Thanks for confirming that Randy. I was wondering if there's any way that you could give us some statistics about how many of these suspensions/bannings for spamming there have been?

The Moderators do an amazing job at keeping this place clean and SPAM-free that it would give the general populace an idea of how much work they're doing w/o us knowing. Thanks.

Some of what is mentioned in the first paragraph above is already in place. That is "some restrictions on a permanent basis to any relationship you might have in the future regarding FlyerTalk" is already in effect in some regards; and, while I'm not 100% positive about the following yet, some of those continuing restrictions may be independent of bannings/clemency.

Actually, i just gave a report to the TalkBoard so have the current stats on hand. From March 30, 2004 to today, there have been 58,865 log entries for FlyerTalk. These are entries that the volunteer Moderators and tech team have made to correct actions of our members. Sounds like a lot, and it is. It really paints a picture of what it takes to try and make FlyerTalk a great experience for everyone. On the surface, you probably have no indication of the type of activity that occurs behind the scenes. For instance, these stats represent 1,784 actions taken monthly, or more than 60 actions taken daily.

Sorry to disappoint those that only think of the management of FlyerTalk as moderator suspensions, etc. But actually suspensions and bans for our regular members is actually a rarity. Of these actions, less than .5% have anything to do with bans and suspensions for regular member behavior. Approximately 7% are dealing with moving threads to more appropriate forums, communicating with members, etc. and the remaining 92.5% have to deal with spammers. By definition, spammers aren't just those posting commercial messages, etc. they are also members or former members who for sport like to try and disrupt FlyerTalk - somewhat affirming that they don't know how to play nice with others.

Anyway, a tremendous amount of effort goes into making FlyerTalk as pleasant as possible and I hope you can respect that without the efforts of the Moderators and our tech team, what this place would look like. Imagine almost 57 instances of disruption a day added into FlyerTalk without their help.

Bottom line: Our Moderators have kept out or taken action on 54,450 instances of spam and related garbage in just over the last 2 1/2 years on FlyerTalk.

Randy, thank you very much for highlighting and providing those statistics. ^

Interesting statement that "we all knew..." Fact is, 99% of the members of FlyerTalk likely do not know what the heck you are talking about - I know I certainly don't. As a general member myself, much like you, I really don't know that the first thing i try to do on FlyerTalk is to seek out other members and gloat over their misfortune. The purpose of FlyerTalk is to read a thread about travel, add personal experience if it is relevant and if reading someone else's question, figure out of you have enough experience with that topic to assist them.

If you are insisting or want that the first goal and priority of our moderators is to pat down every single new member and suspect that they are here to disrupt and violate the TOS, then I've got news for you - it ain't going to happen. I will not have our volunteers become thugs merely for the purpose of intimidating the more than 99.9% of our members who are here to talk travel.

And at the end of the day, what difference does it or should it make to you, unless of course you (and I am not directly this answer towards you as a member, but "you" as a general concept of a member) are one of those that loves to participate in a disruptive dialogue and love the fact that the other guy speeding got nailed.

And let's make it clear to all our members, (now I am directing this to you), this members' assertion "Given the extreme reluctance to ban reincarnations" does not in any way reflect the current and ongoing policies of FlyerTalk and certainly not that of the volunteer Moderators. I can only guess it must be his/her personal opinion and hey, he/she is certainly entitled to that.

Allow me to refresh your memory. Flailey re-registered in this particular incarnation (f9999)in May. This situation was pointed out to you in August in this thread. In addition, moderators were PM'ed repeatedly of the return of Flailey, and moderators deleted many posts (probably a hundred or more) pointing out that this was, in fact, Flailey. In response to PMs, at least one Moderator responded that they had called this situation to your attention, but that you had not elected to do anything about it for the time being. This former member's actions were so egregious that you cited him as an example of the lengths to which you would go to protect your members from him in this thread. Yet, FT allowed him to re-register and post for many months, despite many members pointing out that this was a re-register of perhaps our worst offender ever (if he isn't, he is certainly among 'em). Finally, around November IIRC, he was suspended again.
I don't "seek out other members and gloat over their misfortune" - however, considering the extreme nature of this particular member's transgressions, I did not see any reason to allow him to re-register and participate in FT, which is, of course, exactly what was allowed to occur.

I'm not in favor of moderators being thugs either. However, in this case, it was so blatantly obvious from speech, references, and posting patterns that this was the re-registration of one of our worst offenders ever, lots of members were able to see it. Still, he remained on FT, racking up 405 posts over 6 months or more.

Well, I didn't start a thread to berate you about this, or even post in one. In this thread, I thought we were discussing granting pardons to those who have received lifetime bans. I posted my opinion that it was not necessary, if we were going to allow those persons to re-register and post away for an extended period. You may (and obviously do) disagree, but my opinion is still my opinion. I thought you started this thread to provide information and get feedback. I'm sorry if my feedback is not what you were expecting.
Obviously, it is my personal opinion. I have not sought out other members to ask their opinions. You may not feel that allowing a reincarnation to stay on FT for 6 months despite many complaints during that entire period does not constitute extreme reluctance to ban, but it is difficult for me to characterize it otherwise.

Randy I very seldom visit OMNI but didn't you also put some policy into place one time, where anyone who got too heated there got restricted to just 3 or 4 posts a day until they calmed down?

'Rule 27' or something hing like that I think you termed it? I recall reading about it once and thought that seemed to be a good choker on any political/religious rants etc. Is that still in place?

It did not appear to result in any time-out ban, per se, but stifled repeated posts, which often might serve a useful purpose. ^

Your understanding of the way FlyerTalk works and reality are a far distance apart. In this quote, you insist that FlyerTalk allowed him to re-register. Uh, are you suggesting that we erect a great wall around FlyerTalk and not let anyone in until they have passed a background check by the TSA or submit a drivers license and credit card? The reason I say that is because i just checked the background of how F999 was allowed to register on FlyerTalk.

First of all, the member uses a dynamic IP address and during his time on FlyerTalk accessed this Web sis through 27 different IP addresses - none of which matched any IP addresses that Flailey used. We could track F999 to the same IP address that was sued by members "Track" and "TerryK" but I'm sure it would not have been a very good idea to start hasseling those members because of a similar IP address that was dynamic in nature. Now, F999 used yahoo.com as his email contact, certainly not using Failey in the preface to the email address. Flailey used gmail.com as his email provider.

So now you know the facts. You tell me with something I can believe, how the heck FlyerTalk could have prevented F999 from registering. There are absolutely no connections in the two items we could have used in which members provide us upon registering. Aren't you asking a heck of a lot from us?

As for allowing him to post. From all accounts, this member was a good poster. Courteous and polite and helpful. Here's an example of one of his posts I grabbed at random:

Quote:
Originally Posted by popcorn6
Has anyone ever completed the 90 Day Challenge at AA to earn Gold or Platinum Status?

Posted by F999
Thousands. Go to the search tab above, hit "advanced" search and do a search for "challenge" limited to the AA forum for lots of info. Be careful of the sticky there and the "fewmiles" site as it's out of date slightly.

There's more info here as well:
http://www.flyertalk.com/wiki/index....rican_Airlines


We could do a heck of a lot worse with our members than someone like this who was very helpful to another member. The facts are such, that of the 450 posts you refer to, none of them really set off any radar of abusive behavior to warrant any inspection and one might say, with posts like this we should have given him a medal.


I'm still stuck on your insistence that I or the moderators should have kicked this guy out right away once you sent a note it was him. Your reference to "blatantly obvious from speech, references, and posting patterns" reminds me of a wiretap program without warrants. Again, I am confident that I in no way am interested in FlyerTalk becoming this. Now, your assertions that you or some others members sent emails to Moderators alerting them to this. Accusations by one member against another is simply not enough proof to expel someone. you may think it works that way, but I'm not about to let loose the hounds to convict every member on FlyerTalk that someone wants to accuse them of. A witch hunt if ever I saw one. Rather than take actions just on someone's say so, our diligent moderator staff finally did suspend that members - the member that for 450 posts did a fairly good job of respecting the TOS of FlyerTalk and helping other members. But he did get busted and why? Simple, the never resting Moderators were finally able to get the proof of posting pattern. The post in which they banned the member for was an exact same post of something that Failey posted previously.

The mods involved posted this in their notes to the suspension:
Plato90s:
Posted exactly same text as previously banned poster Flailey
JDiver:
Finally! The proof we needed to "out" Flailey in his (presumably) more tolerant, contributive guise.

It sure doesn't look like they ever rested or averted their eyes, Rather, it looks like they did something that I think many members of flyerTalk would be proud of - they were not goaded into banning another member from peer pressure or heresay or inconclusive evidence, no they member had action taken against him for actual facts.

While it may not be what you were looking for with your posts, I thank you for the opportunity to again show off just how professional our volunteer staff of moderators are and how factually they are truly dedicated to helping FlyerTalk be a great place to talk travel. You may have wanted earlier action, but honestly, do you want a FlyerTalk where actions are taken without proof and facts, just someone's say so? And we got lucky in this one, the member in question, F999 did actually add value to FlyerTalk, as in the example above.

As for me, yes, i know you posted something for me to look at, but you failed to notice that i never responded which likely means i got on to something else - FlyerTalk does that to you sometimes.

Good memory and you are correct. Fact is, it was a hollow plea to members to be a bit more graceful in their interactions. I actually did not have the software capabilities for such.

But, starting next week we will have that function in place and will be able to restrict number of posts made on a daily basis into particular forums.

Which actually gives me a chance to ask you and perhaps others for their thoughts.

My main worry of OMNI is how some members who posted their first 500 times in forums involving travel and miles and points and the last 500 posts are all in OMNI, or at least 495 of them are in OMNI. We now have a number of members who post in OMNI 90 percent or better of their posts. FlyerTalk never started to be a place where your opinions were to be like prize fights. But it does happen. The only way i can think of making it easy on us that have to referee, is to place some limits on certain members ability to champion the political and other dialogue. Hey, I'm proud that we have some intelligent members, but i just can't get in to being proud that they really know the libs vs. the neo cons (is this correct guys?) but haven't helped anyone lately with what really makes FlyerTalk valuable.

Should we really care? Should OMNI be open to everyone? Should OMNI be closed to sex, religion and politics? The funny thing is that the other day i happened to research one of the members of OMNI who had posted their thoughts that politics should be banned - i think it must have been lip service because an audit of their posting revealed that 73% of their posts were in OMNI and an overwhelming number were in threads dealing with politics.

But the bottom line is that i am only trying to limit the dialogue that puts more work load on those if us that have clean up duty - such as our Senior mods and myself.

Gee-- I don't see the word "moderator" under my name. :)
http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthrea...62#post6659062

Speaking as a member and not as a moderator, I would say yes, along the lines of my earlier proposal

Careful what you wish for!

I think Randy and I have an unstated, unwritten understanding that I am literally the last person on the face of FT who would be able to handle such a responsibility.

As might have been stated in that great AA-board thread from a year or so ago, that would be like getting the fox to guard the dead horse!

You're right. There was effectively no way to prohibit him from re-registering. I was careless in my wording. Sorry. I meant to refer to the situation once it was obvious that F9999 was Flailey re-registered.

At last, we get back to the topic of this thread. The question was granting pardons to banned members, as long as they express contrition and their future posts are OK. I said that it wasn't necessary, that they could just re-register if their posts were going to be within bounds. Obviously, if their posts were outside the limits, they would be in trouble no matter which way they went.

You appear to be saying that it was OK with you for Flailey to re-register in a new persona, because his posts were helpful. I hope I am misunderstanding you, but if not, I don't understand this in view of the actions you have taken regarding him in the past. I am not fully aware of those circumstances.

I didn't send a note that it was him, but I believe others did. Actually, I believe that there were a number of other examples provided of re-posting of Flailey material by F9999. I saw enough examples posted in public to convince me long before he was resuspended. These posts were deleted pretty promptly. Of course, I can't cite examples except by memory (for some reason, the term "Meta" comes to mind), but you can look them up if you wish. In addition, I believe other examples were sent by PM to moderators.

What constitutes "proof" for one person may not for another. In this instance, there were quite a few members who were satisfied long before he was rebanned. And, I might point out, they were right. Is it really a "witch hunt" if it catches a real witch? :D

And I thought I was the one who was supposed to be "gloat(ing) over the misfortunes" of others. (Sorry, mods). ;)
As noted earlier, different people are convinced by different amounts of proof. In this case, I don't think it is fair to characterize the situation prior to the rebanning as "without proof and facts, just someone's say so". There was indeed proof, of the same nature and kind as that which eventually convicted him. Just not enough proof for some. Finally, the amount of proof became overwhelming, and he was banned. That is what I meant by "obvious".

I think it is also fair to say that different moderators have different proof levels. It is my understanding that at least one moderator felt that their level of proof had been met well prior to the actual banning.
Er...if you're referring the the link in my earlier post, that thread was started by Blumie. I did not post on that thread.

You seem to be under the impression that this was a vendetta or "jihad" by me to get f9999. It was not. I participated only marginally, many others can rightfully take the credit for "outing" him.

But your remark does raise a question. If a thread is started to raise an issue, and you say that you will get to it when your time allows, what is a reasonable amount of time to let go by before starting another thread to ask the same question? (Normally, it is impossible for us to "bump" those threads, as they are closed). I had always assumed that this situation just reflected a reluctance to address the issue at hand, but now that I know that it is an oversight, I would like a guideline time for raising the question again. Or, is there another, better method to accomplish this?

And, lastly, I hope I'm not digging a hole for myself by posting here. Someone once said: "FlyerTalk is most valuable when all its members treat it as if it were their own." That is what I am doing. Obviously, if I didn't value this forum, I wouldn't take the time and trouble to address what I see as a problem.