Real talk re: moderator "favoritism" on GPPD/TTW.

[diredesire]

Hi, I've been seeing a lot of expressions of discontent lately regarding "favoritism" and moderator bias. I'm going to temporarily open this discussion thread so you can air out your opinions, help me out, and we can all move forward and be a stronger community.

While we generally don't allow flaming of moderation decisions (as you've probably noticed your posts getting deleted if you have in the past), I'd like to extend an invitation to offer feedback so I/we can improve.

With that said, you as a poster need to understand the following:

A) If you post here, you implicitly agree to post within the bounds of the policies. If you've never read the policies, don't complain when your posts are removed: http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=3 That's the thread, for reference.

B) There is a limited amount of time in a day. This applies to myself, TW Staff, and everyone that posts under that name. If you stop for a moment to consider the vast amount of text that gets slapped on this board a day, there is simply no possible way to read all of it, even if we split it up evenly, and even if it was my/our full time job just to read the forum (ding dong! it's not). This leads to the below point:

C) If you are seeing things that are a violation of the policies above: Report it. We'll deal with it, and we generally do so very quickly. Don't report things just because you disagree with them. Trolling is one of those things we deal with on a per-post basis. If you see someone who is an "obvious" troll, report the post and leave a note that gives some context of their past history.

D) Don't insult the moderators in your reported posts. This is common courtesy... come on. If you suspect "bias," or favoritisms, I think you might need to take a step back from your keyboard and think about what you're saying. This is a discussion board, there's no group discussion where we talk about how we can make user-submitted content less "fair."

E) If you see garbage on the forum, report it! Is someone being incredibly degrading, insulting, getting too personal? Report it! You don't need to report every single instance, I generally will look into a poster's history when appropriate.

F) People are entitled to an opinion, even if it's unpopular, and I (as a moderator) am here to enforce the rules, not censor people. If you want to debate, that's 100% OK in my book. If you insult others, curse, post stupid gifs (this falls under spam, in my book), or graphics/content that are inappropriate to a family-style audience, your posts will be removed.

G) Don't retaliate, just report. This is a big one. If you find it a pity that a good discussion thread gets removed because a few posters are trolling, and flaming each other, report early, and don't feed the trolls. There are times where I've been cleaning the thread (individually selecting posts, and all quoted posts, trying to maintain thread continuity, etc etc) and the time spent babysitting and pruning a thread starts to creep into the 5-15 minute range. If I did this for every single instance in every single thread, I'd lose my job, and probably end up homeless under a bridge. I'd love to keep all the valuable discussion, information, opinions of positive contributors whenever I can, but there comes a hard limit where it starts to lose value... this is called a train wreck. Don't let things devolve into a trainwreck. If it means enough for you to complain about it in a post, you should start hitting the report button when you see it happening.

It's pretty straightforward, at least in my eyes.

What do you have to say about it?

Keep it civil, or else this open ended communication will not be available in the future.

Cheers,
DD

Edit: Also, like I've said openly in the past --> Feel free to contact me if you want to make recommendations, suggestions, just talk tennis, or talk TTW. My e-mail is available via my user options, or find me at my screen name @ gmail. Feel free to IM me if I'm available, it's generally a quick way to get in touch with me. Reported posts are also fast, because all of TW Staff and myself see them, but if you need something quick, IM works well

[Russeljones]

I think you're doing a stellar job. Every time I've reported offensive posts they've been moderated shortly after. Keep it up and much appreciated!

[kishnabe]

Thank you for doing your job, I hope you take breaks.....***** are fun

[Fee]

And when DD says 'report it' he means click on that red triangle in the lower left corner of the offending post, and put a short sentence in the box explaining why you are reporting it. Don't post it the thread and say 'mods please remove this' use the report button.

[Hood_Man]

You have my sympathies. I do sometimes feel like the playground snitch with the amount of reporting I do (which may not be that high actually?), but then it's the only way to actually deal with the nonsense that goes on. Expecting someone to stop winding you up by responding to them and letting them know you're wound up etc etc... it's insanity.

In any case, here's a cake in appreciation of your efforts.

[diredesire]

Thanks all for the kind words, I've gotta give credit where credit is due, though. TW Staff definitely makes me look good often

Originally Posted by Hood_Man

You have my sympathies. I do sometimes feel like the playground snitch with the amount of reporting I do (which may not be that high actually?), but then it's the only way to actually deal with the nonsense that goes on. Expecting someone to stop winding you up by responding to them and letting them know you're wound up etc etc... it's insanity.

In any case, here's a cake in appreciation of your efforts.

I wouldn't say you're over-reporting at all

I know what you mean by feeling like a "snitch," though, I suspect this is the big reason why there aren't way, way more reported posts. That's why it's in my sig. Just do it, it makes everyone's lives better. Do you prefer feeling like a snitch on occasion, or an entire forum that is so filled with garbage( that I don't like to browse it on my leisure time)?

Easy call, for me. Reporting posts actually makes a better environment to post in!

[tusharlovesrafa]

Help Mods!!!!this Place Is Going Crazy..

[SFrazeur]

How do I add an avatar?

[Evan77]

Thanks for doing a good job. I know it's not easy.

However, I got banned for 2 weeks because *** reported me for calling him an idiot and a stupid troll ... I have never reported any of his trolling here ...so instead of banning a troll you ban me who comes over to actually discuss tennis.

I simply get so frustrated with stupidity. I'm not talking about disagreeing with other posters. I respect everyone's opinion and agree to disagree ... the thing is that few guys like ***, 6:1 etc. are poisoning this board by opening endless silly threads and you guys are doing nothing about it.

[Russeljones]

Originally Posted by Evan77

Thanks for doing a good job. I know it's not easy.

However, I got banned for 2 weeks because *** reported me for calling him an idiot and a stupid troll ... I have never reported any of his trolling here ...so instead of banning a troll you ban me who comes over to actually discuss tennis.

I simply get so frustrated with stupidity. I'm not talking about disagreeing with other posters. I respect everyone's opinion and agree to disagree ... the thing is that few guys like ***, 6:1 etc. are poisoning this board by opening endless silly threads and you guys are doing nothing about it.

Morale of the story don't hesitate to report the trolls.

[R.Federer]

yh hopefully the threads get cleaned up thx again op

[R.Federer]

Originally Posted by Russeljones

I hate to say this but he's probably good for business. The activity he creates drives up the site's numbers.

nah tis just off putting even when you respond to him with facts he just ignores thems and carrys on trolling no point having a discussion with him

[sbengte]

Originally Posted by Evan77

However, I got banned for 2 weeks because *** reported me for calling him an idiot and a stupid troll

Oh ! That's the reason you were missing during Wimby
I had one of your lines in my sig for a while and many people who saw it would also remark why you weren't posting anymore.

[Sentinel]

DD,

I think you are doing a great job. I owe you an apology for those 100 or so "stupid gifs" I once posted, ... must have wasted a lot of your time Thankfully, you didn't ban me.

Originally Posted by Russeljones

I hate to say this but he's probably good for business. The activity he creates drives up the site's numbers.

You are forgetting that we are falling for bait, and that drives up the "numbers" or whatever.

I think mods need real proof of a duplicate account, not people's suspicions.

I think this para from the O Post is really important:

Don't retaliate, just report. This is a big one. If you find it a pity that a good discussion thread gets removed because a few posters are trolling, and flaming each other, report early, and don't feed the trolls

[tusharlovesrafa]

I also got banned for a week,don't know why!! I just hope mods can clarify why they ban people and give them more specific reason.

[Sentinel]

Originally Posted by Rippy

I imagine plenty of people have been reporting 6-1 6-3 6-0 (and the millions of other alternate accounts of ***). And yet he hasn't been banned yet, despite clear spamming, bumping old threads he started under a different username etc.

Obviously, he is staying "within" the rules by not insulting others. Others are not when they react to him with insults. In case he derails threads, that can be reported but will probably result only in post deletion.

Originally Posted by Evan77

Thanks for doing a good job. I know it's not easy.

However, I got banned for 2 weeks because *** reported me for calling him an idiot and a stupid troll ... I have never reported any of his trolling here ...so instead of banning a troll you ban me who comes over to actually discuss tennis.

I simply get so frustrated with stupidity. I'm not talking about disagreeing with other posters. I respect everyone's opinion and agree to disagree ... the thing is that few guys like ***, 6:1 etc. are poisoning this board by opening endless silly threads and you guys are doing nothing about it.

From what I understand, calling people names is against the rules, whereas starting a "fawning" thread is not. Why not rate the thread one-star and not post in it?

Originally Posted by SFrazeur

How do I add an avatar?

Troll Alert !!!!!!!!!!! (Lol )

[Evan77]

Originally Posted by Russeljones

Morale of the story don't hesitate to report the trolls.

well, I think I learned my lesson. Thank you .

I realize that is not easy to moderate any tennis boards. I'm a Computer Systems Engineer btw, and I know how easy is to open multiple accounts by simply using proxy servers. However, I also realize that mods here are not policemen.

We even have a thread asking to ban some posters which is actually pretty legit as so many of us are simply getting frustrated by few guys here who troll here 24/7.

Opening a thread to discuss, let's say Fed's FH, or Rafa's FH or Nole's ROS are legit threads and something we can actually talk about. However, opening a thead like 'Nadal is great' or 'Fed is the best' or 'Nole has great hair is just simply silly.

I've been posting on other tennis boards for like forever. I decided to join TTW last year because it seems to be more balanced than let's say MTF (it's a jungle there, but still they have many super smart guys who truly love tennis), plus TTW seems to attract more knowledgeable guys. yet, we have a few guys here who are completely derailing any threads. i.e. someone opened a thread about the W final this year ... so we are supposed to be talking about Fed and Murry, but some trolls (and you know who they are) manage to turn it into something about Nadal ... I can go on and on

[Russeljones]

Originally Posted by Evan77

well, I think I learned my lesson. Thank you .

I realize that is not easy to moderate any tennis boards. I'm a Computer Systems Engineer btw, and I know how easy is to open multiple accounts by simply using proxy servers. However, I also realize that mods here are not policemen.

We even have a thread asking to ban some posters which is actually pretty legit as so many of us are simply getting frustrated by few guys here who troll here 24/7.

Opening a thread to discuss, let's say Fed's FH, or Rafa's FH or Nole's ROS are legit threads and something we can actually talk about. However, opening a thead like 'Nadal is great' or 'Fed is the best' or 'Nole has great hair is just simply silly.

I've been posting on other tennis boards for like forever. I decided to join TTW last year because it seems to be more balanced than let's say MTF (it's a jungle there, but still they have many super smart guys who truly love tennis), plus TTW seems to attract more knowledgeable guys. yet, we have a few guys here who are completely derailing any threads. i.e. someone opened a thread about the W final this year ... so we are supposed to be talking about Fed and Murry, but some trolls (and you know who they are) manage to turn it into something about Nadal ... I can go on and on

I hope you manage to be comfortable here as I am, just letting most of the BS slide. You can't argue with the skies when the rain drops and you certainly can't complain when special people are up and about.

[Flash O'Groove]

First, thank you to the team for this thread and for your work.

I have personnaly never reported any post, and that is clearly not because I haven't seen any who would have merited it! It's only that I'm not always sure that a post is really a spam or a troll-post, especially because I don't really understand your criterias to deleted thread or ban users. I think it could be usefull if we could have somewhere a kind of report of who and why someone has been banned. I typically see most post of 6-1 6-3 6-0 as trolling, but as their is so many of them and as he is still there, it seems to me that you consider this kind of user as legitimate.

Another exemple are all these thread about a new record from RF, such as the total week at N°1, which I find utterly useless. I assume all tennis fan read other website on tennis and thus learn about thoose kind of record, and thoose thread never begin any interesting discussion.

So the trouble for me is that you moderating policy is not completly transparent to me, and I don't want to bother the moderators with report which don't fit your policy.

[Bruce39]

^^^ good post, seconded.