Banned members using new IDs

[jeffbert]

CALLING ALL MODERATERS!

A while ago in December when i joined almost every topic had multiple posts by a user named tonigirl1000 at some point in the topic's thread. avatargirl does this in a very similar way. i also remember tonigirl1000's status was "on probation". ring a bell? it could be (now I'm just guessing) that tonigirl1000 may be avatargirl because of the fact that she posts in every topic saying things like "hugs" like tonigirl1000 did. see what i am saying?

As much as I hate to admit it, we have been aware of this for quite some time. I hate to admit it because avatargirl is very sweet. tonigirl1000 though annoying, was also very sweet. However, her habit of making posts that were largely irrelevant to the topic of the threads, coupled with her tendency to make about 10 such posts in each forum every day, left the impression that she was the only member, and was the reason a few members left us.

I warned her numerous times that she needed to distance herself from tonigirl1000's habits, lest other members see the truth, but she has not. Now the cat is out of the bag, and fairness demands that we ban her, lest friends of other banned members demand that we restore their status as well. Yet, of all banned members, it was most difficult to ban her, because though annoying, she was not rude, not sending PMs to other members that they found offensive, etc.

There were several other members, and one in particular who was so offensive that one of our moderators left us. This particular member has apparently changed her ways, and learned her lesson. She very much wants to return; however, I speak for all 3 mods when I say we, in wanting to avoid a repeat of her behavior simply decided that regardless of her changing her ways, we will never lift the ban on her.

As I said, fairness demands we ban Avatargirl. As I am the only mod currently here, I can only speak for myself, and ask that members vote on this. I cannot say that the other mods will abide by the majority, only that they will read the results. As far as I know, Avatargirl must be banned, yet I ask opinions, and reasons behind them.

[Fauna]

I'll vote, but I need a while to think about it. At the end of every day, I see her post in eight-to-ten hot threads with nothing but complements and "girls must be sweet" comments, and as good her intentions may be, I find it more than annoying. Her recent remark of boys being "stupid" and girls being "sweet and contained" (this being our paraphrasing) insulted several members, including myself, so much that the thread derailed.

But I remember when I was eight, I joined a gothic forum, went into three different movie sections and started unrelated topics because I had no idea what I was doing. (One of them was a question was about toilets in a ghost section... :d oh I have no idea how old Avatargirl is, but maybe if she's younger than eleven it would be best for her to stay away until she's more familiar with using a forum. But like I said, my ultimate vote will be decided in a while.

[Bakabits]

i am sorry but i say ban avatargirl. i say this because she is off-topic in EVERY thread, annoying, and sometimes sexist in her posts. i agree with jeffbert. we need to ban avatargirl.

[jeffbert]

I should have said this earlier, the decision not to ban her when we first were fairly certain that she was Tonigirl was not a simple one. On the surface, it should have been, but there were factors I am not going to discuss here.

I could say that banning a member especially one who has been here for a while might be more disruptive than not, unless that member's activity was really bad. In Avatargirl's case, she seemed to interact well with others, and given that fact, banning her might cause a bit of commotion.

As my justification for delaying any action against her, I offer this, from our MODERATORS' FORUMS:

I have just sent this PM:

Fw: Hello, avatargirl; please read this!!
[QUOTE=jeffbert]When you first joined our forum, your activity was about average. However, lately, your habits have become extremely similar to one of our ex-members. This member was very sweet, but also very annoying, so much so, that we sadly banned her. We have suspected that you and she might be the same person. If those suspicions are confirmed, we will be forced by reasons of fairness to others we have banned, to ban you.

Only you can prevent this, though it may already be too late to act. You must change your habits, avatargirl! Your first dozen posts were ok; you must go back and to those types of posts. Every 'hugs' you post incriminates you.


Look at your own posts:
avatargirl's Statistics

Click the Find all posts by avatargirl link; review your posts, and take note of how you have changed your habits. You do not use the word 'hug' on the last page, which is the oldest of your posts. You use it twice on page 3, and many times on pages 1 and 2.

As much as we liked that other member, and as much as we like you, fairness to other banned members demands we act evenly toward all. Unless you change, you will be banned. I am only speaking for myself, here, so it may already be too late.

-jeffbert

As indicated, I state that it may already be too late for her to avert our banning her. I suppose that if we were able to notice the similarity between her and Toni's habits, others might also. For this reason, I included that part.[/QUOTE]
I posted that on 8th May 2010, 02:05 PM.

Until today, there were 43 posts in that thread, and the most recent one was made May 24th. I say this to let you know that we did not take this lightly, but rather, we had been discussing it for months. Again, I apologize for allowing this to continue, though we knew about it long ago.

[Anime Girl]

I don't know what to say. Avatargirl was my first friend on Astro Boy Online, and I don't want her to go, and I wanna defend her, but now I'm afraid of getting yelled at and I'm too shy to say what I wanna say. You don't understand the pain I'm in trying to tell you people. You all would just think I'm stupid! If what is done is done, I just wanna say I'll miss you avatargirl. Please forgive me. (cries into pillow)

[jeffbert]

Anime Girl 14, as I already said, I cannot guarantee that any input from this thread will have any bearing on our final decision, but I do want to see your opinion. Please do not feel intimidated, tell us why you support Avatargirl.


BTW, for those who have voted but not posted, please explain why you voted as you did.

[diehard67]

ok I hope I don't step on any feelings, but I have a sneaking suspition some might get inadvertantly stept apon, I do not intend to do that.

I beleave in forgivness and giving second chances, so that said, I think any banned member should have the opertunity to pleade there case, evin if only to the mods, they may alredy have the ability to do so, I don't know I have never been baned by a mod, just a server error.

my head is spinning, trying to cllect thoughts threw a storm on emotional instability.

scence this has been made public, why hasn't avatargirl said anything here, she certinaly has the right.

more thought collecting.................

I would like to see cmore of the comunication between the mods and avatargirl, provided both are cool with it. It will allow us to make a better informed desition about this matter, and gage avatargirl's willingness to tweak beheaver.

that's all I can think of right now, I will post later when me head stops spinning and I can think more clearly.

first of what may be a lot of edits:
head status: still spining, thretning to unscrew itself and fly away.

most of avatargirl's off topis posts were just cute little one liners, I don't think those should have any barring on anything, she has been partisipating in the caption game, complimants are not anoying, unless repeated a bunch of times in a row, the only thing that I feel is at issue here is the sexist stuff mentioned earlyer. so how did she respond when confrunted over these?????

ok I have to yell somthing.
WHAT DOES "HUGS" HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING, WHY DOES SHE DESERVE TO GET IN TROUBLE FOR THAT.

Every 'hugs' you post incriminates you.

WHY????????????

ok done yelling.

it's funney, my head is not spinning so bad after that.

edit:, told ya there would be more then one

I am going to list every post I think is a problem, along with my thoughts on each

ALVIN can't help it- he is a boy- oops sorry ...

ALVIN can't help it- he is a boy- oops sorry ALVIN- I SHOULD ALWAYS BE SWEET like a girl always- even if what i said is true

posibly an atempt at humer that backfiered, best to ask her fjor clarifaction.

Please what is he cooking - ? maybe he can't...

Please what is he cooking - ? maybe he can't do everything-

another posibably missunderstood joke????, ask her.

JEFFBERT- please forgive me but these girls...

JEFFBERT- please forgive me but these girls here- ANIMEGIRL 14 and ALITTLEACORN are so darling sweet and cute and nice

I think this one is just in the wrong place, human mystake, and she is asking for forgivness for somthing!!!!

Thanks for serving in the military Dannavy-...

Thanks for serving in the military Dannavy- people like you help make this country great- so proud you are here- thanks APRIL FOR MENTIONING happy 4 TH OF july

anotherone that may be just in the wrong place, but nothing wrong with it in and of itself.

agree- Boys, go fig.- girls are much more...

agree- Boys, go fig.- girls are much more logical and i should know

this one could be missunderstood, intention not clear.

apologize for calling you naughty ALITTLEACORN- ...

apologize for calling you naughty ALITTLEACORN- please forgive me- i think APRIL MADE ME DO IT- oops should not say that- APRIL IS SO SWEET too- sure hope they do make another ASTRO BOY MOVIE ...

posibably more backfirerd humer.

YES but you expect a girl to be calm and...

YES but you expect a girl to be calm and collected- i should know- feel jealous of her

this one could be missunderstood by some people but I don't think it is an issue, put here for her own infermation.

ANIME GIRL 14- LOVE YOUR STORIES AND YOU ARE A...

ANIME GIRL 14- LOVE YOUR STORIES AND YOU ARE A CUTE LOYAL FAN OF ASTRO BOY- THANKS- SO GLAD YOU A GIRL

hhhmmmmmm, might be missunderstood, maby a word missing?????

that's it, I got threw the first 100 of her posts, and I found 8, and none of them are more then a minisqual problem.

forgive me I am not vary happy right now.

ok I have to take a break, I am haveing trouble keeping my mind on the task at hand, and I am just getting more and more mad the longer I think about it, I will finish my list later.

[Astro Forever]

I used to think that as a moderator, I should put aside my own feelings and go by the rules. In time, I realized that if something was annoying me, it meant others were probably annoyed too, so I started to think that I should, in fact, trust my own feelings, that it didn't mean I was trying to dictate how the forum should be (which I do not want to do as I believe it belongs to all its members).

In this particular case, after we banned tonigirl the first time, I did realize she was young and, as jeffbert said, wasn't exactly the usual aggressive member ending up being banned, so I thought maybe someday, she'd be able to fit in as she got older and we could give her a chance (and by that, I mean after a few years). I wasn't overjoyed when she came back but thought we could wait and see as quite a bit of time had passed. We came this close to ban her but it was decided to try one more time to make her understand. Also the dynamics of the forum changed since we first banned her: we have more members, more active threads and her posts didn't stand out as much as before. The posts themselves seemed to get a bit better, which was a first, and then I noticed she seemed to interact more than before and people replied to her posts, which didn't happen before, so I took it as she had a place here after all, and Anime Girl 14 seems to give me an indication that there is some truth behind this observation. And it's okay Anime Girl 14, I'm fine with your opinion, no need to be afraid. By the way, tonigirl was put "on probation", which meant she couldn't post on the forum but could still exchange PMs, because we didn't want to cut her from the friends she could have made here. So you'll still be able to speak to her through the forum, in private at the very least.

Ironically, a day or two ago, I did think it seemed to be getting really annoying again. As for her latest controversial post, I admit I do not read every single thread so I missed it. I encourage you to use the report post option when there is a problem. That, we never miss, and if I have to read through 20 complicated pages to understand what's happening, I'll do it.

Diehard, we've had quite a lot of interaction with tonigirl and avatargirl; it's late for me right now and I think I should put thinking into this because I do not want to disclose tonigirl/avatargirl's PMs. However, I can tell you I spent hours collecting tonigirl's posts back then and made suggestions, such as: keep the "thank you" into one single thread, leave the "hugs" in her signature, not thank people when they thanked her after she thanked them, things like that, with no result, which is why she eventually got banned. And I wasn't the only moderator who did this.

As for why avatargirl hasn't replied yet, I think she comes like once a day and not at this time so she'll probably see this in a few hours.

ok I have to yell somthing.
WHAT DOES "HUGS" HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING, WHY DOES SHE DESERVE TO GET IN TROUBLE FOR THAT.

Well that is the perfect illustration of our dilemma, how can one be in trouble for hugging people on an Astroboy forum nonetheless? That's the reason behind the waiting and giving another chance... But in the end, we had come to the conclusion that the forum should remain enjoyable to everybody. And if you look at the Astroboy forum from page 35 to page 45 (September to February 2008), it is quite clear that it became hard to follow the active threads on an everyday basis (no need to open the threads to see that). Just imagine you are a member coming here once a week, how do you determine where the interesting posts are? You'd have to open like 25 threads and find out that 2/3 of them weren't really interesting. And imagine how a newcomer would find his way...

[Bakabits]

I don't know what to say. Avatargirl was my first friend on Astro Boy Online, and I don't want her to go, and I wanna defend her, but now I'm afraid of getting yelled at and I'm too shy to say what I wanna say. You don't understand the pain I'm in trying to tell you people. You all would just think I'm stupid! If what is done is done, I just wanna say I'll miss you avatargirl. Please forgive me. (cries into pillow)

*pats Anime girl 14 on the back* i was just expressing a concern to the fourm leaders. say what you need to say. even i will listen. i was the one who mentioned this.

[diehard67]

ok I have to yell somthing.
WHAT DOES "HUGS" HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING, WHY DOES SHE DESERVE TO GET IN TROUBLE FOR THAT.

Well that is the perfect illustration of our dilemma, how can one be in trouble for hugging people on an Astroboy forum nonetheless? That's the reason behind the waiting and giving another chance... But in the end, we had come to the conclusion that the forum should remain enjoyable to everybody. And if you look at the Astroboy forum from page 35 to page 45 (September to February 2008), it is quite clear that it became hard to follow the active threads on an everyday basis (no need to open the threads to see that). Just imagine you are a member coming here once a week, how do you determine where the interesting posts are? You'd have to open like 25 threads and find out that 2/3 of them weren't really interesting. And imagine how a newcomer would find his way...

I can see how a load of irellivant post would be annoying, but now avatargirl like you said seems to be fitting in a bit better then how tonygirl is said to have.

the reason I am haveing such a strong reaction about this issue is that, 1 this seems to be totly wrong, is there a way other then avatargirl admiting it if true ovcorse that she is tonygirl, also I have some problems in between the ears, if I gat mad or frustrated they can esclate vary fast and if I see something that might be considered discrimanation or some other bad thing happining to sombody I get vary mad vary fast, and that was when I wosn't screwed up in the head.

I am not saying you are dooing anything bad at this time, I don't know enought to make that call but the emotional reaction is still there and I can't stop that, I learned that the hard way.

I don't beleave that she should be banned at all, and I think anybody who wants a second chance should have the opertunity to be heard, evin if outright banned ( can't evin send pms ) I don't know much about vbullitten, I also had no idea what on probation ment, maby tonygirl didn't know either and thought she was plain kicked off.

I think I am overanalising things

I don't see how a users past names should come back to hunt them, avatargirl seems to fit in here fine for the most part, if tonygirl didn't that is her problem , if the 2 girls are the same pirson then maby getting banned the first time tought her a lesson and she is that much better for it.

actuley, I think that the person that posted in big red letters calling all mods bluh bluh, is just stering up trouble for avatargirl, such things are rude and why couldn't this person pmd a mod or 2 instead of blasting this out on the public forum.

that right there is consideratably more disruptive them anything avatargirl or the little bit of tonygirl posts I have seen could ever be, it just sturs up trouble on an otherwise friendly place.