I think it is time to refresh the moderators. What do non-moderators think?

[Wouter]

The only moderator I have an issue with is Hollus.

.
..... and now that certain same mod Hollus just gave me a 'warning' for the most BS nonsense where I was calmly and reasonably responding to people attacking my stated(and supported) opinion, where the mod essentially suggested I shouldn't be responding to these posts at all, even though they are the ones being antagonistic towards me.

.
That doesn't surprise me at all! Every time I was attacked, spoken to derogatorily, falsely accused, etc by one and the same person
who started it and kept doing it over and over again and I kept civil and sometimes didn't even respond and when I finaly
reported it I was the one who got a warning! I !!
Hollus said I shouldn't be responding, shouldn't pay attention to it!! Was I the one who did deserve a warning? NO, not at all.
This happend to me more than once.

[Greg Locock]

You don't know that the other person wasn't warned. Since you have a slightly respectable profile perhaps you are held to a higher standard than the usual riffraff. Stop whining, it is boring.

[Giblet]

As a former mod of this forum it can be hard to understand just how focused and insane some users can be over _posts_. You don't see the private messages from them and your perspective is extremely limited.

This site has amazing forums, and it's because of the mods and Stephen. This place is a treat in a world of comments under posts.

It's not a paid gig, and it takes more work and mental space than one would think.

They're people.

[Seanspeed]

Just a couple days ago I asked people if they would translate non-English tweets so I didn't have to click on Twitter links myself. Simply saying I didn't want to click on a Twitter link was apparently a 'political statement' I shouldn't make...

Both posts are still standing untouched, so...
you posted this:
viewtopic.php?p=1270233#p1270233
And I posted this:
viewtopic.php?p=1270332#p1270332

"Can folks translate non-English tweets so we dont have to give Twitter any clicks ourselves, please?".
That was the post. I note the use of "we": Please, "you" is you, and "we" is telling people what to do.
Am I the only one reading this as "let's not give Elon any clicks"?
You are not the first to take that line, and it only happens since a few months ago. Am I reallly misreadig the Musk angle in this?
If that was the wrong take, I apologize.
The rest of you message, was really the same from you and from me, wasn't it? But it hits different coming from a user than coming from a mod, I hope. Users cannot dictate forum rules, mods can (and should). By the way, that rule was here before I became a mod.
I have, of course, been reminding (and enforcing) people to not post with mostly intalian or mostly dutch, or mostly turkish, for years, and I should as a mod.

Being that painfully fastidious about such a small little thing really shows your priority here. It's such an easy thing to just let slide because your job isn't actually to just ultra strictly enforce rules to the utmost letter, it's just to ensure that discussion here is kept on-track. And nothing I said threatened that whatsoever and you know it. The only way it rankled anybody was if you had your own personal issue with what I said.

But that's not even the main problem. The main problem is that after you made such an injection, it took little time before you messaged me with a warning over the most ridiculous nonsense, where I was doing nothing wrong, breaking no rules, nor even testing them. All out of nowhere. How am I supposed to reconcile these temporally closely-related things without thinking you've taken offense to my oh-so benign 'political' statement of simply not wanting to click on a Twitter link if I can help it?

You're either opposed to my sentiment on clicking on a Twitter link and are targeting me, or are so wholly consumed by ultra strict rules engagement that you're vastly overstepping the whole point of your role and not really helping anything at all. I'd like to be kind and think the latter, but somehow I dont think that's it, especially since you yourself are focusing on the whole Twitter thing as the basis of this.

[djos]

As a former mod of this forum it can be hard to understand just how focused and insane some users can be over _posts_. You don't see the private messages from them and your perspective is extremely limited.

This site has amazing forums, and it's because of the mods and Stephen. This place is a treat in a world of comments under posts.

It's not a paid gig, and it takes more work and mental space than one would think.

They're people.

I absolutely agree with you, however the primary issue I've had with Hollus, and apparently about half a dozen others who have DM'd me, is that He’s really good at letting ppl subtly attack others (reports appear to be ignored as the trend continues), and when they get sick of it and call them out, the person on the receiving end gets the warnings.

The approach of the other moderators, like CMSMJ1, is IME much more successful in resolving issues - he is open to dialogue, and I personally ended up burying the hatchet with a previous "sparring partner" as a result of conversations I had with him.

[chrisc90]

Amazing how many other people have similar issues!

Had warnings in the past for petty things, and even had a ‘warning PM’ quoting 10 of my posts which were seen on one moderators views as negative or trolling or petty. Asked him to explain each and every one whilst CC’ing the moderators group and lo and behold, couldn’t justify those posts that were quoted and used against me.

Gets to point where it’s barely worth posting anything decent content these days if any other form of discussion isn’t allowed. I’ve got to the point where I’m seriously considering not posting all the nice onboard clips of wings flexing, incidents on track etc so people can discuss.
Pettiness can work both ways - said it before and will say it again…. One person with an ego is neigh in single handedly destroying the forum. I know of a handful of people who have contacted me expressing similar issues to all the posts/posters above.

To be fair, i've heard more complaints than anything positive regarding the moderating - especially from one moderator in particular. It's amazing when you speak to countless other people across different platforms, how they all share the same thought.

Makes you wonder why other valuable members have either moved on or no longer post as much as they do. Cant all be a coincidence can it really.

Sean - seems like from re-reading the first page of this topic, you have been the the receiving end of exactly what others are talking about.

[CMSMJ1]

It's a strange thread this one.

Unless you have been involved in moderation, in this place, or another, then you might not really have any idea about how it works and what goes on in the background.

I had no idea. You might remember that there was a thread a couple years ago now about moderation - and it was as a result of that I was able to join the moderation team.

I appreciate the positive comments and the reaction to PM that are sent but this is not about individuals in the moderation team - it seems to be a little bit of a pile on to hollus - who is always, in my view, on point and really cares about this place working well.

Where you (and I mean *you* guys thinking that hollus is out to get you) are finding things to be difficult - then remember that you are not "special" - there is a lot of traffic, approvals, reports, bot attacks etc always thrumming along in the background - and sometimes it reads to me that you take it personally. I don't see it that anyone is being singled out

• There are posters here who have full approval of all posts - they do not complain (and have been posting interesting and valuable posts of late)
  There are posters who are running more than one account to try to circumvent bans (we see you....)
  There are posters being dickheads because they think they can
  There are also posters who think because they get a warning that someone is picking on them.

It's just not the case.

With my forum member hat on - Seanspeed - I also don't want to use twatter and won't be clicking on the links, or expecting non English links/videos etc to be posted without translation. All it takes is a report, or a proactive PM to raise the issue.

What did hollus say > "Am I the only one reading this as "let's not give Elon any clicks"?
You are not the first to take that line, and it only happens since a few months ago. Am I reallly misreadig the Musk angle in this?
If that was the wrong take, I apologize."

So, where's the beef? Moderation engaging with you isn't a challenge, or overstepping anything - you don't see what is done in the forum to keep the crap out, to defuse conflict and to try to promote understanding and positive debate between the forum.

I suppose the TL:DR bit from me.

"I think the moderation is great and maybe some of the response to it needs to change - it is not easy as it looks and I would suggest you work with it rather than take every touch as a personal slight"

Even shorter - Respect your forum peers, don't be a pillock

[chrisc90]

Tbh - the Twitter thing is just petty. Click the link and there’s that little 9 letter word underneath the tweet that says translate and it automatically does it for you.

Granted could possibly copy a translation onto the forum post but not always a case of copy and paste. Not much out the way.

Not all journalists post in English.

[hollus]

I just clicked on that tweet on my iphone, for documentation purposes:

I landed on a half visible screen clouted by log-in and sign-in buttons, plus “accept all cookies” etc using most of the screen real state.

Click on reject non essential (does that mean that I accepted some?)

Now I see the post, “translate” link included.

Click.

A nice “unable to fetch translation” and a retry button.

Click.

Error again.

Perhaps because I don’t have an account? In my PC, equally messy, but in a different way, tweets will often appear briefly, then be covered by something else forever.
I also don’t appreciate having to navigate back to the original thread afterwards.

Anyways, if the reader needs more that zero clicks to make up his mind of what he is looking at, he needs too many clicks. The posters have to help browsing be smooth. Because there are too many pages to scroll through. And reader experience matters.

P.S. I personally can read the original Italian well enough, so I shouldn’t care? But not every one can, I suppose.

[chrisc90]

Not too sure where you are going wrong, but it’s perfectly easy for me - as shown.

I landed on a half visible screen clouted by log-in and sign-in buttons, plus “accept all cookies” etc using most of the screen real state.

Click on reject non essential (does that mean that I accepted some?)

Let’s face it, it’s the same here though. 2/3’s of usable screen space taken up. Often get pop ups requiring to accept the advertising cookies. It’s not a pleasant browsing experience on a phone - PC is only made better by ad blockers which do a great job.

Edit: not massively twisting about the adverts here as I know it’s an ongoing situation and Steven working on it. Just pointing the fact out it’s the same wherever you go with ‘annoying’ advertising

[Wouter]

Last year I was constantly attacked by a Ricciardo fan, because I'm a fan of Yuki. He responded to every message I sent about Yuki
in a derogatory way. I didn't respond back. He even responded to other people with accusations about me when I wasn't around.
I then asked him to leave me alone because everyone can decide for themselves whether they're a fan of Ricciardo.
He kept bothering me, but I kept quiet and asked Hollus if he could do something about it. Well, he did by giving ME a warning!
I wasn't allowed to respond to him!! I then said that the other guy kept accusing me of all sorts of things and I kept quiet,
but that didn't stop him. Hollus kept insisting that I shouldn't respond to him.

Hollus didn't look at who the instigator was, no, he only looked at my messages. I was done with it.
I don't report anything anymore, because it all ends up with Hollus and he looks at the consequences and never at the cause.
BTW that same person got banned from the Autosport forum because he was always attacking other people.
There was only one good driver and that was Ricciardo and everyone had to think/see that too!

[hollus]

You called me, or my actions, petty, Chris. That’s why I insist in explaining.

I don’t wish to stick to tiny details, but I’ll highlight two points regarding translations, you may or may not agree, and I’ll stop here anyways:

1) Each user’s experience of the internet is different. Different devices, browsers… what works for some may not work for others.

2) The basic concept that the poster is in charge of giving the reader an easy read, and not the other way around… I don’t think this should be that controversial?

[hollus]

Wouter, that’s not what happened, not how it happened, and not what I wrote.

Fog of war and limits of your point of view, remember that, guys.

And I am out, enjoy the mudslinging.

[chrisc90]

You called me, or my actions, petty, Chris. That’s why I insist in explaining.

I don’t think this should be that controversial?

Nothing personal towards you. If it’s a forum rule then consider it construct criticism against that.

My views, are explained via PM to yourself, and 2 other members when brought up. I’ll leave that at that - as means the threads gone off on a tangent

[hollus]

Indeed they are. Thanks.