Administration & Moderation Notices

[AdminSTB]

There has been a lot of spam lately. Although the ProBoards filter is quite good and we are proactive in blocking IP addresses etc, it does come through as we've seen in the last couple of days. I've changed some things around and it should be under control (until the next time), which means that guest posting is no longer possible. Unfortunately, this means that whoever 'It used to be Vote 2006' is can't post anymore so if anyone knows who that is I would be grateful if you could mention to them so they can register.

[stb12]

uthacalthing has been banned for a week due to gratuitous abuse of members and trolling across several topics

[stb12]

Hi all, I’m sure most of us have seen that the General Election board and threads are up now. Gentle request for members can we use these for the more partisan discussions rather than the Almanac ones? Thanks all!

[stb12]

eastmidlandsright has been given a week’s ban. This is due to regular personally abusive comments towards other members after private warnings then a public warning just recently

For the avoidance of doubt at the start this is nothing to do with unpopular and/or unfashionable views on topics such as Ukraine

[stb12]

The last few days there have been a lot of reports and complaints against a forum member due to a series of random posts with old MP names, that at least come across as spam whether intended that way or not

Generally we wouldn’t want to give a public running commentary on private warnings etc but with the clear widespread anger and how this clearly impacts the forum experience for members we wanted to make sure it’s known this is being addressed

An initial warning was given privately that didn’t get acknowledged but seemed to stop it. However the last day or so there have been more posts of a similar nature, albeit not quite at the same level at once, which is disappointing to say the least

I’ve now sent a blunt final warning that one more post of this nature (that includes any sort of clear spam type post it doesn’t need to be the MP names) will result in a ban, length to be determined. I appreciate many members would probably take much harsher action sooner, we generally like to give people a fair chance before bringing bans into it. In the case of a new forum member also I think you hope that they will settle into the forum and our etiquettes

As always bring anything new to our attention and if you have any further comments or questions on this then feel free to come to me and/or mattbewilson and bjornhattan

[stb12]

I’ve started adding constituency polls, with my off the top of my head knowledge to start with about what seats are in play. However I’m not an expert on all 650 at all and the totally different nature of this election from the last means previous safe seats are in play while ones that ended up marginal last time won’t be. Also I’ll know some areas better than others, within the three smaller nations I know quite a bit about Scottish (could probably have a poll in virtually all of them this time out) and Northern Ireland seats but not so up to speed with Wales

So everyone feel free to tag and request a poll in a thread where they believe it’s worthwhile!

[stb12]

uthacalthing has been given a 10 day ban. This is a culmination of multiple cases of personal, offensive and crass comments towards other members. This also follows multiple discussions where polite requests were made to stop this kind of behaviour

We can all get heated and say things we shouldn’t at times but there are some lines that shouldn’t be crossed

[stb12]

So there seems to have been an increase in personal abuse or at least verging on it over the last week or so. I appreciate with the election now so close tensions are probably running high and may continue to do so in the immediate aftermath, I don't really want to be constantly laying down the law or considering further action when everyone should be able to discuss such a big event.

However there is a line between robust debate and things being personal. I strongly urge some members who seem to be involved in back-and-forth conflict to just ignore and not engage with each other if civilised discussion is impossible. Even if you consider someone's political opinions beyond the pale going flying in with personal abuse just isn't on especially if it's frequent (as always I understand things happen in the heat of the moment now and then). Individual reports and direct queries will be looked at as always but I felt a general note was in order.

Let's show the forum at it's psephological best.

Kind regards everyone

[stb12]

@weld has been banned for two days. This is due to consistent personal abuse of members and actions such as using real names without consent despite me and others personally asking him to stop this and not engage with certain members that he clearly has a problem with

I’ve been lenient with the time as I believe banning someone through election night and the immediate aftermath would be cruel so the ban expires at 10pm on Thursday. But to be clear further action will be taken quickly if this continues

[stb12]

@sanders has been banned for two weeks

I probably don’t need to give much of an explanation for this one but I will anyway especially since the length of the ban is quite long

The constant spats created with other members and disproportionate responses to even mild criticism of his opinions and council by-election election campaign (which he was more than happy to constantly post about) have gone on long enough, especially when I’ve had several PM discussions asking him to tone it down. I thought the end of the Hillrise election might see things calm down to some extent but that clearly is not happening

Then there’s other issues and while posting things that people maybe find inane and annoying, taking over threads etc isn’t necessarily a rule breaker in itself, there has been zero attempt to try and read the room and give other members consideration. The fact that he’s openly admitted it’s attention seeking behaviour also justifies some action I believe. I sympathise that there is likely some medical condition involved in the behaviour but there is a limit to what can be tolerated

We’ve probably tried to be more accommodating than most members would agree with. Part of the reason the ban is so long also is because when there was a previous ban under the ‘weld’ guise I only made it two days in order to allow him to discuss the general election night since it was that week

When the ban expires I will be keeping a close eye going forward to see if there’s any change in attitude and behaviour because this cannot continue

[stb12]

I’ve been able to get a sub board added to the International Elections forum for the 2024 US elections, as has been done previously in Presidential years.

vote-2012.proboards.com/board/244/elections-2024

Threads for the states have been added and I’ll do some polls soon, these can be used to discuss down ballot races for those states also.

[stb12]

I have given graham a five day ban.

This is to do with the Israel thread and I’m always very reluctant to take action in relation to that debate considering how heated it can be and not wanting to give off any hint of taking a side. However Nazi comparisons where Israel and Jews are concerned is extremely sensitive for obvious reasons, i asked him publicly to stop but it continued, then today sent a PM but that wasn’t acknowledged and there’s been two further posts since of a similar nature. Some action is needed when someone is just blatantly ignoring a polite request and carrying on, and frankly he does have some history with using Nazi comparisons too easily in relation to other political discussion.

As i said I don’t want to get into heavily policing such a hot button topic but there are clearly many ways for people to be extremely critical of Israel without bringing Nazis into it, and indeed others of Israel’s biggest critics on here seem to avoid it.

[stb12]

Only a quick note and it might be more a bit of venting on my part but the tone of debate is continuing to seriously go downhill lately across all kinds of threads

A lot of the time it comes from members who seem to have particular personal feuds with each other and even what seems like fairly moderate debate turns personal and unpleasant, I accept things can happen in the heat of the moment and have never been too harsh on it but there’s simply no need for things to be so constantly unpleasant. I won’t accept any claim that a particular side of a debate or of the political spectrum is blameless either

If you feel you can’t engage with someone in good faith for whatever reason then it would be better to not engage with them at all. Also while banning is always pretty much a last resort I won’t rule out giving out more short term bans eventually if it’s needed to get the message across

[stb12]

Hi everyone,

We’re mostly all aware by now I think that the forum admin has been absent for some time. I’ve been on ongoing discussions with proboards and I won’t go into detail about the circumstances but I can confirm the forum has now been transferred over to me, making me the new admin.

It’s obviously an unusual situation and has happened somewhat by accident, I believe I’ve been active enough as a moderator for people to have a good idea of me by now whether you agree with everything I’ve said and done or not. I’ll make sure the moderation discussion thread is open in order to help sound out the forum’s views, I’m well aware there’s a tradition of the admin being elected but I hope the forum in general will be happy enough for me to take this over at least for a while anyway.

In terms of how this helps us going forward it will make the process of changing the forum boards far easier, I just need to spend a little bit of time over the next day familiarising myself with the system but it will mean the 2025 boards will be up shortly. I won’t change the moderation style albeit being admin will allow me a bit more authority to make unilateral decisions where I feel it’s really justified or necessary. I think our forum is a great one overall but we can do better in terms of personal tone toward each other at certain times.

I hope everyone will consider this some good news.

Kind regards,

Iain (real name)

[AdminSTB]

As i'm sure has been noticed the 2025 Local Election boards are now up and I believe i've just added all the relevant threads. Everyone please feel to let me know if anything is missing, in the wrong place etc

[AdminSTB]

Hey guys, for moderation and admin issues going forward to avoid confusion please contact me on this account. You will still see me posting under the normal account when i’m wanting to be part of a discussion in general . However stb12 now has moderation privileges removed

[AdminSTB]

A reindex has been submitted for the forum which should fix the search system, let me know if we notice an improvement in this or not as it hasn’t been right for some time

Thanks guys