I'm not privy to any communication you have had with DK behind doors, but I would guess he (or another mod from YA) spelled out what was expected. As far as I know, that would suggest that you need to up the quality of your posts. What that means is relative to your posting and I will not speculate. But the important part is that it is about YOU on BigSoccer and not anybody else or any other board. (As a side note - moderating is also relative to the board. Here, there is enough discussion to self generate and to prevent flame wars, etc. mods will step in and restrict when necessary. Further, I will say what has been said before ad nauseum: speech can be limited.)
For myself, the first post was something like this -- Nothing to me personally, and absolutely nothing about the quality of my posts. Needless to say, I was surprised. Where is the customer service which actually looks into this?
^ I've been on a fair few forums, and I've never seen such a ridiculous rule. Is this like the kids at school being rubbish at sports being picked last. "You have been picked out as not making a good enough contribution (in their opinion) therefore we will allow you to only post 10 times" ?? basically a way of forcing you out of the discussion. Is it April 1st already??
No. I didn't. I gave some thought to coming here...but as the original poster said, if the reason a person is banned is simply because they're posting, what's the point of trying to be reinstated? I have been keeping an eye here, tho', because obviously I wasn't the only person involved.
Hmmm. I got my original post back in August, so I guess this is a continuing management method. I did get an explanation...which was -- So....if you ban everyone who would want to post on a topic, you can cut down on the discussion of that topic. Amazing, huh?
Okay folks - this has been fun, but I'm going to call an end to this thread very shortly. You guys don't seem to want to understand, but the Freddy threads created an unusual situation where we had a small handful of folks posting the same things over and over - the same arguments and the same points of view, over and over. We had posters that seemed to only be in Yanks Abroad just to do this - and in the moderators (plural) judgement, it was to the detriment of quality discussion and we wanted to try to do something about it. We tried various measures, but finally it became clear that the majority of the problem rested in the hands of a handful of posters. We didn't want to have a full ban which seemed harsh - but I believe you were all asked to keep it to 10-15 posts a thread, which was well within what many other folks were contributing and seemed perfectly reasonable amount of posts to contribute and be part of the discussion. Those who we contacted were askedto rein it in in order to let others have discussions without the same white noise of repeated issues. To be blunt, this is y'all I'm talking about. Generally speaking, most posters we contact for a variety of reasons are really cool about it - they appreciate that it's mostly a thankless position and they appreciate that if we are contacting them it's because we are trying to further quality discussion in the forum and most posters don't assume that it's some kind of arbitrary personal persecution. If posters are concerned about the forum generally and other posters, they don't act like the forum is theirs to post however the heck they want whenever the heck they want to. You folks have all acted indignant and somewhat unpleasant and like you don't have to bother to listen to the moderators and all seemingly are unwilling to employ the use of any introspection into why your posts might not be the sort that we want to give free rein to. I apologize if you felt like it was arbitrary persecution, but the only person who was remotely pleasant in the interactions was BF who perhaps -based on his contributions here - was just blowing smoke. But really, BF was generally cool about it and still has access to Yanks Abroad and still can post in Freddy threads if he chooses. Those of you who do not have access to the forum acted dismissive and then proceeded to ignore the request more than once (I believe you were all given reminders first before the continued ignoring of the request occurred). This forum is too large for us to coddle users who are hostile towards moderator requests and act outraged if they don't get their way. There are all sorts of other options for you if you want to go on about Adu, un-moderated, and in fact, I think I have pointed you in the direction of USA Men in the past where I have said that you will never have any interference from me if you want to post about Freddy to your heart's content. Yanks Abroad however is a more strictly moderated forum where our goal is to have more serious discussions about soccer. Folks who want to hash, rehash and corn beef hash the same retread topics about one individual player and then act outraged when asked to rein it in are not in keeping with this goal. And if you ignore the clear requests, don't be shocked if eventually, after another warning, end up with your posting there restricted. Thanks for making an effort to understand.
I understand that you think what you did is correct. Tho' I do appreciate the irony of the threat to shut down discussion of the subject in customer service..... To the other mod, THIS is why I didn't come here.
This. Hey, I follow rules. Doesnt mean I have to like them, and NOT question decisions. I was patient, I really dont feel much of a need to post on Adu threads, but the way it was handled like the poster above said, is pretty rediculious. Yes, we may make the same points over and over again, but doesnt the same points come up in the threads now, just no one questions many posters as I amongst other did before? I guess we were the side chosen to stay out, which is fine. I have no issue with that, I just feel though, it could have been handled better. Agian, I respect the opinions of the mods (as I too am a Mod on other forums, makes me try to think like a mod), and try my best to get where they are coming from..... still doesnt mean I agree with it. I think it could have been handled better, with more care and patience.... but maybe thats just me. Adu is a polarizing figure, to kill off discussions about him, especially with new news, just doesnt make sense to me and ofr this site.
I have been banned from the Yank boards for pointing out flaws with the USA 2022 bid. Apparently its a crime to not believe that everything American is the greatest in the Universe. Makes me wonder why the Yanks would even bother with a sport like soccer, which is played by more than 1 country.
Don't worry I got banned for calling Donovan Laddycake and then trying to explain that he isn't as great as everyone says he is because he likes being a big fish in a small pond. That being said, I understand why to a degree they are a bit heavy on the mod, but it is a bit over the top just like majority of the posters there.
this website doesn't have to explain to the posters---TOS I have been told does not matter--God forbid you piss off a mod and then they just follow you and wait to ban you... Then there is no one you can talk to about the abuse. When they answer your emails they don't respond with a title or name--How unprofessional and gutless.....Its a joke!
What I'm upset about is that the standards vary from forum to forum so wildly. Some forums have involved mods who seem to enjoy the conversations, and others (Yanks Abroad being one) have mods who act like traffic cops trying to police a drunken crowd on New Year's Eve. Maybe it's a function of the # of posts in the forum. Maybe some posters are just more irritating.... Anyway, my point for coming back to this subject is -- have you ever considered a invitation-only forum for the top posters? One that everyone could read, but that posters would have to be especially interesting to gain access to. It would mean that there was some "carrot" in what a mod could do (instead of all "stick"), and give posters some incentive to make their posts better.
I've actually considered that idea a lot, especially in USA Men where the discussions are sometimes just too busy - when you have lots and lots of posters posting, good discussion can get buried quickly. Just not sure how to make it work.
We used to have the "All-Star forum." Users had their title edited to read "BigSoccer All-Star" and they'd have access to a private forum. Only moderators could vote who got into the forum. However, this quickly turned into a popularity contest of sorts, and the idea was nixed when the BSSC started. I can totally understand why some moderators are more strict. Forums of a "News & Analysis" type certainly deserve to be more strict. Perhaps an individual forum has had trouble with trolling in the past, whereas another one hasn't. For example, if I go into the Colorado forum and say "Hey, your player scored a really sweet goal, but that injury late in the game really sucked" it may be interpreted one way. However, if I go into the Mexico forum and say that same thing, I can totally understand why it would be interpreted an entirely other way. It's a lot like police. If you're going 8 MPH over the speed limit, one police officer may turn a blind eye. However, if it's a different officer, he may give you a warning. (I'm not even including other factors like weather, school zone, "speeding strictly enforced" signs, etc.)
I guess it was permanent then. Still haven't violated the TOS in any way, with almost unanimously positive rep. I should never have posted more than 5 times in that one thread.