I think this all was a misunderstanding and that the mods are responding appropriately. I think new users are critical to the community so this is probably an important issue. Volunteers or not I believe the mods want to do the best job they can and I'm impressed they've actually taken the time and effort to respond here, and I thank them for it.
Wow, I'm surprised to see such a trollish post from you Rubicon. First of all, to say "we" rarely see spam is just silly. I see it nearly every time I visit TA, multiple times a day. If you don't see any, you must not be doing much reading. That's not the point really, and I agree that the mods do a great job for the most part, but I can't stand when people presume to speak for others. As for what I do, the answer is all I can. I answer people's questions, post my opinions and experiences with games, report actual spam, and try to protect the community and its future by defending new members wrongfully banned. Just to be clear on what happened here, only one of the banned induviduals was creating additional unnecessary threads, the others afaik were simply new members banned for posting on topic in the correct place because someone assumed without evidence that they were shill accounts. I'm sure you would not be happy if that happened to your players. Then again you wouldn't have to worry about it. As a respected member, you would be above suspicion of shilling I suppose.
Not trolling, I mean it. I think a few people here are overdoing it a bit. If these friends are keen enough they'll come back and be a bit less obvious about shilling. If they only want to come here to post about one game, then maybe they should stick to that games facebook page. If it looks like a shill, and sounds like a shill, it is a shill. Even if it wasn't meant that way. The mods don't know they're friends of yours. This has nothing to do with me though, so I'll end my contribution here. I just wanted to say thanks to the volunteers, mainly. Quick edit: Everything I say seems biased with having a developer badge, but in all honesty I'd never consider inviting friends and family to come shill for my own threads. If I can't attract enough interest from regular members then there's no point anyway. And I agree that "this is ace" from one-counters gets ignored in any case.
One of the players banned (and not yet unbanned) was browsing the forum this morning for other RPGs, despite the ban, and discussing them in game chat. If that's not a potential contributing member, I don't know what is. The point I've tried to make several times that people seem to be oblivious to is that most members start by posting about a single game. If everyone who did so was banned days (or hours) after joining without a chance to post about other games, this would be a pretty small community.
lol, so much for me leaving it there. For what it's worth, I agree that from your description your friend was probably hard done to. And it's good that the mods are re-evaluating. But what led me to put pen to paper is the foot stamping and indignation, whilst not thinking about the mods' view of the board. Some harsh words got thrown about earlier and they don't deserve it.
You are still (purposefully, I think) missing the point. If someone acts exactly like a spammer/shiller in their first post, they get banned. With the information at hand, potential later behavior can't be a consideration. If you pursued the same line of reasoning, you are suggesting that if someone posts about "BUY VIA*GRA", we should not ban them, due to the possibility that they might become contributing members of the forum and some ill defined point in the future. Or if a regular member later becomes a spammer, we should lock down the forum to any new registrations because who knows, maybe a seemingly real user will turn bad later down the line. Someone gets banned unjustly? Send a complaint, post a thread, and we look into it. The mod who banned them has already reversed the ban. This is the system working correctly. The person who is still banned but believes he/she is not a shill/spammer. Contact the site, or re-register, and act less spammy. arn
I am missing nothing. I just disagree, and believe you are missing my point Someone selling Viagra has no place here and should be banned on sight. Someone posting about a game in the correct thread should not be assumed to be a shill simply because they are new and like the game. That's just going to discourage new blood in the forums (which I dunno maybe you want to do?). Long story short, an advertiser is obviously out of place, a new member who likes a game, while potentially shill, is not obviously one. Without further evidence it seems a shame to ban, particularly so quickly. Anyway that's my (correct ) opinion and obviously many disagree with me, so I'll move on. I'm glad to see there is a recourse of action possible, and that some members have been reinstated. To end I'll reiterate that I have a lot of respect for the people who keep this site running smoothly. I've been a mod and I know it can be a lot of work. I just felt there was some injustice going on in this case.
While we can agree to disagree as to whether the initial bans were warranted. I (hope we can?) agree that the aftermath was handled appropriately, it was nice to see Mods (and Admin, and Spam police, etc) take the time to respond and reconsider. Royce ovbiously has very strong opinion here but IMO whats done is done and has been rectified.
Wasn't me, never visited Crazy Quest thread. Man this sucks if legit newcomers got banned Edit: scratch that if
It seems one additional user (she's tofucute in game, not sure if that's her TA username) was banned along with the rest of them. I believe she's emailing the mods and I'm sure they'll handle it, but I promised her I'd post here anyway just in case...
Thanks ! He did well spamming, 35 threads in the space of 10 minutes or so ! Most do a few and leave it. Is there any chance putting that website (avufo) in the banned words list so it wont appear ? Thats the site (i wont put the full address) that lots of 'clever' spammers use, they post and keep an invisible link to that address. If avufo was in the banned words list it wont be picked up by Google etc
Well, my take on this issue actually stems from a dilemma common in law enforcement. Give me a sec, and I'll try to explain: So let's say that you are a police officer. During your rounds you see three people acting suspiciously. What do you do? Two possibilities in no particular order: 1. Accost them and see how they respond. This is a defensive response, and actually is a result of a criminology theory, I think. The idea is this: by "double-checking" suspicious people, it makes those people aware that authorities do pay attention. Thus, they would, theoretically, be less likely to do crime. This will also drive up the number of arrests, since if a person acts suspiciously enough, officers do have the authority to detain them until they can determine if said person is a "bad/good guy". The obvious downside to this is that innocents may get unfairly arrested at a far greater frequency than otherwise. This could give law enforcement a bad image, and drives up the cost of the justice system. This leads to the second possible action: 2. Only intervene if a law is clearly broken. This approach helps ensure that a no-gooder will be apprehended, and that officers will not be bogged down with minor suspicions when a crime is clearly in progress. This helps streamline the justice system and can take out some of the guesswork when it comes to judging grounds for an arrest. Also, fewer innocents caught in the net = better PR, which means better budget AND better reputation. Of course, this brings up some drawbacks: what about people intelligent enough to evade the law successfully? If cops have to see a crime with their own eyes and ears in order to serve justice, then what about the crimes that are not visible? They slip through the cracks, like the Rescue Rangers theme song. Thus, actual crime rate will actually increase, which creates a false sense of peace since criminals could organize and create systems of avoiding the law that could paralyze the justice system from getting at the worst offenders, in the long run. One of the reasons the mob is such a fearsome villainous group (outside of entertainment portrayals) is because they found ways of doing exactly this, and they exploit it with impunity. With this in mind, imagine the mods/spam police as the law enforcement officers. Think about how they have to deal with a similar dilemma. I really have no hard or fast answer to the issue in this thread. But I do feel sympathy to all affected, innocent parties in this whole ordeal. Sure, what I outlined is at a far more serious and life-changing scale than what happens in a forum on the Internet. And yet, the similarities do give me pause, and make me at least see what the mods/spam police have to deal with. Just a thought for consideration ^_^ Sincerely, Mr. Album
Just because this is the Internet doesn't mean parallels between similar (not exactly the same) situations/issues cannot be drawn, which is what I attempted to do. Also, this does not mean that people cannot take away other thoughts/perspectives on a particular issue from a similar, albeit more serious, issue. As a result of these apparent truths, I fail to see why anyone would logically call my perspective a "random guff". Yes, some thought is needed to see my point, and if I failed to make the parallel connections between the issue I brought up and the issue in this thread, I apologize. If I wasn't clear, then I SHOULD have been clear. But that can be chalked up to linguistic incompetence, NOT with the argument that was linguistically miscommunicated. Hence why I do not logically (i.e. without any emotional response) see why you summed up the argument that way. I still stand by the contents of my first post. That is still my perspective on this issue, but I am open to taking a look at other people's perspectives... if they even communicate them. Free will applied to a mass population can make communication a headache sometimes >_< Sincerely, Mr. Album
