Neo Urban Legends II

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Continue discussing Neoseekers most famous and infamous moments ever.

Got any questions about them? Ask it here.

what happened to armed rebel
other than he got perm banned, why did he get perm banned?

Naa, that wasn't AR.

Big issue I think a lot of people had in the past (and are discussing lately) is that a lot of stuff that happened with certain members and certain moderators had a lot more to do with shit that wasn't even site related. Quite a few issues in the past with Sports and G&A weren't even because of things people said here, but conversations on the outside of the forums and issues certain members took with other members.

quote Fatal Error

Quite a few issues in the past with Sports and G&A weren't even because of things people said here, but conversations on the outside of the forums and issues certain members took with other members.

and what are your thoughts on this?

quote The Hazard

My take on the sports forum incident: well, for starters don't take my post in as high value as the others. Because I was a newbie in the community when it all happened, trying to get my NBA grind back on. From what I've seen, Snow Ball did ask for it, on many occasions. There's more than enough cases where he didn't help himself. Now I can't say whether Steely Phil and al deserved what they got or not, I didn't know them as well then. But looking onto The Supreme Extreme's post, there are points that I can definitely agree on, and that's 5 and maaaybe 3. The mass deletion is a big part of what caused the uproar, and the supers at the time should've probably asked themselves if that was really worth it. The members involved tried to make it bigger than it was and after that, well it got that big. I felt it was a rash move and definitely part of what contributed to the forum's decline, that along with the bans.

And I do remember Exile trying to clear the situation up, seemingly brushed off on some occasions because of his troublesome aura. I sort of expected it but again, I also feel more damage could've been thwarted if everything was laid on the table, behind closed doors(then again, maybe that was the case and I was unaware, because of it being, well, behind closed doors). But just the way certain higher-ups played the deaf ear on some members didn't look right either. I doubt that, on a whole, could've passed as impartial moderating.

That was the past though, what to say about the modding front today? For the most part.. it's looking pretty good. They're much more open and upfront about things which I appreciate, all the while keeping certain things controlled and on the downlow, probably for the greater good. Not just because I think he's chill but Lone is one of the better ones among the crew. I even think some among the old crew of supers would've seriously considered shutting this type of convo down, and no offense Deathman, looking at your posts led me to bet on that.

This is a post I whole heartedly agree with. I don't take any shots at the moderation team now and I feel they do a good job. All the people who are currently Supers I think are fine moderators and I have no issues with them and I don't see any real issues on the site or complaints. I'm nowhere near as active, but I do have respect for the people in charge and think they do a great job.

All the stuff became bigger than it had to because of how things were handled. I am not defending the actions and people did deserve bans in things like the Sports forum incident. Steely was a good friend of mine, but I'm sure whatever he did was deserving of a ban. I don't argue those points because it's meaningless. The issues became how it was a hunt to ban sports forum members for stupid things and the lack of respect and transparency during the time. I think it might have been The Supreme Extreme who was banned for just making a stupid banner that said Free Bamman... To get banned for that. That is stupid. It was things like that where it was a witch hunt. And you can say this person was warned or that person was warned, but there was never a discussion. I tried to have a discussion like we currently are having and that was never given to us. Any mention of it was deleted or moved to a secret forum and you would be ignored or treated like a criminal with no rights. Everyone tried to be nice about things at the start, but with the way we were treated it was hard to be like that.

Also, Deathman to say my last post loses all credibility because of my attacks at two supers who in my mind one was just the others lackey and I made some jokes at is stupid. Sure did I go over the line, yes, but that didn't make any point in there less valid. I can respect Lone Warrior editing them out and saying he was and that I went too far cause I did and intentionally did. I can promise you if I did that a few years ago I would have been banned. To me it's not that bad saying the stuff you read throughtout the threads. I read in the last thread someone saying a mod kept like dead jewish babies in their house or something... No one said a work about it cause no one cared. That's how people talk on Neo. You see ridiculous threads and ridiculous statements and I will make them too cause people find it funny and have fun with it which in my mind is what the site is for. You might not find it funny cause I went too far which is true, or most likely cause they were your friends, but I bet you a lot of people who read that gave themselves a little chuckle and if I can do that from a post then I sure as hell will because that is what I feel Neo is for.

The attitude if you don't like it get out is completely dumb. People stay here because they have friends and such on the site and not everyone is just going to leave and go to a new place to talk even if they don't like how things are done. Clearly, a new site will not have the features or be built anywhere near the way Neo is. One or two gone members won't change the site, but the forum does lose its personality and if people feel oppressed they arent going to enjoy the site and the activity will drop.

Last, I find the claims on stuff like new members were not welcome in the Sports or G&A. For the most part, new people didn't post in either place. Second, if you were logical you were treated fairly. You might not have been included in an inside joke or something like that, but you were respected and over time you could become a part of the group. My point is there were no new people trying to post in these forums. Look at the activity in them today... It's either old members who posted there are the time and that is about it. Both went from two of the most active forums to basically being dead.

quote Exile

Last, I find the claims on stuff like new members were not welcome in the Sports or G&A. For the most part, new people didn't post in either place. Second, if you were logical you were treated fairly. You might not have been included in an inside joke or something like that, but you were respected and over time you could become a part of the group. My point is there were no new people trying to post in these forums. Look at the activity in them today... It's either old members who posted there are the time and that is about it. Both went from two of the most active forums to basically being dead.

Yes, G&A isn't looking too good now, but I definitely think that G&A's atmosphere was much too hostile towards newer members in the past. I saw it with my own eyes on numerous occasions, and had no affiliations with any members of that community. It was pretty off-putting, and apparently other people felt the same way. Were they right? I don't know, but from what I saw, I'd be inclined to agree with them. In any case, to say that there wasn't an issue is absurd.

quote Exile

The attitude if you don't like it get out is completely dumb. People stay here because they have friends and such on the site and not everyone is just going to leave and go to a new place to talk even if they don't like how things are done. Clearly, a new site will not have the features or be built anywhere near the way Neo is. One or two gone members won't change the site, but the forum does lose its personality and if people feel oppressed they arent going to enjoy the site and the activity will drop.

"My way or the highway", on its own, is a weak and deeply flawed response to criticism from the community. Thankfully, Neoseeker is getting progressively less draconian, and I'm seeing less of that and more avenues to provide useful feedback.

Also, don't forget that all sites have issues with moderation -- big and small. I'd say that this site is generally well moderated.

Aurora: I explained in detail already exactly what the issue was over there in G&A. The second part (that I forgot to mention) is that the moderation and community didn't tolerate people being unable to follow the rules. If someone didn't follow the rules with requests, their thread was deleted, for example. Then that person comes whining about it, and everyone tells them that they can follow the (very clear and easily followed) rules or they can expect their posts to be deleted. When you have (at that time) dozens of requests a week to sort through and people can't even follow the most basic of rules, it becomes frustrating and you don't really have time to deal with their complaints about it when (again), the rules in question were very, very clear.

Aurora: Oh, that? Those bans were actually made specifically for the "severity" of those "crimes", and none of the members were actually banned from posting, just from making graphics requests through that forum. It got to the point where it was so ridiculous to deal with people refusing to follow the guidelines that we went and put (in very large, red, bold letters and later an even larger, more clear banner) that people would be banned for "x" days if they didn't follow the guidelines at the top of the forum. Guess what? People still refused to follow the guidelines, so they were given specific length bans (iirc they were only 7 days) (from the requests forum only, which is ONLY for graphics requests and no other discussions). Sorry, but if THAT is what really turned people away then they should probably have spent the few seconds to actually look into why those bans were given in the first place (and then considered exactly how "severe" they were, as (again), the bans were only for the requests forum where there was no actual discussion allowed).

Edit: Bans were originally 14 days, then reduced to 7 days after people complained so much that the effort needed to actually respond to the complaints outweighed the need for harsh enforcement of the rules.