Feedback New stricter moderation, but without banning

Hi Folks,

As a result of our poll regarding our current style and level of moderation, we are going to implement a small change to attempt to improve our moderation. As you all know, we like to be creative with solutions to problems and this will be no exception.

We understand that part of what makes our community attractive is that we do not over-moderate and aren't quick on the ban trigger, allowing our members to express themselves openly here without fear of reprisal.

We also understand that part of the problem is also that we do not moderate enough and then things can get out of hand and become a detriment to the community.

So to reconcile the two, we will be implementing the following system effective immediately:

1. Every rule violation we see will receive a warning with infraction points. To ensure we see them, please report them. (Depending on the seriousness of the rule violation, we may not take action on old rule violations. So, for example, if a member insulted you a few months ago and you report it today to bring it to our attention, we are unlikely to take any action. However, if they doxxed you at any time, we will take action to remove your personally-identifiable information.)
   
   
2. Every 3 rule violations in a 6 month period will result in increasing "Punishment" periods where the member's access to our site will be slowed down instead of being temporarily banned. The length of the Punishment periods will be as follows depending on the number of total infractions received in the last 6 months:
   
   3 infraction points = 1 day
   6 infraction points = 3 days
   9 infraction points = 6 days
   12 infraction points = 9 days
   15 infraction points = 12 days
   18 infraction points = 15 days
   etc.
   
   These periods are lot more lenient than what we had previously with the temp bans, which scaled from 1 day temp ban, to 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, and 4 months. A Punishment period won't stop or otherwise keep a member from contributing and sharing their views, but it will give rule violators plenty of time to think about our rules and to consider respecting them in the future as they wait for each page to load.
   
   
3. Temporary and permanent banning will still be reserved for more egregious rule violations (e.g. using multiple accounts, spamming, etc.)

Up until now, warnings led to increasing temporary bans, but because we did not want to ban our members even temporarily, we rarely issued warnings. This resulted in things getting out of hand. So to reconcile that, the system above will allow us to issue warnings and infraction points whenever we see a rule violations (more strict enforcement), but instead of resulting in temporary bans where the member can't use the site at all, they will result in a slowing down of service for increasing but shorter periods of time (less strict punishment). Keep in mind that one violation will never result in a member being punished, and that only your rule violations in the last 6 months count (e.g. it takes 3 rule violations in 6 months to trigger a 1 day slow down). So this is meant to target serial offenders.

Of course, since we aren't temporarily banning anyone for rule violations such as insults and off-topic posting, now we won't hesitate to give out warnings and infraction points for rule violations. In fact, we'll always try to err on the side of giving infraction points. So if you don't want to be punished with a slowing down of the site, then simply follow our rules and don't test the lines.

In short, our stick is getting much weaker, but we will be using it more frequently.

For the sake of transparency, we we will also be adding public notices to posts that violate our rules. We did this in our early days and will be doing it again now.

You may be wondering whether a slowing down of the service is enough of a punishment to serve as a disincentive against violating our rules again. It probably won't be until a member experiences it for the first time. We won't go into details about how this slow down will function, but rest-assured that it will be frustrating enough to serve as a disincentive, while still allowing punished members to participate so they don't feel left out. Plus, punished member won't know they are in a punishment period, all they will notice is that the site has slowed down for them, and we see that as psychological warfare that makes it even more frustrating.

Note that the Off-topic rule won't be enforced in the Lounge, Off-topic Graveyard, and Insults Graveyard, and the No Insults rule won't be enforced in the Insults Graveyard. Furthermore, the Insults rule will only be enforced if the insults are directed at active members as we don't want members to simply sign-up to enjoy the protection of our rules since we want them to be active participatns. The intention of the no insults rule is to ensure active and participating members of the community treat each other with respect so that they debate and discuss in a civil manner. There is no hard and fast rule on what determines whether a member is "active" because we do not want members to meet some bare minimum criteria to claim protection from the rules without actually having any intention of being an active and productive member of the community. So it will be our judgment call.

If you don't tend to violate our rules, then you won't experience any difference with this change. If you tend to violate our rules every once in a while, then this won't have a serious impact on your experience here. However, if you tend to violate our rules frequently, then you will notice a significant change.

These changes are effective immediately, so please report any and all rule violations when you see them.

If after a while we determine that the above is not effective, then we will course-correct as necessary.

As a reminder, here are our rules.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the above, please let us know in this thread.

 

Hi Folks,

To remind slowed down members of our rules so that they don't violate them again, we have added the following feature:

Every time a slowed down member loads a page on our site, there is a small chance they may randomly be redirected to our rules page.

 

You just joined, so we invite you to join other gambling forums as well as this one, and then check back after a few months. We are confident your opinion will change. Note that we do not ban here, so even when a member violates our rules and is eventually "moderated", they can still access the site and post. Their access is just slowed down. Even then, the slowdown only happens every 3 rules violations, not on every rule violation.

An open forum community cannot be 100% uncensored in the absolute sense of the term as it would quickly become a cesspool of spam, with spam bots filling the site with links 24/7.

In the case of GamblingForums.com, we will never censor a single gambling topic and we have a limited set of very reasonable rules. In other words, any gambling topic can be discussed here, no matter how controversial, and anyone is free to join and participate. This freedom leads to members who are more willing to share their true opinions on any gambling topic without fear of being banned and silenced.

So stick around, get a feel for the place, and then see how you feel about our uncensored nature and whether we've struck the right balance. We'd be interested to hear your feedback then to see if your initial impression has changed.

 

The problem is, where do you draw the line between what's "acceptable" gambling discussion and what isn't? We don't draw that line here because we are uncensored. Different admins and mods can have different subjective opinions about what is "acceptable", so in a censored forum like most are, that can lead to inconsistent rulings and to some speech being allowed at the expense of other speech that doesn't match up with the opinions of the first admin or mod to see it and censor it. And if there are people who have any influence or sway with admins and mods of a censored forum, then you have outsiders affecting what can be said or not, which opens up a whole new can of worms. We don't have to deal with any of those subjective elements here because we are uncensored and so we allow all gambling-related discussions here. Unfortunately, that means you will also find awful threads here, as well as highly informative ones.

Then it wouldn't be an uncensored forum like we are. We also don't want negative threads attacking other forums or people here, but we don't choose what gets posted. Our members do. In an uncensored forum like ours, you get the good, the bad, and the ugly, and those posting the "good" don't feel like they need to hold back on their true gambling opinions here because they know they won't be banned for it. But the cost of that uncensored good is the bad and the ugly, and that's a price we accept.

 

If they aren't, then in our experience it's because you (the target) keep reacting to it and they are likely to continue as long as they keep getting a rise out of you.

When a member starts trolling, if they are ignored once their access has been slowed down, they will always stop. That is because the lack of reward (getting a rise out of their target) will not compensate for the incredibly frustrating experience of being slowed down.

If you do not believe the slow down is a disincentive, then we are willing to let you experience it for a week and then you can determine if it is frustrating enough. We can always make it even more frustrating.

Our advise is to stop reacting to the trolling that is clearly meant to get a rise out of you, and it will die down by itself.

But if you keep feeding the troll, then do not expect the trolling to stop.

If you have suggestions on how we can improve our moderation, we are all ears.

 

You did just a few days ago here.

If you experienced the slow down already, then you know how effective it is. You continue to belittle it, but we urge you to measure the rate at which you are insulted during the member's slow down versus before. We suspect the evidence will once again prove you wrong.

By some metrics we are already the #1 gambling forum, but we continuously strive to do better and will always do so. One of the reasons for our success is because we do not censor members here and are lighter with our moderation compared to other forums that temporarily and permanently ban. You have been issued a significant number of warnings for rule violations as well (and those were only the ones reported to us), and if we moderated this community as other communities are moderated, then you would have likely been banned by now for so many rule violations. So our light moderation has benefitted you as well and has kept you from being censored here via a ban.

First, not every sanction leads to a slow-down. It sometimes takes 3. We urge you to observe the rate of insults towards you by this member during their slowdown compared to before the slowdown.

It is a much longer slowdown period (weeks, not 30 minutes), and when we observed they were still violating our rules, we increased the frustration parameters on the slowdown to act as an even greater deterrent.

We are simply following our transparent moderation style decided upon after a poll with members here, and it was not an offer or threat, you kept belittling the slowdown as if it is not effective or not a big deal, and we offered to let you try it for a week so that you could have a more informed opinion on it as you would realize it's not nothing. So if you still claim it's not a big deal (considering you mentioned you had prior experience with it), then you should have no problem asking us to implement it on your account for week to prove to others it's not a big deal. Of course, you won't choose that option because you do know that it is indeed quite frustrating.

If they do it again, their next slowdown period will be even longer. If they do it after that, even longer. And so on. This will keep them from doing it repeatedly like they have recently. Again, we urge you to notice the rate of insults towards you by this member during their slowdown versus before. If you notice -- as we are certain you will -- that the rate has decreased, then that is proof positive that the slowdown works. Add to that the fact that their next slowdown will be even longer, and it means you will be insulted less. If you weren't reacting to them like you have been here and in other threads, then we are certain they would be even less. Hence our suggestion earlier.

Again, it seems you are advocating for permanently banning members here, but for some reason you won't come out and say it explicitly. Again, feel free to start a thread with that suggestion using this current incident as an example so that we can hear feedback from the community instead of just you. We value your opinion, but you are just 1 member out of thousands and we can't make significant changes based on the complaints of only 1 member.

 

We aren't playing any games. You keep making misstatements that keep forcing us to correct the record with facts and evidence.

Google disagrees, but that is not the point of this discussion.

Of course your rule violations were reported to us, that's how we saw them, and that's how we sanctioned those posts (warnings are how we sanction which is what leads to slow downs). We don't read the vast majority of posts outside of the Feedback section, so when we sanction a post, it is because it was reported to us by a member.

It's not that we expect them to rise, it's that the slow down period should make the offender realize that breaking our rules is not worth it. And if they break them again, then their next punishment will be even longer. Eventually, they all stop, including the 2 community Trolls we have had here which stopped trolling the community once they were slowed down.

It is true, there is an inverse correlation between a member's slow down period and how many times they break our rules. The longer their slow down period is, the less likely they are to break our rules.

If you can find support for this, we'll consider it. If you are unable to find support for it, then at some point you have to reflect on your own perspective in this matter which may be skewing your sense of justice as you are the target of the offenses.

Surely if the matter is as egregious and serious as you make it out to be, you can get support. We suspect any lack of support would be due to you overinflating the significance of what is transpiring while underinflating the effectiveness of our moderation style.

Junket King, you keep criticizing our moderation style, but aren't providing a better solution. We understand you are angry at the member insulting you and want us to punish them above & beyond our rules, but we cannot do your bidding in this feud, we can only follow our own moderation guidelines that everyone can read. If you want us to change that, then you need to create a new thread suggesting such a change to see if there is community support for it.

 

That's the punishment system working as designed.

This episode has allowed us once again to illustrate to the community how much we engage with members in our Feedback section because we take user feedback very seriously in order to continuously improve the site, so we thank you for giving us the opportunity to highlight that.

Hypocrisy and absurdity that we disproved with evidence.

You are confidently incorrect. AdSense is paid advertising which is labeled as such. Our search results are 100% organic.

On that point we agree, our #1 ranking is as real as our giveaway.

We continue to grow every day, so we don't see any issues at the moment with the published moderation guidelines we are following. You have not had any support on your lengthy quest covering 2 separate threads to get us to punish member soxfan more severely above and beyond our guidelines. In fact, you've had members come out against you in this matter. So we are confident there is not enough support within the community for us to implement the changes you seek.

 

Yes, we've always kept those funds aside for when the giveaway target is met.

The example we gave was specific to this matter and therefore relevant.

It's not about winning or losing. It's about correcting the record about us with evidence. We simply cannot let misinformation and falsehoods about this community and our administration of it stand or some may believe they are true.