Have you been warned?

[4wheelin_fool]

It's nice that they just ban the cachers from forum use. In the past they would permamently ban the entire account. It's better to turn off the computer and go outside anyway.

[+Confucius' Cat]

I've been warned about 5 times since April. Yesterday I just got done with a 30 day ban for my most recent warning.

 

Here's the succesion of my most recent warning:

 

stunod's warning:

 

I removed the image of the dog from your post in the animated GIF thread.

Please keep your posted material more on the "family-friendly" side if you wish to continue posting.

Thank you for understanding.

 

mtn-man's continuation of warning:

 

Giving you 14 days disabled posting for the image noted in Stunod's warning. Further violations will result in longer time-outs or removal from posting entirely.

 

mtn-man's contnuation of the continuation of the warning:

 

After consultation with Groundspeak moderators and upper level admins, it has been decided that we should increase your time to 30 days. You have many repeated offenses over a very short period of time. It seems that the point we are trying to make isn't sinking in.

 

Geocaching is a game for all people of all ages, young and old. We try to cater to the widest possible audience possible. I am at my parents house taking care of my sick father, and I had to scroll quickly past the image because I knew my father would ask what kind of trashy web site I was looking at. You need to think before you post in the future. You are going down the road to being banned from posting in the forums.

 

No reply needed.

 

 

It's good to be back

WOW!

And you, a behavioural health technician! Keep it up and you'll be an "insider."

[+Confucius' Cat]

It's nice that they just ban the cachers from forum use. In the past they would permamently ban the entire account. It's better to turn off the computer and go outside anyway.

yeah, i wonder why I spend so much time on these stupid forums myself. I probably should see a shrink or something. The addiction can't be a good thing...

 

[+snowfrog]

Not me, but then I tend to lurk mostly and resist the urge (unsucessfully here) to post, thereby limiting the opportunities to get electronically scolded. While I understand that we have among us, young cachers, I think there is probably nothing read in the forums that they aren't exposed to at school or on the net as a whole. IMHO, while respecting the moderators willingness to volunteer their time to scrutinize postings, I think that simply entering the forums should come with a certain degree of expectation. That many will, or will not agree, with your opinion, and in varying degrees of intellect. Some possessing less than they think. All forums are the same, some like to bully, some have a sense of humor, or some post so that they have a public forum and captive audience in which to convey their self perceived superior IQ. It's amazing how ticked off people can get in forums, a virtual global sandbox. DOES THIS MAKE YOU ANGRY? I was yelling at you, you know! Sort of like my wife getting excited about winning a boatload of imaginary money playing poker online. Our next big purchase is going to be an imaginary HD TV.

[Swamp-Thing]

In just 14 posts I have only been warned once to dial back the tone of my posts a notch.

 

It seems my socks were causing problems with other people.

 

I promised to change them more often. The Swamp makes them stink so much.

 

Oh, and I did do exactly like I said I was going to do in my post. I now have a head sitting here with me!

[+sataraid1]

I gots me a slap on the wrist once already, for a minor profanity that was automatically "edited" by the forum software.

 

Fair enough, no debate from me.

 

What I find annoying though, is that later in the same day I saw two other instances of equally or more profane words "munged" by using non-alphabet characters. No warnings or mod edits that I'm aware of with in at least 48 hours. And I don't really care enough to go back and look. Just not that big a deal, and I'm certainly not one to start whining "wahhh, I got a warning, why didn't so-and-so?"

 

Moderation is fine, but inconsistent moderation really bugs me. Problem is, every discussion board I've ever spent any time on at all has the same problem.

 

No biggie. The solution is simple: I'll just keep my nose clean.

[+Ambrosia]

I gots me a slap on the wrist once already, for a minor profanity that was automatically "edited" by the forum software.

 

Fair enough, no debate from me.

 

What I find annoying though, is that later in the same day I saw two other instances of equally or more profane words "munged" by using non-alphabet characters. No warnings or mod edits that I'm aware of with in at least 48 hours. And I don't really care enough to go back and look. Just not that big a deal, and I'm certainly not one to start whining "wahhh, I got a warning, why didn't so-and-so?"

 

Moderation is fine, but inconsistent moderation really bugs me. Problem is, every discussion board I've ever spent any time on at all has the same problem.

 

No biggie. The solution is simple: I'll just keep my nose clean.

Perhaps the mods didn't see it. Perhaps it was a slightly different situation than yours. Perhaps it was a different mod. Perhaps they saw it and dealt with it privately. Etc.

[+Confucius' Cat]

Not me, but then I tend to lurk mostly and resist the urge (unsucessfully here) to post, thereby limiting the opportunities to get electronically scolded. While I understand that we have among us, young cachers, I think there is probably nothing read in the forums that they aren't exposed to at school or on the net as a whole. IMHO, while respecting the moderators willingness to volunteer their time to scrutinize postings, I think that simply entering the forums should come with a certain degree of expectation. That many will, or will not agree, with your opinion, and in varying degrees of intellect. Some possessing less than they think. All forums are the same, some like to bully, some have a sense of humor, or some post so that they have a public forum and captive audience in which to convey their self perceived superior IQ. It's amazing how ticked off people can get in forums, a virtual global sandbox. DOES THIS MAKE YOU ANGRY? I was yelling at you, you know! Sort of like my wife getting excited about winning a boatload of imaginary money playing poker online. Our next big purchase is going to be an imaginary HD TV.

WHY IN THE AITCH EE DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS ARE YOU YELLING AT ME?

 

People on the forums take things too personally, IMHO

[+FireRef]

I have received several warnings, several suspentions, and no satisfaction from the address which reviews moderator actions, as the person there agreed with the reviewer's actions (or was the person who warned/suspended me). The people above that person refused to listen or return messages. I'm not saying I didn't deserve some of those actions, but still disagree that I deserved all.

 

I would not be surprised if simply stating this fact above, and responding to this thread by answering the question above, gets me in trouble again.

Edited November 20, 2007 by FireRef

[+9Key]

I guess I'm milktoast as I've never been warned or suspended in almost 6 years of caching and posting. Do I get a gold star for that?

[+Scare Force One]

Almost every Mod I know is both fair and stern. They give formal warnings when necesary. They do not abuse their privlages and respect the people's posts. Most Mods actually let lots of little things go. If they followed the rules to the letter we would all be banned.

 

~.~Scare Force One

[+mousekakat]

No warnings, yet, but I've had 2 threads closed and I have yet another one pending being closed.

 

The funny part is that they've all been nice threads, nothing controversial, just something they don't think they should be here for one reason or another *sighs*

 

Naomi

[+LDove]

I got one once, accusing me of having a sock account. The postings in question actually came from my daughter who at that time used our home computer and had not posted on the forums before. She read something someone had posted where I was in a debate with other posters and showed it to her, it made her mad and she got on line to give her 2-cents. I would not want the job of a forum moderator, no sireee. I go to other forums where there are no moderators and the chaos drives me nuts!

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

...I would not want the job of a forum moderator, no sireee. I go to other forums where there are no moderators and the chaos drives me nuts!

I know what you mean! I belong to a great many forums and list groups which employ little or no moderation -- or overly lax moderation, which is the worst -- and they literally become he9ll on earth, where the noise level is so high that 95% of the content of all posts is not only untrue and garbage, but much of it is flame/troll material as well. On the other hand, I run over 20 email list groups, many of them with thousands of members, and many of them in rather controversial areas which tend to attract lots of fundamentalist zealots, trolls and flamers. I tend to run these list groups with a bit of an iron hand just to keep the sanity level high, the signal-to-noise ratio high, and the noise level very low; I have been known to ban posters for refusing to write coherently, for refusing to sign their posts with their full names, for asking basic dumb questions that they could have answered for themselves in two minutes of research work on the web or in the list group archives, and for pushing their fundamentalist/zealot agendas on others. In fact, one or more disaffected ex-members of those list groups who were booted off them at one time or another actually run blog pages where they accuse me of all sorts of things, including being a "CIA-paid or Illumanti-paid disinformation agent". How fun!

[+sbell111]

...I would not want the job of a forum moderator, no sireee. I go to other forums where there are no moderators and the chaos drives me nuts!

I know what you mean! I belong to a great many forums and list groups which employ little or no moderation -- or overly lax moderation, which is the worst -- and they literally become he9ll on earth, where the noise level is so high that 95% of the content of all posts is not only untrue and garbage, but much of it is flame/troll material as well. On the other hand, I run over 20 email list groups, many of them with thousands of members, and many of them in rather controversial areas which tend to attract lots of fundamentalist zealots, trolls and flamers. I tend to run these list groups with a bit of an iron hand just to keep the sanity level high, the signal-to-noise ratio high, and the noise level very low; I have been known to ban posters for refusing to write coherently, for refusing to sign their posts with their full names, for asking basic dumb questions that they could have answered for themselves in two minutes of research work on the web or in the list group archives, and for pushing their fundamentalist/zealot agendas on others. In fact, one or more disaffected ex-members of those list groups who were booted off them at one time or another actually run blog pages where they accuse me of all sorts of things, including being a "CIA-paid or Illumanti-paid disinformation agent". How fun!

Am I the only one who never really knows if Vinny is being serious?

[+sataraid1]

-- and they literally become he9ll on earth

 

I rest my case.

[+Shop99er]

Back when the rules about what geocoins could be advertised for sale in these forums changed, I got into a bit of a tiff with FSM.

 

Got myself a warning for thst, too.

 

Nothing since.

[+MickEMT]

Did you know one time Jeremy personally told me he was sorry? It was when he closed a thread of mine.

 

"Sorry, this isn't a geocaching related topic"

 

You too?

 

Oh no! Is this about geocaching?

 

Geo-WHAT-ing???????

[+hukilaulau]

Warned once. An obnoxious poster said, "maybe I'm being an a****** " and I responded, "Yep, you're being an a^^^^^^"

I got a notice saying my language was "way over the line." I really thought it was just a little over the line.

[+slumbersix]

warned over something i don't remember...

 

banned(forums and GC.com) over the illegal alien coin...

 

reinstated later on

[+geowizerd]

. . .I have received two warnings regarding my behavior on these forums, each from a secret sub-agency of the NSA, warning me that I should cease and desist from talking openly and publicly on these forums about their half-human/half-reptoid reptilian agents -- sometimes known as the Men in Black and their visits to my home in the course of their attempts to intimidate me.

 

I have also received warnings from more mundane/everyday earthbound sources that I was not mentioning goats often enough on the forums. That behavioral deficiency has hopefully since been corrected.

I sent them each a key lime hamster pie from a famous hamster bakery in Johnstown PA (I ordered online) in an attempt to try to patch up things.

 

Hey! I live about 15 miles from Johnstown... was there last night Christmas shopping. What's the address of that bakery? I love Key Lime Pie, and can never find it around here.

 

Edited to get back on topic: I've never been "officially warned", but have had words removed from my posts...

Edited December 24, 2007 by geowizerd

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

. . .I have received two warnings regarding my behavior on these forums, each from a secret sub-agency of the NSA, warning me that I should cease and desist from talking openly and publicly on these forums about their half-human/half-reptoid reptilian agents -- sometimes known as the Men in Black and their visits to my home in the course of their attempts to intimidate me.

 

I have also received warnings from more mundane/everyday earthbound sources that I was not mentioning goats often enough on the forums. That behavioral deficiency has hopefully since been corrected.

I sent them each a key lime hamster pie from a famous hamster bakery in Johnstown PA (I ordered online) in an attempt to try to patch up things.

Hey! I live about 15 miles from Johnstown... was there last night Christmas shopping. What's the address of that bakery? I love Key Lime Pie, and can never find it around here. . . .

Actually, I was lying about the key lime pie. In reality, it was poppyseed rolls which I ordered, and it was from a mom-and-pop online bakery in Johnstown called Marie's Nutcracker Sweet. I think that they have only an online presence; I do not think that they have a brick-and-mortar shop. And, I once attended an American Gladiators (I had a crush on one of the female Gladiators and got her autograph while we were there) show with two girlfriends at the convention center/arena in Johnstown in the early 1990s, back when I was in grad school at IUP. And we had a quick dinner before the show at one of the oddest pizzerias I have ever visited; the walls were draped in red maroon velvet, felt more like French Baroque than "American pizzeria in Johnstown". weird...

[+figtreesky]

"heck" without the ck and with the double L is a bad word here?

 

I'm actually too nervous to spell it out and see if it gets filtered and I get warned/banned.

[+tabulator32]

"heck" without the ck and with the double L is a bad word here?

 

I'm actually too nervous to spell it out and see if it gets filtered and I get warned/banned.

 

Until someone physically places a cache there, it is not geocaching related and, therefore, off topic.

 

[+MickEMT]

"heck" without the ck and with the double L is a bad word here?

 

I'm actually too nervous to spell it out and see if it gets filtered and I get warned/banned.

 

Until someone physically places a cache there, it is not geocaching related and, therefore, off topic.

 

 

I don't know my definition of he** is not being able to cache, so it is "geocaching related!

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

"heck" without the ck and with the double L is a bad word here?...

No, that was just the imagination of one poster. However, it is true that the canned software package which Gruondpeak uses has been pre-programmed -- probably by the original creators of the package -- to automatically filter out (and change key letters to "***") certain words that it finds on its "forbidden in forums" list, and the results are kinda hilarious at times, as it sometimes accidentally filters out some words which are rather mild/innocent and commonplace in our world today!

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

"heck" without the ck and with the double L is a bad word here?

 

I'm actually too nervous to spell it out and see if it gets filtered and I get warned/banned.

 

Until someone physically places a cache there, it is not geocaching related and, therefore, off topic.

 

There are actually plenty of caches in He3ll. Among many others, there are (and I have modified the word to get around the prehistoric paleolithic forum filter:

• A He3ll`s Hollow Tree Cache by falconfan97 and snowy03 (GC15ZT7)
  
• A Leisurely Drive Through the Hollows of He3ll by walnut-tripper (GCXGQE)
  
• Are we in Heaven? ....Are we in He3ll? by JollyJax (GCN7BZ)
  
• Flood: He3ll or High Water? by tumbleweed2 & Busymom528 (GCZGE6)
  
• Go to He3ll by Smitt&Smule (GCMQ99)
  
• Halfway Between Heaven And He3ll by Audion (GCN1MK)
  
• Hard as He3ll by treemoss2@aol.com (GCA744)
  
• Ohmgebirge III - Highway to He3ll by thomas23, sebastian101 (GC102N3)
  
• Peklo / He3ll by Davee (GCKGA1)
  
• Runway to He3ll by raun raun (GCKTB5)
  
• Stairway to He3ll by 1dan (GC107HJ)
  
• Standing At The Gates Of He3ll by The Mailleman (GC4861)
  

There are also almost as many caches located in Heaven as in He3ll, including:

I'm In Heaven by redwoodcanoe (GCWNW3)

 

Enjoy!

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Yup, I have been warned, threatened, modded and suspended... and fired (though not for forum offenses).

 

I've even had two Reviewers essentially invite me to crawl back under my rock and stay out of these forums, but not lately however.

 

After I got myself fired as a Reviewer it was like being the proverbial fish in a barrel, everyone was shooting at me, even folks that I had considered friends! For a while it seemed everything I said got me moderated or warned.

 

That's why my sig line dissavows any relationship with Groundspeak other than friend and supporter... I had numerous mods and Reviewers telling me I wasn't a moderator, quit acting like one, when all I was trying to do was post helpful answers.

 

As a result I have backed WAY off with my posts, and the angst seemed to die out over time.

 

Interestingly the number of "Well said" and "Thank you" emails has slackened along with the frequency and passion of my current posts.

 

Stay here long enough and you'll learn what not to say, sometimes the hard way!

Edited December 25, 2007 by TheAlabamaRambler

[+ReadyOrNot]

-- and they literally become he9ll on earth

 

I rest my case.

 

No, the difference is, the mods see a post from Vinny and don't bother reading it, therefore miss any profanity in the post... It's rather clever actually

[+Confucius' Cat]

-- and they literally become he9ll on earth

 

I rest my case.

 

No, the difference is, the mods see a post from Vinny and don't bother reading it, therefore miss any profanity in the post... It's rather clever actually

[+team lagonda]

i got the boot once fer two weeks..i guess its something i happened to say to a mod in passing..sock puppets previeled though..cant blame the mod as i was experimenting with some fine polish vodka at the time and had my beer muscles ..seemed like the thing to say at the time....also proud to say i got a personal email from Jenna..it werent yer everday mod who booted me....

Edited December 25, 2007 by team lagonda

[+figtreesky]

Who is Jenna?

[+team lagonda]

miss jenn

[+figtreesky]

The only Jenna I've heard of is Jenna Jamison

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

The only Jenna I've heard of is Jenna Jamison

LOL, MissJenn has everything Jenna Jameson has PLUS the ability to boot you right out of here!

Edited December 26, 2007 by TheAlabamaRambler

[+Bill & Tammy]

Warned once when I came to the defense of the above forum participant, consider it kind of a badge of honor. I don't think you are really trying until you get warned.

[+figtreesky]

I have to say that I am impressed about how friendly and helpful everyone is. The forums are a nice enviroment for a newbie.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

I have to say that I am impressed about how friendly and helpful everyone is. The forums are a nice enviroment for a newbie.

Yes, I agree... the Groundpeak forums are quite mild and mellow compared to many forums and email list groups on the web! In fact, some of the forums and list groups to which I have belonged have been like a violent zoo! In comparison, the Groundspeak forums are very quiet and tame.

[+MickEMT]

I have to say that I am impressed about how friendly and helpful everyone is. The forums are a nice enviroment for a newbie.

Yes, I agree... the Groundpeak forums are quite mild and mellow compared to many forums and email list groups on the web! In fact, some of the forums and list groups to which I have belonged have been like a violent zoo! In comparison, the Groundspeak forums are very quiet and tame.

 

Well, chalk that up to better moderators. I'm on one forum that's juts pretty much turned into an attack platform. Everyone VS everyone else, and they wonder why more people don't use the forum there.......