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I gather you all here to share with you the hard decision we had to make today. flohtingPoint has been permanently banned as of today (June 24, 2012) He joined the forums for over 8 years and has made over 4,300 posts; he was one of the very early people to join the community and had contributed a lot of knowledge to the forums. That can't be denied and we should remember him that way.

Like they say, rules are rules. His posting behavior had taken a change for the worst since late 2009.

As you can see, he was very closed to be banned in August 31, 2010. He was given a verbal warning then. Since the implementation of the new warning system, we do not automatically reduce warnings after 30 days. It is not hard to see how that didn't pan out for him. He had adapted to the pattern of not posting for 30 days after getting a warning and just wait for the warning to subside.

We had a staff meeting for this decision. The vote was 5 for banning, 1 against and 1 undecided. It was a pretty unilateral turnout. It is unfortunate that we had to resort to banning, but it is both necessary and justified.

This thread is for you to voice your comments regarding flohtingPoint's banning and your opinions on how the staff dealt with this. Thank you for your feedback.

What to say...
First of all, I think this IS a Moderating Team decision. I wouldn't like Tesso to be blamed for giving him the last warning since he is known for having a controversial past here. Also, I did write the last warning reason.

Then, about Floh... it was about time. Rules really had to be applied one day and it hit him hard. But he will be remembered though.

It's not hard to not be banned from a forum. I've managed to keep a warning level of 0%, and I've been a total dick here on at least a few occasions. It's his own fault, he knows it, and it's pretty pitiful for a man of his age to get banned from a forum centered around a cartoon.

I guess next time I want to remember a date to lower someone's warn level to prevent issues like this I should write it down instead of trying to keep track mentally, especially when it falls during a week I know'll be busy.

And as such we're down a knowledgeable contributing member as a result. Live and learn, I guess.

Spaz, this was by no means your fault. He chose to act the way he did. The auto-warn-reduce system was justifiably thrown out. It is his own fault for not behaving himself.

I will not deny that he provided a lot of good knowledge to the members of this forum, but I have never liked the way he provided that information. As Cactus said, it's not hard to not get banned from a forum. It's not hard to be considerate. It's not hard to not be a complete douchebag.

Floh was incapable, and this is the result. He has no one to blame but himself.

wha....thats.....a lot of flaming post....

what really got into him anyway?
i meant...the main idea is..respect other people...and they will respect u...

Cross-post from Staff Section:

Spaz, trust me when I say I do feel bad for losing such a long-standing member. I sympathize with you more than anyone else. That last post wasn't what got him banned, but it was the tipping point. It is not so much as in whether or not we can take a joke. It was more about one's behavior. I for one get that joke. He was being sarcastic about the fact that we do not lower warning level if one can't change their posting behavior. And he did just that, he purposely did not change his attitude because he know this would ultimately test the bottom line of the team.

If this was the first time that he was about to get banned, I would probably advise giving him a "last verbal warning" deal. But since that was not his first time, the deal is done. My hands are tied no matter how badly I want to save a knowledgeable member.

kinda agree of what Perry says...

i meant...if u really wanna joke around...make sure that u know the limit.....coz everybody sure has a different boiling point....

and seeing all the past post done by him....i can say, most of them...have already reached....long ago...

Thank you for making this thread Perry. Anyhow, my thoughts on this matter. Floh always seemed a bit rude in his posts and he even admitted to it a few times if I recall correctly. It's sad to see him go though since he was so knowledgeable in his field. I sometimes wonder why his posting style was like that. I guess maybe because he had too much pride and wrath.

Spaz, don't feel bad about this situation. No one is at fault for this. It was bound to happen. There is loss in life, there is gain in life. We must all take it in stride. And that is my fortune cookie advice for the day. Thanks for listening.

This post has been edited by THE_HONDA_CG2 on Jun 25 2012, 10:05 AM

I feel saddened. Holmes is gone to my Moriarty. No more exchanges of thinly veiled contempt wrapped in the so often belligerent tirades that belied the fact that I had a great deal of respect for the man.

I guess I'll have to exist without a proper nemesis for now.

This post has been edited by JKaiba on Jun 25 2012, 08:03 AM

So floh managed to get himself banned.

Goddamnit floh

Despite having the subtlety of a hand grenade most of the time, I respected floh for the amount of technical experience and knowledge he brought here. Especially to the automotive section. I liked his Nurburgring videos from back 6 years ago.

I'm not sure why he, as one of the older members here, couldn't or simply decided not to keep his attitude in check that resulted in this ban.

This post has been edited by RalliKai on Jun 25 2012, 08:41 PM

A big argument I heard from the dissenting side was that we're apparently expected to let his "brand" of attitude slide since "we're used to it and he's been doing it for a long time". I don't see the logic in that statement. That certainly makes sense to the old membership, but all it does for the new guys is alienate the balls off of them and skew their perception of what is and isn't accepted behavior around here.

The warn system renovations were implemented specifically to curb this hot-then-cold technique so many members were using to dodge a final warning, and so I saw this as an inevitable result months ago when I announced the changes to the system. This is an example of how the system works, and the consequences that can result from continued aberrant behavior.

I have to admit taking offence at flohs posts occasionaly, the second to last post he was warned for rubbed me the wrong way but after drafting a paragraph that I was never satisfied with my wording (I either sounded like floh or like I was whining) I felt I couldn't fully refute any of his statments and deleted it. Before I joined I lurked in the automotive forums for a long time, floh knew his s**t, but he always seemed to be trying to stir the pot.

I like the membership and community here, a few bad apples have to be thrown out on occasion. If you can't behave within the rules of the forum then that's on you. Fair well floh, and good luck.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

I can't disagree about not making exceptions for members based on tenure alone and that it shouldn't be a major consideration over one's behavior.

The problem I personally have with this specifically is that I made the mental note to lower his warn level late one night while scanning through his kart thread, when it dawned on me that he'd broken his normal cycle of dropping of the radar while at 67% and not only was posting on a fairly regular basis, but was being 100% civil about it at the same time. It was in my eyes behavior that warranted a decrease at the end of the 30 days without question.

Does that mean he wouldn't have gone back to doing what history implies would continue? Of course not, and I understand that logic completely in the decision, which despite that fact was still the wrong one. Period.

i liked floh.

I noticed it too! Right up until that little part, y'know, when he called the staff cockbags.
Call it a joke, I guarantee it wasn't lighthearted. He could have turned his act around and gotten his shit together to lower his warn level - hell, he could have done neither of those things and just acted civilly without asking for a decrease in warn level and still gotten along just fine here. But no, he had to make yet another ridiculous post. I'll also remind you that he broke another rule with that post by posting outside the clearly designated thread.

So children, what did we learn about publicly speaking out against moderator/administrator decisions?

I also like flohtingPoint, to be honest with you. The problem lies in the way he treat others on the forums. I am sure he's a very cool guy in person.

Many years ago, when we still had Jays running around the forums, he was invincible. No one could touch him and he joke around and put people down in his own way. It got to the point where the rest of the Mod Team was against me on the decision to save Jayson around the forums. I gave him a second chance for unbanning him. Almost right away, he started spamming with his witty jokes. (I loved it by the way, but others don't see it that way.) Rules are rules, he was banned almost within one day. Jays was in every way capable of holding intellectual discussion off-forums. But once he gets on the forums, he becomes a different character. It was his own way to contribute to the community.

Why am I bringing this up? The reason is that the character associate with a person hardly ever changes. flohtingPoint has been untouchable for a long time with his blatant name-calling. But most regulars had known his behavior for years and most don't say a thing about it. It was considered a "price" we paid for having him and his knowledge here. I can almost guarantee you if it wasn't for that last post of his, it would've been something else that he just happen to thought up that day and the result would be the same.

It is interesting that you brought up the fact that he did not lay low while he was on 67% this time, Spaz. I do find it a change of behavior on his part. The problem is he most likely doesn't care about getting banned. To him, it is a cartoon forums and almost everyone is stupid. Like someone said previously, it really isn't all that hard to not get banned.

If he cares enough, he would write an Email to the Administrator's Email address. (It is the only thing one sees when their account is banned.) I've yet to receive anything from him, not even a rant or "why?" Email. It's probably asking too much from him though...

What's done is done. Does that mean he will never grace these forums again? Not at all. Permanent ban on IDW really isn't all that permanent. One year, two years, three years? Who knows, I know for a fact someone who was banned for five years came back. Anything is possible.

I wish we where this open on WME.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

How do you mean? The people who have been banned have been banned for good reason on WME.

I think he may be saying that the bannings aren't discussed in such an open manner as here. I can't honestly say whether I agree with that or not because I've not been as active a member on WME.

The desire for transparency here at IDW stems from the sense that as an older, larger forum, there are far more things going on in the woodwork than the old- someone who got banned for acting petulant. While I've been on the moderating team at WME I haven't seen major incidents of staff members abdicating their impartiality in favor of personal agendas. There also hasn't been a great clamor for explanations when warns or bans are handed out. It isn't like it's not explained either in the warn or in a follow up post. It's normally fairly obvious anyway. The level of discussion and transparency we're seeing here only becomes necessary when the community needs to feel confident about the staff's decisions when the situation is complicated or it is possible that a staff member acted out of line. The situations we've dealt with at WME are usually so black and white by comparison.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Any position that can argue effectively that we've had failings as staff on the sister forum is useful for constructive criticism. Considering the level of activity on that forum (being lower on average than here) and the diasporation and subsequent re-accumulation of regular users not to mention their sporadic posting habits, it's more difficult to get a feel for the waters. Consequently it's also harder to form a bandwagon and therefore easier to control user attacks. That's just my analysis.

This post has been edited by JKaiba on Jun 26 2012, 09:13 AM

i see nothing wrong with calling someone a cockbag...that's one of the few things we call people at the track.

i guess it's just a gap in culture, but saw absolutely nothing wrong with his post.

This post has been edited by MattW on Jun 26 2012, 09:54 AM

I'm with Matt, car culture has a different level of acceptable banter. The term is perfectly acceptable in normal track conversation, and workplace conversation in most cases as well.

A term of endearment? Usually not. But a term used with intent to offend and incite backlash? Hardly.

What's mostly going on here that's different from WME is that the majority of the staff are communicative with each other, so most decisions are on a consensus basis, although administrators retain the option to override mod consensus if they feel it's necessary. Our ability to mesh relatively well is what keeps things going without infighting or overbearing bias. There are disagreements and disputes occasionally, but the typical atmosphere is pretty chill in the staff section.

Transparency was a concern with this situation because of the high profile member that was being banned, and to make it known how we carried it out. The motion was initiated by Kyonpalm, who requested a staff discussion in order to determine the best course of action. We (Perry, Kyon, Lebon, and myself) spent about an hour in an AIM chat room, and various options were brought up, including verbal warnings and "letting it slide", before it was decided that a final warn and ban was going to happen. The last question asked was "who is pulling the trigger?" Perry posited that because it was high profile, it would be appropriate for an administrator to warn and ban Flohtingpoint, while the other admin drummed up a post explaining justification for the ban. I drew the "ban" straw, and so Perry created this thread. The whole thing was done this way to show members that it was not at all the action of just one person. Every mod had their time to speak on the issue in some shape or form.