowclones, and nowhere in the rules does it say posting many snowclones is a bannable offense), people were somewhat surprised and mystified that he had been banned, and generally didn't know why.
Making banning a popularity contest just makes things chaotic and inconsistent. This can be okay on small forums with a small user base where everybody is more or less friends with everyone else, but it shouldn't be that way on large forums like tvtropes. I think the best way I saw to avoid this was having the moderators have special "moderator" alt accounts separate from their main account, so the only way you could hope to suck up to the moderators was by sucking up to every single member with a high post count. Of course, this would only work in conjuction with concrete rules/rule enforcement.
Considering my warning was a full quarter name calling, and I was insulted behind my back later on, I'm remaining skeptical about this point.
Considering my banning occurred less than six hours (IIRC) after my first warning about being a dick, I'm remaining skeptical about this point.
Considering I logged off soon after I got that warning and found I was banned once I tried to log back on again, and had in fact removed some posts that I thought could be considered inflammatory, I'm remaining skeptical about this point.
It is? First I've heard of it. Tomu started an OTC thread on the subject and didn't get banned for it.
>Whenever I got warned on TvTropes, I'd get all worried and think I lost my chance, and then all it would take is one small insult for me to utterly break down.
I'm sorry to hear that, but you know, when you got insulted, the right course of action would have been to holler for the mods, not to retaliate and run the risk of being banned.
>there are unwritten rules that must be obeyed
This has been a problem in the past, but it mainly happened because Eddie used to introduce new rules without warning and only tell the mods after the fact, something which I think he's made a deliberate decision not to do anymore. And we've done our best to make sure all the rules are present on the list in Pinned, so I don't see why there would be confusion about them now.
>Making banning a popularity contest just makes things chaotic and inconsistent.
Banning isn't a popularity contest; tropers are judged by how much trouble they appear to be causing, and how blatantly they are violating the rules.
>Considering my warning was a full quarter name calling, and I was insulted behind my back later on, I'm remaining skeptical about this point.
True, that wasn't a very diplomatic PM. I'm not really sure what the idea behind that was, other than that Fast Eddie thought you were being a dick.
In defence of Eddie (you probably don't want to hear me defend Eddie, sorry), he didn't insult you behind your back until I asked him if there was any chance he could unban you.
>Considering I logged off soon after I got that warning and found I was banned once I tried to log back on again, and had in fact removed some posts that I thought could be considered inflammatory, I'm remaining skeptical about this point.
Wait... hang on a mo, are you telling me that you didn't reply to Eddie or anything? He just sent you the PM, then banned you shortly afterwards without further explanation?
Edit: @vandro: The fact that you got banned, thumped and reprimanded didn't tip you off?
But I'm still of the mind that your more recent ban was a bit odd and might have been a misunderstanding at this point.