This is becoming ridiculous, the first infraction that I got was for thread hijacking. The thread was started by me, so it seems mods know more about the subject of the thread than the person who has started it. The second infraction was about attacking members, I have send PM to the person who was subject of the posting and he hasn't complained and he also thought it was ridiculous. Then I receive another infraction on July 17 for attacking other members for a posting that was dated May 3rd or more than 2 month before. This morning I received a warning at 11:25 am for thread hijacking and then I received an infraction at 1:07 PM for the same post, it seems mods can not make up their mind if it is a warning or infraction. The interesting thing about this forum was the fact that it was not censored and the mods didn't behave like the users are children in the kindergarten but that it seems is coming to an end and I wonder if there is any point in posting in this forum.
That took some fortitude GWorld - you get some respect from me for stating your case. Ironically, I received a PM from a very reputable member here last night at another forum complaining about this very thing; it was very discouraging to read and see as many of us have a ton of respect for DP and any degradation in this way begins to chip away at that. An infraction system is a good idea to help weed out spammers or steer potentially awry members back on the right track, but if misused, it will make DP seem more like high school than a reputable webmaster resource center.
One mod around here just loves to go around giving infractions for "thread hijacking" I wonder if he even knows that that means.
I disapprove with the infraction system, also. I got three infractions for one of my threads and two for another. I got one infraction for starting my thread in the wrong forum when it's about my article that I wrote. I originally put it in the Services->Advertise forum specifically NOT to get an infraction as I was advertising an article, but a mod felt that it needed to be discussed and moved it and gave me an infraction, which I personally find ridiculous. Just my two cents. -_- I agree...fryman you do hijack a lot of threads, including mine. You are the definition of thread hijacking IMO.
I've done this before whether by accident or by being blonde, but had a mod shoot me a courtesy PM indicating its move and why - that was impressive, appreciated and what I consider great CRM. To give a "demerit" for such is a little "prickish" unless its blatant or a repeat offense. This might be one of those ideas that need a little more time at the drawing board .... ?
It's not a "demerit" in itself... it has no effect at all unless you are a repeat offender, that's the whole point of the infraction system... 1 or 2 or 3 infractions here and there aren't going to have any effect at all on anything. But if you start to pile them up, then yeah... it could. Think of the infraction system *as* a courtesy message. They expire after a certain amount of time as well... so basically you would need to be a serious repeat offender within a short time period for it to have any actual affect on anything. There are just too many things that need to be moderated (moved or whatever else), that a personalized PM/email to someone about each one just isn't practical anymore. The infraction system is nice because it's fast (a must when you are trying to put 500 misplaced threads in the right category) and it automatically keeps a history (no moderator is going to remember if they PMed someone 5 or 6 times before [especially when you factor in there are multiple moderators], so no one knows if they are a repeat offender for anything without it).
That's the biggest probelm i guess. Since Mod is the only person who determine if a member should recevie a infraction, sometime it could be unfair(I am not saying Mod sucks but different person view an object in different way, or he just have a really bad day). IMO it could be fix by having at least two Mod review and approved before a red card can be issue.
In my opinion that would be way too labor intensive. Many times there are not two mods online at the same time. Frequently threads get out of hand and you are only one present. When it comes to name calling am tempted to use the trick a friend's mother used. If her children came running to her with a he said/did , he said/did scenario she whipped them both.
My Mon is worse...she used the "shutup or i will beat you up" rule.. Yes it is labor intensive, how about first mod issue a yellow card, then forward case to second mod to decide if a red card necessary what's so funny???
What is the time limit on an infraction? Is it set in stone, or is it set up so that the mod that gives you an infraction can pick an arbitrary time?
I have got one infraction but it is already expired but still displaying in my profile http://forums.digitalpoint.com/member.php?u=13866
The time limit is based on the infraction (it's not arbitrarily picked by mods). You can see expired infractions still.
That was a good explaination Shawn, thanks. No doubt, all of your points are valid in that there's way too much going on at DP for personalized messages, coddling and worrying about feelings. I didn't even realize there was such a system in place. I saw a (funny) thread a few weeks ago where someone was complaining about an infraction for something they didn't do (to wit you posted the offense and 'outed' them; that's what made it funny) but I thought they were basically saying that they'd gotten a negative rep. But then it was brought to my attention again last night, merely as someone blowing off frustration. The problem wasn't so much the initial infraction or 'demerit' (coutegy message if you wish Shawn ) but when they asked the moderator about it, they received a second one ... that seemed to cross the line from professional to petty. I think the system sounds 'sound' but maybe it requires a little more understanding on the part of the members, a little more prudence on the part of the DP team? Thanks for spelling it out a little better for me Shawn. If anyone thinks I'm kissing Shawn's ass, just ask him who gave him his last negative rep!
It seems like many members indeed don't appreciate or understand the idea behind the system. I know there are some people who just wouldn't take our word for it, but it actually is a very nice system, probably the only way to keep tally of 'who violated what and when'. Remember the number of active members here, it's phenominal. PMing everybody would be the last thing I'd do myself, not because I'm not nice, it just wouldn't work. It would mean close to 20 PMs to people who made a small error. And 'coincidentally' those who keep crossing the line tend to be the argumentative ones so I defo do not think PMing is a good idea, knowing the discussions that will come out of it. Just to reiterate what Shawn said and to build on it, the majority of infractions are only 1 point and of a fairly short timespan. So indeed unless you were a serial offender within a month, nothing would happen to you. And it's a private system as well so you don't have to worry about your reputation here either. They are just a reminder from us to the member about the simple rules here. As far as defining offences goes, I can assure you that 99 out of 100 moderators would agree with Fryman's infractions. 80 of them would have probably given him a real infraction instead of the mere warning he is complaining about. http://www.google.com/search?q=define: thread hijacking&sourceid=mozilla2&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8