My Observations of BMGf over the Years

[snorlaxzilla]

so, uhm are we talking about cake?

 

[Geodude]

As a staff member, I have never heard of Scott85 being immune to anything.

 

[Archaic]

Warning. If you think Unown Lord is an arrogant jackass (which it's quite apparent you do), the following may piss you off even more. Still, I feel compelled to write this, so if you've got a problem with it, feel free to say so.

I'm not flaming him, I just want something done about his attitude towards others.

Might not be flaming, but throwing the topic out like this is certainly antagonistic, and skirts the line of trolling and flamebait. Surely you must have enough sense to realize what kind of bullshit always happens in threads like this? With even more following once the thread is sent to the Hall of Shame, following it descending into outright flaming, even though that's correct policy with any thread that happens to.

As I've already pointed out, they're too scared to do so because they're afraid of being attacked or infracted for speaking out against a staff member.

BMGf is not Serebii. We do not infract people simply for speaking out or speaking their mind, or for disagreeing with us. What we don't tolerate is intentional flamebaiting, which you're skirting the line of frankly.

If you think a staff member is doing something they shouldn't be, and you can't deal with the issue with them, go over their heads to one of the admins, or to me if it is an admin. But in all cases, we will listen to both sides of the story. Just because we might disagree with you when ruling on an issue, doesn't mean you're being persecuted.

Frankly, it seems to be that certain people here, you Geoffrey and you Nando in particular, are taking any disagreement with yourselves by certain members of staff, such as Dogasu and Unown Lord, as a personal attack. I've had enough of that kind of thing from a certain mod, and putting out those fires and fights is a pain in the arse. I'd appreciate it if you didn't make my job harder than it already is there, given that my real life job teaching at the university is occupying so much of my time recently.

Dogasu stated that it was him that recommended that Habunake be permabanned. Like I said, this isn't important to me, but I find it quite alarming that Habunake, who really hasn't commited any serious infractions (except for one maybe), was permabanned, and yet we have even worse users who are still roaming around this forum.

Habu committed a number of very serious infractions. He'd received numerous temp. bans from his infractions piling up over time prior to us stepping up and perm. banning him, which as I recall followed him stepping around his temp. bans with sockpuppet accounts, showing an utter disregard for the rules that wasn't going to be tolerated any longer. Dogasu may have started the thread that asked for his Perm. Ban, I honestly can't recall, but Dogasu most certainly was not the person who had the greatest issue with him at that point.

As for users who are "worse", would you care to clarify? You've given Scott85 as an example, but honestly, I can't remember him ever doing something ban worthy. As for why he was kept around....I've never seen someone disagreeing with me or my positions, no matter how insistent they were on their own interpretations of things, as being ban worthy.

Why would I be kidding if I mentioned that staff members have told me and another person has corroborated with my claim? Do you honestly think that I'm pulling all of this out of my ass?

You're not pulling it out of your arse, you're simply misinterpreting it six ways from Sunday, for reasons which I hope have less to do with your apparent agenda, and more for simply misunderstanding. You seem to think Scott got special treatment because we like him. If anything, it's the other way around. In a way, it's the same reason that Serebii Joe didn't get banned. Because we recognised that, while he was antagonistic, being a jackass isn't against the rules (and never will be, or else I'd have to ban myself, and more than half the community), and disagreeing with us isn't against the rules. If and when he does something infraction or ban worthy, the book will be thrown at him, like it'd be thrown at anyone here if they did something wrong.

Quite strange, isn't it?

Not strange at all. We're simply following the rules, same as we always have.

For someone whose problem seems to be the arrogance of staff members, your own arrogance in assigning importance for yourself is somewhat amusing. You're taking as proof that we're corrupt, that we've quite rightly not yet given you an infraction or ban over this thread. Do I honestly need to explain to you how ludicrous this is?

To make matters worse, you've made numerous very general and unspecific claims here. Especially in your claims that so many others feel this way. Bulbagarden isn't a democracy, but I find it hard to believe that the numbers of people you imply all feel that they'll suddenly be banned simply for speaking out. I could see you collecting a group of people that have repeatedly been (quite rightly) infracted, and feel indignant that we brought them up on it, but beyond that? Okay, so some members of staff don't have the best "bedside manner", but as far as I'm concerned, that's irrelevant, so long as they do their jobs, and the letter of our rules is adhered to properly.

Now, if you'd like to provide some examples where the rules have not been adhered to, I'll be glad to look over the issues. If all you've got is someone being "mean" to you though, we'll be throwing this in the HoS post haste.

EDIT: For the record and just to clarify on what I said there about being a jackass not being a bannable offense, it *is* to some extent an infraction offense following this, and bans will result if people continually are like this. Just so we're all clear on that point.

 

[Lethal Carnivine]

Well, to be quite honest, I really see little if not any corruption in the staff or some of the users.

Scott85: I'm looking at his posts on here recently and I don't see anything that bashes, flames, trolls any user on here. I mean, he just states his point(if not a bit repeatedly)

UnownLord: I can kinda understand where problems are with him. I mean, the text walls can be pretty annoying to read after all but other than that.....yeah. If anything, I think people just like to pick fights with him just to provoke him some more.

Admins+Habunake: Does it really matter what happened a few months ago? He commited an offense that caused him to be banned, simple as that. Not to mention(and forgive me if I'm wrong) of course he HAS been banned numerous times over and over and over again for stupid offenses, but after a while they start to add up. To be quite honest, I think you are making a bit of a double standard with Habuanke.

In short, I think there is really nothing wrong with how things are going.

 

[ShadowDeeps]

As someone who has partaken forums for many years now, I find that it's the nature of message boards, fandom, and what not. I only registered on these forums over two months ago, so I can't make any sound observations about what has gone on here all of this year, yesteryear, and etc. I feel an abundance of it has to do with (this is a general statement, and I'd never mean to accuse anyone of anything, to add) taking assumptions and posts out of context and proportion. Hence the reason I tend to err away from such austere altercations - things get nitpicked and flared up to the extent and length that I can't find merit in posting (then the flamewars come forthwith, and the resulting posts of people deeming opinions right and wrong... such things are never simple to dole out). It just makes the sheer effort of posting one giant mess. I've not encountered anything like that on this board yet in my time here, so I'm speaking of others I've frequented.

Message boards, in my view, are an excellent medium of discussion, but once the limitations of message boards become prevalent, I've always found that (on the others I've visited) that some would rather cling to cast iron tradition or questionable incentive. But, again, to reiterate, I haven't been on long enough to get an assiduous notion of how the staff works here, but at the same time last I saw a case where the staff have just reprimanded others for speaking their views was not on this board, though I have encountered a couple of them that not only breed the pompous poster but the pompous staff members as well. "You disagree with me? Banned! Aren't I awesome?" seems to be their motto, and they do that at leisure.

However, I don't want to garner anything unwanted, so I'm going to draw this post to a close here. I suppose all of this verbose is a roundabout way of saying that I think it's the nature of message boards, and that from what I can tell, the staff do their job here on Bulbagarden Forums well.

 

[Nando]

Wow, I just come to back up a couple of his claims and suddenly I'M the bad guy here?

Is that what you really think of me as a person, Liam? That I am "making your job harder than it is already?"

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Honestly, and I put this to everyone in this thread, we hardly get any reported posts talking about the issues herein. If you feel that certain people are getting away with too much, say something about it when it happens rather than letting it fester and then making a post full of generalizations.

That's what the Report Post function is *for*, and honestly we're a small group of people; sometimes you have to point things out to us.

 

[Archaic]

Allow me to be frank for a moment. Nando, I'd have to dig out the archives of the admin forums to find the original reason, but you've been on our watchlists for easily more than six months, if not a year or more. You've certainly never done anything bannable, and only occasionally infractable, but you've antagonized quite a number of the staff.

Let me just say regarding Habu....you all have no idea how many second chances he was given. He only barely avoided being perm-banned on a number of occasions prior to him actually getting it.

 

[Maikeru]

"Why cant we be friends?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5FfJ89rGPc

 

[Nando]

Allow me to be frank for a moment. Nando, I'd have to dig out the archives of the admin forums to find the original reason, but you've been on our watchlists for easily more than six months, if not a year or more. You've certainly never done anything bannable, and only occasionally infractable, but you've antagonized quite a number of the staff.

I bet I can guess the four initials of why (only sharing the last of the four with a four-letter acronym I actually LIKE) and honestly, I'm completely unsurprised I'm still a target because of it, even though I barely paid attention to them by the time they were thrown out.

I also bet you're still carrying a grudge over that time I got permabanned for advertising and then whined until I got it reversed. Well guess what? I really, honestly, seriously DID misunderstand the rule. I know you guys have this image of me being some blood-drooling beast who can't wait 'till the next time he can maliciously break a rule, but that is dead wrong.

Let's see here. The mod I've been infracted by most often is......Blackjack, who is actually my FRIEND, and all the infractions from her were minor, almost pointless ones because I kept getting the fanfic double posting rule here mixed up with the Serebii one. I take responsibility for that time I tore into Scott that earned me a five-point infraction from Dogasu....and guess what, I buried the hatchet with Dogasu a while ago too! I do believe without looking that I've been infracted once by Geodude, which couldn't have been major as I don't even really remember what it was for, and on the rare instances that I interact with him directly, it's perfectly civil. I do believe I've covered every infraction on my list except one now.

Or is it about what I've written on my BJ sometimes? If that's it, first of all, it would be a good idea to have a physical rule set for them so others can't repeat my "mistakes." And if it is just a personal issue with the content, consider the possibility that maybe me shooting my anger somewhere---the BJ---might actually help me feel better.

I've been called out to be on this little blacklist now, so I'd think the other people on it would kind of have a right to know too.

 

[evkl]

And this is precisely what I didn't want this thread to become.

/sigh.

 

[Crankyman]

Then you should have locked it.

 

[Geoffrey]

Warning. If you think Unown Lord is an arrogant jackass (which it's quite apparent you do), the following may piss you off even more. Still, I feel compelled to write this, so if you've got a problem with it, feel free to say so.

I wouldn't exactly say I'm pissed. Just disappointed that the staff can't follow their own rules.

Might not be flaming, but throwing the topic out like this is certainly antagonistic, and skirts the line of trolling and flamebait.

The problem with that is trolling and flamebait can only be considered so if it's done intently. There's no intent for that here. I only wish for Unown Lord to change his attitude so that people don't have to feel like they're being attacked. Every single day, I hear some kind of complaint about him in the chat from forum regulars.

Surely you must have enough sense to realize what kind of bullshit always happens in threads like this?

I'm going to assume that you aren't calling me stupid. And there's no bullshit going on here as it's the truth.

With even more following once the thread is sent to the Hall of Shame, following it descending into outright flaming, even though that's correct policy with any thread that happens to.

Wait, are you threatening to send this thread into the Hall of Shame? All because I'm speaking my opinion? I don't care if you do, but it would, once again, only further prove my point. Plus, I haven't done anything to be ashamed of, unless you define speaking my opinion or speaking out against the staff shameful. In fact, it was one of your own staff members who suggested that I do this.

BMGf is not Serebii. We do not infract people simply for speaking out or speaking their mind, or for disagreeing with us.

I would appreciate it Archaic if you didn't bullshit me. One of your ex-staff members told me that she was infracted for reporting someone because other staff members did not agree.

What we don't tolerate is intentional flamebaiting, which you're skirting the line of frankly.

If I was intentionally flamebaiting someone, I would be trying to piss them off. If my thread would be considered flamebaiting, why not Unown Lord's posts? Because he's a staff member?

If you think a staff member is doing something they shouldn't be, and you can't deal with the issue with them, go over their heads to one of the admins, or to me if it is an admin. But in all cases, we will listen to both sides of the story. Just because we might disagree with you when ruling on an issue, doesn't mean you're being persecuted.

Except you could be persecuted by the mod/admin you're reporting.

Frankly, it seems to be that certain people here, you Geoffrey and you Nando in particular, are taking any disagreement with yourselves by certain members of staff, such as Dogasu and Unown Lord, as a personal attack. I've had enough of that kind of thing from a certain mod, and putting out those fires and fights is a pain in the arse.

So you're basically saying that you don't want to do it because you don't want to go through the trouble of doing it.

I'd appreciate it if you didn't make my job harder than it already is there, given that my real life job teaching at the university is occupying so much of my time recently.

I know this may come off as harsh, but I think you'll live. If you can't handle being one of the "leading" admins of BMGf, then just pass the baton on. I know I shouldn't be telling you how to do your job, but you should at least be able to control and consult your staff when they do something wrong. If you can't do that, then maybe you should have someone else do it?

As for users who are "worse", would you care to clarify? You've given Scott85 as an example, but honestly, I can't remember him ever doing something ban worthy.

I never named Scott85 as a worse user. I personally don't have a problem with him (but many do as you're well aware of). I just think it's unfair that he gets some kind of special treatment. What I mean by worse users would be trolls like Ling Ling.

As for why he was kept around....I've never seen someone disagreeing with me or my positions, no matter how insistent they were on their own interpretations of things, as being ban worthy.

So you're saying what was said about his immunity is true?

In a way, it's the same reason that Serebii Joe didn't get banned.

Yet there was a poll whether to permaban him or not? Not to mention, in the same incident, the other person he was involved with got off scott-free (well, not exactly, but he was penalized far less). Not a very good point you're making Archaic.

Because we recognised that, while he was antagonistic, being a jackass isn't against the rules (and never will be, or else I'd have to ban myself, and more than half the community), and disagreeing with us isn't against the rules.

That's strange... I could've sworn that a new rule (which didn't need to be pointed out) stated that members must be respectful to one another. Correct me if I'm wrong, but being a jackass just to piss someone else off is considered disrespectful.

If and when he does something infraction or ban worthy, the book will be thrown at him, like it'd be thrown at anyone here if they did something wrong.

Why does that not give me much faith?

For someone whose problem seems to be the arrogance of staff members, your own arrogance in assigning importance for yourself is somewhat amusing.

I'm not quite sure how I'm coming off as arrogant or making myself important. I'm not doing this just for myself.

You're taking as proof that we're corrupt, that we've quite rightly not yet given you an infraction or ban over this thread. Do I honestly need to explain to you how ludicrous this is?

I dunno. Do I have to explain how ludicrous it is that you're going to send this to the Hall of Shame simply because I'm enacting my right of freedom of expession? I'm sure you see that I'm not the ONLY one who agrees. BMGf has become much less friendly over the years, and I think it's disappointing.

Bulbagarden isn't a democracy, but I find it hard to believe that the numbers of people you imply all feel that they'll suddenly be banned simply for speaking out.

That's not the problem. It's because they feel that they'll be "attacked" for it. It's happened once before to someone I know.

Okay, so some members of staff don't have the best "bedside manner", but as far as I'm concerned, that's irrelevant, so long as they do their jobs, and the letter of our rules is adhered to properly.

If being an ass and having no respect for another's opinion is a rule, then I'd have to say that this is SPPf.

 

[Archaic]

It's not a blacklist, it's a watchlist. And there's no actual list of names. Just names that we've noticed coming up in our admin threads time and time again.

And frankly, no, even if an actual list did exist, you or anyone else wouldn't have a right to know if you were on it or not, simply because I decided to answer that question instead of ignore it.

 

[evkl]

Then you should have locked it.

Not so easy, when everyone wants to get a say in. At this point it's just going to have to run its course, to whichever end it leads.

 

[MetaRobo]

BMGf is not Serebii. We do not infract people simply for speaking out or speaking their mind, or for disagreeing with us. What we don't tolerate is intentional flamebaiting, which you're skirting the line of frankly.

Isn't it ironic that you're attacking the Serebii mods and yet you accuse Geoffrey of flamebaiting? Many of them do have accounts here, so if you have an issue with them, you could just tell it in their faces.

Anyways, Scott85 may be overenthusiastic in his position, but I don't recall him actually flaming anyone, and it seems that there's only hostility to him on this board. On Serebii, even his rivals (intergalactic platypus, for one) respect him. I don't know as much about Unown Lord, but he just seems similarly adamant to me rather than hostile. Personally, I believe that these are just petty personal vendettas more than anything, because if I was following a similar train of thought, Weedle Mchairybug would have been banned a long time ago, but of course the mods said that he hasn't done anything technically wrong. Call it lax if you want, but it's nice that this place doesn't have to be modded as much due to lower traffic.

 

[Nando]

It's not a blacklist, it's a watchlist. And there's no actual list of names. Just names that we've noticed coming up in our admin threads time and time again.

I think I've been behaving myself pretty well since the advertising incident. You're very close to someone who told me just that about a week ago.

And frankly, no, even if an actual list did exist, you or anyone else wouldn't have a right to know if you were on it or not, simply because I decided to answer that question instead of ignore it.

Good. I'm happy you answered that question.

Unlike all the other points I raised, which you did ignore.

EDIT:

Anyways, Scott85 may be overenthusiastic in his position, but I don't recall him actually flaming anyone, and it seems that there's only hostility to him on this board.

Scott has DRASTICALLY improved since the time I was told he was being given special treatment. I'd actually dare to say he's one of our finer members now.

 

[Geodude]

So you're basically saying that you don't want to do it because you don't want to go through the trouble of doing it.

-member makes complaint
-admin says member's complaint is because member interprets disagreements as personal attacks
-member wants to know why admin is reluctant to deal with the perceived situation

Do I have that basically straight? And do you see why your logic makes absolutely no sense?

and it seems that there's only hostility to him on this board.

Seems that way to me too. I've known him on the IGN boards for years (he's CyberSai, formerly CyberCubed over there), he's harmless.

 

[Geoffrey]

Honestly, and I put this to everyone in this thread, we hardly get any reported posts talking about the issues herein. If you feel that certain people are getting away with too much, say something about it when it happens rather than letting it fester and then making a post full of generalizations.

That's what the Report Post function is *for*, and honestly we're a small group of people; sometimes you have to point things out to us.

Two problems with that. One, we have no idea if the staff will do anything about it and, two, we can get infracted for it, as an ex-staff member has pointed out to me.

 

[evkl]

Two problems with that. One, we have no idea if the staff will do anything about it and, two, we can get infracted for it, as an ex-staff member has pointed out to me.

You can get infracted for reporting a post?

I missed where that happened, unless someone made ridiculous abuses of the infraction system to just spam up our report forums.