Clarification for those who are wondering...

[Magen_Avot]

Privacy in today's online world is an odd bird, but it doesn't really exhist. Kinda weird when you contemplate the religeous aspect of the site but even in our own home we can't break the law (rules if you will) and avoid the consequence. I got modded twice and was embarrassed and offended at the same time. I stepped on the line (ok,... maybe a little past the line) without realizing it due to emotions and hey, I learned something.

I have received two email notifications from two different members I didn't know and when I went to my profile the messages didn't exhist. I looked up their profiles, which also didn't exhist. I've always wondered what that was about but after contemplating it, I probly don't want to know.

I wouldn't want to moderate, but the hard decisions must be made sometimes and I don't see that I have the right or need to know the skinney.

If I keep it to a dull roar, I'm ok... if not appreciated. :)

The OP is much appreciated by me though.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Magen_Avot

[Traveler]

Hmmmm - interesting thread. I would like to thank the mods for their efforts. Like so many others (military, police and others) we have no idea what they are currently dealing with.

Any way thanks to the mods for keeping this water as void of sewer as they have.

The Traveler

[estradling75]

I have received two email notifications from two different members I didn't know and when I went to my profile the messages didn't exhist. I looked up their profiles, which also didn't exhist. I've always wondered what that was about but after contemplating it, I probly don't want to know.

I'll answer this in a general 'most likely happened this way' that can hopefully answer without give you details you don't want to know.

We get spammers in all parts of the system, and when they show up it falls to a mod to clean it up. This includes the PM system. I am not someone that can read PMs but I still have clean up duty. I learn about someone spamming the PM when someone who has received a spammed PM reports it. When I get a report I can act to delete the user account and all PMs that user sent. All while never seeing any PMs but my own.

I can also monitor the overall system activity. If we normally have 30 PMs in a day and when I check and see that we are at 230 and climbing... well that is a big red flag. Then I can check who is currently in the section of the website for composing PMs... I can't tell what they are writing just that they are there. If they are new, if they are there forever, if they are the only ones there, and the PM count keeps rising... then I have a pretty good suspect, but I still don't know. I have to raise the flag to one of the people that can check. Then I have to wait... wait for them to come online and check or wait for a report from an affected user.

When we can act the user gets deleted.. Meaning the profile goes away, PMs go away, blogs go away, pretty much everything but the forum posts they might have, goes away. All without looking into anyone's PMs. They become marked as guest in the forum posts and your PM box might still say you have an unread message, which you can't clear because the message is gone.

Edited February 9, 2012 by estradling75

[JudoMinja]

I'll answer this in a general 'most likely happened this way' that can hopefully answer without give you details you don't want to know.

We get spammers in all parts of the system, and when they show up it falls to a mod to clean it up. This includes the PM system. I am not someone that can read PMs but I still have clean up duty. I learn about someone spamming the PM when someone who has received a spammed PM reports it. When I get a report I can act to delete the user account and all PMs that user sent. All while never seeing any PMs but my own.

I can also monitor the overall system activity. If we normally have 30 PMs in a day and when I check and see that we are at 230 and climbing... well that is a big red flag. Then I can check who is currently in the section of the website for composing PMs... I can't tell what they are writing just that they are there. If they are new, if they are there forever, if they are the only ones there, and the PM count keeps rising... then I have a pretty good suspect, but I still don't know. I have to raise the flag to one of the people that can check. Then I have to wait... wait for them to come online and check or wait for a report from an affected user.

When we can act the user gets deleted.. Meaning the profile goes away, PMs go away, blogs go away, pretty much everything but the forum posts they might have, goes away. All without looking into anyone's PMs. They become marked as guest in the forum posts and your PM box might still say you have an unread message, which you can't clear because the message is gone.

Hmm.. That explains why I have some blogs that say they have one more comment than they actually do. I didn't even think of that. :) Thanks!

[john doe]

Let me address the PM thing. Only the Head Moderators and Heather can read PMs. Senior Moderators do not have that capability. Speaking solely for myself, I really am not interested in the private lives of the members of the site. I rarely just go through PMs and read them willy-nilly. My time is more valuable than that. About the only times I read them is when there is a red flag raised by someone that perhaps we should look at a certain person's messages. This is generally when someone comes in and tries subverting the purposes of the site by sending messages to people they deem vulnerable and works to undermine their testimony of the gospel, the LDS Church, and its leaders.

We openly embrace the truthfulness of the LDS Church, and we do not tolerate people actively working to destroy others' testimonies of it. I really don't care enough about the details in the lives of site members to bother reading or holding in my memory the things you say to each other. The only reason we read PMs at all is to check for possible rules violations, which everyone agreed to when they signed up.

Frankly, I don't get paid enough to keep your personal chitchat in my head. The women on this site especially should understand that men don't remember things they don't care about, and I really don't care about 99.9% of the things said in PMs. Truth be told, I generally don't read every post on every thread on the forums either, unless it catches my eye or interest, or someone says we should take a look at it for some reason.

Now, Prison Chaplain is one of our moderators, and while he is clearly not LDS, he has always been highly respectful and made great efforts to understand our point of view, different from his though they may be. If only all of our non-LDS posters were as open-minded and non-judgemental in their questions concerning our faith. He does an excellent job providing the moderating staff a perspective from the non-LDS point of view of the site, At the same time I think he supports most of our actions that we take against those whom the mod staff feels do not have good intentions here.

[pam]

I guess I should add my 2 cents for what it's worth as the manager of lds.net.

Many that have posted on this thread have provided great thoughts and insights as to why certain things happen on this board.

There is so much that happens on this site that is not seen by the average member of lds.net. Which is why many bans that you see are of a curiosity to the membership at large.

Let me address the pm's. Yes there are 3 of us that can read pm's. Heather (administrator), john doe and myself. I can tell you right off, Heather doesn't read them. Heather has pretty much left the managing of this site to me. Only when issues come up that I need a higher opinion or have questions of legalities etc. do I get her involved. I'm in contact with her almost daily by email and by phone keeping her up to date as to what is going on with lds.net.

Okay with that being said, we have been very open, as moderators, in letting people know that all parts of the site are moderated when we feel there is a need to do so. Let me re-emphasize. When we feel there is a need to do so.

For those that have no idea what our mission at lds.net is (which btw is available right here on this site for those curious) let me share:

About LDS.Net

LDS.Net is owned and operated by More Good Foundation. The mission of More Good Foundation is:

• Illuminate the fruits of LDS Church members (Mormons)
• Facilitate personal expressions of faith
• Reach out to friends of other faiths using their vocabulary
• Publish and market high quality LDS content
• Provide a non-authoritative voice
• Refer interested people to the Church

We Support Positive LDS Content

The More Good Foundation is committed to helping faithful Mormons share their stories with the world, and then helping the world find those stories quickly and easily. As a people we have positive, powerful stories to tell--and that "telling" is important. We don't believe in hiding our candle under a bushel, and the Internet provides a way for us to collectively hold our candles up, providing light to all and helping them see what that light helps us to see.

We have many members of the site who are not LDS and we love interracting with our brothers and sisters who are not of our faith and beliefs. The mission is still to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ with LDS thoughts, beliefs and values.

At the same time those interractions need to be respectful on both sides. This gets difficult at times when we get people that come here and start out with "I'm only here to learn, I'm not here to debate and argue" and it becomes very apparent that is not the agenda at all. So as some has said..you wonder how someone who seems so friendly gets banned. It's what you are NOT seeing that the reason someone may get banned.

It is not unusual for one of us moderators to get a pm from someone saying "I just got a pm from someone that I find offensive would you take a look?" At that point there is a need to look into the pm situation. Also when someone posts that they just took a discussion to pm it can become a red flag to us. Especially when this is coming from someone who has debated our doctrine and now want to take it away from a public forum into the private message arena. Only john doe and I know how many of these private messages provide links to sites that are nothing more than an anti-mormon site. This can become very dangerous to someone with an already struggling testimony. We want to encourage and uplift. Not provide information that could possibly damage an already tender and fragile testimony.

As moderators, it is our job to make sure that the mission of TheMoreGoodFoundation is being carried out. That is also what some of our sponsors want to see as well. They want to make sure their money is going towards what they are donating for. We rely strictly on donations as that is how this site and hundreds of others owned by MGF stay active and going.

So do I sit and read everyone’s pm’s? Heck no. How utterly boring and I don’t have the time nor even the interest to entertain such a thing. It’s only when something has been brought to my attention or something said in a thread that throws out a red flag that I take a look. And then it’s only those pm’s of those related to the concern or question.

Another thing that is not seen by the general public are the reported posts. We appreciate those that take the time to report posts that are of a concern to them. We also take each of them seriously. We, as moderators, discuss each and every one of them. We try our best to look at all sides of the post being reported. Some are no brainers. Yet there are others that we have to look at an entire thread (not just the post that’s been reported) to get a feel or an idea of where that poster is coming from. At that point we make a determination as to what action we want or need to take. Do we ban a user? Do we close a thread? Do we delete a thread? Do we just delete the reported post in question? Do we issue an infraction due to site rules? Do we just send a friendly reminder about the site rules? Do we issue a warning to all involved in that thread to tone it down? So many things we have to consider in what would be best for the site and for all members. Do we always agree as moderators? NOOOOO. I can’t count the number of times that I have changed my opinion of a situation by reading and listening to the thoughts of the other moderators. Unless it has to do with vulgarity, anti, profanity (the no brainers) our policy has been to take action based on what the majority of the moderators discussing have thought.

We also have to take into consideration how things said might be perceived by the outside world looking in. There are so many people who never join the site but they read the forums. There are many who google Mormons or LDS and are brought to this site. We want information that concerns our doctrines and beliefs to be just that. What we believe. We want correct information out there that investigators or even those struggling can read and we hope will encourage them to look more into our beliefs or might help with a struggling testimony.

We do take the suggestions of our members into consideration. We’ve made changes to the way the site works and how things are done by the great suggestions of its members. But we also ask that you do so respectfully. If you have a suggestion that could help us as moderators do our job more effectively I’m open to ideas. That being said, I don't want this to be perceived as an open invitation to entertain every thought of how you think the moderating staff does a horrible job or to question every action that we take. We have already taken one into consideration from another thread and will be putting that into action.

Moderating is a hard job. It’s normally a thankless job. So I do appreciate the kind remarks some have made. We will never make everyone happy. But we really do strive to make this a site that is uplifting and a friendly site to all who may join us here.

If wanting to have a site that is friendly, uplifting, encourages testimony building, promotes our beliefs and doctrines and also follows the mission of what MGF is all about requires some censorship..well…to me that is a no brainer as well.

Edited February 9, 2012 by pam

[Gwen]

Others have already replied with the basics of what I was going to say, but I want to touch on what I bolded. I think the problem is probably the "perception", which is why I started this thread. In all the posts I've read where someone is trying to understand bans, it seems to me like there's some "between the lines" message between the complainee and the moderator that is getting lost somewhere. The two seem to be talking past each other, with something like this happening:

Complainee: Why was so-and-so banned? That seems rediculous?

Moderator: Any ban was for a violation of the Site Rules. Please read them.

Complainee: Gosh the rules must be awfully strict, and no warning? This seems like a really unfair site, and the mods are kinda trigger-happy.

Moderator: If you have a problem with a mod, please address it through PM, as complaints on the forum are a violation of Rule #6. Please read the rules.

Complainee: (snark) Ha! So, I have to talk to the mods privately about a problem with the mods? Like that will ever get resolved. I'll probably get banned now too since breaking the rules gets people banned and I just broke the rules which I couldn't even find and haven't read. Thanks!

Moderator: (closes thread)

I've seen this basic format over and over again and it was starting to bug me. I started thinking- if the complainee is unobservant enough to not see the link to the Site Rules at the top of every page, then said complainee is also probably unobservant enough to realize that any offensive posts or reason behind the ban has been cleaned up so they won't see it, and that the "Banned" label remains on the okay posts that weren't deleted so that we know the member who left that post is no longer on the site. Hence, this thread. I wanted to try to clear up the misperception and get out the message that was being left unsaid on both sides:

On the side of the complainee- I'm just trying to understand what leads to a ban, because it looks to me like this site is oppressive and I'm worried that I might end up banned for something silly.

On the side of the moderators- Every ban has been for a good reason and is just not visible because we've cleaned up the offensive material. If you want to know the reason, you can go over the rules yourself to get an idea of what may have happened, and if you are still unsatisfied can ask us in PM.

Though I agree with what you are saying I am often left with the impression that the question is less about "I want to be careful so I need to know what will get me banned" and more about "I'm nosy and want the gossip". They can read the rules and they did claim that they did before joining the site so their question about how to stick around is already answered. But then maybe I'm being to judgmental. lol

[Guest]

Let me address the pm's. Yes there are 3 of us that can read pm's. Heather (administrator), john doe and myself. I can tell you right off, Heather doesn't read them. Heather has pretty much left the managing of this site to me. Only when issues come up that I need a higher opinion or have questions of legalities etc. do I get her involved. I'm in contact with her almost daily by email and by phone keeping her up to date as to what is going on with lds.net.

Has this been always the case, Pam? Just curious... because... I suspected this was not the case not too long ago. Like, around the June 2010 timeframe or so?

[Guest]

Though I agree with what you are saying I am often left with the impression that the question is less about "I want to be careful so I need to know what will get me banned" and more about "I'm nosy and want the gossip". They can read the rules and they did claim that they did before joining the site so their question about how to stick around is already answered. But then maybe I'm being to judgmental. lol

There's the 3rd option - their friend got banned and now they're upset because they just all of a sudden, without much preparation, lost the ability to communicate with that friend so they're making noises to hopefully get them unbanned or just to stage a protest of some kind.

Like, for example, I consider Judo my friend here on LDS.net. If she gets banned all of a sudden, it would get me rattled because, lds.net is our means of communication between us.

[pam]

Has this been always the case, Pam? Just curious... because... I suspected this was not the case not too long ago. Like, around the June 2010 timeframe or so?

I can only speak for me. It has always been the case for me. But then again, I'm not going to go into every detail why some pm's would be looked at and not others.

But it never fails to make me chuckle over the several years I've been a moderator, that the ones who tend to question the most are the ones who have also failed in following the rules.

Edited February 9, 2012 by pam

[slamjet]

*sigh* Gone are the day's where I could tell a poster to stick their head in a toilet and flush to clear their brains out.

[skippy740]

Another note I'd like to contribute:

Anytime someone has been banned or suspended, please know that there was a process given and applied. The reason why someone is banned or suspended is no one else's business, nor should a thread of "this person has been banned because of x" be started.

Just as when someone is excommunicated from the church and removed from the records of the church - it's no one's business but that person and his priesthood leaders.

When the church was originally formed, there were announcements given in sacrament or stake conferences announcing who was excommunicated. This practice is no longer done. (The public humiliation would be enough to turn someone from repentance to actively rebelling against the church, IMO.)

The difference here online is that the old posts remain and it shows the poster's status... so it makes it much more apparent that the person is no longer a poster on the forums. And I don't think it's necessary to remove all the posts from a banned poster. Too much work... and it may derail other good threads when read later.

[HoosierGuy]

I miss one poster that was banned. Name is the name of a car engine and a state (Dakota). Don't know what happened but I loved his posts.

[Tyler90AZ]

I think the mods are very lenient when it comes to banning. There has been many times when I have been given the hand of mercy, rather then justice.

[Vort]

I think the mods are very lenient when it comes to banning. There has been many times when I have been given the hand of mercy, rather then justice.

You and me both, brother.

[JudoMinja]

*sigh* Gone are the day's where I could tell a poster to stick their head in a toilet and flush to clear their brains out.

So that's the purpose of a swirly! Who knew?

I don't see anything wrong with posting that.... as long as you remember to say please and thank you .

I miss one poster that was banned. Name is the name of a car engine and a state (Dakota). Don't know what happened but I loved his posts.

I miss reading his posts too, along with a few others who are no longer with us, either because they were banned or because they requested their account be deleted. But I also trust that the mods are very careful about being fair before dishing out a ban, so I've never seen any reason to question it. I also feel that it would be rude/nosey of me to go asking for the details on these situations, because they are none of my business. I just trust that whatever the reason was, it was a good one, and I move on.