Public Outbursts and Account Punishments

If you have an issue with account punishments for public outbursts you're to take it up privately with the administrators.
 
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Firstly, don't conflate moderation with censorship. If anyone has a post removed or edited, it's not to further some grand corporate message or to censor anyone; it's because your post was poor and signal:noise for the thread was reduced, usually unnecessarily.

Every post you submit should advance a thread reader's understanding of the thread topic by continuing the discussion in a civil and facts-based way. Moderation actions support that, so if you find yourself being barred from replying to threads, or your posts are removed, it's overwhelmingly because you're posting like shit.

So if anyone feels they're being censored, they should take a step back and rethink their contribution here. The moderation team do an overwhelmingly excellent job, and the number of times we've had to walk back moderation decisions in over a decade of my time here is lost in the noise.

As BRiT says: if you then still have a problem with how your posts are being moderated, my door is open.

There is no free speech here at Beyond3D and you can't just post whatever you like and expect it to stick.
 
Rys said:
Firstly, don't conflate moderation with censorship.
I do not believe I did. While the first action taken against me was indeed moderation, the end result of the second (and subsequent) did have the effect of censorship whether that was the intent behind the action or not.

Rys said:
If anyone has a post removed or edited, it's not to further some grand corporate message or to censor anyone;
This is not what I was asserting, and I apologize if this is what my comment led you to believe. What I was trying to convey is that such actions could potentially be interpreted that way by other members/readers of the forum, not that I personally believed this to be the case.

Rys said:
it's because your post was poor and signal:noise for the thread was reduced, usually unnecessarily.
I agree this is almost always the case; however, in the second action taken against me, the moderation was done to the original post of the thread, which I created. The integrity of the thread was not at stake and the content provided clarification for why it existed in the first place. It has now been completely erased, AFAICS. Regarding the original moderation, while I can understand why action was taken, I do feel that it was rather uneven. And I stand behind my comment to you regarding the personal nature of the matter. I will say it was certainly my fault for continuing to engage in what I quickly realized to be a fruitless conversation with a very obvious agenda. I should have known better and simply disengaged from the conversation with that individual rather than pursuing a no win outcome.

Rys said:
There is no free speech here at Beyond3D and you can't just post whatever you like and expect it to stick.
I understand completely. You are certainly free to operate your site however you see fit. I have been an admin and moderator for various servers and sites myself over the years, and I understand what a thankless, unappreciated, and unpleasant job it can be.
 
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I replied more as a general notice to anyone reading the thread, rather than you in particular, since we have a wider problem to solve. You're not the only one kept out of a thread, only to immediately start a new thread on the same topic. And really that's the thing I want to get across.

Post well, post thoughtfully, and have fun.

That's all we ask as moderators, and me as the guy keeping the lights on. We all want to read and talk about technology here, and we should be able to do that without forum users feeling pushed out of a thread because a handful can't stop it from getting personal, and the moderators don't want the overhead of cleaning up and telling people off afterwards.

Do you (the royal you again, not the you you) know how awkward it is to tell another adult human being, someone who has come to a niche forum to talk about niche things, that they're being shit at that?

It's not great. So when told you're being shit and you're asked to take a break from a thread, starting another one in the same place about the same thing is going to, obviously, result in that thread going away. Even if it's an amazing new thread, it just causes grief. Do users move over to it? Should moderators move posts from other threads to it? Now on top of the ban, which we hate doing, we have even more problems to deal with.

Get what I mean? So just, you know, think before pressing the keys. It helps a lot.

We have a lot of unnecessarily polarised discussion here and really it sucks. It's too personal, and it makes the 100s of human beings who work on the products we talk about here, that come here to find out what the reception is, sad to see their work result in a bunch of people on the Internet be dicks to each other.

I work on those products. That kind of thing therefore makes me really sad to come and read about them here, and then I have to clean it up.

So post well, post thoughtfully, and have fun. If you catch yourself typing things into the box that might not line up with that, pause for a bit. And if your first reaction to a thread ban because you didn't pause is a new thread that's the same as the one you were just banned for, pause further. Then don't moan about it in Site Feedback because you still couldn't stop to think about the effect this kind of shit has on people.

That way I don't have to then go and post a huge missive about how the community that I love makes me sad to participate in it sometimes, because it's not fun.
 
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I would like to a couple of small clarifications, if I may...

Until the very last action taken against me, I had no idea who was doing taking these actions. And to be perfectly honest, I still do not. I initially assumed they were all performed by the same moderator, but this may or may not be the case. I do not know. There was also no notification or indication at all of any of the subsequent actions other than the complete disappearance of content. I have served as a moderator before... thankfully only once did I have to delete an entire thread, which involved personal threats between members. I have had to remove content before; whenever I removed content from a post, I always left a short reason why and signed the edit, so that it was clear not only what was done but who was responsible. I also favored locking posts (again with reason provided) and letting them decay naturally over wholesale deletion (that way there was a public record of all my actions). But I understand that different places have different practices. I do participate in several communities across the web, and content disappearing without warning, reason given, or any apparent recourse was just not something I have encountered before. It spooked me a little bit, and perhaps I over-reacted. However, given the lack of knowledge on my part regarding who was taking these actions, I am not sure what other path could have been taken.

I would also like to note that I did not create this thread or title it. I can assure you, I regret this thread exists just as much as you do. There is probably one other matter that would be best resolved privately, but I think I'll just drop it and hope for the best. Caring is expensive, I am out of energy, and I am sure you would rather not deal with it either.

Thank you for your time.

Peace.
 
Aw, this makes me sooo nostalgic! I went off on management like 10-15 years ago for the same thing. :)

About 1/2 my posts were being deleted and it pissed me off! After being very politely informed about their policies and I could either accept them or go somewhere else. Spent a few days pouting, then re-thought the posts I had made and realized that while I might have been right I was most DEFINITELY an asshole about it and sort of got it. Every forum moderates their boards differently, and you (royalish you, since I HATE aristocratic crap. ;) ) have the choice of either trusting and accepting their moderation or find a forum that moderates more to your liking.

I'm glad about how I chose. I know there's a lot of guys here who are smarter than me, but more importantly to me is I know the team here who runs the site and moderates it and I really like them and trust their judgement. They don't make rash decisions and they really do agonize/worry if they made the right call some times. It's not done willy-nilly. By choosing to remain here and post I think it's helped me grow a bit as a human being or at least improve my communications so that I can post with civilized type folks and they have no clue I'm a foul mouthed, bad mannered, evil-at-heart-trying-desperately-not-to-let-it-out type sociopath who's just been pretending to be a kind person for over 20 years now out of choice. :)

It can be aggravating at times, but it's just how it is and they're not picking on anyone...they're just trying to keep their forums still the best place for information/discussion on the net.

On a personal note, you (Ninelven you, I'm not sure if you're royalty or not but I won't hold it against ya since you seem pretty cool), seem to be very understanding of the situation and understand the mods perspective while respectively expressing your own opinions. As another guy who's modded/admined a few forums I tip my hat to you and would shake your hand if we met in person, it's not easy to take criticism/moderation and handle it as calmly and understandingly as you have. Good job, I personally hope you choose to stay.

Rys, fantastic explanations! I think it was Reverend or Wavey who lectured me on it, but man your words are good! (It had to be Wavey, Rev would have just banned me. LOL )
 
Digi's post hits the nail on the head, but just to officially clarify how we moderate: we can and do remove posts, and also edit them (never for core meaning, always for language or to remove personal attacks). We do that without signing the edits or removals (publicly, I can see everything via a moderator actions log) because we moderate as a team, so knowing the individual doesn't buy you anything.

Thankfully the amount of times we have to do that is almost zero versus the post count.

I'm lucky that Beyond3D mostly self moderates. So yeah, we remove and edit posts at will to keep the peace and maintain some idea of signal:noise. It's been that way for the 11 years I've been the admin.

One of my personal goals with Beyond3D is for it to be a public record for 3D graphics. You can go back to any thread about any product or architecture or announcement and take the industry's temperature via the posts there. That's very valuable, and that's what I'm working to maintain here, and I think most people understand the historical value of a discussion board that's been around for as long as we have (not too far away from 20 years now!).

Anyway, hope that also helps understand how the mod team operates. Our doors are always open to discuss that, and any individual application of that ethos.

Again, ninelven, I'm addressing the forum populace at large rather than you directly here.
 
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