Appeal of thread lock

Mall

Mall

TNPer
Admin Flemingovia locked my thread here.

I'm confused as to why it was actually locked. It was stated that it was flamebait, but who exactly was I baiting with that thread? And what was I baiting them with? Does admin think that I made that thread to flamebait Gracius Maximus? That's one of the more ridiculous things I could conceive of. The purpose of the thread is explicitly stated. Alternatively, was the thread shut down because Gracius Maximus was calling me lazy/incompetent/etc? Ignoring the obvious fact that I ran on a platform dedicated to ignoring the law (making such insults indicative of not knowing what was going on), if that is the flamebait which was problematic then why didn't admin just warn Gracius Maximus and leave my thread open?

Additionally I'm disappointed that Admin Flemingovia has self moderated in this case. Closing down a thread which was no imminent threat to the forum after having it pointed out to him that his post stating that I had "edited out" an argument he was refuting (when in fact I had not even edited any posts in the thread, let alone edit out a specific argument) is not exactly the type of thing which inspires confidence in an admin team.

tl;dr
1) open my thread, and if GM keeps flamebaiting in it then just warn him
2) self moderation is bad and you should feel bad
 
That thread needs to cool down before anyone says too much.

We acknowledge your coining of the Constibillicode portmanteau, which was really what the topic was all about, no? If you and GM want to sort out your scores, take it to PM.
 
Great Bights Mum:
That thread needs to cool down before anyone says too much.

We acknowledge your coining of the Constibillicode portmanteau, which was really what the topic was all about, no? If you and GM want to sort out your scores, take it to PM.
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Indeed it was, why GM felt the need to threadjack it I'm not sure. Cool down implies that it will be reopened then?

I'm assuming we're just going to pretend the self moderation thing either didn't happen or isn't a problem.
 
If you infer from Great Bight Mum's words that the thread will be unlocked you are sorely mistaken.

the substantive point of GBM's post was in the second paragraph.
 
flemingovia:
If you infer from Great Bight Mum's words that the thread will be unlocked you are sorely mistaken.

the substantive point of GBM's post was in the second paragraph.
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Ah so going forward whenever the administration team "acknowledges" the main point of a thread the thread will be locked to prevent players other than the OP from flaming that OP? That's a weird policy. Can't say I've seen that before.

On the bright side at least we're going to gloss over your self moderation here of your self moderation over there.
 
I'm not currently in a state to comment publicly about the substance of this but I will point out that the active admin teams current size is 2. It is hard to avoid self moderation as it is without us refraining from commenting on anything contentious.
 
Abbey:
I'm not currently in a state to comment publicly about the substance of this but I will point out that the active admin teams current size is 2. It is hard to avoid self moderation as it is without us refraining from commenting on anything contentious.
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If that is the case then that is extremely problematic if the administration team thinks that self moderation is something that should be avoided.
 
Thanks for posting your appeal, Mall.

I had wanted to avoid posting, since I'm only peripherally involved with this community for (at least) the moment, but I did note the thread when it was created. I did suggest that a warning be posted to the thread from GBM before it went downhill but it appears we were too late in preventing yourself and Ivan having a disagreement over things that are not up for debate in this thread.

Generally, I took it - as I do most unofficial things - with a grain of salt until I noticed that you and GM were starting to disagree which shifted the premise of the thread from something light-hearted to something with undercurrents that aren't generally conductive to a friendly atmosphere.

Now generally, we do prefer that disputes are handled privately rather than played out across posts and threads, and it was felt that the thread had already gone too far from the rails to be brought back. In that however, I'd also welcome the opinion from yourself, and GM who was also involved in the ultimate fate that has thus far befell it.

I am on leave for an undetermined period of time, and you may be aware of the reasons - few are, but you are most likely one of the best positioned to know why so I do hope that you will agree that I am the most impartial member of staff to comment on this Appeal.

I am willing to support a re-opening of the thread if both you and GM can agree on a more private manner to resolve your disagreement (the content of which I am not commenting on) and resolve to at least keep things a tad more light-hearted, since the thread was an amusing read originally.

Thanks

-R
 
I will refrain from engaging GM on any topic other than that explicitly listed in the OP, and I will do so in a reasonable, unproblematic way. Thank you for your input, it is greatly appreciated.
 
Just a gentle nudge on this issue, as it seems that there is a chance of the thread coming back to life.
 
Mall:
Just a gentle nudge on this issue, as it seems that there is a chance of the thread coming back to life.
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The momentum of the thread has undeniably died at this point, it is unfortunate that the Admin team has seemingly taken the following positions:
  • Self moderation is not a concern, and self moderating accusations of admin abuse are equally unconcerning
  • Admin has unfettered discretion to close threads that they think they know the answer to even when the thread itself is active and utterly harmless
  • Flamebaiting an OP will cause the thread to be shut down without consequences to the individual doing the baiting, thereby giving an incentive to flamebait

From what I've seen the admin team in TNP has suffered in the past from admins who thought they could just do what they wanted (see: Grosse), it's a shame that now the entire team seems willing to concede that point as well.
 
Some people reading this thread may be wondering why Admin is not posting anything in response to this thread, even after this long a time period. It seems there are two possibilities:
  1. Admin is overwhelmed with other tasks and unable to come to a conclusion as to how to respond to this thread.
  2. Admin is hoping I will either go away and stop bothering them, or that I will continue to try to get something at least resembling an answer to what is going on here so that Admin can then lock the thread and warn me for spamming.

The first option is problematic because Admin has been actively doing things elsewhere which would seem to indicate that it isn't an issue of availability but rather they're unable to make a statement about the three concerns raised above.

The second option is problematic because even if Admin thinks that no wrongdoing occurred they should be able to articulate why this is the case and provide such a reasoning here in a reasonable time-frame. They shouldn't engage the wall of silence to a user simply because they think "Oh that's just Mall doing trolly shit, we tolerate him from time to time but he's not a real user on this forum who deserves fair treatment, but we don't want to outright ban him because people find him entertaining and he hasn't actually broken any rules. If we get caught making nonsensical statements in a thread with him we can just shut it down, because hey, he's not a real user."

Figure it out, because TNP has always prided itself on having its Admin team stay above the fray. If TNP is going to go the route of having Admins use their powers to "win" arguments then that is fundamentally disappointing.
 
Abbey:
I'm not currently in a state to comment publicly about the substance of this but I will point out that the active admin teams current size is 2. It is hard to avoid self moderation as it is without us refraining from commenting on anything contentious.
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Just wanted to note that if this is the problem, it really isn't an excuse. There are five admins (not counting Hersfold's root acount) and six global moderators. If basic moderation is being left to only two people when there are eleven people responsible for it, it's time to stand down some of those eleven people and get more active administrators and moderators. The admin team has no one but themselves to blame if everything is falling on two people.

I agree with Mall -- who does know a thing or two about moderating contentious forum threads -- that this entire incident reflected improper moderation conduct, and it's pretty shocking to see in TNP where free speech is usually held in pretty high regard. Not that anyone will care what I think about it. Nonetheless, it's disappointing to see.
 
Abbey:
Admin is looking into this.
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Thank you, I appreciate the update. I ask (but do not demand) that Admin keeps users appraised of the progress of this task if it seems that it will take a decent amount of time.
 
It has been a week since Admin informed me here that the matter was being actively looked into. I requested that a notice be given if the inquiry would take a decent amount of time, in my mind a week is a decent amount of time for what appears to be (at least on the surface) a simple three pronged request for review.

To clarify for both Admin and those who may be watching this thread with a degree of interest:
  • I am asking for the initial lock of my thread to be overturned on the grounds that the OP and subsequent posts were not flamebait from me. I don't think they were flamebait from Gracius Maximus either frankly, it was just lighthearted banter.
  • I am asking for Flemingovia's self moderation to be looked at in the context of the locking of that thread. As far as I can tell Flemingovia accused me of editing a post in the thread which had previously contained a spurious argument. The problem of course is that none of my posts in that thread have been edited, you can look for yourself. Now this isn't a moderation issue, either I'm misconstruing what he said or he's lying/mistaken in his own right. Either way, doesn't really matter because he then (rather than arguing me down or just ignoring the thread) chose to lock it on the grounds of flamebait.
  • I am asking for Flemingovia's subsequent self moderation of this complaint ABOUT HIS SELF MODERATION ELSEWHERE be looked into. It is deeply and fundamentally wrong for a user who makes up a part of the Administration team to affirm their own questioned behavior when it is clear that this is an official appeal/inquiry into that behavior. It would be one thing if I was accusing the entire team of self moderation or corruption, in that case it would be impossible for an uninvolved user to arbitrate the matter. That's not what happened here though. I don't know if Flemingovia posted something in your Admin forum asking that someone else handle this. I don't know if Flemingovia tried to reach out via telegram or discord to contact another user with the Admin badge. The rest of the team, however, does know the answer to those questions.

The thread has been locked and killed at this point. I just want to know where the flamebait was. You don't need to unlock it, I just want vindication on that front that I'm not flamebaiting anywhere in that thread. Banter, sure. Rulebreaking? Your call as a team, but if it is then man oh man y'all should take a good long look at the stuff that other Admin users have posted.

The self moderation concern is the predominant issue here. Even if you find that the thread was flamebait and needed to be locked, Flemingovia should not have been the one to do it. He had a clear conflict of interests as outlined above. As a matter of policy even if Flemingovia knew that he was making the right call despite that conflict he still should not have made the call himself. The perception of a conflict of interests can be just as damaging as an actual conflict of interests.

The self moderation of the self moderation boggles the mind. It speaks for itself, but I've tried to help give it a bit more volume above.

As a final note, while I appreciate that Cormac indicated that I have some degree of experience in moderation matters due to my position on the NationStates site, I would like to clarify that I do not appeal to my site position in this argument. This is a TNP Forum administration/moderation issue, I view it as being utterly divorced from NS's site. If I could hide my moderation badge for the purposes of this appeal I would, but then again I have no such badge on this forum. I'm just another user, the same as any other. Thank you.
 
My "impudence" (word choice intentional) towards the NS Admin team is not anything hidden.

Although i have liked the additions of the more recent mods such as yourself, Mall. And by recent I mean within the last couple of years. And I use mod/admin interchangeably.

I am not speaking on behalf of the admins or the moderation team in making this post. I am speaking as an Admin Emeritus offering my two cents on the situation.

You know Ivan, and you know that calling him impudent would illicit a response. Ivan generally does not allow slights to go unnoticed and he particularly does not allow slights he deems as, how shall i say, incorrect to go uncorrected.

The thrust of your post was about the Constillibillicode and it's naming. Any reasonable person can see that. But while your post wasn't wholly aimed at Ivan and only a small portion makes mention of him, that small portion in my opinion is flamebait especially towards Ivan who we know well as mentioned previously.

I'll grant you that most people in response to your post didn't take it as flamebait as evidenced by the subsequent posts. However, that makes sense since the flamebait wasn't directed at them. But Ivan's response, on a day of love no less, was typical given your post.

Things devolved from there.

I see no reason for Flem to modify his actions with respect to closing the thread. It was only going to get worse and you and Ivan were only going to go back and forth.

I think you further inflamed the situation by saying he lacked "willpower". As stated above, that statement is likely to illicit a known style of reply from Ivan. To me that was just as much flamebait as the OP.

I expect a little more from you Mall. In this case I think you're off-base. TNP doesn't have a long history of closing down discussions say like the NS Admin team (ad hominem I know) just because. I do see the discussions going on with the admin team, but these are my two dimes.

I'd suggest that if you'd like to chide Ivan about something you believe to be correct in a flaming manner, you should do so elsewhere.
 
punk d:
My "impudence" (word choice intentional) towards the NS Admin team is not anything hidden.

Although i have liked the additions of the more recent mods such as yourself, Mall. And by recent I mean within the last couple of years. And I use mod/admin interchangeably.
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I appreciate the compliment.

punk d:
You know Ivan, and you know that calling him impudent would illicit a response. Ivan generally does not allow slights to go unnoticed and he particularly does not allow slights he deems as, how shall i say, incorrect to go uncorrected.

The thrust of your post was about the Constillibillicode and it's naming. Any reasonable person can see that. But while your post wasn't wholly aimed at Ivan and only a small portion makes mention of him, that small portion in my opinion is flamebait especially towards Ivan who we know well as mentioned previously.

I'll grant you that most people in response to your post didn't take it as flamebait as evidenced by the subsequent posts. However, that makes sense since the flamebait wasn't directed at them. But Ivan's response, on a day of love no less, was typical given your post.

Things devolved from there.
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Impudent is a fancy word for being rude or disrespectful. I really, truly, and fundamentally fail to see how any reasonable poster could be flamebaited by being called rude. I really don't know Ivan well, as far as I know our most significant encounter was in that Court thread I linked to. I think Ivan and I had a misunderstanding, I believe that he thinks that I claim to have been acting within the law. I know that I ignored Court procedures in that instance, my entire campaign platform in that election was that I would ignore the Constibillocode.

punk d:
I see no reason for Flem to modify his actions with respect to closing the thread. It was only going to get worse and you and Ivan were only going to go back and forth.
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The banter that Ivan and I were engaging in was going fine until he called me a moron and then asked if I was going to cry about something. That's the closest thing to flamebait in the thread, but in that context I still don't think even that amounted to flamebait.

punk d:
I think you further inflamed the situation by saying he lacked "willpower". As stated above, that statement is likely to illicit a known style of reply from Ivan. To me that was just as much flamebait as the OP.
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I didn't say that he lacked "willpower", I said that he lacked the requisite willpower necessary to subjugate a region in the long run a la Francos Spain. If someone told me I lacked the willpower to climb Mount Everest I wouldn't say they were flamebaiting me, I'd say "Yeah you're right!"

punk d:
I expect a little more from you Mall. In this case I think you're off-base. TNP doesn't have a long history of closing down discussions say like the NS Admin team (ad hominem I know) just because. I do see the discussions going on with the admin team, but these are my two dimes.
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TNP has a history of having a problematic Admin structure which had Grosse at the top. Then it got sorted when Root Access was distributed to other trusted admins and things were looking good. Obviously things got bumpy when Grosse was removed, but thing seemed to have balanced out. Now we have an Admin accusing a player of editing a post in a thread to hide an argument when in fact no posts of his anywhere in that thread had been edited, and when that is pointed out to them the Admin decides it was flamebait all along and shuts down the thread rather than accepting they were wrong on that point. You've fundamentally missed the point here, whether or not the thread was flamebait (though I contend it obviously was not) is the least important part of this report. Flemingovia's self moderation of the thread, followed by his self moderation of this complaint about his self moderation, is far more important because it deals with the ability of the users of this forum to be confident in the professionalism and impartiality of the Admin team.

punk d:
I'd suggest that if you'd like to chide Ivan about something you believe to be correct in a flaming manner, you should do so elsewhere.
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If calling a user rude is flaming then that is problematic for pretty much every active poster on this forum. This is a political simulation game, if you can't handle being called rude in passing, that is just too bad. Besides, the thread wasn't locked for flaming, it was locked for flamebaiting.

I've been a straight shooter with the admins/mods on this forum. I've never had a warning, I don't go around involving myself in moderation matters here. My IC antics are well known, but they have never crossed any lines. If the Admin team is going to have a policy going forward that self moderation is fine, and that admins can deal with complaints centered on their own misuse of admin powers, then I think the users should know that.
 
Sadly I feel the need to note that I edited the above post to fix some quote errors, so that I don't get accused of editing it to hide an argument.
 
I'm not trying to be an asshole in posting here. I made this thread over a month ago, and was finally told that Admin was actually looking into this over three weeks ago. Fifteen days ago I made a post to make it explicitly clear (even though I think it already was) what I was asking of Admin. Since then I have gotten one post, from an Admin Emeritus who was explicitly not speaking on behalf of Admin.

Is this actually being looked into? If this is going to be a case of "Go away Mall, we're not actually going to look into this at all" then you could just tell me that so I know. If you've decided one way or the other then you could tell me what you've decided. If there is simply a lack of active Admins which means that Flemingovia runs the show entirely now and that's the end of the discussion, you could tell me that.

I just want to know what is going on, and I'm worried that at some point an Admin is just going to lock down this thread without response rather than dealing with what is, at its heart, an incredibly simple tripartite request. If Admin does decide to lock this thread without an actual explanation then I suppose the only logical assumption to be drawn is that accusations of impropriety lodged against those entrusted to run these forums are dismissed without review as a matter of policy.

I suppose it is somewhat disheartening to think that even if the requests are decided to be valid tonight, it takes this long to get an incorrect ruling and two cases of Admin abuse dealt with... though even if all three requests are deemed frivolous it is still somewhat disconcerting that it would take Admin so long to decide that Flemingovia was 1) correct, 2) not abusing Admin powers in making the decision, and 3) didn't abuse Admin powers when ruling on the issue of his own alleged abuse of Admin powers.

Can I get a meaningful time-line on this?
 
The actions flem took would have been taken by any other member of the team. It just happened that flem was the admin available to deal with a thread that was descending into baiting and other such nastiness.

He was not self-moderating as he had no involvement in the nastiness and is an experienced administrator capable of making that decision.
 
This just completely ignores the entire substance of my defense of my actions as well as the report of the self moderation issues. It ignores that it doesn't matter if the decision was ultimately right in the end, that what matters is that Flemingovia was called out in the thread for a still-unexplained comment and then Flemingovia locked the thread, a clear conflict of interests since Flemingovia was engaging against me in the thread. It also ignores that Flemingovia then self-moderated the accusation of self-moderation. I suspect that this is as far as I'll get though in this inquiry, so I'll assume that the following was correct:
Mall:
  • Self moderation is not a concern, and self moderating accusations of admin abuse are equally unconcerning
  • Admin has unfettered discretion to close threads that they think they know the answer to even when the thread itself is active and utterly harmless
  • Flamebaiting an OP will cause the thread to be shut down without consequences to the individual doing the baiting, thereby giving an incentive to flamebait
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You win, lock this thread if you want. I won't be responding further.
 
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