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I'm not really sure where to put this thread. I apologize if this is a bad place.

Last night, I was livid upon receiving PMs from a purple mod that went something like this:



Well, you learn something new every day, and what I learned is that breaking a rule around here can be like stepping on a landmine. Even if you think you're being careful and even if you think you're safe, KABOOM. I learned that a mod is not necessarily recognizable by the color of their user name. It may be buried in a post somewhere. The person that you think is just lashing out and threatening to report people because they're having a bad day may actually be a pseudo-mod who can, upon a whim, take steps toward banning your account.

My suggestion: if people can start threads with their own rules, appointing their own mods to monitor them, these "thread-mods" should not simply shout "GET OUT." Since they are NOT recognizable as mods (because they're not REALLY mods), they should make it clear that they DO have the authority to report you FOR THAT THREAD (albeit for nothing.) It is NOT intuitive. If the "offender" posts again to question it, they should be referred to a place where it clearly states that the thread starter is the "admin" of his thread and his "staff" are pseudo-mods. Once this is made perfectly clear and the offender continues to post, warn away.

In my case, the "mod" in question was lashing out at nearly everyone (she was very annoyed that "new" people were in the thread at all), so I didn't take her very seriously, though I did make sure that a) it wasn't her thread and b) I had not broken any of the thread's rules. I had not flamed or insulted anyone and, until her post, I had not addressed her at all. (I reviewed the thread after this post, and found I had made pleasant conversation with her. But this was based on something she said, not who she was.) So I didn't think anything of it...until the PM arrived a couple of days later.

Basically, it can be very hard to tell a "thread mod" from the average hysterical user, and I think it's unreasonable to expect people to know that this is the way things work around here - or just in Chatterbox? Even if the first post says they'll report you, it's still unlikely people are going to take it seriously. People say all kinds of things which are, frankly, BS. Those of us with years of experience on message forums (I've got 10) are used to a system where mods and admin are mods and admin and others are, well, not.

Anyway, next thing I know, I'm frantically moving stuff out of my account, scared that maybe I used the wrong font color in another thread somewhere and banning is imminent. And I'm deathly afraid of spending another dollar here because of this.

That's the user concern of it.

FROM A MOD STANDPOINT:

Do mods REALLY have time or want to spend their time responding to reports which stem out of the whims and bad moods of self-proclaimed moderators? Which brings me to my REAL suggestion, which is to define harrassment as stalking or badgering another user when they have asked you not to or to leave a thread when the thread-STARTER asks you to. THAT'S pretty intuitive. A no-brainer, really. Let the "staff" report to the thread-starter, and let the thread-starter make the report. That would cut down on a lot of petty stuff to wade through, no?

And if mods DO want to continue to respond to the complaints of self-proclaimed kings and queens of homemade thread kingdoms, more power to ya. I would suggest, though, out of fairness, that someone like me, who's still relatively new, and who doesn't have a history of abusive behavior (the words "harrassment" and "abusive" REALLY got under my skin, I must say), should get a VERBAL warning before ANY discussion of a formal warning takes place.

When I asked this mod how many times I could get such a warning (step on a landmine) before a ban, she basically told me I had one more chance.



If I do the math, that means two chances total, one used already, with no verbal warnings before the countdown. OUCH!

And as I type this, I have to wonder if I'm unknowingly doing something that will get me that ban!

She also quoted this:


I did attempt to follow the rules. I was simply unaware that this non-mod was really a "mod." stressed


No one in this thread's staff made any attempt to let me know where this was going. I had PMs open to anyone. They could have sent me one. The person who shouted "GET OUT" really could have taken a short break from her tantrums to spell this out to me a little better in the thread. No. It was just "GET OUT!" confused


If my posts had been deleted, surely I would have gotten the hint. I'm not a glutton for punishment. Or, the thread-starter could have put me on ignore and I wouldn't have been able to post again. Not that I did much after that. Frankly, I got tired of seeing everyone walking on eggshells there.


I'm not sure how the blacklist works, but if that means, as the thread-mod later told me in a PM, when I angrily wrote to thank her for my first formal warning, that I could be "banned," then why not just do that?

And what about the clearly in "clearly asked to leave"? Again, thread-mod? Crazed user? I think it's only fair that we get to know the difference, especially when we're NOT actually harrassing, stalking or being abusive in the first place!

If the thread-starters and their staff have all these options available to them, why bother mods?

And mods...if you get report from one of these "special" threads, perhaps cut some of us a little slack, especially when we're new and this is a very unusual situation.

Thanks for reading.

*carefully steps out, trying to avoid landmines*

Well, I'm not suggesting that the mods are necessarily out of control (though I did think the one who dealt with me could have spared me the formal warning for my first "harrassment" offense.) I do think the pseudo-mod in that Chatterbox thread was completely out of control and, if I were a mod, I wouldn't want to deal with what appeared to be mood swings.

I have a 14 year-old. He's not like that.

And the Purple Mod is grown-up.

But yeah, I moved everything to a mule. This avatar is a ghost. And damn it, I'd just bought new hair! sad

Bless your heart.

My son pointed me to that thread one morning. I don't usually go for that kind of thing but I thought, hey, post a little. It was a little too much, apparently. I guess Chatterbox is a place where kids get to learn how to gain and abuse power. rofl

My mule is going to keep her mouth shut, and I'm just going to wait a while and see what happens to this profile, which is really my preferred account, but whatever.

Thanks for the invite. Maybe I'll poke around. And your post really did make me feel better. I almost felt like I was shouting into the wind.

I don't have control over who blows my account out of the water nor why. I like the sig, and it's staying. The profile? I agree, and it was changed before you even mentioned it.

It really doesn't matter how old you are. When you feel you're unfairly treated, you just feel that way and that's that. You'll see. I know this is predominantly a kids' site, but adults DO like to have fun, and we quest and play and donate and work hard on our stuff just like anyone.

Like I said in another thread, if adults didn't like to have fun, there'd be no kids.

Point being is, if you are asked or told to leave LEAVE.
If your having a bad day and feel like taking it out on someone elses thread or forum or whatever is abusive. If you do not leave when told you are abusing their rights to their own thread. Just get out. Because you will lose the fight. domokun But always remember: "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!"

That's why I am still shaking me head in disbelief.