A quick word on the banning of Saerules.
It seems some members of this community are annoyed that Saerules was banned. One of them (Purple Rabbit) has already up and left partly because of it, but also because of the new rule. After spending some time arguing with him in IRC last night, I thought it would be better for everyone to know the facts about why the staff decided to ban Saerules.
1) Saerules was already on a warning from just less than a month ago. This warning was given because Saerules had received a PM from Godhead, revealing him to be a troll (this was before we knew by the way). Instead of doing the sensible thing and reporting it, Saerules encouraged his trolling, saying she enjoyed reading them. As a result of her actions, Godhead was able to go on trolling before we finally caught him and banned him. For this, we gave her a 25% warning level, which has no effect on what she can do on the forums; it is a very low form of punishment. The warning expires after a month, as all warnings do.
2) In relation to the above, Saerules constantly argued against the decision taken by the staff, either complaining that it wasn't her fault, or that the staff had somehow done something wrong by looking at her PMs without her permission. The first point is highly dubious, as I mentioned above. It is clear from her PM that she was encouraging the trolling. The second point is completely false, and had Saerules read the registration agreement when she signed up, rather than just clicking "I Agree", then she might understand that the Admin have the right, at any time, to look at private messages of the forum members. The rules apply in the public forums, and in private messaging. Usually we do not have any reason to look at a private message unless a member has specifically reported something. In this case, Saerules told us she'd known Godhead was a troll due to the PM (after he was banned), and when we checked the PM in question, it became clear that Saerules had not only failed to report this at the proper time, but had encouraged the behavior.
3) After a brief hiatus on the forums, Saerules returned yesterday and saw that both the negative reputation had been removed, and the new rule concerning personal attacks had been put in place. The two posts she made on the matter:
http://atheistforums.org/thread-4403-pos...l#pid87092
http://atheistforums.org/thread-4423-pos...l#pid87093 (this was actually 3 posts, but I merged them all)
were littered with insults, attacking other members & staff. I've have been very impressed with the ability of our regular members to talk about these issues properly and rationally, without resulting to anger. Members like Paul the Human and Synackaon instantly spring to mind, and I thank them for their honesty, but more so their civility. Saerules showed no such restraint, and if you read through those posts I think you can understand part of our reaction. Some examples:
"The forums still have civility, you twit."
"Woman... I retyped one of my posts to you recently six times, and still can't get the insults out."
"Take 'In This Mind', right? Utter fucktard."
As per our policy, we gave Saerules a verbal warning for each of these posts.
4) Saerules responded to both my verbal warnings (PMs), and again, her responses were littered with insults. She also made it clear that because she didn't agree with the rules, she had no intention of following them. Since there isn't a better way of illustrating this, here is the entire conversation we had:
5) Whilst she was sending PMs to me, she also added neutral reputations to both Eilonnwy and I, abusing the reputation system in two ways (firstly by using a neutral as a negative, and secondly by breaking the 'no personal attack' rule yet again). These reputations are below:
Tiberius - "Seriously Tiberius... I'm disgusted. You read my PM without asking, and gave me a warning. You've just cheered in changes that are very bad for the forum. And you don't challenge me on a member-member ground... you are a coward, hiding behind power."
Eilonnwy - "In the vein of honesty... this would be negative, but you've removed our right to tell people what we think of them, you bitch. You also hardly let us feel secure in telling you this, so fuck you. Really."
So, after 2 posts containing numerous personal attacks; 2 reputations containing personal attacks, an entire PM conversation which contained personal attacks, and a statement of intent that she would not follow the rules, despite my continual reminders, we decided that a ban was in order.
At the moment, the ban stands at a month, but the staff are in discussions and the likely outcome will be a reduced length of time (2 weeks) due to Saerules being a long time member. This is done in the hope that she will come back to the forum after calming down, and be able to rationally look at the opinions and actions of the staff.
I hope this clears up the matter, and I hope that everyone can see what we had to deal with. We didn't want to ban Saerules; none of the staff want to see such actions being taken at all. Saerules forced our hand by repeatedly ignoring the rules, and by abusing the systems in place to protect all users.
It seems some members of this community are annoyed that Saerules was banned. One of them (Purple Rabbit) has already up and left partly because of it, but also because of the new rule. After spending some time arguing with him in IRC last night, I thought it would be better for everyone to know the facts about why the staff decided to ban Saerules.
1) Saerules was already on a warning from just less than a month ago. This warning was given because Saerules had received a PM from Godhead, revealing him to be a troll (this was before we knew by the way). Instead of doing the sensible thing and reporting it, Saerules encouraged his trolling, saying she enjoyed reading them. As a result of her actions, Godhead was able to go on trolling before we finally caught him and banned him. For this, we gave her a 25% warning level, which has no effect on what she can do on the forums; it is a very low form of punishment. The warning expires after a month, as all warnings do.
2) In relation to the above, Saerules constantly argued against the decision taken by the staff, either complaining that it wasn't her fault, or that the staff had somehow done something wrong by looking at her PMs without her permission. The first point is highly dubious, as I mentioned above. It is clear from her PM that she was encouraging the trolling. The second point is completely false, and had Saerules read the registration agreement when she signed up, rather than just clicking "I Agree", then she might understand that the Admin have the right, at any time, to look at private messages of the forum members. The rules apply in the public forums, and in private messaging. Usually we do not have any reason to look at a private message unless a member has specifically reported something. In this case, Saerules told us she'd known Godhead was a troll due to the PM (after he was banned), and when we checked the PM in question, it became clear that Saerules had not only failed to report this at the proper time, but had encouraged the behavior.
3) After a brief hiatus on the forums, Saerules returned yesterday and saw that both the negative reputation had been removed, and the new rule concerning personal attacks had been put in place. The two posts she made on the matter:
http://atheistforums.org/thread-4403-pos...l#pid87092
http://atheistforums.org/thread-4423-pos...l#pid87093 (this was actually 3 posts, but I merged them all)
were littered with insults, attacking other members & staff. I've have been very impressed with the ability of our regular members to talk about these issues properly and rationally, without resulting to anger. Members like Paul the Human and Synackaon instantly spring to mind, and I thank them for their honesty, but more so their civility. Saerules showed no such restraint, and if you read through those posts I think you can understand part of our reaction. Some examples:
"The forums still have civility, you twit."
"Woman... I retyped one of my posts to you recently six times, and still can't get the insults out."
"Take 'In This Mind', right? Utter fucktard."
As per our policy, we gave Saerules a verbal warning for each of these posts.
4) Saerules responded to both my verbal warnings (PMs), and again, her responses were littered with insults. She also made it clear that because she didn't agree with the rules, she had no intention of following them. Since there isn't a better way of illustrating this, here is the entire conversation we had:
But I do not like that I can be banned for taking an outright stand against their decisions. I insult all the more because my right to insult here is being pirated away, and frankly I don't want 
5) Whilst she was sending PMs to me, she also added neutral reputations to both Eilonnwy and I, abusing the reputation system in two ways (firstly by using a neutral as a negative, and secondly by breaking the 'no personal attack' rule yet again). These reputations are below:
Tiberius - "Seriously Tiberius... I'm disgusted. You read my PM without asking, and gave me a warning. You've just cheered in changes that are very bad for the forum. And you don't challenge me on a member-member ground... you are a coward, hiding behind power."
Eilonnwy - "In the vein of honesty... this would be negative, but you've removed our right to tell people what we think of them, you bitch. You also hardly let us feel secure in telling you this, so fuck you. Really."
So, after 2 posts containing numerous personal attacks; 2 reputations containing personal attacks, an entire PM conversation which contained personal attacks, and a statement of intent that she would not follow the rules, despite my continual reminders, we decided that a ban was in order.
At the moment, the ban stands at a month, but the staff are in discussions and the likely outcome will be a reduced length of time (2 weeks) due to Saerules being a long time member. This is done in the hope that she will come back to the forum after calming down, and be able to rationally look at the opinions and actions of the staff.
I hope this clears up the matter, and I hope that everyone can see what we had to deal with. We didn't want to ban Saerules; none of the staff want to see such actions being taken at all. Saerules forced our hand by repeatedly ignoring the rules, and by abusing the systems in place to protect all users.
