OT - FAO of the Editor

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Originally Posted by Bloomeram

Show me this post and he will be banned, along with anyone else who keeps up this play ground trolling...............The moderators and myself are fed up with trying to sort this childish bickering out. We are on the verge of banning All of you in a the hope the board will recover to some football chat, banter without all the rest of the baggage you lot insist on using day after day.

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if it wasn't for the baggage, as you describe it, or justifiable complaints regarding favouritism to a serial rule abuser, as we see it, then there would be nothing to post about!! The moderators may be fed up with the bickering, and rightly so, we all are, but we are all also fed up with persistent rule abuse which is regularly reported to the moderation crew and uniformly ignored. Clarification on the rule against uncredited copy and pasting of articles authored by others, libelous statements and the avoidance of the swear filter would (a) be appreciated and (b) enforcement thereof respected.

We all mostly grew up in a Board era where all of the above were dealt with and, where appropriate, punished. I have received a ban for swear filter abuse myself. You may therefore understand why I, and others, find it galling that one particular poster consistently breaks those three rules but goes unpunished. It is, in a nutshell "not fair" and I am sure HQ would not approve of such inconsistent application of rules.

There - a few home truths. if you feel that expressing our frustrations with inconsistent moderation is worthy of a global ban, then please go ahead. But I suspect that you, Bloomer, at least, are a reasonable man who is a "keeper of the rules". If they are not to be applied, then they are not worth having; if those that complain that the rules are not being upheld are banned, then that, Sir, is fascism

Bloomer with respect there would not be any baggage if the Moderator did his job properly I don't want anybody banned I just want the the moderator to be consistent if he ban someone for the use of the word arse and let others use really bad swear words then he is not doing his job correctly his he

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Originally Posted by mistaram

Bloomer with respect there would not be any baggage if the Moderator did his job properly I don't want anybody banned I just want the the moderator to be consistent if he ban someone for the use of the word arse and let others use really bad swear words then he is not doing his job correctly his he

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With respect, we (there are three moderators) try to clamp down on any swearing as this should be a place youngsters, women and other people to use without having to read that sort of language. Doing it on every single thread is nearly impossible. We relaxed the swear filter and it has now been further abused and now we have to keep a very close eye on the trolling that has now started, usually on one persons posts.

All reported cases of Avoiding the swear filter, etc will now be looked at and acted on.
We also want to stop the childish trolling, which has begun to get so bad that HQ at footymad have now asked me to sort the problem out....................or they will, so please be warned, or as moderators we will have no choice but to start banning people for the good of the board and the majority of people who want to enjoy decent banter, informative posts and a general good time discussing what we all love.................FOOTBALL

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Originally Posted by Bloomeram

Show me this post and he will be banned, along with anyone else who keeps up this play ground trolling...............The moderators and myself are fed up with trying to sort this childish bickering out. We are on the verge of banning All of you in a the hope the board will recover to some football chat, banter without all the rest of the baggage you lot insist on using day after day.

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With respect Bloomer I honestly feel you're being untypically unfair.
There's been plenty of 'football chat' recently, it's just that most of those responsible for that chat have also been mightily fed up for months with the behaviour of one particular poster and one particular mod and it's no coincidence that so many on here feel the same way.
I'll happily concede that the poster concerned has been much more adult and much better behaved towards others in recent days. Perhaps someone has had a 'word' about the endless plagiarism and fantasy reporter stuff etc. If so that's great, live and let live, but it took bloomin' long enough and a great many people, including new and responsible posters such as MadAmster and Whiteram have possibly been lost along the way.
To say people have been 'trolling' one poster just isn't true. He's behaved objectionably imo on many occasions and people have, in the absence of any responsible moderation, reacted...sometimes possibly over reacted, but it is quite unprecedented in my experience for one poster to manage to wind so many people up in circumstances such as these.
People honestly don't know what to do. Rats said...'write to HQ'...'write to Bloomer'. I, for one, did. HQ passed it on to you, you eventually asked for more details, were provided with them in a personal message and then didn't even offer the courtesy of a reply.
So what else can one do in such circumstances? Fight your own corner is I suppose the best answer and that's what many have been doing. It would all be so much better if we had just one active and capable mod and for Rats to say what he does in post #27 about mods not needing to be active in order to know what's happening is just nonsense. It's no use knowing what's happening if nothing positive is done. For a mod to have any credibility they need to be seen to be regularly engaged in the forum and have a reputation for fairness. Both these qualities have, again imo, been sadly lacking on this forum for some considerable time.

P.S. Playing the 'youngsters and women might be reading' card really won't work, however well intentioned. Wasn't this the site that was advocating gambling a few weeks ago. Seems to me that gambling has caused an awful lot more heartache than a bit of 'language' and in 2017 it's verging on the ***ist to suggest that women might be offended.

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Originally Posted by ramAnag

With respect Bloomer I honestly feel you're being untypically unfair.
There's been plenty of 'football chat' recently, it's just that most of those responsible for that chat have also been mightily fed up for months with the behaviour of one particular poster and one particular mod and it's no coincidence that so many on here feel the same way.
I'll happily concede that the poster concerned has been much more adult and much better behaved towards others in recent days. Perhaps someone has had a 'word' about the endless plagiarism and fantasy reporter stuff etc. If so that's great, live and let live, but it took bloomin' long enough and a great many people, including new and responsible posters such as MadAmster and Whiteram have possibly been lost along the way.
To say people have been 'trolling' one poster just isn't true. He's behaved objectionably imo on many occasions and people have, in the absence of any responsible moderation, reacted...sometimes possibly over reacted, but it is quite unprecedented in my experience for one poster to manage to wind so many people up in circumstances such as these.
People honestly don't know what to do. Rats said...'write to HQ'...'write to Bloomer'. I, for one, did. HQ passed it on to you, you eventually asked for more details, were provided with them in a personal message and then didn't even offer the courtesy of a reply.
So what else can one do in such circumstances? Fight your own corner is I suppose the best answer and that's what many have been doing. It would all be so much better if we had just one active and capable mod and for Rats to say what he does in post #27 about mods not needing to be active in order to know what's happening is just nonsense. It's no use knowing what's happening if nothing positive is done. For a mod to have any credibility they need to be seen to be regularly engaged in the forum and have a reputation for fairness. Both these qualities have, again imo, been sadly lacking on this forum for some considerable time.

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I take your point, and I can only apologies for my absence on the board, but as we know it is a voluntary position and no one can monitor the board 24/7...............We (the moderators) will be taking a closer look at what is happening to this messageboard and try to sort out the problems.

People will be removed and global bans imposed from this time onward for any and all reported rule infringments.

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Originally Posted by Bloomeram

I take your point, and I can only apologies for my absence on the board, but as we know it is a voluntary position and no one can monitor the board 24/7...............We (the moderators) will be taking a closer look at what is happening to this messageboard and try to sort out the problems.

People will be removed and global bans imposed from this time onward for any and all reported rule infringments.

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Thank you for the response. I wasn't necessarily talking about you anymore than any of the other mods. The only one who appears with any sort of remote regularity these days is Rats and he is, I think it is fair to say, deeply mistrusted by most.
The question remains then, especially as these positions are 'voluntary' and, one imagines, unrewarded...why can we not have another mod who satisfies the criteria described in my previous post? I, and others, really would like to know.

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Originally Posted by ramAnag

Thank you for the response. I wasn't necessarily talking about you anymore than any of the other mods. The only one who appears with any sort of remote regularity these days is Rats and he is, I think it is fair to say, deeply mistrusted by most.
The question remains then, especially as these positions are 'voluntary' and, one imagines, unrewarded...why can we not have another mod who satisfies the criteria described in my previous post? I, and others, really would like to know.

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There is no real reason to have moderators, I managed it all on my own for many years on this very forum but with improved popularity there was a real need to have them. The moderators we have now were appointed from the MB by the people on the message board at that time.

I realise that there will be differences between posters and moderators but we (the mods and myself) talk any problems out and try to sort them out for the good of the board and those posting on the board. We aim to be fair and just and have had praise from HQ in recent years for our work moderating.

My reasoning for not wanting any further people joining the moderators is it does tend to cause more problems the more moderators you have. We have a policy where everyone agrees before we act on anything and it becomes even more time consuming the more opinions you need to hear and then agree on.

Hope this has answered most of the questions and we can now move on and make this MB the best on Footy Mad.

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Originally Posted by Bloomeram

There is no real reason to have moderators, I managed it all on my own for many years on this very forum but with improved popularity there was a real need to have them. The moderators we have now were appointed from the MB by the people on the message board at that time.

I realise that there will be differences between posters and moderators but we (the mods and myself) talk any problems out and try to sort them out for the good of the board and those posting on the board. We aim to be fair and just and have had praise from HQ in recent years for our work moderating.

My reasoning for not wanting any further people joining the moderators is it does tend to cause more problems the more moderators you have. We have a policy where everyone agrees before we act on anything and it becomes even more time consuming the more opinions you need to hear and then agree on.

Hope this has answered most of the questions and we can now move on and make this MB the best on Footy Mad.

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Again, with respect and not wishing to monopolise the thread, that doesn't entirely make sense.
On the one hand you suggest there is 'no real reason to have moderators' while on the other you state that 'there was a real need to have them'.

Either way, the mods we have were, as you say, appointed by the people on the message board at the time. They are not necessarily the people who are around now, most of whom appear seriously dissatisfied with the current situation.
Can appreciate your 'too many cooks' scenario, however in the current circumstances it surely makes sense to replace those who no longer appear involved or to have the respect of the forum members with someone who does.

I fear your whipping a deceased equine AR! its clear that its a closed shop and those who are now MODS do not want anyone disrupting their cosy little clique.

I think given Bloomer has undertaken that the rules will be applied without fear or favour to all posters, we should now let the matter rest and give the "new reality" a chance to work. I'm not certain that we have anyone amongst our ranks who actually really wants to be a Mod anyhow.

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Originally Posted by swaledale

I fear your whipping a deceased equine AR! its clear that its a closed shop and those who are now MODS do not want anyone disrupting their cosy little clique.

I think given Bloomer has undertaken that the rules will be applied without fear or favour to all posters, we should now let the matter rest and give the "new reality" a chance to work. I'm not certain that we have anyone amongst our ranks who actually really wants to be a Mod anyhow.

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Good example yesterday - Max Verstappen (20 years old bear in mind), demoted from 3rd to 4th in the USA GP for what most think was an unfair, inconsistent decision to penalise him for a racy overtake. He had a moan, he even called the Steward (AKA 'mod') an idiot, his team principle also had a massive rant, but: despite the injustice HE'S MOVED ON, as have his team. Lets take a lead from the young whippersnapper