personal attacks on BBO forums

[ggwhiz]

I've had a small number of debates where my sanity has been questioned but nothing my wife doesn't do from time to time.

 

That yellow report button is all I need along with the discipline to pull back from the flames.

[CSGibson]

IMO, using the "ignore" option is decidedly inconvenient. We find ourselves at risk of needlessly duplicating the thoughts of another poster who might actually have made a rare valid point. When I see an extremely close repetition of something I posted, I presume the blocking function was used :rolleyes: There might be other reasons, but that one is in the forefront.

 

Actually, I'd appreciate it if you duplicate the thoughts of another poster that I've ignored if they actually pull together a valid point. I, and the hordes of others who use ignore for a select few rambling incoherents and/or posters whose posting volume far exceeds their posting value, might see the valid point that way.

[aguahombre]

Disclaimer: this post is not intended to offend anyone who spews constant drivel.

None taken :rolleyes:

[nige1]

Well, as some posters above have suggested, participating in the threads minimally or not at all is the mature answer. Don't open the threads and you won't be annoyed.

You can kill-file harmless posters who irritate you

1. Click your own name
2. Edit your personal profile,
3. Manage ignored users.
4. Enter names of those you don't want to read.

Unfortunately, however, some enjoy posting venomous personal attacks and many enjoy reading them. Such people are unlikely to forgo their fun by kill-filing their victims. One-to-one and face-to-face the life-expectancy of those who insult others would be short but they are protected by the pack and the internet, moderators permitting.

Lurpoa at some point went from a normal poster asking some questions and even providing some helpful answers to a self-appointed Robin Hood trying to protect the interests of the repressed minority (so she believed). After a point almost all her posts consisted of heart symbols and bold, Comic Sans questions of "WHY?" whenever she thought a post was not long enough for her to understand (her posts are still available - check please).

You can take up gwnn's challenge: read ♥ Lurpoa's posts ♥

IMO they're less offensive than the gratuitous invidious ad hominem vitriol about which Glen, Vampyr and 32519 complain.

[notlaw52]

I'm not sure what a personal attach is but I had someone do a whole line of ??????????????????????????????????????????????????? in the chat and exit as my partner when I miss counted the hrts suit in 3 nt. ~~~~~ seemed a little over the top !!

[1eyedjack]

Hi notlaw52 and welcome to the forums.

 

I think that this thread is less about personal attacks in chat while playing on BBO and more about personal attacks in the discussion forums, ie like in this thread.

 

If you are new to BBO then I am sorry to say that a string of "??????" characters when you make the odd slip up with a pickup partner is not that uncommon. You just have to let it blow over, flag them as an enemy if you like, make a note not to play with them again if you like, and move on. I sure hope that you don't let the occasional experience like that dissuade you from playing on BBO. The world is large and BBO is large. The odd occasion like that is inevitable, but we all need to assign them their deserved prominence, which is to say none at all.

[Vampyr]

Re: Lurpoa

 

Downvoting is now disabled, and of course people can block her if they like. I am not sure, compared to some of what goes on here, that a permanent ban is justified.

[MrAce]

They gave me the ignore option just to hide posts from people that I don't find useful. I have found that using it has dramatically increased my enjoyment from these forums and lowered my blood pressure both.

 

Question to the mods - should this be moved from General Bridge to the General BBO forum?

 

 

Same here.

 

As a matter of fact, i did not even know Lurpoa was banned. Because she is in my ignore list and since i put her in that list i did not hear from her. ( she is the only one in my ignore list btw)

 

@32519 : Here is some other stuff that you probably don't know about Lurpoa. Besides her attempts to create new accounts to log in to forums, in order to;

 

-be able to vote more than 1 pesron can (some people in BBF reached their +reputation much more than their posts deserved and some people has been taken down in reputation by her and her accounts constantly and every day. (not that i give a rats @$$, and i did not)

-create virtual supporters to herself and act as if there are a lot of people suporting her and her weird actions by those accounts.

 

And here is my personal struggle with her in BBO; after all this happened, she must have felt lack of attention from me (due to ignore button in BBF) one day she found me in BBO. Asked me to play a game with her. First i thought this was an attempt to break the ice between us and i accepted. I played with her about 10 tortuous boards and said that i need things to do, said thanks for the invite and left. 2 days later she invited again, and i found an excuse. 5 minutes after i refused she kept on inviting "seat reserved" msgs. This abuse kept on for a while even when i was in a game with other people. She sens approximately about 8-12 invitations per hour.I even told this to Justin in BBO. He laughed. I did not report her to Fred or Uday or to a yellow, expecting it to be over at some point. After all i kinda find it a little funny for us so called adult people to ask these guys constantly to babysit us. But it did not stop and i think i had to talk to Diana_Eva or some other yellow to stop this abuse. She has been warned and kept on doing it for a while and then she stopped. During all this, after the first and second invitation, i did not even reply to her, just remained silent and she disappeared from my life.

[glen]

... We either edit or delete post with personal attacks ...

The problem is that the moderators don't seem to recognize personal attacks. It's akin to letting the village idiot be town sheriff. My rabbit knows more about forum moderation.

 

Now its safe to write those last two sentences since the moderators don't take it personally.

[wank]

The problem is that the moderators don't seem to recognize personal attacks. It's akin to letting the village idiot be town sheriff. My rabbit knows more about forum moderation.

 

Now its safe to write those last two sentences since the moderators don't take it personally.

 

well, i agree with the mods. i don't consider that offensive enough to warrant interference. obviously you set the bar at a different level. there is no objective standard, so you're bound to see some posts you don't approve of.

[MrAce]

The problem is that the moderators don't seem to recognize personal attacks. It's akin to letting the village idiot be town sheriff. My rabbit knows more about forum moderation.

 

Now its safe to write those last two sentences since the moderators don't take it personally.

 

From what you wrote and from the information that i see in your profile about interests, i assume you prefer more of a military like moderation in a bridge forum. Frequently ban, lock, edit and lose already a few regular posters in these forums. It ain't gonna happen. Get over it.

 

I agree that Fred, Ben and Barmar tolerate us up to a point. And we try not to abuse their tolerance. BBF is still a very small community if you check the number of people who are regularly posting.

 

Back to what you just wrote. Lets understand what "personal attack " means. Here is an explenation from a dictionary. "Making of an abusive remark instead of providing evidence when examining another person's claims or comments". When we look at this definition, most of us have performed personal attacks at some point, including your last 2 sentences.

 

But imo you are looking at the entire thing in a vacuum. Basically you are saying "if this is written in your rules, you should apply it regardless of circumstances that created it" (correct me if i am wrong) However forum admins have whole lot other responsibilities.(And as far as i know Ben does it totally voluntarily and for non professional intentions) When someone creates a forum, about bridge, they have a goal. And in order to reach this goal or satisfaction they prefer a civilized manner. So they make guidelines about it. But they do not look at the incidents in a vacuum. For example if Mr Doe's contrubution to the forums (which is not money btw) is very important for bridge, for those who can learn a lot w/o paying money etc etc, means Mr Doe is oneof the corner stones of this forum. Now and then if Mr.Doe loses it and says/does something which is considered as crossing the line,( who btw was constantly provoked to it) Dont expect mods to ban Mr.Doe right away. It ain't gonna happen. As far as i know Fred or Barmar or Ben, from the way they expressed themselves in forums, they would ban Mr.Doe if his behaviours are result of just the way he is and can not hold himself w/o crossing the line frequently, then even if Mr.Doe's name was Mecktunesboin, they would not put up with it after a certain time.

 

But this is not the case. You want mods to totally ignore the circumstances that created the situation and act like robots. Did you ever play with GIB ? GIB is a very good example of what happens when you take the human factor out of something and programme it to do things that are written in its database.

 

I understand people have the right to post whatever they wanna post and it is natural. But so is farting. First couple times people may not react to it when you do it, but if you continue doing it frequently just don'd cry and call it a personal attack when people close their nose and tell that you stink ! (I already supported you that people who rush into this man's room when he screams "i am about to fart" do not have an excuse to complain about it) You are more than welcome to quote me on this.

[Vampyr]

... But it did not stop and i think i had to talk to Diana_Eva or some other yellow to stop this abuse. She has been warned and kept on doing it for a while and then she stopped. During all this, after the first and second invitation, i did not even reply to her, just remained silent and she disappeared from my life.

 

This is really terrible behaviour; but should it have any bearing on forum participation?

[MrAce]

This is really terrible behaviour; but should it have any bearing on forum participation?

 

 

Yes of course imo. This abuse was totally due to my disagreements with her in forums. Before our sour relation in forums i did not have this.

 

EDIT: For the record. Lurpoa was not banned (if she is banned, i don't know anything about it, i just learnt today in this topic from 32519) due to our incident in BBO. This was long time ago. As i stated i put her in my ignore list and i thought thats why i don't see her arroubd very much except than seeing her upvotes to people who disagrees with certain people.

[PhilKing]

This is really terrible behaviour; but should it have any bearing on forum participation?

 

Do you think Lurpoa was banned for ♥♥♥ symbols?

 

Google the threads ...

 

Obv Hrothgar should be banned as well (and he would even have been banned from a poker forum), but mods don't see it that way. There was a thread a while ago (you probably recall it), whre he wondered why he had not been banned, considering the language and vitriol used, but whatever!

 

Anyway, coincidentally, he is now posting theoretical contributions in the non-nat bidding forum for the first time in ages, so he is safe.

[glen]

... i assume you prefer more of a military like moderation in a bridge forum. Frequently ban, lock, edit and lose already a few regular posters in these forums ...

You assume incorrectly. I do not recommend banning; I do recommend editing or deleting posts that have personal attacks. If they attempt to circumvent the edit and/or deleting of posts, then stronger steps would need to be taken, but these should just be temporary measures. In short personal attacks should be removed from the forum, but not the people doing the attacks if they get back to bridge.

[the hog]

I have looked back on the Muiderberg thread and the 2NT thread. I cannot see any personal "attacks". I can see numerous comments that someone knows nothing about bidding theory or is totally incorrect , or does not wish to listen or is unwilling to learn. These are not personal attacks. Show me one post that says something akin to "You are a f%$#@ idiot" or similar. Stating that someone is ignorant is not a personal attack.

[aguahombre]

I have looked back on the Muiderberg thread and the 2NT thread. I cannot see any personal "attacks". I can see numerous comments that someone knows nothing about bidding theory or is totally incorrect , or does not wish to listen or is unwilling to learn. These are not personal attacks. Show me one post that says something akin to "You are a f%$#@ idiot" or similar. Stating that someone is ignorant is not a personal attack.

I know what you are conveying, but happen to draw the line in a different place. "Totally incorrect" doesn't cross my line. Nor does "does not wish to listen". Expanding to charactarize a person as knowing nothing, etc., goes beyond.

 

That doesn't mean I would condone bans for these things.

[Antrax]

Because she is in my ignore list and since i put her in that list i did not hear from her.

FYI, you do see posts from people on your ignore list. They appear as a single line saying "XXX has posted" and you have a button allowing you to expand the post if you're interested.

(I'd post a screenshot but I don't want to publicly call out the one person on my ignore list)

 

glen, I generally agree with your assessment of moderation in this forum, but on the other hand from my experience with different communities, the older the median age is, the less regulation the community needs, and it doesn't get much older than a Bridge forum :P

[inquiry]

I don't think this thread should be hijacked by discussion of Lurpoa, and I hate to add to this hijacking. But since she is a re-occurring theme in the forums, and it is being brought up here yet again. I thought I would deal with this issue one more time. I apologize to glen for the way this thread has gotten a little out of hand and how my response might make it go further out of hand. We don't discuss discipline of people publically, but since Lurpoa has announced she was barred from the forum and has been seeking public support to get her posting rights back, I do not believe violating any rules by noting that she is correct in stating she was barred. Also, someone took up gwnn's challenge and wrote above

 

You can take up gwnn's challenge: read ♥ Lurpoa's posts ♥

IMO they're less offensive than the gratuitous invidious ad hominem vitriol about which Glen, Vampyr and 32519 complain

 

First off, she was not banned for personal attacks in these forums. To the best of my knowledge none or at least an extremely few of her post where moderated for offensive remarks. At the most, she was the main cause of removing negative voting in the forum, but that didn't affect her status of a poster on BBF either. In fact, removing negative voting was probably a step in the right direction, so we might need to thank her for her behavior that helped get that change installed. Nor was she barred for any dealing with MrACE (we didn't know about it, and if we had, it wouldn't have mattered to us in the forum at least) or for her posting a bunch of hearts in her post (we did change to TOS to make it against the rules to post a VERY LONG stream of any type of symbols due to her post), but did not ban or moderate her post because of that. In fact, to think she was barred for posting hearts (her claim) is to believe the administrators (yours truly included) have a warped sense of what a horrible offense in the forum would be.

 

I will not share many of the details of why she was barred, but she has emails and private messages from the admins here that -- if she had posting rights -- she could share for all to see. A reading of those messages would make it very clear why she is no longer allowed in these forums. It is public knowledge (another post on this topic) that I got so feed up dealing with her that I offered to step down as an administrator because I refused to deal with her anymore or continue responding to her email (and she wasn't banned at that point, btw). My offer to step down was based on the reasonable assumption that an administrator who refused to deal with a user would not be a good admin. My offer was rejected and others stepped up to deal with her so I didn't have too and they dealt with the small annoyances of moderating all her post in the forum and the huge annoyances she caused administrators outside the forum proper. Eventually, the others got fed up as well, until no one had the energy to deal with her and she was banned (rightfully so in my view, although since I didn't deal with her it wasn't my actual decision). BTW, she knows exactly who barred her, yet I am the first person she mentioned who banned her (see her quoted text earlier in this thread), when it is was clearly evident it wasn't me (the person who banned her even wrote to everyone, including her, and told her she that he/she was banning her).

 

You may or may not realize that before she was banned, she had her post "moderated". Moderated post are ones that will not show up until some moderator (could be someone other than an administrator) approves it, or edits it then approves it. She was moderated, had her moderation unilaterally lifted for a long time (with instructions on what she needed to do now that it was lifted), only to later have it reapplied when she continued to ignore those simple instructions. Someone said that they checked her post and found no vitriol in her post. Rest assured that perhaps 100's and at least dozens of post with just "why???", or "tell me more", or just one heart (no text) were deleted without ever seeing the light of day in the forums (they were not approved). Many other post of the same nature where deleted during the time her "moderation was lifted" before it was reapplied. I deleted nearly two dozen on one day alone (see the moderation thread). So you might begin to realize why her moderation was in place and what she had to do to avoid it. For what it is worth, others who behave badly often have their post moderated for while.. including some posting now in this thread. Usually after a cooling off period the moderation is lifted.

 

Now directly to the point. Lurpoa has ask publically why was she was banned? and at other times she has claims it was because her post contained a big red heart. The truth of the matter she has (or should have) dozens of correspondences from administrators here dealing first with why her post were being moderated, why the moderation was lifted, why the moderation reapplied, and finally why she was finally banned. So there really should be no question of "WHY" she had her post moderated or what she had to do to have that moderation lifted. The solution to the moderation would have been trivial, and it is spelled out in detail in these emails and BBF private messages sent to her. Despite specifically (on numerous occasions) telling her moderation was not about the big red hearts, she still to this day makes that claim. The solution would have been so simple for anyone to avoid the problems she was having with the adminstrators here.

 

While I don't have the private email correspondences between her and all the other administrators, I do have ones between myself and her. Including the l the one I sent her when her the moderation of her post was first applied, and why it was applied, and what she had to agree to do have it lifted. Then the one I sent her when I unilaterally lifted the moderation requirement on her post with a reminder of what she was not to do. Then the one where I had to reapply the moderation requirement because she continued to do what she was specifically asked not to do (again, it wasn't about big red hearts). My last correspondence to her was one where I was responding to her calling me "a joke". "a liar". and that my response to her (my second to last correspondence to her) was "totally unacceptable." (The second to last told her, again, the simple thing she had to do to stop having her post moderated). In other emails she called me un-American I remember. She copied her message to fred, uday, and others where she said this of me, while leaving out my message and claiming in that message I was moderating her post because of big red hearts (not true) and a few other things that were highly factually incorrect (like saying no one ever told her why her post were being "excluded" (moderated) when I had her replies to my tellling her why she was being moderated and what she had to do to have it lifted!!) and about things I wrote to her in the earlier message without direclty quoting what I actually said. I would gladly post my last two messages to her and her response to me but only with her permission. I could have banned her then, but did not. Needless to say, I did respond to all (everyone including her) pointing out in detail the history of the correspondence and the details and dates of post moderation/removal of moderation/ and reapplying of the moderation, and stating at that time I would no longer approve or delete her pending moderated post or respond to her private messages going forward, other than if she agreed to follow the very simple requirements so her post would no need to be moderated then I would lift the moderation requirement. On the same day I offered to step down as an administrator (see above).

 

Someone in this thread was right, I don't get paid for "service" I provide on this forum, and so I certainly know I wasn't being paid enough (nothing) to deal with problems she was causing me. I think others got to the same point, just slower than I did. Eventually this lead to her bannishment. I think you can take the problem she caused MrAce outside the forum and multiply it by many fold to get an idea what was gong on here behind the scene. Read Barmar's post about her in the moderated post thread for example (or the fact that she got me to throw my hands up in exsaperaton) to get some idea of why she in now persona non grata in the forums. The fact is she could have easily, very easily, for her to avoided the whole thing, or stopped the process that ultimately resulted in her bannishment at any time over a number of months. Including for instance, a simple ok I will do as you ask in response to my last message to her, or a number of other chances she was given by others after my last message to her.

[MrAce]

You assume incorrectly. I do not recommend banning; I do recommend editing or deleting posts that have personal attacks. If they attempt to circumvent the edit and/or deleting of posts, then stronger steps would need to be taken, but these should just be temporary measures. In short personal attacks should be removed from the forum, but not the people doing the attacks if they get back to bridge.

 

Ok thanks for making what you expect from mods more clear.

 

I stand corrected about my assumption.

[Zelandakh]

I think I am probably one of the first posters that Lurpoa "bonded" with on these forums. I answered one of her first posts here in the B/I forum and she replied with a thank you comment on my profile. Later, when voting was introduced, she up-voted pretty much every post I made for a while, even the rubbish ones. I have over 100 from this period. At some point something happened; I am not sure what but instead of asking beginner questions in a normal way she started becoming aggressive towards certain posters and trolling. Then came the down-voting, talking in the third person and pretending to be an expert. Naturally that got a pretty strong reaction from the community.

 

During that time, I tried to support Lurpoa and deflect the worst of the reaction. Having been an online (non-BBF) forum contributor for a very long time, I have seen this kind of thing often enough. Handled correctly, such posters can sometimes be brought back to being useful contributors. This made me unpopular with a portion of the posters too; I was even accused of actually being Lurpoa. Anyway, I gave this strategy a little time until the reaction was dying down and then tried to persuade Lurpoa on how to come back to BBF. Sadly this did not work. I guess the negative feelings on both sides were too deep. After she rejected this, I stopped posting regarding her at all and this is the first time since then I have posted on the subject.

 

The worst part is that since this time, Lurpoa has simply made every effort to use whatever means are available to disrupt the normal running of an online community. I have been a moderator for a large forum and you should not underestimate the amount of work a single poster can create when they really want to. At some point it just stops being worth it for the zero benefit the user provides. When a poster is making a positive contribution and the occasional TOS breach, this is one thing; but a poster who provides no positive contribution and breaches the TOS with practically every post is quite another. Anyone who does not understand this should get back in the real world of internet trolling.

 

In short, I support the ban in place until such time as Lurpoa can give a guarantee that she understands and will follow the TOS and become a positive contributor. If that did happen then I would support a trial period under moderation. If there were breaches within that time then there should be no question of a further trial for at least another year, perhaps ever. It just is not worth it. I am sure we all want the community here to be as broad and all-inclusive as possible. But the most important part of this sentence is the word "community". If a poster cannot be part of the community and causes difficulties for the community then I do not see why they should be welcome.

[Fluffy]

I have looked back on the Muiderberg thread and the 2NT thread.

So it was there, damn I always miss the best threads :(

[MrAce]

As usual, well written reply Zel.

[Antrax]

I don't think this thread should be hijacked by discussion of Lurpoa

You had me at that. I never understood why that particular troll got so much attention back then, and now we're all reminiscing about it.

[barmar]

In short, I support the ban in place until such time as Lurpoa can give a guarantee that she understands and will follow the TOS and become a positive contributor.

As Inquiry said, we'd tried temporary measures, and when we lifted them she soon reverted to her past behavior. I can't think of a way that she can demonstrate to us that if we allow her back in she'll behave, so I've given up on her. I hate to be an a-hole about it, but we've already given her 2nd, 3rd, and 4th chances.