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Feedback New stricter moderation, but without banning

Discussion in 'Suggestions / Comments / Criticisms / Problems' started by Admin Team, Mar 16, 2017.

  1. Admin Team

    Admin Team Administrators Admins

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    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.
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2018
    Nathan Detroit and TurboGenius like this.
  2. Admin Team

    Admin Team Administrators Admins

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    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.
     
  3. Mishe

    Mishe New Member

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    The title "stricter moderation" and "uncensored" don't mix. From the onset, this appears to be one of the more moderated (censored) sites.
     
    Junket King likes this.
  4. Admin Team

    Admin Team Administrators Admins

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    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.
     
  5. Mishe

    Mishe New Member

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    I heard about this forum from others. I am not new on forums.
    For now I'm observing to see what the fuss is about. I'm starting to see.
     
  6. freddy

    freddy Well-Known Member

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    Really? You joined WoV yesterday and started a thread about this forum. You called it "That Disgraceful GF Forum and It's Admin". How's that thread going over there? In less than 2 hours Shackleford slithered in and closed your thread...just like they often do when they don't like a subject. In this case they want no mention of GF over there and you now see the lengths they will go.

    Censorship you say? Business as usual at WOV.
     
    KewlJ and beachedwhale like this.
  7. RS

    RS Member

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    1BB, maybe Wizard saw how awful such threads turn into and decided he doesn't want that BS on his forum. If I ran a forum, I sure as hell wouldn't want a thread that attacks another forum and all the crybabies in it.
     
    Michael Bluejay likes this.

  8. Admin Team

    Admin Team Administrators Admins

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    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.
     
  9. Junket King

    Junket King Well-Known Member Compulsive Liar

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    So you nobble the throughput of the IP address and user ID, obviously for the only member of this forum to post the word CUNT, it clearly isn't.
     
  10. Admin Team

    Admin Team Administrators Admins

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    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.
     
  11. Junket King

    Junket King Well-Known Member Compulsive Liar

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    Have you seen me respond in kind, have you seen me resort to foul language? I'm a tad more intelligent than to having to resort to calling another member A CUNT as a response.

    You already hit me with a slow down option a few years back, so I know what's it's like. I was completely devastated, had to go and see my GP for anti-depressants, was at my wits ends just didn't know what to do with myself, please I'm begging don't do it again even though given your lack of decisive action in allowing one member to continue calling another a CUNT, I suspect this is what you're aiming for.

    I recall some wishy washy statement regarding GF strives to become the number 1 gambling community. How you gonna achieve that when the moderation allows a member to get away with calling another member A CUNT at least 22 times, now threatens to kick their teeth in which is against your T&C's, resorts to racist language (WOG lover), Hey it's 2022 I thought we had seen the back of this shit after alrelax debacle.

    Anywhere else any member would have been nuked after the first use of the word CUNT. Wouldn't have been tolerated at WoV, nor at Vegastalk, even Brian who ran Gamblerglen would have intervened seeing the word CUNT in multiple posts, yet Gambling Forums stance is to throw a tea-towel over the said posts and let said member continue after a few days out.

    It hasn't and it won't, when you are dealing with somebody with a very low IQ and self esteem issues, it isn't let go. Initially I never highlighted anything publicly, didn't always respond until I realised whatever you were doing behind the scenes was having zero impact. I didn't always respond rather I sent the admin team PM's back in August, what did that achieve exactly??

    NOTHING, Rather it manifested into learnt behaviour, as it was allowed to continue after a day or two of being slowed down (a wierd bonus as it grants more kitchen table testing time!!) it leant that they are able to get away with it, that the punishment dished out is not really a deterrent, therefore the vitriol increased.

    There is zero conformation with this member, a 30 minutes slow down or whatever was dished out and it came back and straight off the bat and within hours was calling another member a cunt at the first opportunity.

    https://www.gamblingforums.com/thre...h-insulting-another-member.23133/#post-133772

    You're behind the A ball on this one, given your lack of action as well as the offer (threat) of "letting me experience my IP address getting restricted for a week", the lack of action boils down to the protagonists involved.

    As a gambler, I'll lay odds that when the said throughput restriction of lifted for said member, the first post will include the words to the effect of "retard, limey and cunt" and we go around in circles all over again, it's boring, it's a waste of everybody time and energy. Yet we are where we are at due to the admin team having not clamped down on it back when I first highlighted it 4 months ago, so there ya go.
     
  12. Admin Team

    Admin Team Administrators Admins

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    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.
     
  13. Junket King

    Junket King Well-Known Member Compulsive Liar

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    Clever and this the game I suspect you are playing, you do nothing waiting for me to respond in kind and I get whacked, which is exactly what happened. Sure fella, after reporting countless posts which are then covered with a tea-towel, I'm not going to finally react, could see that a mile away.

    Fuck me, that carries as much credence as Spike claiming a 80% win rate playing roulette.

    How one one receive a significant number of warnings for rule violations if they weren't reported to you's, bit of an oxymoron. I've seen some of those infractions, nothing on par with continually calling somebody A CUNT though IMO.

    What a crazy slant to put on it, it's like saying "not the reduction in axe murders" while we have the axe murder behind bars", we expect them to rise once released, but no problem they will go down again once we have him behind bars afterwards he has axed somebody again.

    LOL, good to see you do actually have a sense of humour.

    I thought I did, I don't think soxfan should be banned (shown the gravel), rather should be given a 12 month slow down, bueno.

    Yeah bit hard to win that battle when you are the one and only one out of thousands of members being called A CUNT (includes all the bogus ones and given the extremely small minority that do actually post here).
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2022
  14. Admin Team

    Admin Team Administrators Admins

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    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.
     

  15. Junket King

    Junket King Well-Known Member Compulsive Liar

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    Wow imagine somebody calling somebody A CUNT, that somebody has awful troubling accessing the site and the insults decreases, that's mind blowing fella, cool bananas.

    Nar, it is not egregious as you assume, I am deliberately labouring the fact so you can share the frustration of the entire situation. He embroils me, I embroil you. As for actual offence of being called a cunt, I literally couldn't give a RATS ARSE what soxfan says. However it has been a buzz to get you to engage so much time and negative energy on the matter, I'm sure there better things you could be doing.

    No not angry in the slightest, i'm way to thick skinned for that, rather highlighting the hypocrisy and absurdity of it all

    You can manipulate Google's ranking, mainly by throwing money at Adsense, many other sites get a lot more traction than this site, but hey as long as your making your bread huh. Being ranked numero ono is as legit as your $5k give-away Good luck to newbies coming across this site, signing up, seeing tea-towels littering threads because a member has called another member A CUNT. Yep i can see that enticing many thin skinned new members to stick around.
     
  16. Admin Team

    Admin Team Administrators Admins

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    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.
     
  17. Junket King

    Junket King Well-Known Member Compulsive Liar

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    Do you even have $5000 to give away?

    Hmmm, keep you friends close, but your enemies closer, I mean you could have gone the whole hog and linked an appropriate post from say Spike or GR8 or better still why not soxfan, I'm certainly you would have found suitable comments from the latter to fit your viewpoint.

    Bit like a Besserwisser situation, as I stated previously I've seen this rodeo before, your never wrong, you always have the final say therefore you win by stealth.
     
  18. Admin Team

    Admin Team Administrators Admins

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    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.
     
  19. Junket King

    Junket King Well-Known Member Compulsive Liar

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    Yeah for sure, why not create a thread using one of the bogus accounts (lots to choose from, perhaps Rhonda would be a good pick) that were created to make the forum look busy, give away the cash which has been sitting there for close on 6 years LOL, and be done with it.

    Yeah whatever makes your day sweetie pie.

    As you can see in the there is a common theme in the "Suggestions / Comments / Criticisms / Problems'" board regarding your responses to basically anything and everything. As I said I've seen this rodeo play out previously and you don't have a monopoly on arrogance.
     
  20. Junket King

    Junket King Well-Known Member Compulsive Liar

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    Dear Admin

    Don't you think it's about time you stopped this silly loading pages slow down punishment, utter waste of time, instead just restrict the login ID.

    Anybody who is "slowed" as I am at this moment in time (no surprise there then), can access the site at normal speed via a VPN. Free VPN's can found via a google search, also some anti-virus software (advast, kaspereky) have built in VPN's, Opera (mac users) has a built in VPN, switching off WiFi on a cellphone provides access, so what you are doing is obsolete. Obviously a VPN user must not attempt to login as that exposes their VPN IP address which would therefore be throttled, however it does provide the ability to access all pages as a guest.

    The login option is all that is needed during those moments you feel you wish mete out a bit of punishment..
     

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