[Debate] Staff Abusing Powers

[Jessecast]

Well to a certain extent staff members should have a little more freedom over things around some lighter rules. They are the ones who keep your forum going and really for disagreeing it is their own interpretation if it gets to carried away by the member or both of them. To have a effective site you need goody two shoe mods and have moderators that are just like F it more often other wise there is an unbalance between punishments on members.

[thejokerlaughsatu]

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

I believe a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power when they're doing one of two things:
1. Acting outside of their job, e.g. a layout moderator deciding they have a say in banning members, even though they were hired specifically to edit/maintain the layout.
2. Acting based on their own personal prejudices or wants, instead of what's best for the forum, e.g. banning a faithful member who disagrees with them on a political matter, even though they belong to a roleplaying site that has nothing to do with politics.


Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?

As others have said, if the disagreement involves a member violating the TOS, then I think it calls for either a warning or banning, depending on whether it's their first offense and whether it was purposeful. If a member wasn't aware that they weren't allowed to post a certain picture, but then did it, I would say only a warning and a reason why. However, if they know it's wrong and they do it to get a reaction, then definitely suspension/banning.

If the disagreement is about something personal, however, something between staff and one other person, I think it should be worked out, unless it's serious. As mentioned above, differing political views shouldn't influence bans or warnings, but if a member openly disrespects staff members or calls them out, I think a warning or ban is appropriate.


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

Completely wrong. If a staff member feels the need to threaten members to join their "camp" or share their viewpoint, or if they think it's right to do so, then they shouldn't be staff. Plain and simple. Even if the threats are idle, nobody should use staff powers (or the idea of them) to control others. To an extent, they need to be used for control, like to delete inappropriate posts, but outside of necessary forum maintenance, staff powers shouldn't even come into the picture. Using them to get an upper hand or shut somebody else up is wrong.


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

Also wrong, unless they disagreed because the post was inappropriate. If it violates the TOS then it should go, and the member should either get a warning or be told via PM that what they did was wrong, to avoid similar incidents in future. But if the staff member deletes the post simply because they didn't like it, they're abusing their powers. Going back to the political example above, an Obama supporter should not delete a post that supports Palin unless it violates the TOS, or unless the Palin-supporting post specifically breaks the forum's rules.


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 have definitely been a victim of this. It's a long story, so let me shorten it. Let's call them... Mary, the admin, and Katy, the co-admin.

Mary created a roleplaying site and made Katy the co-admin, but only because they'd met on another site and they'd become friends. Katy had no forum know-how beyond being a member, but Mary was an experienced admin and decided she could compensate for it. The site started slowly, but they got a few members, including me.

About a week after I joined, Mary went inactive. She claimed that she had issues going on in real life, and she would be back soon. Well, we couldn't fault her for having a real life, and she said she would be back, so we continued on as usual, except with Katy in charge of the forum. However, it soon became clear that Katy didn't know what she was doing. When she wanted to create a new board to make a summer camp, she had to ask the members how to do so.

Meanwhile, I was recruiting members. The site grew by at least five people, and since we only had about ten members, this was significant. I was on every day and replied to threads, welcomed new members to roleplay with me, and advertised for the site. Finally, I applied to be the PR/advertising mod, since I was doing it anyway. Right after me, a new girl who'd been there about a week posted an application for the same position. Katy accepted the other girl. When I asked why, she refused to give a reason.

Katy also didn't know how to update the monthly spotlights, or the welcome message. I applied for layout moderator. Again, a new member applied as well, and he got the position. (Looking back, I'm glad he did, because he made amazing skins that none of the rest of us could dream of coding, but at the time nobody had seen any of his work.) Again, she refused to give me a reason.

There was another girl on the site, let's call her Erika, that I was friends with. One night Erika came into the chat-box and asked for help, because she was having issues and needed somebody to talk to. I let her tell me everything, including the fact that she thought she was losing faith in God and religion. Katy popped on at that moment and started to effectively berate Erika for letting her faith slip, because "God saves" and such. I told Katy that it was Erika's decision, and to leave her alone and let her make her own choices.

After that, Katy didn't like me or Erika. She did everything she could to bother us: "accidentally" deleted posts or character bios, moved threads to the wrong places, took things we said out of context and claimed we were attacking her, etc. She also started going inactive and leaving the site without an admin for days, sometimes even weeks. I applied to be a moderator, and probably would have been denied, except the rest of the members posted on my application that I had to be a moderator, because I was online more than anybody else. Finally I was staff.

However, all I was allowed to mod were three boards out of about twenty that needed attention. The layout mod had to leave the site, so I was given that position since I was the only other member with any coding knowledge. The PR mod fell inactive, so I was also given that position. I convinced Katy to let me mod more boards, since they were all falling into neglect. By this time, I filled about half of the staff positions, helped by only three other mods.

Then Erika lost her internet. Her family had money issues and couldn't afford it. Before anybody could save any threads we'd had with her, Katy deleted all of Erika's accounts and threads, simply because she hadn't liked her. When I called her out and said it was wrong, Katy got mad and threatened to e-mail Mary about me, since Katy was the only one who had her e-mail.

I know this is already a long story, so let me summarize. Basically, Mary came back after an absence of over six months. Anybody else would have been deleted, but she had the admin account. Mary immediately reclaimed the forum, said that nobody could correct Katy about anything or question her decisions, and didn't bother to listen to my side of the story about Katy's wipe of Erika's posts. After two days, Mary again vanished. Another active member made a new board, she and I became co-admins of it, and the rest of the members left Mary's site for ours.

So yeah... I would say that both Katy and Mary abused power here. Katy had no right to delete Erika's existence from the site, and Mary had no right to reclaim the site after she'd left us alone, with no way to contact her, for half a year.

[Fallen <3]

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum?
Well, I think that's when they say that they would run the site better than you.
Also, there was a staff member of mine, let's call her Kate. And there was my best friend, let's call her... Fiona. She wanted to be a Co-Admin, but I didn't let her in, because I wanted to cut down the amount of staff. My whole site was practically on the team! Also, she didn't have much to give the site, with no coding/designing skills. And... We were fighting, on and off.
So, Fiona went on my site to, erm, terrorize me? Well, she constantly said she was better than me at school. Constantly. And she kept posting insulting images on my site, that I had hurt her so deep. And I don't want to get into my looong arguement about that. I banned her for a while, because I was sick of it.
So, Kate, my co-admin, unbanned her on her request. I banned her back again. I think that is pushing power limits, since I banned her.
Well, when that cleared up, I got cut off from my internet and decided to close the site. Fiona was a staff member by then, because I was tired of her bugging me. She asked that I give the site to her, but I said no. I wanted it to be mine, no anyone else's. This seems selfish, but I ha a lot of memories with it. She knew my password (stupid mistake), and logged in, changing it. She took over my site, then gave the leadership to Kate.
When I logged in, due to my internet coming back on, I found out. So I got my password back, since she did not change my email. I changed my password on every other site, and banned her.
This, is overstepping power. Kate didn't even protest, although she knew that I didn't give the site to her.
Fiona is not my friend anymore. It's been that way for two years. So, never let an on/off BFF become staff. Don't give them your password, thank god.

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?
No, unless they continue to try and change your mind. A warning is alright. But if thy do something without your permission, then that's bad. A banning for a day, perhaps? The old "Think about what You've done."

What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs?
Never. Everyone has their own opinion, and if that ever happened, I would give them a verrrry good talking to. They would be warned, and if it happened again, they would be banned an demoted.

What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted?
I would just demote them. Period.

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?
Look above ^

[Rosa Calica]

I'll just respond to this with the same information I put in response to Admin Etiquette

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum?
When they arbitrarily override site-wide decisions from other staff members without a counter-argument or good reason whatsoever, even when outnumbered. When they flip-flop on what is allowed to be posted/done on the site and what isn't (they approve of it one second but at the first sign that someone they know doesn't agree with them, they disapprove and punish the first poster). When they play favorites, or appoint people they know personally to make decisions on sites those people aren't even a part of. I knew someone who did all of this.

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?
Only if their disagreement is in support of something that breaks the ToS or rules of the ste. If a member wants to let everyone know how much they hate [insert race/religion/sexual orientation here] and wants to kill em all, no matter if they're joking about it, if they don't think that their topic should be deleted and that they oughta post it up anyway, that's a sure sign they're better off as not a part of your site.

What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs?
Absolutely not allowed. That staff member should know better than to throw their power around like that, and everyone has their own opinion about things. If the opinion was disruptive to the forum (like the one example above) though, there are better ways to handle it.

What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted?
Get rid of them. If they're not good staff, then they aren't good members either. They'd just sit around wishing they had the power to delete things they disagreed with.

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?
Both things. I was accused of 'abuse' by a known rule-breaker-- a rule-breaker with a track record of harassing other members both in public and in private, excluding others from participating in their threads for little reason (we had a rule against 'grouping', but they wanted another member to post exclusively for them), and just generally being a rude person towards the newer members that joined. I was usually tasked with warning that person and they had the nerve to tell me that I was abusing my staff power simply telling them that they were breaking a rule, and that if they were the head admin then I wouldn't have that power.

As for being on the receiving end of abuse from staff, I'll just point to the answer to the first question. ^

[Exxie (currently a Nomad)]

I've had someone who was...well, the best way to describe it is probably power-hungry. Not fun.

A good administrator should do their best to be open-minded to the views of others, even if it means admitting they could be wrong.

I hope I've never abused my powers as mod or admin. I never hope to make someone feel as down-in-the-dumps as that administrator made me. This is partly why I've made a Staff Code of Conduct on my forum. If an admin abuses their powers, a member privy to the code can report the abuse to moderator or administrator and then it can be dealt with appropriately by the rest of the staff.

[blueshead]

So far my board is very lucky on abuse. My main admin is laid back and takes care of the cleaning..-moving threads,deleting old posts that no one answers, etc. (great job..I'm lousy at this)

My global mod helps out with questions, etc.

I stay in the background and mainly I take care of skins, coding etc. 103 members at the board and so far no onboard flaming between members.

I'm actually astounded at times because we are an FPS gaming board and most members of the game I play (Quake Live)
are not known for being mellow..

[littlebabe322]

I've been the victim of staff abusing power. I think that staff members if banning does have to happen they should let the person why they are being banned and for what reason. And perhaps give them a few days to a week to change whatever needs to be fixed. Otherwise just banning someone for no reason is pretty stupid in my opinion. Also if the person is banned and after a while they want to apologize the staff members should give them that chance to do so. This is actually currently happening to me and all I want to do is say im sorry for something whatever the reason, but I can't do that since I've benne banned. So yeah.

Every staff member should give three warnings for each member before banning them. And then after three warnings they should discuss with the member what they did wrong and give them three days to a week to fix the problem and after that if it continues then ban them. That way the member has a chance to change what they did and fix it. So yeah that's my opinion on that.

[raindance85]

Feb 21, 2012 5:52:06 GMT -8 littlebabe322 said:

I've been the victim of staff abusing power. I think that staff members if banning does have to happen they should let the person why they are being banned and for what reason. And perhaps give them a few days to a week to change whatever needs to be fixed. Otherwise just banning someone for no reason is pretty stupid in my opinion. Also if the person is banned and after a while they want to apologize the staff members should give them that chance to do so. This is actually currently happening to me and all I want to do is say im sorry for something whatever the reason, but I can't do that since I've benne banned. So yeah.

Every staff member should give three warnings for each member before banning them. And then after three warnings they should discuss with the member what they did wrong and give them three days to a week to fix the problem and after that if it continues then ban them. That way the member has a chance to change what they did and fix it. So yeah that's my opinion on that.

Yep me to have been in the same boat, I've been a victim banned on another forum I tried to apologise then left, I only got in a argument that I didn't start (wished that staff I apologised to wouldn't argue when I'm trying to do the right thing) and didn't reply back to the staff for that I gave up because they were extremely rude (I was nearly in tears because they were rude to me again). I too got banned for no reason. I to think staff should give warnings I got nothing of the sort just a ban, I'm trying to start my own forum get it going, but I will at least be a better admin then other forum's I have been on lol. I basically agree with littlebabe322 on this they said some good points. I also think too staff members can push the boundaries of power on a forum its frightening. Honest I'm kind of glad that I'm not the only person that's had this happen to them, I was scared I was the only one. And I agree with {spirit below too that also happened to me staff like to choose members I agree, its so unfair!

[{Spirit]

With what you all said, I know staff that a very bias. They favour other members and when say a staff position is free they give it to the people they like. They consider other people sure, but people they don't like, just don't get a shoot.

This is really short, but that is all I have to say :3

[Coder XX0]

Mar 28, 2011 17:54:48 GMT -8 thejokerlaughsatu said:

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

I believe a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power when they're doing one of two things:
1. Acting outside of their job, e.g. a layout moderator deciding they have a say in banning members, even though they were hired specifically to edit/maintain the layout.
2. Acting based on their own personal prejudices or wants, instead of what's best for the forum, e.g. banning a faithful member who disagrees with them on a political matter, even though they belong to a roleplaying site that has nothing to do with politics.


Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?

As others have said, if the disagreement involves a member violating the TOS, then I think it calls for either a warning or banning, depending on whether it's their first offense and whether it was purposeful. If a member wasn't aware that they weren't allowed to post a certain picture, but then did it, I would say only a warning and a reason why. However, if they know it's wrong and they do it to get a reaction, then definitely suspension/banning.

If the disagreement is about something personal, however, something between staff and one other person, I think it should be worked out, unless it's serious. As mentioned above, differing political views shouldn't influence bans or warnings, but if a member openly disrespects staff members or calls them out, I think a warning or ban is appropriate.


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

Completely wrong. If a staff member feels the need to threaten members to join their "camp" or share their viewpoint, or if they think it's right to do so, then they shouldn't be staff. Plain and simple. Even if the threats are idle, nobody should use staff powers (or the idea of them) to control others. To an extent, they need to be used for control, like to delete inappropriate posts, but outside of necessary forum maintenance, staff powers shouldn't even come into the picture. Using them to get an upper hand or shut somebody else up is wrong.


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

Also wrong, unless they disagreed because the post was inappropriate. If it violates the TOS then it should go, and the member should either get a warning or be told via PM that what they did was wrong, to avoid similar incidents in future. But if the staff member deletes the post simply because they didn't like it, they're abusing their powers. Going back to the political example above, an Obama supporter should not delete a post that supports Palin unless it violates the TOS, or unless the Palin-supporting post specifically breaks the forum's rules.


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 have definitely been a victim of this. It's a long story, so let me shorten it. Let's call them... Mary, the admin, and Katy, the co-admin.

Mary created a roleplaying site and made Katy the co-admin, but only because they'd met on another site and they'd become friends. Katy had no forum know-how beyond being a member, but Mary was an experienced admin and decided she could compensate for it. The site started slowly, but they got a few members, including me.

About a week after I joined, Mary went inactive. She claimed that she had issues going on in real life, and she would be back soon. Well, we couldn't fault her for having a real life, and she said she would be back, so we continued on as usual, except with Katy in charge of the forum. However, it soon became clear that Katy didn't know what she was doing. When she wanted to create a new board to make a summer camp, she had to ask the members how to do so.

Meanwhile, I was recruiting members. The site grew by at least five people, and since we only had about ten members, this was significant. I was on every day and replied to threads, welcomed new members to roleplay with me, and advertised for the site. Finally, I applied to be the PR/advertising mod, since I was doing it anyway. Right after me, a new girl who'd been there about a week posted an application for the same position. Katy accepted the other girl. When I asked why, she refused to give a reason.

Katy also didn't know how to update the monthly spotlights, or the welcome message. I applied for layout moderator. Again, a new member applied as well, and he got the position. (Looking back, I'm glad he did, because he made amazing skins that none of the rest of us could dream of coding, but at the time nobody had seen any of his work.) Again, she refused to give me a reason.

There was another girl on the site, let's call her Erika, that I was friends with. One night Erika came into the chat-box and asked for help, because she was having issues and needed somebody to talk to. I let her tell me everything, including the fact that she thought she was losing faith in God and religion. Katy popped on at that moment and started to effectively berate Erika for letting her faith slip, because "God saves" and such. I told Katy that it was Erika's decision, and to leave her alone and let her make her own choices.

After that, Katy didn't like me or Erika. She did everything she could to bother us: "accidentally" deleted posts or character bios, moved threads to the wrong places, took things we said out of context and claimed we were attacking her, etc. She also started going inactive and leaving the site without an admin for days, sometimes even weeks. I applied to be a moderator, and probably would have been denied, except the rest of the members posted on my application that I had to be a moderator, because I was online more than anybody else. Finally I was staff.

However, all I was allowed to mod were three boards out of about twenty that needed attention. The layout mod had to leave the site, so I was given that position since I was the only other member with any coding knowledge. The PR mod fell inactive, so I was also given that position. I convinced Katy to let me mod more boards, since they were all falling into neglect. By this time, I filled about half of the staff positions, helped by only three other mods.

Then Erika lost her internet. Her family had money issues and couldn't afford it. Before anybody could save any threads we'd had with her, Katy deleted all of Erika's accounts and threads, simply because she hadn't liked her. When I called her out and said it was wrong, Katy got mad and threatened to e-mail Mary about me, since Katy was the only one who had her e-mail.

I know this is already a long story, so let me summarize. Basically, Mary came back after an absence of over six months. Anybody else would have been deleted, but she had the admin account. Mary immediately reclaimed the forum, said that nobody could correct Katy about anything or question her decisions, and didn't bother to listen to my side of the story about Katy's wipe of Erika's posts. After two days, Mary again vanished. Another active member made a new board, she and I became co-admins of it, and the rest of the members left Mary's site for ours.

So yeah... I would say that both Katy and Mary abused power here. Katy had no right to delete Erika's existence from the site, and Mary had no right to reclaim the site after she'd left us alone, with no way to contact her, for half a year.

i completely agree with you katy had no right to do that and mary defenetly had no right to recliam forum. i hate staff that do that..... i have a story to

i was a new java/html coder i had been coding aboput a mounth and i applied to be a coder for a forum (bad mistake on lack of experiance) i got the coder job and i went on and started to code. i made a skin and basicly designed the whole of the forum and created the boards i might aswell of been admin.

anyway it was all going well until it hit the one year mark. a new member joined called him self Alex. he had started rping and make threads and replying. i went on a few days later and he was staff.... i thought it was way to qiuck for him to become a staff member (admin) he had more power than me and i had designed and coded everything because the owner had no experiance with java or html. so anyway i spoke to the owner about it and he claimed i had been inactive for weeks. i had been off one day because i got my internet cut off....... and he had been inactive for about 3 weeks so i spoke to the other staff and they all agreed that it was to fast. so we all posted in the staff board about it. anyway the new admin came on and started to threton to ban use. and since we din't have any banning/warning power we couldn't do anything about it. so we carried on as normal. anyway one night i was on the chat box and the admin starts to threton members so i screenshot it and send to the owner and i tryed to log on the next day and i got IP banned......so i appeal throught the chat box and the new admin claimed that i was thretoning members to ipban them and delete the posts..... and since i had no banning/warning powers how could i....... so basicly i decied never to go back to that forum again.....

AND I HATE STAFF THAT ABUSE POWER

[AURA]

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum?
When they break the rules that were set by the owner of the site. They should know rules of the back of their hands. If they also use their status being staff, bullying or use other staff members against people then that's just....evil...is that the word?

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?
It does depend, if somebody falls out with the Owner/myself then I will take a look at the argument. If its about the way I run my own site and I know that they are wrong then I will most likely take them off of the team, if they keep being rude I will give them a warning, if they keep going then I will move to banning but that can cause more problems. If its about TOS then that may also change my opinion.

What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs?
That would be a ban, they would be off the team, everything. People aren't all the time, they have experiences, beliefs, everything. If a staff member has problem then they will be sadly, kicked out..

What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted?
That depends, if they deleted a major topic, i.e Rules then I will certaintly give them a warning and take them off the team. I would be thinking them too power driven or too powerful for me to be comfortable with them moderating my site. If it was a topic that was getting out of hand I would thank them and they would grow in my eyes, they saw where the thread was leading and dealt with it like a true adult.

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?
Hrmm, Victim, yes. I once disagreed with a staff member over something about horse markings - crazy thing I know. Suddenly I got messages about banning and using it against me, soon about two more members and staff helped with this. I PMed the Admin and I had screenshot everything. She went and asked them if it was true, they denied and she showed them the screenshot asking them if it looked familiar xD I went on the next day, they were either banned or off the team and I was on. I was very, very suprised xDDD

[SD]

I've been on a few forums where staff have abused their power. The one in particular I'm thinking of is when a Global Moderator used his position to change my username, custom title, and the like to rude, insensitive, insulting, and flat out breaking not only the staff/member trust cycle, but Proboards ToS.

I have not had any interactions with said Global Mod since, as I reported him to the forum's administrator and the person was promptly removed from the staff and given a lifelong ban. Apparently I wasn't the only person this mod had been doing this to, and had been told on three different occasions to stop.

That's definitely pushing the boundaries of power on a forum. And to be honest, I can't tell you why I was targeted.

A disagreement can be grounds for warning/banning, for both staff and regular members. If it's due to rules/ToS set by myself or Proboards, then yes, at the very least I will give said staff/members a warning. I however do take everyone's opinions in how I should run my site into account. Whether or not their opinions change the way I run it is a different matter altogether. After all, I wouldn't be a good admin if I ruled my site with an iron fist with no chance for the members to feel as if they were helping the site move in a positive direction.

As for idle threats, it depends. If it's related to the rules and such, I'm probably just going to say that it better not happen again. If it deals with religion and such, then that changes the situation drastically (I only run rp sites, and one of my rules on any rp site I've ever run has been no talking about religion/politics, or any other topic which can and will easily lead to flaming). I like my sites drama free (as far as members are concerned, drama in rp is nice however), so I like to avoid having topics that bring it up.

If they took a thread down because of something that was posted, I ask them what in it warranted the deletion. I do so politely, as I may or may not have put something in there that was against the rules or ToS (or another member's post if it was not mine that was deleted, and I am apart of the staff team). If there is a legitimate reason for its removal, then I drop the issue (or if I'm staff as well, I thank them). If not then it's certainly going to be continued in the presence of other staff, so as to keep things from getting out of hand.

I've also been the person who applied for staff positions left and right on an rp site (one in particular) that was constantly passed over for people who hadn't been on the site long, who hadn't contributed anything to the site (as I had been instrumental in five major changes to the site), or for people who were constantly at odds with the vast majority of other members. And several of the people that I was passed over for weren't nearly as active as I was, and most of them vanished or left the site a few months later.

The site's long dead now, and I hold no resentment toward those people (in fact many of those people are good friends of mine, and almost all of them did wonderful jobs while they were staff and active), but I figured I'd mention it to show that sometimes people get passed over, and while they may think the staff made the wrong decision, it's not usually the case. While I may have been more than qualified, and may have been a great staff member, those other people were just as good as I would have been, and were also qualified enough to receive the positions they did.

[Exxie (currently a Nomad)]

I posted a while before. I knew it felt awful when the head staff member of a site decided she was going to tell me off for something inconsequential and tell me off for 'going against the rules'. In the case I talk about, the site rules stated that characters had to be realistic and couldn't have 'special powers'. One of my characters could read the expressions and emotions in people's eyes. She didn't believe it was true and wouldn't listen even when I quoted a site saying that military intelligence agencies used it a lot in the past. Whatever.

Anyway, I have a site of my own now, so I've implemented something to hopefully help people not be victimized by power hungry mods. I call it the Staff Code of Conduct. Basically, if you become an admin or mod on my site, you have to swear to abide by the rules. A member can report an injustice by a staff member to another staff member. It will be brought to the attention of the staff room and a disciplinary action will be taken accordingly. That way, it might be more fair.

[Snakeair]

May 22, 2012 16:42:30 GMT -8 Exxie (currently a Nomad) said:

I posted a while before. I knew it felt awful when the head staff member of a site decided she was going to tell me off for something inconsequential and tell me off for 'going against the rules'. In the case I talk about, the site rules stated that characters had to be realistic and couldn't have 'special powers'. One of my characters could read the expressions and emotions in people's eyes. She didn't believe it was true and wouldn't listen even when I quoted a site saying that military intelligence agencies used it a lot in the past. Whatever.

Anyway, I have a site of my own now, so I've implemented something to hopefully help people not be victimized by power hungry mods. I call it the Staff Code of Conduct. Basically, if you become an admin or mod on my site, you have to swear to abide by the rules. A member can report an injustice by a staff member to another staff member. It will be brought to the attention of the staff room and a disciplinary action will be taken accordingly. That way, it might be more fair.

I'm a super moderator on a very large webmaster forum and we moderators always set good examples when responding to threads and when we create threads. No matter how many times we just want to go off on a spammer/rule breaker, we don't do this but handle it the professional way.

The moderators are the ones who set the tempo of a friendly forum. If members continue to see moderators and the admin dropping curse words, abusing powers as in do what the heck you want because you a mod/admin, the forum will soon die.

Our admin isn't afraid to demod one of us if we continue to abuse our powers, be rude and break our own forum rules we are supposed to enforce.

[rider555]

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

When they disagree with what you say and bullies you into making you say what you want them to think. When they ban you for no reason at all and when they lock or delete threads with no reason at all as well

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?

Certainly not unless the disagreement is about a rule or the person that is being warned/banned has done something wrong towards either the site or a member.

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

Also wrong, people are entitled to their own opinion and beliefs about what they think is right. Simply trying to force them to agree with a certain view point is not only bullying but it reminds me of a certain incident in history which led to the near destruction of a group of people.

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

Again that is wrong, people are free to post what they want to post as long as they do not breach the rules and the post themselves are not racist or inflammatory.

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 was a victim of staff abuse, I was on an RPG site when I disagreed with another member's PM, said member then gave my PM to the admin and the admin judged that I was delusional and that I was too attached to my character who was a canon from a fandom and wanted me to drop the character. However I was given a one week grace period to fix it but from that moment on it has snowballed ending in me being banned without the ability to defend myself as I was doing a quiz for school the same time the admin wanted to talk to me.

Further on the admin then believed that I was so much of a nuisance and an annoyance that she posted a list of what I did on the site, although all true but most were exaggerations and misunderstandings, as well as my alias that I use on RPG sites. Thankfully that post has since been moved to the moderation board and I hope that it never sees the light of day again.