Should we vote trolls off the island?

[Finaltheorem47]

I voted no because moderators should remain un-emotional when deciding these things. If autopians could vote, there would be plenty of emotional votes.





I say this because my car forums I'm on, there are some heated political debates and I know after reading them you want to ban someone from their radical responses, but it really carries the forum along as entertainment and helps create and keep a lot of traffic.



Now if the poster is giving wrong information that he knows is wrong, then maybe that could be bannable, but radical people on forums are often the people who bring the most traffic to the boards and keep people entertained.

 

[imported_Jakerooni]

Just to play the devil's advocate here though... WE all tend to convent what we know... GoudyL might just be a shill for TW. god knows we have enough of those on here already... But maybe he only uses TW and that's what he knows. I'm still a very firm beleiver that it's 95% technique and very little to do with product choice anyways to get a great finish. But if someone comes on here and ask "Hey I have "X" issue how do I solve it?" and he know's that TW "...." would solve the issue per his own personal experience then you can't blame the guy for tossing that info out. If that's all he knows then it's all he knows and he's still trying to be helpful. Now if he's just spouting off to ne a loud mouth snook then so be it take the appropriate actions to solve the issue. I don;t know... Maybe it's because most of us know TW is kind of a junk product so we jump on it... However there are pleanty of guys that spout nothing but other products which are considered by most to be top shelf.. However in the end it's the exact same thing... How many guys on here spout everything Zanio to solve all issues? Or Meg's, or Mothers, etc etc etc.... It's done every single day here by a lot of different members..

 

[RTexasF]

I say leave it to the mods. The system has worked well for this long, there's no reason to change it. Emotion must be left out of decisions to ban and most regular members, myself included, are not capable of doing so.

 

[TortoiseAWD]

I say leave it to the mods. The system has worked well for this long, there's no reason to change it. Emotion must be left out of decisions to ban and most regular members, myself included, are not capable of doing so.

We're looking into it.



BTW, I'm not sure if most members are aware of it, but you can create your own buddy/ignore list. If a member is getting under your skin, put him on ignore. Go to your User CP, and on the lower left under Miscellaneous is the Buddy / Ignore Lists option.



Something else that everyone can do to help out:

If you think someone is trolling, report it, but don't reply in the thread. Trolls thrive on attention. Starve them, and they go away. Replying to them just encourages them to stick around.



Tort

 

[Junebug]

I agree with Jake, we all have our favorite products and tend to promote and defend them - but hell, it's just wax and stuff.



I use to be big into landscaping and lawnsite.com is the place to be if you're into it - there was a kid there that worked his butt off to be like the old pro's, he was like a young Jesse James or Paul Teutel - always welding old stuff back together and having his mom drive him from site to site just to earn money for a decent mower. He would rebuild some wore out Exmark or Scag and then posts how great it cut and on & on, a few guys gave him a hard time cause they were the "experts" and had been doing it for a long time blah blah....Me - I was just in awe of what a 15 old kid could do and would have been proud if he was my kid. Ya'll think about the other person next time, could be just an excited kid trying to make a buck, not a bad thing these days.

 

[SuperBee364]

Very true.





Since the Eco$mart guy was banned and Flawless doesnt post much anymore, Goudy gets most of the attention.

Flawless successfully avoided his ban by creating another user account, and is happily posting away. The board used to be moderated highly enough that guys that tried to do this were immediately banned again.

Admit it SuperBee, you're just jelous of TWI; IZ DA BOMB MAN! :woohoo:

Uh oh... I'm busted

Just to play the devil's advocate here though... WE all tend to convent what we know... GoudyL might just be a shill for TW. god knows we have enough of those on here already... But maybe he only uses TW and that's what he knows. I'm still a very firm beleiver that it's 95% technique and very little to do with product choice anyways to get a great finish. But if someone comes on here and ask "Hey I have "X" issue how do I solve it?" and he know's that TW "...." would solve the issue per his own personal experience then you can't blame the guy for tossing that info out. If that's all he knows then it's all he knows and he's still trying to be helpful. Now if he's just spouting off to ne a loud mouth snook then so be it take the appropriate actions to solve the issue. I don;t know... Maybe it's because most of us know TW is kind of a junk product so we jump on it... However there are pleanty of guys that spout nothing but other products which are considered by most to be top shelf.. However in the end it's the exact same thing... How many guys on here spout everything Zanio to solve all issues? Or Meg's, or Mothers, etc etc etc.... It's done every single day here by a lot of different members..

Not as many as in the past. As David Fermani pointed out, it used to be that anyone that promoted one line of products a bit too much was sent a reminder by a mod to not do so. Lately, though, the Autopian membership in general has developed a good eye for shills. Shills are usually outed and shamed by the membership long before a mod takes any action, if any action is taken at all.

I say leave it to the mods. The system has worked well for this long, there's no reason to change it. Emotion must be left out of decisions to ban and most regular members, myself included, are not capable of doing so.

I guess that's where we disagree. I certainly mean no disrespect to David or the mods when I say this, as it is meant to be a simple observation, and not an insult...Autopia is not moderated nearly as well as it use to be. Spam, trolls, shills, multiple user accounts, etc. are much more of a problem than they used to be. Again, I'm not blaming anyone; I'm sure it takes a huge amount of time and man power to adequately police a board as big as this. So it happesns. My offered solution was simply to help take some of the burden off of the mods. If a member was found to be a troll by a membership vote, a mod could then do the banning. A process like this wouldn't need to be considered if Autopia could again be as well moderated as it was in the past.



I also disagree with the emotion thing. We don't have a bunch of Vulcan mods here, and every banning relies on the emotions of just one person (as well as their sense of what's fair). The legal system depends on trial by jury to avoid exactly this (as well as other reasons, of course).



Tort does bring up some great stuff... Thanks for humoring me on this thread, Tort, and taking part in it as you have, btw... We really should make better use of the rep system here. Autopia is just one of many forums I frequent (or haunt, depending on yout point of view), and most of the others put the rep system to much better use. If it'll help the mods do troll patrol, then I think it's up to us to use it and help them out.

 

[TortoiseAWD]

Flawless successfully avoided his ban by creating another user account, and is happily posting away. The board used to be moderated highly enough that guys that tried to do this were immediately banned again.

Wait, what? Duplicate accounts are still grounds for the ban-hammer. PM me if you have info.



And, I'd say we're still trying to moderate the site for shills, trolls, alts, etc. just as we always have, but the site keeps growing, and there are only so many moderators. I remember back when I could read (or at least skim) every new post. If I tried to do that these days, that's about all I'd be doing. We (the mods) rely on members more than ever to report issues to us.



Thanks,

Tort

 

[David Fermani]

Tort - I will gradly volunteer my services if you or DavidB have an interest in bringing me on as a Moderator. It's been ages since a new Mod was hired on and many of the old time Mods don't even log on anymore.

 

[efnfast]

Can I be a mod too? Anybody who doesn't use a cyclo should be banned! :think2

 

[TortoiseAWD]

Tort - I will gradly volunteer my services if you or DavidB have an interest in bringing me on as a Moderator. It's been ages since a new Mod was hired on and many of the old time Mods don't even log on anymore.

Hired? Unpaid all-volunteer force here. If anyone is interested in joining the mod crew, feel free to contact DavidB. Be warned: It will chew time out of your day, and you'll get called a Nazi every once in a while for your troubles.



Tort

 

[RTexasF]

The answer seems obvious........more mods are indeed needed due to the growth of the site. Pretty standard when a site is successful and grows is it not?

 

[Apollo_Auto]

I'm all in for the public "stoning system". I'm not the best detailer in the world and never want to have that title, but when someone tells me I'm "wrong" for voicing my opinions about detailing it tends to leave a bad taste in my mouth. There's a plethora of internet bad a$$es in the world, but a professional detailing forum is not the place for them. I suggest that the "give rep" button be more readily available (I still don't know where the darn thing is...) and that only members who have earned a certain level of respect may opt to ban a member, providing he has enough support from his peers (the jury=other "respectable" members) to back his notion. Just my 2 cents .

 

[David Fermani]

We don’t own or share the costs of this site, DavidB does. Why should we have the right to ban anyone then? David set up the initial foundation of rules for members to abide by and it’s up to him or his Moderators to control the level of ethics that take place on his forum. We can only bring to light the people we feel don’t play with an equal deck of cards and it’s up to them to take action. People that choose to participate on this forum with an obvious agenda that’s not productive to this forum or the industry as a whole should be corrected so that discussions don’t get out of hand like it recently has. When members constantly notice rules being violated and management doesn’t follow through with the enforcement of these rules, things *can* get out of control. This forum(unlike all the others) is only one that doesn’t push an agenda and we are pretty lucky to be able to openly discuss any and all products that exist. We need more involvement/shadowing from Moderators and members so that this place can continue to be the best place on the internet to discuss detailing.

 

[Apollo_Auto]

We don’t own or share the costs of this site, DavidB does. Why should we have the right to ban anyone then? David set up the initial foundation of rules for members to abide by and it’s up to him or his Moderators to control the level of ethics that take place on his forum. We can only bring to light the people we feel don’t play with an equal deck of cards and it’s up to them to take action. People that choose to participate on this forum with an obvious agenda that’s not productive to this forum or the industry as a whole should be corrected so that discussions don’t get out of hand like it recently has. When members constantly notice rules being violated and management doesn’t follow through with the enforcement of these rules, things *can* get out of control. This forum(unlike all the others) is only one that doesn’t push an agenda and we are pretty lucky to be able to openly discuss any and all products that exist. We need more involvement/shadowing from Moderators and members so that this place can continue to be the best place on the internet to discuss detailing.

Yeah but think about it, they have to read 1.000,001 posts per day and chances are, they don't really see the things that we see. Therefore, this "jury" would actually be like a jury that suggests people that are out of line... the final decision would of course be left to the mods. The "chosen" would merely be a committee that suggests the ban and the final decision would be based on the mod's good judgment and possibly influenced by the "jury".

 

[Bunky]

I do not think the mods can win. There are some people (holding a grudge) no longer at Autopia supposedly because of the mods and spend time griping in other forums (think Detailers Club) about this place.

 

[SuperBee364]

We don’t own or share the costs of this site, DavidB does. Why should we have the right to ban anyone then? David set up the initial foundation of rules for members to abide by and it’s up to him or his Moderators to control the level of ethics that take place on his forum. We can only bring to light the people we feel don’t play with an equal deck of cards and it’s up to them to take action. People that choose to participate on this forum with an obvious agenda that’s not productive to this forum or the industry as a whole should be corrected so that discussions don’t get out of hand like it recently has. When members constantly notice rules being violated and management doesn’t follow through with the enforcement of these rules, things *can* get out of control. This forum(unlike all the others) is only one that doesn’t push an agenda and we are pretty lucky to be able to openly discuss any and all products that exist. We need more involvement/shadowing from Moderators and members so that this place can continue to be the best place on the internet to discuss detailing.

You know what that sounds like, right? LoL, I *knew* you'd come around.



1. Guy trolls.



2. Membership cries "troll!"!



3. Membership votes "Troll, no troll"



4. Vote is "Troll", member is referred to mods.



But there are other ways of "...bring to light the people we feel don't play with an equal deck of cards and it's up to them to take action." But what it boils down to is doing exactly what I've bolded above. The rep button could work equally as well as long as we use it, and the mods take the results of it's use seriously.



You're right; it's David's board. We *don't* have any rights here, voting or otherwise. Any decisions about how it's moderated, people are banned, etc. is ultimately his decision, as it should be. The purpose of this thread certainly wasn't to take the results of the poll, wave it around, and yell "Autopia! has spoken! We will vote off the trolls!". Not even close. It was meant to bring up the whole troll/moderation issue for discussion and possible solutions.



The rep button is certainly feasible, but unfortunately the "Don't feed the trolls" idea will not work. Every forum I visit has a sticky labeled "Don't feed the trolls" with the usual, "Please don't respond to trolls, etc. etc." post in it. There are *always* enough people that will respond to trolls to keep this from being a viable solution. It hasn't worked on any of the forums I've been on so far.

 

[SuperBee364]

I'm all in for the public "stoning system". I'm not the best detailer in the world and never want to have that title, but when someone tells me I'm "wrong" for voicing my opinions about detailing it tends to leave a bad taste in my mouth. There's a plethora of internet bad a$$es in the world, but a professional detailing forum is not the place for them. I suggest that the "give rep" button be more readily available (I still don't know where the darn thing is...) and that only members who have earned a certain level of respect may opt to ban a member, providing he has enough support from his peers (the jury=other "respectable" members) to back his notion. Just my 2 cents .

Yeah but think about it, they have to read 1.000,001 posts per day and chances are, they don't really see the things that we see. Therefore, this "jury" would actually be like a jury that suggests people that are out of line... the final decision would of course be left to the mods. The "chosen" would merely be a committee that suggests the ban and the final decision would be based on the mod's good judgment and possibly influenced by the "jury".

+1 to both of these, fwiw.

 

[David Fermani]

Is it still Troll hunting season? The trolls have been hungry lately....:drool:



I noticed a certain troll's rep light has changed to that evil color red. Now who's monitoring the colors? :think:

 

[smokin180]

So what you are saying is all you mezarna fanatics should be banned. Thats all I ever hear from most detailers.

 

[SuperBee364]

So what you are saying is all you mezarna fanatics should be banned. Thats all I ever hear from most detailers.

You mean all of us Menzerna Fanatics never have anything good to say about any other polishes? If that's really what you think, you need to do a bit more reading, my friend.