Administration & Moderation Notices

[AdminSTB]

I understand that not every decision I make as administrator is going to be popular (we're only human), but there are ways to constructively express one's displeasure.

The user @boogieeck has been suspended for a couple of weeks for trolling EDIT: I have been persuaded to reduce his suspension to less than a week, but take note this is the only only time I'll do this for this member, considering that he has previous. Specifically, for making a series of posts designed solely to excoriate without any constructive criticisms. These posts have been moved to a staff only section of the site for now, I might restore some of them, no formal decision on that has yet been made.

Additionally, I have also decided to start a thread in this board to be used for the discussion of moderation actions. Hopefully things can be kept civil, and I will point out that if asked nicely I can be open to reason.

[AdminSTB]

I would like to announce that I have appointed a second Global Moderator to this forum's staff, and that I have appointed gwynthegriff to this role. He will be assisting myself & bjornhattan with looking after this forum, helping to spread the work load and provide a third opinion in any moderation discussion, amongst other things. I do hope you all will give him your support.

Thank you.

[AdminSTB]

I have two announcments to make concerning recent events and conduct on this forum.

I shall begin with making some pronouncements on conduct:

• Addressing other members: Some people here choose to use their real names here, others don't, and regardless of what moniker we utilise here some of us have names with diminutive and/or other alternative forms; not everyone appreciates being addressed by the alt. version of their name. The recommendation here is that when addressing another member you utilise their forum display name, unless you know that they're ok with being addressed in a different manner. If someone does address you in manner you'd rather they didn't, my recommendation is that you politely ask them not to as opposed to clogging up the "Report Post" system, ask nicely and you might be pleasantly surprised by the outcome. If after that you suspect someone is misaddressing you maliciously, then by all means make a formal complaint to the moderation team.
• As a corollary to the above, if you know that something causes irritation to another member, I want to make it crystal clear that targeted harrassment is not acceptable.
• The publication of other members' private information: In addition to the non-usage of real names by some members, it is safe to say that a significant proportion of this forum's membership have refrained from revealing quite a few other items of personal information, including their appearance. DO NOT post the private details of other people on these boards (be they from within or without this forum) without their permission, and this does include photographs, even if those details are publicly accessible elsewhere on the internet. Photographs will be removed at the behest of the subject(s) of said photo, likewise with real names (if not already widely known), but more sensitive information such as addresses will be removed as soon as they're discovered.
• Making false statements about other members: For one thing, no-one likes being lied about, but also there are potential libel concerns depending on the nature of the statement, and with that, do I really need to say more? If you are going to make a clam about another member here, make sure you are able to present evidence.

With that done, my second announcement:

The user Davıd Boothroyd has been suspended for a 4 week period. The reasons for his suspension and for the rather harsh length of said suspension are as follows:

• The posting of another member's personal information, specifically a photo of that member (accompanied by less than complementary commentary). This photo has not been removed however, as the member in that picture has asked for it to stay up.
• Making a false claim about another member: in relation to the point above, David Boothroyd claimed that he had been asked to remove the photograph, but the member in the photo had made no such request and the evidence presented along with an admission provided to me via PM confirmed that indeed the request never took place.
• Failure to respond to staff PMs. In my view, each of the above factors on their own would not have warranted as suspension, but together along with failure to offer a timely response to PMs by a staff member (i.e. me) concerning a moderation issue, the consensus amongst the moderation team is that a suspension is warranted, especially seeing as David Boothroyd failed to either give a satisfactory explanation for his actions, offer an apology, and/or offer to issue a retraction of the false claim he'd made (as detailed in the second bullet point here).

Addtionally, a 4-week suspension may seem unduly harsh for infractions of this nature (especially considering the absence of any significant previous), but as David Boothroyd has decided take a break from this place before moderator decision could be reached, because we don't know when he'd otherwise return it has been deemed that 4-week kick has the greatest chance of being noticed by him and thus have something of an impact.

[AdminSTB]

A member has asked me to delete their account and posts associated with it. I have complied with this request.

[AdminSTB]

I have archived all the boards for the 2021 elections. It is my intention to start creating the boards for the 2022 election some time in the next few weeks.

[AdminSTB]

As you may have noticed, I have begun creating the boards for 2022 elections. I expect to have the pertinent threads up over the next few days.

[AdminSTB]

Jul 29, 2021 16:44:35 GMT AdminSTB said:

As you may have noticed, I have begun creating the boards for 2022 elections. I expect to have the pertinent threads up over the next few days.

Guess that didn't take as long as I'd thought. All the relevant boards and threads should now be up and running, if not just let me know.

[AdminSTB]

This post has been removed moved from the thread "Lockdown Strategy" in the General Politics discussion board:

Oct 20, 2021 23:19:37 GMT Richard Allen said:

Oct 20, 2021 20:58:57 GMT stb12 said:

If lockdowns come back they can stick their booster jab

If lockdowns comeback every single member of the cabinet deserves to go the way of Amess.

I have made my position clear on advocating the perpetration of acts of violence against other people (announcement HERE), however with the reference to the recent brutal murder of MP Sir David Amess the moderation team and I feel that Richard Allen has crossed a line here, so therefore he has been suspended for 5 days.

[AdminSTB]

The user Richard Allen has once again been suspended for advocating acts of violence against others, this time for a period of 10 days. I have already made clear my ruling on such matters in the post above this one.

Nov 27, 2021 20:40:35 GMT Richard Allen said:

As far as I am concerned everything single member of the Conservative Party should be put up against a wall and shot, no exceptions, none whatsoever.

This post (along with several others quoting it) have been removed from public view.

Additionally, I have also received reports of other posts by other members on similar grounds and these posts too have been removed from public view. The content of the removed posts was not deemed suspension worthy, but I will make clear that if such things continue to get posted I will directly contact whoever posted such material, with any further responses determined by what happens next.

[AdminSTB]

The user Richard Allen has been permanently banned.

As mentioned directly above he has already been suspended twice for calling the for the deaths of numerous political figures and other related individuals.

Recently he made another posting (since removed from public view) in which he called for another member to commit suicide, quote below:

Jan 15, 2022 21:43:16 GMT Richard Allen said:

Jan 15, 2022 21:30:09 GMT maxque said:

...

Either provide an example of me using what happened in Rotherham to attack Muslims or retract your outrageous allegation. Alternately do the decent thing and slit your your throat your lying piece of filth.

I sent him a PM telling him why I removed the post. His response was essentially an abusive tirade, one in which he showed no remorse and openly stated both his lack of concern over being sanctioned and his contempt for this site's moderation team.

In hindsight, I think I was a bit too patient with him there, but with his recent outburst in the Discussion of Administration and Moderation actions thread, that was very much the last straw. Richard Allen has a reputation for being curt and blunt, but over the recent months he has descended into outright abuse and as Administrator I have decided not to put up with his behaviour any longer.

[AdminSTB]

The user philipgraves has been permanently banned for sockpuppetry, as has his puppet account peterjsmithson .

I caught him using his sockpuppet account to access multiple party rooms and relay information from one to the other. He did not make many posts of this nature, but I have removed them all the same.

I want to make it absolutely clear that I will not tolerate sockpuppeting, especially when used for purposes such as this.


Additionally, I must nevertheless take some blame for not having checked the IP address of the incoming account more thoroughly during the approval stage. Rest assured I do not intend to repeat this mistake.

[AdminSTB]

I have just archived the discussion boards & threads for the 2022 Elections. Like last time the top of the front page will be left fallow for a short while and then I will begin setting up the boards and threads for the 2023 elections.

[AdminSTB]

The boards for the 2023 locals should be up. If I've missed any, I'm sure you won't hesitate to inform me.



_{So many districts...!}

[AdminSTB]

In light of recent news that Stormont will be going to the polls again, I have decided to re-use the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election board and threads rather than create new ones from scratch.

In unrelated news, the "Brexit" discussion board is now a sub-board of General UK Politics.

[AdminSTB]

The user @boogieeck has been suspended for 5 days (ban to expire at 23:59 on 06/11/2022). The reason is because he crossed a line in launching a personal attack on another member. The offending post is quoted below:

Oct 31, 2022 21:35:11 GMT @boogieeck said:

Oct 31, 2022 17:59:38 GMT maxque said:

So, you want to legalize harassment?

that is one of the most egregious examples of willfully taking what the poster said and stating that he said something totally different.

You are a cunt. It's a shame you are on this forum. Fucking cockroach.

The bolding/emphasis is mine.

I had previously issued general warnings about this sort of thing, and I had also previously messaged boogieeck in private about other violations of ettiquette & protocol (as it were). If directives to be civil (be they public announcement or private messages, or both) remain unheeded for too long, then this is what will happen.

[AdminSTB]

A member has requested that I delete their account and all forum posts associated with it. I have complied with this request.

[AdminSTB]

This forum should have a new administrator within the next two or so hours, so this notice is just to let you know that I've been doing deck clearing for the incoming administration. Barring any incidents _{(please don't)} this should be last post by myself (Lord Twaddleford) as admin, and hopefully the next post from this account will be by neilm in this post.

[AdminSTB]

Good afternoon.

I have taken over. As my predecessor mentions above, PMs and so on have been cleared.

I will be making some minor changes over the next few hours.

gwynthegriff and bjornhattan have agreed to stay in post while a new team is appointed.

I will be back shortly.

[AdminSTB]

I will be appointing stb12 as a global moderator. Unfortunately you can't do that from the mobile site (I'm not fiddling around betwesn desktop and mobile mode) so will make the appointment in the next few hours.

Others are under consideration but I have yet to make a final decision.

[AdminSTB]

As promised, the slate is wiped clean.

Moderation decisions from now on will be based on events, feedback, reports and so on received from this point. Previous behaviour will not be considered. This applies equally to all members.