[Debate] Staff Abusing Powers

[Pro—Poster]

Wow. That sounds really childish in my opinion, Rachel. Like the situation on the other site. I mean, he didn't want to roleplay?!? That I mean, honestly, there are easier ways to settle that for example, just stating that he didn't want it too would be easier. Or he could have sent a PM and kindly let the person who started the thread know that well, he didn't want to roleplay.
Or there is option C; DON'T REPLY.
people these days.
-shakes head-

[iCandy]

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

when they begin to attack other characters or users verbally, and taking in character arguments out of character. as well, they are definately overstepping the boundries if they are deleting other member's post or threads just because they do not agree with them. banning members without a valid reason is also counted against them, as they have abused their powers. also, if he/she is threatening any member at all, they have pushed their boundaries.

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?

no it is not. everyone is free to have their own opinions, and i believe that even if there is an argument between two members of a site, it shouldn't be brought into the staff members judgement. if that argument affects the staff members decision at all, then they should not be allowed to judge or deal with matters that involve that certain member.

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

i believe this is completely wrong. having been at the recieving end of this, i have found out that it only makes the member resent the staff more and more, because that certain staff member or even the whole team are flaunting their powers in the members faces. you won't get many members this way, and it just makes members frustrated, and possibly even leave.

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

i have had this happen to me, and it is not pleasant, especially if you have spent time and effort on the post. if there is any reason to immediately delete a thread or post, i usually copy and code the posts and send them to the member who posted them with comments on why they were deleted. this way, the offending post/thread is not still visible to all members, while they still have a copy of what they posted so that they can edit it from there.

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 never been accused of abusing my staff powers, and i have run three separate proboards sites as well as two invisionfree. however, i have been on the recieving end of this, much to my dismay. there was a staff member on a rp site called deadly hogwarts who didn't really like me or my character. he said she was too much like a 'muggle' (yes, it was hp) and that i wasn't portraying her properly.

after i had numerous posts deleted and such, I finally complained in the c-box. within five minutes, all my posts had been deleted, my account was gone, and i was banned. using a proxy server, i got back onto the site and pmed the main admin on that site telling them what happened. as soon as the staff found out what i had done, he unbanned me and pretended that i had deleted everything myself.

being ticked off, i blew up, and he eventually turned it around so it seemed like i had deleted all my posts and even my account, and pretended that i had been banned just to get into a different house. i left the site soon after because all the other staff members began to believe what that person was saying about me.

[wyson1]

What about sites with only on Moderator and the owner/admin is rarely around? And of course the Mod does a very good job of covering his/her tracks...

It is heartwrenching, sometimes, especially when on a forum where you have the chance to connect with and help people...

Abuse of power - and the banning of persons because they have tried to tell you that as the sole mod - you are hurting and insulting people...

NO ONE has the right to discount others beliefs/spirituality...or reprimand and threaten someone for their use of formatting - (especially when the member has a disability...)

Everything that i have read here is so valid...but what can we do? When you truly love a forum for what it brings into your life, and one with all of the power bans you because you point out they are abusing their power...

I guess it really pains me to know that this stuff happens, and innocent individuals enter the forum everyday, not knowing how the place has been conformed to one persons way of thinking...and knowing that if they do the wrong thing in the mod's eye, they will be treated wrong and not get the help they seek...

[HoudiniDerek]

Sept 19, 2008 8:10:10 GMT -8 wyson1 said:

What about sites with only on Moderator and the owner/admin is rarely around? And of course the Mod does a very good job of covering his/her tracks...

It is heartwrenching, sometimes, especially when on a forum where you have the chance to connect with and help people...

Abuse of power - and the banning of persons because they have tried to tell you that as the sole mod - you are hurting and insulting people...

It might depend on HOW you told them as well. Some people do not take criticism as well as others and this could be an instance of that. You might think you were being nice and helpful, but you might have come off as rude or something similar.

NO ONE has the right to discount others beliefs/spirituality...or reprimand and threaten someone for their use of formatting - (especially when the member has a disability...)

As an admin, they can do what they want and ban for any reason they see fit. It is their forum. When they mod someone and then disappear, they are giving de facto authorization for that person to do what they want and how they believe, there is nothing you can do except move on. You might get your friends to go with you to another less restrictive site.

Everything that i have read here is so valid...but what can we do? When you truly love a forum for what it brings into your life, and one with all of the power bans you because you point out they are abusing their power...

I guess it really pains me to know that this stuff happens, and innocent individuals enter the forum everyday, not knowing how the place has been conformed to one persons way of thinking...and knowing that if they do the wrong thing in the mod's eye, they will be treated wrong and not get the help they seek...

That is something that could happen at any and every forum, which is why some people start their own and run it the way they see fit.

I am sorry you had a bad experience but without knowing the full story, it is hard to say that the mod is in the wrong for doing what he did.

[I ♥ Adam Lambert!]

I have seen a case of abuse of power on a site, the first proboards site I joined actually. The admin gave 5% warning to a member for spelling mistakes, and then when she asked why she was being warned the admin took it personally and kept raising it up to 20% because she didnt like having her admin power questioned, she didnt like this girl and removed karma that was given by fellow members and even threatened to make it -1000 because the member annoyed her, actually closed down the suggestion section she had because she didnt like anyones suggestions - she has a real problem and didnt trust her mods to help out so gave us as fewer responsibilities as possible then she could do everything herself! And her attitude towards topics was pathetic, if someone posted something she would always complain or be negative if she disagreed, numerous times on one topic just to make sure her voice was heard, and whenever one of the mods mentioned to her that she was being too harsh on certain things, accused us of trying to power trip on her and make her out to be a tyrant - she was though and eventually, most of the forum members left and we formed our own! The completely opposite of the monster admin on the original forum

[iCandy]

Sept 20, 2008 16:28:33 GMT -8 I ♥ Adam Lambert! said:

I have seen a case of abuse of power on a site, the first proboards site I joined actually. The admin gave 5% warning to a member for spelling mistakes, and then when she asked why she was being warned the admin took it personally and kept raising it up to 20% because she didnt like having her admin power questioned, she didnt like this girl and removed karma that was given by fellow members and even threatened to make it -1000 because the member annoyed her, actually closed down the suggestion section she had because she didnt like anyones suggestions - she has a real problem and didnt trust her mods to help out so gave us as fewer responsibilities as possible then she could do everything herself! And her attitude towards topics was pathetic, if someone posted something she would always complain or be negative if she disagreed, numerous times on one topic just to make sure her voice was heard, and whenever one of the mods mentioned to her that she was being too harsh on certain things, accused us of trying to power trip on her and make her out to be a tyrant - she was though and eventually, most of the forum members left and we formed our own! The completely opposite of the monster admin on the original forum

that sounds horrible! i actually haven't had that happen to me, but i've had something similar to that happen, instead of the main admin being the tyrant, it was all the moderators that were tyrants. they kept putting everything tha the members posted down, they disagreed with the new member's applications, and it was just pure hell.

not to mention, the main admin never came on as much, so she had no idea. evetually, everyone on the site pmed her, and when she read through all of them, she actually didn't believe us.she thought we were making it up, and the reason for this was because she knew all the mods in real life, and she didn't believe her friends would act like that. needless to say, most of us quit right after that, and the site went and completely died.

there was another one, and i used to be close friends with the admin. i left for a week on a trip, and when i came back, another girl had joined and had become best friends with the admin. well, the new girl kept slipping all this information to the admin, saying how certain members were trying to overthrow them and all the stuff. of course, none of it was true, and we tried to explain to her what was going on, but she didn't believe us.

both of them are huge tyrants at the site, and they have like four of them. i was eventually banned because they didn't like my suggestions, and they began following me around to other sites to get me banned from those as well. it was pure hell, and i eventually went by another e-mail and username. but needless to say, most of the members had quit the site by then.

[Charlie Girl]

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum? They shouldn't remain staff members.

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning? Since we have a support site for people with disabilities which affect their social skills and ability to function in life, we only consider it grounds for a warning if a person posts in a way that belittles another member repeatedly. Normally a staff member who was concerned would try to turn the tone of the thread and then make the admin aware of it. They do have the right to warn a member that they are being inflammatory but our mods are carefully chosen so we haven't had to ever warn a staff member about abusing their power. They do have the ability to delete a thread but they know that is a last resort.

What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs? That staff member would be in serious trouble. The only time it is acceptable to even say anything to a member about their beliefs is if they are promoting something that could hurt someone or posting in such a way that they seem to be trying to start a war rather than a discussion. Our staff has the right to respectfully disagree with something someone has posted but only as a member and not as staff. If they consider it to be a serious issue, they bring it to admins attention or discuss it in their mods board. If they consider it serious enough to warrant immediate attention they move the thread to a private board until we can determine what to do about it.

What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted? I have personally moved a thread to our private board when someone was posting things against my beliefs. I felt that the last poster was flaming in that they had made several posts, one after another, with a point in each one and no one else had posted in between. I moved it and asked for opinions from the other staff before it was decided to remove it permanently. It was in an off topic section where we do allow people to post about issues affecting them that aren't LD related so that was ok, but we all agreed that the poster seemed to have an agenda that didn't belong on our site and would become very divisive so it was permanently deleted. None of the sources they sited to back up what they were posting was from a credible site. We checked them out. The thread had run its course so we felt it was best to get rid of it completely rather than just lock it.

I don't think its a good idea to just delete something because you disagree with what was posted. You need time to think about whether its the fact that they disagree with you or whether there is intent to start a war or force their opinions down other people's throats.

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. We all are very careful of not abusing our powers. Many of our staff have been victims of abuse of power or seen it on sites we belonged to and we want our site to be a safe haven. Of course, when we have had to warn people about consistently posting in such a way that implies that another member is stupid or ignorant, we have been accused of abusing our power to force them to agree with us. We are careful to explain it isn't the content we disagree with but that they need to encourage and support each other rather than to come across as an expert who is the only member with a brain. I'm happy to say it has only happened a couple of times and we were not unhappy to see them take offense and leave.

Our staff all are very aware of what is acceptable in their capacity. We have clear guidelines they must read and agree to before they take the position. They have more power than staff of their level on most sites but some of those powers have never been used by them. I have such trust in them that I have no worries that if something happened and only the moderators were on the site for weeks at a time, no global, no admin, the site would run so smoothly that no one but them would even realize no high level staff was there.

[Sirie]

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

When they start trying to call the shots, and overrule a admin. It is crucial for admins to get their mod's opinions or say so on some matters, but when the mod actually starts to try to control the admin's actions, that is when they have overstepped the boundaries of power.


Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning?>>

It completely depends on the degree of the argument. If a mod got in a fight with a admin about a staff procedure on the board, then starting flaming the admin in public and over ruling his/her authority, then yes they should be warned (maybe suspended) then banned.


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

Absolutely not! On my forum we have a diverse way of looking at the "series" that we revolve around. Each member has their own view point on certain things, and their own theories. We listen to each others ideas and beliefs, and at some times criticize them, but we never punish them for their beliefs or ideas.


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

Certainly not, unless it breaks any pb t.o.s or site rule. On my forum we do not allow mods to delete post. They have to move the post to the deletion request board, and a admin reviews it and if he/she thinks it is in violation then it will be deleted. So we don't have this problem often.
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 never been accused of abusing my powers. I actually try to help members who break rules often. My others admins are all over me about not being assertive enough, but I like to think stuff through before I go banning a really good rper for getting a little ill with another member, and/or posting in the wrong place once or twice.

Yes I have been on a forum with a abusive staff. (konoha.proboards/ I forgot the server # and stuff, goggle it if you must see it) I was banned on that forum for disagreeing with two mods in the chat box.


A site needs to have rules and enforce them, but not go all out communist with them, yet don't be so democratic, or the forum will be overran in no time.

[38special]

Jun 23, 2008 7:24:51 GMT -8 Enchant said:

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?

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.

I'm not a staff member only a user of the forums.
What about staff members that do not enforce the TOS. What about staff members who let abuse continue and use their power's to inform other members of private information to be used in abusive and threatening post's? Who is going to police the staff's and keep them under control? I'm not pointing fingers at anyone but it does happen and it's definitely a problem on one board I visit.
I'm not effected by this,at least not to my knowledge, but I know it is happening as we speak. This is my purpose of joining this board, to find solutions to our problems.


Correction: I am being effected. It seems that a member is checking my IP along with others on the board.

[Sirie]

Oct 18, 2008 9:24:52 GMT -8 38special said:

Jun 23, 2008 7:24:51 GMT -8 Enchant said:

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?

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.

I'm not a staff member only a user of the forums.
What about staff members that do not enforce the TOS. What about staff members who let abuse continue and use their power's to inform other members of private information to be used in abusive and threatening post's? Who is going to police the staff's and keep them under control? I'm not pointing fingers at anyone but it does happen and it's definitely a problem on one board I visit.
I'm not effected by this,at least not to my knowledge, but I know it is happening as we speak. This is my purpose of joining this board, to find solutions to our problems.


Correction: I am being effected. It seems that a member is checking my IP along with others on the board.

If they are breaking the TOS, then inform proboards, and they will "be the police" by deleting the forum.

[wulfang29101]

as new user i havent't experienced this yet and i don't think that i will. for those of u whom of which have expirienced this i think that that member that has bannded them has abused their powers and needs to be booted themselves...

[| Lady Kathryn |]

Yeppers, I totally agree with wulfang...I've only had one or two problems with staff members, as an admin, and they are both no longer a part of my site...I take that sort of thing seriously.

[Rell]

When do you think a staff member has pushed the boundaries of power on a forum? When they take out their temper tantrums on the members just because their RL isn't going so well. Too many unnecessary restrictions and abruptly claiming they want people to redo all their profiles with the threat of deletion if they don't do it just because of the format profiles are in. Making their own characters all godly and going against their own rules they had set up.

Is a disagreement grounds for a warning or banning? That would have to depend on the extent of the disagreement. If there's flaming in the thread, I am always quick to give verbal warnings then lock the thread and give warnings if it worsens. If they continue to flame and make more threads then that calls for a banning from the site to give them time to cool down, and if they return with more of a problem and continue despite the banning, I will go as far as deleting them. However, if it's minor and has little to no flaming, I just enter the thread and verbally tell them to take it down a notch or they will receive a warning. Staff has no right to ban a member though if it's just a simple disagreement like: I don't like Murtagh. That IMO, would be a stupid reason to ban someone or giving them a warning for.


What about idle threats to warn or ban a member in order to forced them into submission with their own beliefs? If I catch any staff members on the sites I either Co-admin or admin on, I can assure you that I would ensure that their staff powers were rebuked. Not everyone in the world have the same beliefs and to force that onto them shouldn't ever be allowed.

I can see a staff member using idle warnings though if this member's beliefs cause them to bash other member's beliefs and become offensive with them. The warning would be meant to stop the bashing this member is doing to others.

What about deletion of your post and threads because they disagreed with what was posted? I never had a thread or topic deleted on me because of anything others disagreed with on a forum. I could see a thread getting deleted because they disagreed with the topic's content that is offensive but ONLY if it's offensive. If the thread or topic is civil and not at all violating the rules, they have NO right to erase it.

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?

Yes, I admit I've had experience with abusive staff members in my time. When I first got into roleplaying, it was a KH site. I made a character following the template like I should have done. However, despite the fact the staff other than the head admin (who was extremely busy with RL) was active they chose to ignore my character profile for 3 weeks until I went and contacted the head admin. I had even asked them in the C-Box to look over my profile after a week. I understand that staff has lives and can be busy but it wasn't like there were that many profiles to go through and there was a lot of staff that could've done the deed because of how active they were. Most being on for extended periods of time.

I've also encountered a staff member abusing her powers on a forum by having everyone redo their profiles to HER liking. Just because members didn't include the block quotes or size 10 codes which were never included in the template before And when I went and redid my profiles, I having been the first to actually post my profiles up. She had the nerve to point a finger at me and point out a mistake, which had been really minor and a typo error with my computer because of difficulties, and implied I was stupid to the whole forum by asking the members if she really had to take them all one baby step at a time through the changes she wanted us to do. She is the admin that I mentioned before that abused her powers that way by taking her temper tantrum like a little baby out on her members and other staff.

I even experienced a forum where the staff thought they were the best therefore their characters could be the best. In other words, they were god modders and powerplayers. Needless to say, I left that site.

Another thing I've experienced would be becoming a moderator and having the higher ups leave for months on end only to abruptly show up again one day and disappear again for more months on end leaving me, the only staff member, to do all the work! I learned the first month to quit upkeeping the site for them. I did accept profiles for members to rp, kept the peace and that was it. I mean, the abandoned members shouldn't have to suffer because of the admins leaving them. The site died.

Now, for myself as an admin and co-admin and having been everything before the admin position, I wasn't a great staff member when I first started out mainly because I didn't understand what I could do as a staff member but THOUGHT I did. Luckily, the head admin was there to help correct me and explain things more clearly for me to learn the staff member positions better.

Note, I didn't do anything as far as wrongfully banning someone or anything as strongly as that. My mistake was making wrongful accusations thinking I was right about what I thought had been a god-moddish thread, not realizing I was in fact wrong until the head admin contacted me about it. I apologized to the members in question but after that, I haven't done anything to abuse my powers. I'm quite amiable, even going as far as joking around with my fellow members but keeping the place policed as it should be. Most importantly, when I look for a staff member to add onto my site I make pretty darn sure that they're reliable, mature, fair and wouldn't abuse their powers by secretly seeing how they interact with others when I'm not logged in on the site XD

What I hate more than anything else is when a staff member above me picks a staff member who I am pretty sure isn't fit for the position and gives them powers to use on the site. If anything, that is a warning flag because it states the head admin isn't as protective of the site as he/she should be since depending on what powers you give the new staff person, they can seriously damage your site. Like deleting threads, profiles, accounts, messing boards up, and angering members and such. I've been a member on a site where a staff member went rogue and actually did that. The admin spent weeks redoing everything.

Also, I am not one that enjoys being pestered for a staff position by a member I know nothing about and I mean pestered about it with PMs. If I know nothing about them, I don't give them a staff position but will tell them why in as politely a way as I can. Then from there, I will watch them to see how they are with other members on the site and try to see if they're fit for the position but if they're not and someone else looks more fit, I give it to that person. After all, it is my site and I want to keep my members happy and my site safe from those that're purposely looking to mess it up. The situation is almost like letting someone babysit your kid, you're going to want to make sure the person you're leaving your kid with isn't going to get them killed, hurt them, and responsible enough to keep them safe and well cared for while you're away.

[clmcbriar]

Good Topic!

I have seen this on A whole lot of forums I am a member of. I am a member of quite a few forums, but only own one. My staff is all level headed, that is because when our forum was started, the only staff member was me. and I did not have any others. as I monitored the forum, I saw who the most level headed posters were, and I asked them to be my staff. I only have a staff of three, including myself.

i have not heard of this happening on my forum, but I have seen it on others. It seem like some people cant handle authority very well. I get a kick out of the mods who scold you for starting a new thread on something that already has a thread, even if that thread is three years old and was buried.

I think that all staff should be neutral, and not push their beliefs on anyone else. Nor should they delete, lock, or modifiy anyones posts if they do not agree with the member.

It all boils down to choosing the right people for the job. and if they abuse the power, take it away

[Spectra]

I've seen this happen! I've atcually seen it happen on a site! And it has hapened to me! Were starting to get close but very slowly. The old owner quit. Well then I guess the admin got to greedy because he/she wanted to be leader! So she banned the old leader for two weeks for something! I don't remember what! I remember now! For trying to destroy the site. I knew the old leader pretty well and I knew she wouldn't do that! The current admin who banned the old leader also banned another leader! SO WRON!!!!! She then warned me for spamming the cbox! All I made was four senteces and kept hitting enter when I went to space! So were getting to be friends but their is a part of me that still doesn't trust her. She changed the site completely! Tons of members even left because of it! She even sent a pm out saying that if they didn't like her then they can leave!