[Debate] Staff Abusing Powers

[lantian]

...

[zai]

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum?

That's a hard question to answer. Certainly when normal staff members try to over-rule the admin, as others have said. Any staff member or admin who uses their powers for their own personal convenience, I think, it stepping over the line. My general rule, personally, is to think, "Is what I'm doing going to be for the good of the members and other staff, or just help me?" Then, based on the answer, I either keep doing what I'm doing or stop. It really helps.

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?

I don't think anyone with power should ever warn or ban someone in a fight. I know an admin whose rule when disagreeing with members was to pick another staff member completely outside the problem to examine the issue. I try never to take action against someone I'm arguing with because I feel I'm too close to the problem.

What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to force them into submission with their own beliefs?

This one got me at idle threats. Idle threats are a bad idea in general; your rules and punishments should be set in stone and not something to use just when you feel like it. Second of all, forcing a member into submission backs them into a tight corner, and you know what cornered animals do. This, overall, seems a bad idea.

What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted?

Generally, unless they violate the forum rules or ToS, I don't see a reason to do this. That will make the poster feel like their opinion means nothing just because it isn't your opinion. Showing that you allow opposition to your opinions separates you from an iron-fisted tyrant and will make other members more comfortable coming to you with suggestions or ideas that might prove very useful.


Have you had experience with this? Were you ever accused of abusing your powers or a member who was a victim of an abusive staff?

I've never been accused of abusing my staff powers, but I know I have. An argument between my friend and another member made me ban the other member. A month later, after the person was forgiven for my mistake, they began to hassle people again and the entire staff voted that they were no good. So, while the choice I made was correct in the end, I made it for the wrong reasons.

And yes, I have been a victim of bad staff as well. When I was role-playing, I played a character who didn't get on with an admin's character. I was a good member there for half a year before my character said something to theirs and I found myself warned for something said in-character. I tried to talk to the admin about it through PMs and sort out the whole thing, and I ended up banned.

Overall, a bad choice of admin and/or staff can completely ruin a forum.

[Remis]

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum?
When they use their staff powers for... Less then honorable reasons. If there was a forum about patriotism for America, and a member comes along and says "I don't like America" and then gets banned. That is abusing powers extremely. Staff powers should only be used to handle staff matters, not personal disagreements or what-not.

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?
No. At least, not for disagreements with personal beliefs. To be honest, that is none of the staffs business.

What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs?
Horrible. It is just as worst as actually banning the members.

What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted?
Still an abuse of powers. Now, if they cause flame-wars and what-not, then yeah, it is your duty to delete it. If it is a debate about religion and you are a die-hard christian, and it seems most of your forum is Atheist, and you delete the thread because of that... Well, that is definitely an abuse of power.

Have you had experience with this? Were you ever accused of abusing your powers or a member who was a victim of an abusive staff?
Only one, I was the victim. I can't even remember what I said, but everything that could be modified was changed to "O___O". That stupid smiley face.

[matrix934]

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum?
When they do something unreasonable. Deleting for no reason, banning without any given warning

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?
The banning is sometimes too strict. Warnings are better, but not to be misused.


What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs?
Bad idea all over.

What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted?
If it was directly and clearly written in the rules of the forum, then it is ok. Otherwise, it makes no sense. People have rights to have their own opinions.

Have you had experience with this? Were you ever accused of abusing your powers or a member who was a victim of an abusive staff?
On my very first Proboards forum that I joined, I had absolutely no clue what a forum was or what to do. I ended up getting banned for 3 days posting in the wrong section a couple of times.


I'm not the kind of guy that gives staff members a lot of power. I just can't trust every staff member with the ability to delete posts, threads, boards, or even categories. That's a lot of work that I put into my forum just to have it all deleted by some staff member. That could easily kill my forum.

[Nacku]

Aug 6, 2008 10:08:31 GMT -8 @matrix934 said:

What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs?
Bad idea all over.

Exactly! And when a female doesn't want to feed the ego of some meglomaniac with a "God complex" and then goes off in a huff and whines about not being able to control her (or whatever religious belief he was brought up in that treats women like dirt), it just shows how pathetic he really must be in real life. Compensating for its own obvious problems. It's even funnier when they go off whining and create another forum and make up aliases for it to pretend that he's got loyal followers. Oh and, of course, thinking he's intimidating somebody. I hadn't laughed so hard in awhile, I tell ya! ;D

Entertaining and good fodder for the blogs, no doubt. It's even more pathetic when it makes accusations about the very one who would not give in to its mind games. It's a very familiar story; accusing others is often the first lie of defense by a stalker/bully/BPD sufferer. I'm building my own case against it, while not allowing myself to be concerned with its lies. Others are building their cases. Letting the evidence speak for itself. Heh, I'm letting the screenshots speak for themselves! Of course everyone is out to get him, you know? Sheeesh!

One friend of mine says; I can see very clearly now. Love to hear the other people's stories who've been bashed. I'm seeking the truth and would love to know the truth because we've been fed lies and I had a gut feeling that I was being lied to. (Reflects my sentiments exactly!) But I doubt the truth will be readily available. Unless all involved were on the same sites, same time, same sync, etc.

What about staff that won't allow others to see their memberlist? Or PM other members? What is it that they're trying to hide? I can understand a whole board being private (mine is private for security reasons) but to make members sit there and be your own cheering section is more than pathetic and how can any admin demand loyalty from anyone that has been treated like crap? I've watched some admins treat members like inferior little people without intelligence and then become irrate when they don't get the grovelling they're seeking.

I-I've seen that.

Oh wanted to add, has anyone ever heard of the site "dumbmenonline"? You'll find all kinds of examples of the things discussed here about admins who're not interested in actually running a legitimate forum but rather a forum that feeds some warped person's ego who has problems. The worst kind of admin; one that has set up a forum just for the purpose to run a public pissing contest.

[Trublu]

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum?

Whenever a staff member uses their position as a leader on the forum to exploit privileges or mistreat other members in some way, then they are pushing the boundaries. Just because the staff are given extra responsibilities does not mean that they are given extra room to abuse powers.

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?

Only in extreme circumstances. A normal disagreement, usually centered in differences of opinon, is not grounds for a warning or banning. A good forum will foster all sorts of opinions from many different kinds of people. A good staff member won't warn or ban a member just for having a different opinion; doing that is a good way to flush a forum's reputation down the tubes.

What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs?

Any threats, idle or not, to warn or ban a member to get them to follow another's beliefs is totally inappropriate. The warning and banning powers that staff get should be used to appropriately discipline rule breakers, and to bar repeat offenders and spammers from using the forum. There are no other reasons for using those functions.

What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted?

Also not kosher. A forum should promote the free expression of ideas, not force its members into a "yes" gear towards its staff. It should be considered an abuse of power for staff to use powers that should be reserved for rule breaking to bring members down.

Have you had experience with this? Were you ever accused of abusing your powers or a member who was a victim of an abusive staff?

I've had a bit of an experience with this. A moderator on one of my forums got a bit carried away with using her power. It got to the point where she was berrating a member for making a post. The member had been in trouble in the past, and the staff member thought that this gave her permission to insult the member. I expect all my members to give my staff the respect they deserve as staff members, but I also expect my staff to respect the members. When I told the staff member that she had to apologize to the member, she deleted her account from my forum.

I also acknowledge that I (unknowingly) abused my admin powers over a couple of members; if you're 14 years old and two 18+ year olds are threatening and harrassing you, I think you get one mistake. Despite all my previous answers, it is expected that a rookie is going to make a couple mistakes. I certainly would never do what I did again, even though I had the support and understanding of pretty much everyone else who knew these people. Four years later, I think I have the proper maturity to be able to run a forum fairly and respect my members. Now, no matter what the disagreement, I stay within the limits set by respect, privacy, and the forum rules that I set down for my members and myself to follow. I still get complaints about some things from members (but when something isn't going their way), which is to be expected, and why proper enforcement of the rules is necessary, to set a standard.

[Support KL]

Staff Abusing Powers, This seems to be a huge issue for many members.

There seems to be a continuous struggle regarding what the rights of a member are and the responsibilities of a staff member. When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum? When a staff member breaks the rules himself/herself or establishes silly rules like "no light colored fonts" or "super tiny fonts" or "two-paragraph posts" or "no one-liners", that is the time when a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power.

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning? What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs? What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted? This is against freedom of speech. The members should have the freedom to say whatever they want AS LONG AS THE WORDS DO NOT OFFEND ANY ONE PERSONALLY.

Have you had experience with this? Were you ever accused of abusing your powers or a member who was a victim of an abusive staff. Please keep in mind, that this isn't cyber bullying I am talking about, that is a whole different issue. This is about staff stepping over the line. No, I have never been accused of abusing powers, because my proboards never have had any members. But once, I did feel that the admin was abusing power, because the admin wanted to RP profile to this way, forcing me to comply with what the admin wanted, despite that requirement was never a rule. The admin said in defense that I should respect her by changing my application to agree to her, but I saw no reason in doing that. Instead of writing the age of my character as "18", I wrote "two years less than twice the square root of 100", and since the admin was not good at math, she forced me to write simply "18" (by the help of another member, of course).

[Sleeping Wolf]

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum?
A staff member has pushed the boundaries, in my opinion, when he or she has broken rules, especially of their own, only to get something fit for themselves personally. Another fact could be when they do something to the forums without the head staff's knowing nor permission, and nearly spoil the mood of the forums. Another would be when they threaten just for the fun of it. No one should threaten to warn or ban anyone for any reason. Just because someone is made staff doesn't mean they could do anything they'd like to - that's happened to me before, in both ways.
Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?
Only when the disagreement is something that is against the rules and it has been taken too far. My rules are always like so; respect everyone else no matter how they are.
What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to force them into submission with their own beliefs?
No staff member should ever threaten another member just because they don't like something the member believes in. If it's like that, they should keep it to themselves, as to avoid any harmful arguments.
What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted?
If a staff members doesn't like how a post is made, it's always better to either modify the post and acknowledge the member, or to ask the member to modify it. Posts should only be deleted when they've been spammed up or when they are actually against the ToS and forum rules.
This has happened to me before, but in both ways, and not only on forums. I had played a game where the administrators were very, very strict and they were actually abusing their powers - even the creator of the game didn't care if they were doing so. On forums, a very close friend of mine had actually gone power hungry on my own forums and another friend's forums and so he had abused powers on my friend's forums while accusing me of abusing my own. I had banned him and since then we hadn't talked to each other. There have been times long ago in the past when I had done things to forums, a little too much of things, but during the time I've learned how to be respectful and I'm older and all the wiser now.

[``the K Y R A ♫]

Aug 25, 2008 17:44:04 GMT -8 Support KL said:

There seems to be a continuous struggle regarding what the rights of a member are and the responsibilities of a staff member. When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum? When a staff member breaks the rules himself/herself or establishes silly rules like "no light colored fonts" or "super tiny fonts" or "two-paragraph posts" or "no one-liners", that is the time when a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power.

I disagree. Rules about fonts and length of posts are perfectly acceptable on a roleplay site, for several reasons. One, the main admin might not have the greatest sight in the world (I sure don't), and they might have a hard time reading small or light-colored fonts. So it makes sense to ask your members not to use said fonts.

As for two-paragraph posts or no one-liners, I actually have those rules on most of my roleplay sites. And why's that? It's because roleplay is all about the POSTS. One-liners are effectively worthless in roleplay. More is better. I don't say two paragraphs, exactly, it's usually about four sentences. But still, my point is, those are perfectly acceptable rules.

---

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum?

A staff member has pushed the boundaries of power too far when they are being immature, deleting or modifying posts with no reason, setting insanely high warnings, all of that. It doesn't matter if its the main admin or just a moderator, when a staff member is rubbing all of the members the wrong way or favoring some members over others, they've crossed the line.

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?

No. A severe disagreement, maybe a warning. But not a banning, unless it is honestly needed. People need to learn to respect other people's opinions, even if they don't agree with them.

What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs?

And just like others have said, that right there is a violation of freedom of speech. Anyone should be allowed to believe what they want and they should be allowed to be who they are. They don't have to get along, they don't have to agree, they don't have to like each other, but they need to respect the opinions of others and understand that we don't all think alike.
For example, let's say that "Cassie" is a very religious person and that "Molly" is a die-hard atheist and the main admin. Molly might think that Cassie's religious views are crap, but that doesn't give her the right to threaten to ban Cassie just because she doesn't agree.

In fact, I happen to share Molly's opinion, but that doesn't mean I take it out on my members. They can be whoever they like and I don't care, until they start forcing their beliefs on me. Then I start taking action.

What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted?

Deletion of posts and threads over disagreements is completely screwed up. One of the rules that I hold in my forums is that once a disagreement turns into a full-out argument, the members involved must take it to the PMs or stop altogether. I don't delete the posts or threads, but I will lock them with a warning why. That's also the rule I have for my fellow admins and mods: if things get out of hand, lock the thread and talk to me. As the main admin, I make all final decisions. None of my other members can delete things or ban members. Simple as that.

Have you had experience with this? Were you ever accused of abusing your powers or a member who was a victim of an abusive staff?

In fact, no, I am lucky to say that I have not. I have had my admin accounts hacked and my forums subsequently destroyed, but I made sure to issue an apology to my members before closing the site.

I have never been a victim of abusive staff, though I have seen cases of it and would not hesitate to jump in and defend any victim that I see. I don't care if I risk deletion or banning from the site; abusive staff must not be allowed to continue their "reigns of terror".

[viruszero]

I have to agree with theKyra to a point... I mean while it may not be fair to outright make using light/small fonts against the rules, but for some visually impaired it may be difficult. Even if one isn't visually impaired, a user continuously using brightly coloured and/or difficult to read colored fonts is hard on the eyes and makes it much more difficult to deal with said user. Can you imagine reading a fairly lengthy roleplaying post that user made if their text is size 1 and their post color is a light pink or yellow? (Worse still is if the background of the forum is also a light color.)

And really, for roleplaying one liners are garbage... how much story can you pack into a single line? And it makes it rather hard for the next person to build the story if they have to continue it. I mean if a one liner is the limit of the creativity of the person, then should they even be roleplaying? (Now I don't mean that one-liners once in a while. I mean if the user consistently posts them and majority of their posts are single lines.)


As for the issue...

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum?

I think that staff has pushed the boundaries when a staff member:
- Starts telling the members how to think;

- What they can say (like limiting freedom of speech further than no flaming others and no hate literature type issues. For example a staff member saying that you can't discuss art because people have different tastes);

- Punishing some members for no reason and not punishing the one(s) that need it. (EX- one member gets banned for something while another member gets to stay yet both did the same thing wrong.);

- And for the final one I can think of at the moment... Making loads of unnecessary and entirely silly/stupid rules (EX- No saying the word "blue" on any tuesday the 23rd of any month.) and then expecting people to follow them.


Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?

For me this depends on the disagreement. For example if the disagreement is about the validity of a rule such as "no posting porn" then really if the member insists upon disagreement about that rule I would consider that grounds for a warning. (Because to my knowledge, that rule is derived from a Terms of Service rule... and thus is no argument at all.)

But now if the user was arguing about who sings better or which band is better then unless it delves into flaming or other rule breaking then it shouldn't be a grounds for warning at all.

(But in anycase if a user persists in arguing about something well after the issue, like up to a week and a half after it has been deemed resolved then it would become a harassment issue.)


What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs?

Personally I abhor these, I abhor idle threats in general. You should never say anything unless you are willing to act upon it. But since this is a 2 part issue...

Never should a staff (or any other member for that matter) try to force their beliefs upon another... If the member asks them to cease they should politely honor the request. But that would be too easy... it'd take living in a perfect world to get that kind of result.

But now putting the two issues together... (idle, or even just ) threats to force someone to comply with certain beliefs would be a form of Cyber-Terrorism, would it not?


What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted?

Again, it'll depend on what was posted...
Providing that it was within forum rules and I wasn't posting TOS violations then I'd be a bit irked. Especially for arguments that haven't gotten out of hand, but they just disagree with what I've said (or on the occasion, I may have proven them wrong or whatnot.)


Have you had experience with this? Were you ever accused of abusing your powers or a member who was a victim of an abusive staff?

To my knowledge ( no one has ever outright or even hinted at saying "That's abusing your powers...") I've not been accused of abusing my powers. As I try to take rational measures to ensure power abuse doesn't happen. But likely if I were to be accused of abusing my powers it would be by the people whom I've banned because they broke the rules. They would likely feel they were within the rules and I was in err or something. (Though I find it hard to see how you can think you're within forum rules when they clearly state "No flaming" and you've just posted 9 times cursing people out and whatnot...)

(By rational measures I mean looking at the rules first and foremost to see what they have to say on the issue before proceeding. If the rules don't say anything about the issue and urgent action isn't required then I leave the issue until it can be discussed with another staff member. If the rules say "no flaming" and that's what the user is doing then I will likely warn them to stop right then. If they persist after the warning then they might get a temp ban depending on severity. But if it's really severe and they're ignoring me and flaming everyone then they get permenant ban. )

[Support KL]

Rules about fonts and length of posts are perfectly acceptable on a roleplay site, for several reasons. One, the main admin might not have the greatest sight in the world (I sure don't), and they might have a hard time reading small or light-colored fonts. So it makes sense to ask your members not to use said fonts. I still hate small font sizes. I do not mind about the font color, though, AS LONG AS THE FONT COLOR CONTRASTS THE BACKGROUND COLOR STRONGLY.

As for two-paragraph posts or no one-liners, I actually have those rules on most of my roleplay sites. And why's that? It's because roleplay is all about the POSTS. One-liners are effectively worthless in roleplay. More is better. I don't say two paragraphs, exactly, it's usually about four sentences. But still, my point is, those are perfectly acceptable rules. Also, I do not mind if some one gives me a one-liner. I do not treat roleplaying as seriously as you do. If some one gives me a one-liner, then I will just continue the story. Also, I do not really care about description of appearance. All that is junk. I just read what the person does and that's it, since that is most important. When I first began roleplaying, which was last year, I thought it was exactly like storytelling, but it was not, because you cannot control all the characters or even the setting. The only character you can control is yourself, which isn't very fun. I want a place where one person writes 1 sentence and the other person continues by writing another sentence, but I have not found the place yet. I want a place where writers treat roleplaying like a carefree game, instead of like an actual adventure in which adventurers travel about and talk all the time. What I dislike about roleplaying is that the people totally disregard the time, so the entire roleplay is illogical timewise. First of all, if you have a lot of paragraphs, the only thing you can talk about without disobeying the rules is what the character is thinking or what the character is saying is response or what the character is doing, but you cannot go too farther in time, because that will cause the other players to catch up. Second of all, the characters' speech does not reflect reality, because in reality, people interrupt each other. If one roleplaying character interrupts another roleplaying character, then that would be against the rules, because that is an act of controlling another character. Third of all, roleplaying games have strict rules about fighting. In telling a story, you can do whatever you want with your characters and make the story flow, but in text-based roleplaying, your characters can only hope and pray that the arrow hits the heart of another. If you say that the arrow is inserted through the other character's skin, then you are killing the character and that is breaking the rules. This is why I dislike roleplaying games; everything is too equal. This is why I like to play games like chess or checkers or The Key To The Kingdom and other board games, because they are closer to my style.

[Atari]

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum?
I believe staff members can do a number of things to push power boundaries on a forum. My list so far is this::

[/i]
--> Banning members without warning.
--> Siding with staff in every disagreement or problem.
--> Putting in power a member who does not play by the rules.
--> Cursing at new members, or making members feel bullied
--> When mods stalk your posts just to see if you say something out of hand. This is a one on one basis, meaning one mod stalks one members posts over a personal issue.[/ul]


Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?
If the member disobeys one of the forum rules multiple times in a disagreement, such as excessive cursing, then I would say they should be asked to calm down. In very bad disagreements, such as large forum flame wars, there should be warnings and banishment. However, I have not seen many of those.

What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs?
Never. Even in jest I see this as a very immature way to handle something on a forum. Everyone has a different opinion. Why should the staff members be the only ones to be opinionated?

What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted?
I have had this done to me before and I believe it is wrong. The only exception would be if the member was blatantly disobeying the forum rules or posted something against proboards TOS. If it was a normal, every day, average opinionated post ready to be discussed or debated, it should not have been removed.

Have you had experience with this?Were you ever accused of abusing your powers or a member who was a victim of an abusive staff?
I had a staff member stalk my posts just because of a falling out that happened a while ago. He recently gave me a warning for something that was not directed towards him. In my notes it claimed I was "disrespecting the staff", in other words, in a post without him being in it calling him annoying was so disrespectful he had to reduce my karma and give me a warning. While all the time he breaks the rules cursing his little head off around the forum. Oh, and he is a mod for a popular forum. When I took it to the administrator, it was as if she were a therapist saying "I know you've been stressed..." The admin was not abusing me, but she was pushing away what was happening, probably because she did not want to deal with it.
I have never been accused of bullying others online to my knowledge.

[tasia the free spirit !]

Someone actually banned me for asking about plot and bouncing ideas to the admin. They were apparently ticked off at me, and couldn't of warned me or even told me the acceptable plots. No, they had to be "mysetrious" and wouldn't tell me anything about what I could do with Tess. Karma got them in the end when I went to their site and saw that they must've had their board deleted for abuse of their powers or whatever. Then again, they did curse at me. It was kind of weird. I really disliked being banned just because I didn't want to do what the staff wanted to do with Tess Tyler. It was so surreal. I hated it. It was really weird, they were all up in my face about it. I've never abused my powers, though, I've always let someone speak their side of the story. They didn't give me that chance, and I was really hurt and felt three feet tall.

[Nacku]

I know exactly where you are coming from! I get scared when I see things being said about me and I can't do a thing without risking more wrath. I hate confrontations to no end. I panic and I'm so stressed that I can't eat. Political debates and all kinds of other crap that's happened (August 2008 has been downright beastly) has put me at a very low weight and I've been trying to keep my strength up. Drinking lots of water to keep hydrated, too. I'm really not doing that well and can only eat a little bit each day. I'm spending far less time on the internet, though. It's just gotten so ugly. The election can't be over soon enough! I've gone through a whole role of Bubble Wrap.

[Rachel]

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum?
That's a hard question. I think that a staff member would be pushing the boundaries when they try to over-rule an admin, or use their powers unreasonably, or for their own gain. They could punish someone for doing something that they disagree with without consulting an admin first when it's not even against the rules. That would be pushing the boundaries. Or when they start breaking the site rules, and tell others off for doing the same thing.

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?
That depends on who the disagreement is with, and how far it gets. If they disagree with an admin, and constantly try fighting back, then yes. Because in the end, it's the admins site, they made the rules, and are ultimately in charge. If another staff member takes it too far, even after being warned many times before, then a warning bar would be necessary. If the behaviour continues, then yes, they should be banned. Why have someone on site who is a constant rule breaker? If, however, the disagreement isn't with an admin, then I wouldn't bring the warning bar into it unless they are breaking the rules, and start to get abusive.

What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs?
That's not good. They shouldn't make threats. I think this is another way of taking advantage of their powers, and no one who acts like this should be on the staff. If they do go around threatening other members, then the admin should give them the warning bar.

What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted?
This too, isn't good. No staff member should use their powers like that just because they disagree with something. If it's not against the rules, or generally offensive, then their is nothing wrong with it. Everyone has a right to express their opinions, and if a staff member doesn't agree with what is being said, then bad luck for them. They could reply, expressing their own ideas, or they can ignore it; it's their choice. But deleting posts isn't the way to go.

Have you had experience with this? Were you ever accused of abusing your powers or a member who was a victim of an abusive staff?
No, my site has only been around for a week. But I have, however, seen it on another site. A staff member locked a roleplay thread that was created for him because he didn't want to roleplay. Only he didn't realise that it was one of the admins on another account; and so a massive argument started. I think that the staff member shouldn't have locked the thread, but I also think that the admin shouldn't have reacted so harshly, and that they were both abusing their powers as staff.

Basically, I think that there should be a set of rules for the staff, explaining that if they abuse their powers that the powers will be taken away from them, or they will find a warning bar/be banned. Otherwise things may get out of control, and you may find that potential members will be scared away as a result.