Kgs admin transcripts

HKA · Post by **HKA** » Tue May 01, 2012 1:26 pm

xDragon wrote: isnt the important thing that unacceptable behavior be noticed? its pretty ridiculous that some of you are that insistent in trying to make sure the admins look good. thats the only reason that this kind of thread would be considered a bad idea.

I find it difficult to disagree with this post. Thank you, BigDoug for noticing uncacceptable behavior, and thank you, xDragon for the making the admins look good.

xDragon · Post by **xDragon** » Tue May 01, 2012 1:46 pm

HKA wrote:
xDragon wrote: isnt the important thing that unacceptable behavior be noticed? its pretty ridiculous that some of you are that insistent in trying to make sure the admins look good. thats the only reason that this kind of thread would be considered a bad idea.
I find it difficult to disagree with this post. Thank you, BigDoug for noticing uncacceptable behavior, and thank you, xDragon for the making the admins look good.

if it hasnt been made clear already that youre not welcome anywhere around my posts then ill let you know now

HKA · Post by **HKA** » Tue May 01, 2012 1:58 pm

xDragon wrote:
HKA wrote:
xDragon wrote: if it hasnt been made clear already that youre not welcome anywhere around my posts then ill let you know now

Looks like you would ban folks pretty quickly indeed....

xDragon · Post by **xDragon** » Tue May 01, 2012 2:00 pm

looks like i would censor people becoming senile in their old age

BigDoug · Post by **BigDoug** » Tue May 01, 2012 2:04 pm

jts wrote:In past threads about KGS, there has been a huge amount of disagreement about basic facts. If we start collecting facts, maybe we'll start to see eye to eye what admins are actually saying and what they're prohibiting and why they're banning people, and then we can rehash the earlier debate about whether that constitutes a good job.

One of the difficulties which admins face in these forums is maintaining the balance between providing helpful information and respecting privacy. For example, in my case, I spend quite a bit of time with people in private chat. In order to discuss the specifics of why a person was banned, this private chat may have played a critical role in my decision, but I will not reveal the contents of private chat with other people. Therefore, it would be difficult to present all the facts from my perspective.

I do agree with your goal though. I have a suggestion about how we may be able to accomplish it.

Suppose someone creates a thread and sets up a hypothetical situation where everyone can provide their opinions about what action the admin should take (if any). Because it's a hypothetical situation, people can voice their opinions without personalising the discussion and inadvertently violating anyone's privacy. For example, if a room owner contacts an admin to request that a person be banned, should the admin give greater weight to the room owner's request because he or she owns the room? (This probably isn't the most interesting hypothetical example, of course.)

Some decisions are easy (e.g., a person repeatedly drops the f-bomb in the EGR). If we can create and discuss examples of decisions involving grey areas, then hopefully people will learn from others' perspectives. I would certainly be interested.

TMark · Post by **TMark** » Wed May 02, 2012 3:38 am

xDragon wrote:looks like i would censor people becoming senile in their old age

To put it in a nutshell, you want to be able to aggravate the admins as much as possible until you get banned, then come here to complain about them and insult anyone who considers that this is infantile? You have just earned my latest censor choice.

Best wishes.

quantumf · Post by **quantumf** » Wed May 02, 2012 4:02 am

TMark wrote:To put it in a nutshell, you want to be able to aggravate the admins as much as possible until you get banned, then come here to complain about them and insult anyone who considers that this is infantile? You have just earned my latest censor choice.

Does the forum support this sort of censoring?

mw42 · Post by **mw42** » Wed May 02, 2012 8:03 am

I think posting transcripts regarding bans privately amongst the KGS admins would be more helpful than users posting them publicly. One of the things that always perturbs me about KGS is moderation inconsistency. Javaness, for example, is a lot... A LOT more lenient than BigDoug, and I think that causes confusion with what is actually acceptable in chat -- especially considering that the chat guidelines are vague in and of themselves.

jts · Post by **jts** » Wed May 02, 2012 8:30 am

quantumf wrote:
TMark wrote:To put it in a nutshell, you want to be able to aggravate the admins as much as possible until you get banned, then come here to complain about them and insult anyone who considers that this is infantile? You have just earned my latest censor choice.
Does the forum support this sort of censoring?

Yes, to a limited extent. Go under your user control panel, chose "Friends and Foes", and add xDragon to your "Foes" list. (Be sure you pick the right one, since Friends and Foes are in the same place.) At that point, threads will be loaded with your foe's posts hidden by default, although you can unhide them one by one. However, you can still see where they've posted, see quotations of what they've said, and your unread posts page will update with their threads and threads that they have posted on.

Uberdude · Post by **Uberdude** » Wed May 02, 2012 8:51 am

I don't know whether I should feel honoured or upset to be mentioned in that post that led to abyss being banned. But mostly I am confused. I don't understand what he meant, why he referred to me (not that I took offence) or why BigDoug deemed it inappropriate. Can anyone explain? If I imagine Kenneth Williams saying that post I can just about get it to mean something dirty, but what doesn't!

Uberdude · Post by **Uberdude** » Wed May 02, 2012 8:59 am

Also, I can't help feeling that BigDoug is the most skilled troll on KGS (and yes I realise the irony that this statement is a little provocative/trollish). A troll is someone who creates arguments and aggravation. BD's interventions often do this, such as in this example. Admins are supposed to solve problems, not create/exacerbate them.

topazg · Post by **topazg** » Wed May 02, 2012 9:02 am

Uberdude wrote:... Admins are supposed to solve problems, not create/exacerbate them.

I completely agree with this, and these repeated discussions about KGS admins are an indication that something could be improved in the system somewhere. I vote for transparency of reasoning behind decisions being logged and publicly visible

mw42 · Post by **mw42** » Wed May 02, 2012 9:05 am

topazg wrote:
Uberdude wrote:... Admins are supposed to solve problems, not create/exacerbate them.
I completely agree with this, and these repeated discussions about KGS admins are an indication that something could be improved in the system somewhere. I vote for transparency of reasoning behind decisions being logged and publicly visible

I concur; public logs of bans by admins would be quite beneficial. This has been on the KGS Wishlist for several years proposed, if I remember correctly, by you.

Uberdude · Post by **Uberdude** » Wed May 02, 2012 11:33 am

Here's a transcript of a kick and then ban I got from BigDoug a few years ago. It started with the kibitz of a high dan game (http://files.gokgs.com/games/2009/4/21/ ... oln111.sgf).

It began with fairly standard kibitz about the game. There was also some discussion about the best books to improve and someone made the jokey recommendation of "Hikaru no Go Vol. 5" which led to a parallel thread about Hikaru/Sai etc, but that didn't stop the game discussion. A bit later BigDoug told people to only comment on the game (I have emboldened it to stand out, I don't know if it was bold on KGS):

As is often the case, people don't like being told what to do:

...and it seems Starcraft2 got booted:

That sets the scene (mostly game kibitz, some off topic, BigDoug warning and banning) for my entry into the game.

A bit later the distinction between yose and endgame game up:

And I was kicked.

I reconnected to KGS and spoke to BigDoug in private chat. I thought I had this chat saved, but can't seem to find it. Oh well...

One of the main issues arising in that discussion was BigDoug's assertion that my behaviour was net negative towards KGS users, whereas I considered it positive. I pointed out that there were people saying positive things, thanking me for explaining the yose/endgame difference, and none complaining. He said this was only a few people of hundreds, maybe all the others disliked me for doing it. My contention was that absence of information should be taken as neutral, not against me.

I then returned to the game in an attempt to gather evidence to prove me right and him wrong:

And I was banned.

I wrote to admin@gokgs.com:

Hi,

I have just been banned by BigDoug. I was kibitzing a game (bigbadwolf vs roln111) tonight around 02:15 GMT 21st April and some people were talking about yose vs endgame so I explained the difference. Some people talked about this, others (including me) also talked about moves in the game being made at that time as opposed to more general go concepts that were relevant to the game. BigDoug issued a bold warning ordering us to stop talking about yose. I consider this suitable discussion for a go game on kgs (I recall someone saying something positive about learning the difference). As you can verify from reading the kibitz this discussion did not preclude discussion of the immediate moves of the game. As anyone with a basic understanding in human psychology knows, actions of a person in authority, particularly those whose source of authority is unaccountable and those deemed to wield their power excessively can cause friction in a social situation. I bemoaned BigDoug's over zealous bolding and was promptly kicked. I then questioned BigDoug's action in a private chat with him and he as part of the argument he asserted that I was wrong to think that the public perception was that his actions were heavy handed and that people would be in my support. I gave him the kibitz of several people supporting me. He said this was only 5 of 350 obeservers. This is dishonest statisitcs. Many of those observers do not kibitz and thus should not be treated as pro or con me, but neutral. There were none against. There may be a bias of people who are pro-me to speak up and those against to not say anything, but a-priori I cannot see any reason to believe this is so. In an attempt to gather better evidence I asked a poll question in the game. Admitedly this is not related to the go game, and BigDoug banned me. Not before I saw 1 response to my question which was clearly in my favour: "
idontknow [3d]: he kicked you for that?!?!?" Looking at the sgf I also find "Impaired [1k]: im disappointed to hear that uberdude. you are one of the biggest contributors to ontopic kibitz". If BigDoug wants to ban me because he has that power and kgs is a dictatorship then fine, but he should have the decency to admit that. Instead he tried to justify his actions with an argument the evidence points to as being false.

The conclusion of this fracas is that, yet again, admin intervention exacerbated the situation. The yose discussion was not precluding other threads and would most likely have died down soon anyway. I urge you to recommend BigDoug is more restrained in his use of the admin powers so that kgs can retain the friendly atmosphere of goodwill that usually makes it such a nice place.

Regards,

Andrew Simons (Uberdude)

which got the following response:

There are the facts. Judge them as you will.

Javaness2 · Post by **Javaness2** » Wed May 02, 2012 12:37 pm

mw42 wrote:I concur; public logs of bans by admins would be quite beneficial. This has been on the KGS Wishlist for several years proposed, if I remember correctly, by you.

I think admins on KGS will always have slightly different views, and will always act slightly differently. Although the divergence could be lessened by extensive conditioning, this would generally turn most people off the role of admin. Admins are primarily there for 3 reasons 1.stop people facing abuse 2. stop cheats 3. help with techy things 4. upload new pictures. Of course, other KGS admins may disagree with me there.

Public logs mean public shame. Kids should not be publicly shamed for what they do on a go server. Professionals wouldn't want that either. People have bad days and go off the rails. All this information should not be written down and made publicly available in a log. Admins do make mistakes, these can be rectified, as is evidenced.

Life In 19x19

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