Feelings about KGS administrators are mixed.

If you feel that the admin process is too arbitrary , please post an unedited transcript of the chat and the date time.

No rants please.

Sunday, 29 April 0:50:10 a.m (GMT + 0:00)
Bigdoug and abyss
http://pastebin.com/PJ0Yj1e4

My opinion on that chat is that BD's first post was overstepping slightly, but after that abyss was way out of line

Overstepping? How? All he did was tell a user to shut up for no apparent reason. Isn't dishing out mysterious bans the primary duty of the KGS admins?

From the transcript, it wasn't very mysterious why the banning occurred.

Jts, I am assuming that was sarcasm, but that this is the internet I can't be sure.

Oren, I agree that the banning was necessary when he banned, however I still think that the first thing bd said was overstepping

Perhaps you care to enlighten us? Is Uberdude inappropriate for minors?

I believe oren is referring to :
abyss: always lookin forward to kick my ass aren't you biggie
and
abyss: ok big cock

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I think we all know that Mr. Doug didn't like being called a cock. What's completely mysterious - but at the same time totally normal for KGS - is why our dashing protector told abyss to stop talking in the first place. That was what you called "overstepping" originally, and that's what I thought oren was claiming to have the inside scoop on.

No, I was just referring to fairly obvious bad language leading to a ban. Why Bigdoug stopped the conversation, I don't know. Abyss overstepped quite a bit on the response.

Probably the admin did fear that "abyss: uberdude has been a dan for years and he doesn't even like himself." would lead to bad conversation...

If this was not a joke, it's not something really nice to say

abyss's comments make it seem like there was prior history between them that could explain BigDoug's initial apparent overreaction.

Without knowing the context (i.e. the history between the two) it's impossible to judge this fairly.

fear of someone else saying something stupid should not cause admins to end conversations because anyone who has been in the EGR should be worried about someone randomly saying something stupid, so the logical next step is too chat ban everyone. also "Past history" as some people have said is just another way of saying that Big doug has gruges against people he doesn't like. If someone does something wrong and they get punished that should be it until they do something wrong again, someone doing something wrong isn't a excuse for admins to be abusive towards them for the rest of their time on kgs.

Or "past history" could mean that the user has a history of offenses that merit a ban, and the admin is doing his job impartially and fairly.



I disagree. A continuing pattern of the same offense indicates a contempt for the rules, which is a much greater problem than just breaking a rule.

Almost all modern systems of jurisprudence have the concept of a 'strike'.

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Which then translates into harsher punishment upon repetition, not in harassment by the police/innocents going to jail. I hope you understand the analogy.

I think there is a difference in perspective, which leads to different stances on this issue.

If you view people as unchangeable beings - those that have done "bad" (if we have some good definition for that) will always be "bad" - then it makes sense that, if they were bad in the past, they should not be here anymore. They will just be "bad" in the future.

But if you view people as changeable beings - individuals that can grow and learn from past experience, then it does not make sense to hold grudges against them for that which has happened in the past.

Or, if you do have grudges, as most humans do, it should not be reflected in your admin actions. If being an admin is a service to the community - which is how I view it - those that get banned from time to time are also a part of that community and deserve fair treatment.

I know there are individuals that do not view being an admin as a service to the community, but rather as their personal "right" as an owner of a site or service, but I have to disagree with this stance, as it is the community that really makes a place what it is.

We have already seen that with the move from godiscussions.com to L19. We are not dependent on the admins or on the server. mWe have power because of each one of us together. We are the community, and it is because of that community that I continue to visit this site, even after saying I wouldn't for awhile (that and lack of self-control).

And that community includes the "hooligans." Let's have faith in one another, and use reasoning instead of grudges. Perhaps banning is inevitable from time to time when posting disrupts the rest of the community. But how we respond to such disruption can make all the difference. If we can turn one "hooligan" out of 10 into someone that contributes positively on the forum, I think we have benefitted.

Of course all of this "hooligan" talk is subjective, anyway... But grudges can't be a good solution as an administrative policy.

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"No rants please" certainly didn't do much to discourage rants in this thread.

Adding "no rants" to a really contentious subject must be dry.

My experience of KGS admins and in fact BigDoug in particular has been broadly very positive.

If anything I think they are perhaps way too tolerant of repeated and repeated belligerent behaviour. To some extent you can avoid the issue by just leaving the EGR, but in some ways that's both inconvenient and it's weird that you would have to.

(Or perhaps their low tolerance is too patchily enforced; I did once get warned for discussing sex in the teaching ladder; "...as a prophylactic measure...".)

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I think the ban made complete sense ... in the end. However, the fact that the majority of people have no idea what the original conversation was "not to have in here" does rather indicate either an overstep in the first instance, or a really badly explained judgement by the mods on what conversation is appropriate.

However, we don't have full information, and this conversation may have occurred before and had a bad outcome, and BD was trying to discourage a repetition. It's quite clear Abyss has some issues to respond in the way he did, and it may well be that he took a similar conversation somewhere bad previously.

I have read the transcript 5 times. Where does the admin tell anyone to "shut up"?

"Please do not have that conversation here" is a polite request, which was ignored.

It seems clear to me that both the admin and the player knew what "that conversation" meant, so, to them, the reason was apparent, even if it is not to us.

People keep attacking this guy for being so horrible, yet every time the post their examples of how horrible he is, my reaction is...really?...this is the best you have? Not that I want to encourage threads like this.

Perhaps my attitude is clouded by getting "yelled' at Saturday night for wishing my opponent "good luck". In a world where that is an insult, and "please" means "shut up" any admin who tries to do his job has no chance.

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