Infraction-induced auto-ban?

[R100Pilot]

Jeez, that's gotta be one helluva nifty gizmo. How do you trip that off?

Y'know, there's some bars where folks go to drink and hang out and a certain amount of decorum is expected. Those who cause a ruckus are usually asked to cool it, and if they don't they are asked to leave, or shown the door if they are uncooperative. I've even known some folks banned from such places.

Then there's bars where rowdiness and profanity are expected, even encouraged. These can be fun too, but they're not for everyone.

Everybody's got their own preference in waterin' holes, I guess.

[MickMaguire]

Jeez, that's gotta be one helluva nifty gizmo. How do you trip that off?

Well, moderators can give "infractions" which are a way for us to tag a post as being out of line - it also sends a pm to the member telling them so. each infraction has a point (or 3 points if major) when you get over a certain number of points the site limits your access, even more and it automatically bans the member for a period of time - 1 week by default. The mods can adjust this ban if necessary. Not very many infractions have been given since the system was started, but a choice few have gotten some. A very few members have tripped the auto-ban, you pretty much would have to know you are heading for it as you would have to be out of line quite a few times.

HTH

It seems that some members here are heavily involved with other sites and (I speculate) are trying to cause unrest here in the hope that they can get members here to migrate to those sites. We try not to encourage advertisement of rival sites as we rely very much upon the traffic related advertising revenue to help fund the (not inconsiderable) infrastructure costs. Telling people wqe would rather they didnt push other sites often annoys them and they resort to these sorts of tactics (we have seen it a few times before on other parts of the site). Additionally, some members like to swear, post girly pics, be more rowdy etc. TriumphRAT has been built by fostering a calmer, more open, less "macho" environment. From day one we have tried to keep it as "PG13" as possible. IT means that people feel safe to view the site at work and everybody regardless of race gender etc. feel welcome.

To all, if this isn't the sort of board you are looking for then the others are out there, but I would encourage you to still drop by from time to time but please don't try to force us into changing the way we operate it, we firmly believe its served the community well so far As mods we really do try our best to keep the site the way the members are used to, we aren't always as consistent as you might hope and we dont always catch everything (you try reading every post), but we do try.

As always we are open to constructive feedback.

[PhilM]

Big thanks to the Mods for the work you do.

[Yandi]

Its just that cheapbas...ooops, nearly an auto strike for moi......cheapbloke was good value. He was dry as but a friend to all.
I have been away for a few weeks so I may have missed all the fun. DANG THAT.
Oh well...ride on.

[JasonS]

Its just that cheapbas...ooops, nearly an auto strike for moi......cheapbloke was good value. He was dry as but a friend to all.
I have been away for a few weeks so I may have missed all the fun. DANG THAT.
Oh well...ride on.

Cheap is a good bloke, but dang... If you go into the bar and tell the bar owner he's nuts and start swearing up and down and saying how Joe's Bar down the street doesn't mind the swearing and it is a better bar and you'll see, poeple will leave here and go there... etc... well, you get the boot... This is a common situation throughout the world... there are places where it is unacceptable to act in certain ways.

Moving fwd is the only real direction to go.

[dano]

This all boils down to ONE simple thing.....well let me restate that. One subject. I know, as I was one of the people that was involved in the informal "S3 Rally" at Cheaps place last month. I took over a month off and toured around the States and part of Canada. During the trip I made a point to stop in and meet a bunch of Triumph owners. They were from different forums, from different areas of the country. We all had a wonderful time and I can say that there isn't a more friendly, generous, honest person out there. Cheap went out of his and his family's way to invite us to his home.

We all had a unforgettable time, we rode 250 miles the first day, 350 the next day. I took MY camera and video recorder and saved the event for MY trip and to share with the guys. We knew that this was an event that LOTS of S3 owners wanted to attend, and see pictures of. There is no denying that, people from all over the globe wanted to come meet the Cheap. So after I left the event and continued my trip, I sent Cheap some of the pictures to have from my camera.

So to my point..... He was nice enough to host the event at his place. He decided to post some pictures of the event to show how much fun we all had. One of the pictures contained ALL of us flipping the bird. with SMILES. I cant recall, but I dont think there was cussing involved in the thread. It all revolves around the picture, remember this.

So the picture get deleted and that causes a whole debacle. Fine. Its understood, your sandbox, your rules. we move on.

I like sport touring and read a lot of ride reports from different sites. I came across on in THIS forum of TRIUMPHRAT.NET and found Numerous finger, the bird shots in it. Well it kind chaps me that there is a uneven application of justice here. I told Cheap of the thread here and all heck broke loose after that.

Now how is it that one thread can stay, and a moderator EVEN comments on the thread about the use of the finger, others tell the story writer that he needs "anger management because of the amount of finger shots" or something like that. And my photo that I am in of the Cheap's Rally is deleted?

Where is the fairness? I even went back and looked after you banned Cheap after he posted all the cussing to draw attention to that thread in the Ride Reports. Cheap was banned, and rightfully so, but the fingers still remained. they might be gone now....I dont know, I haven't looked in a few days.

His whole purpose was to show the unfair standards to him.......its not a "this site vs another site" problem...He is happy where he is at, and is involved in multiple forums, involving different bike manufactures, and groups. He knows that it was time for him to move on from this site. He does want everyone to have a good time here at TRAT and he has no hard feeling about anyone here. It is this "picture" vs "all the other pictures" that broke the cart. That's all......He honestly sends his best wishes through me, and hope everyone will accept that and move on.

And thats it.....

[MickMaguire]

Well, this isnt the first and only event but thanks for the feedback there. with regards to the trip thread specifics - as I said, we don't always moderate consistently, particularly between moderators. I tend to be more hard line than some of the others and some tend to be more hard line than me on some issues. We try to discuss and keep things fairly consistent but it often goes off course.

The preferred response to the flipping the bird thread would have been for you or he to report it and point out our inconsistency - that would have flagged it to the moderator group and we would have (almost certainly) deleted the thread to fix the inconsistency. As it happened, cheap chose to go on the attack, attacking the moderators and the site and telling us to ban him. So we did. Trust me, moderating here is hard, time consuming and generally thankless, there are so many areas and so many posts it is very hard to keep up - and even harder to try to ensure consistency. We do a fairly good job of it but its nowhere near perfect. We all (apart from shawn) do this voluntarily for no reward other than a say in how the site is moderated.

The trip reports area is not a forum I frequent much but I'll take a look and see if the flipping the bird thread is still there and correct it if it is.

I'm sad that this stuff has happened - I for one particularly liked CB we chatted and emailed quite a few times - he had a great sense of humour. His S3 nearly made me go buy one.

Edit: I checked - Jason had already removed the pictures from that thread.

[IPAULR]

I first want to say this a great site no questions. TRAT has a real family feel to it, but every family has a crazy, drunk uncle.... cheap is that uncle . I don't get how a picture of a bunch of ugly, fat, goofy bastards giving the one fingered salute could cause so many problems. The S3 is considered a hooligan bike and thus warrant hooligan activities. There is a great Hooligan thread here documenting the complete disregard for the law and safety. We all love this thread. I'm pretty sure I saw a picture of a mod doing a wheelie in a kilt with no helmet on (great pic by the way). I guess I just don't see much difference... it is just saying F YOU in a different way. We all have a bit of hooligan in us (a bunch in Cheap's case) or we would be riding Goldwings not S3s. I appreciate and respect the fact that I am a guest in the TRAT house and I know I must abide by the rules but I also miss Cheap. He is a very active member on this board and always good for a laugh. He keeps things light and fun. As far as the swearing goes... how many children ride S3s? If they do I bet they swear like drunken sailors. Just my 2¢.

[JasonS]

the offending pics in the Trips forum were posted as part of a multi-page thread about a trip.... two buds on the road... well as is apt to happen they found things that didn't go well or weather that wasn't so nice and they expressed that in pics clearly marked as ,, this is how we feel about rain.....

I didn't know ANYTHING about any other finger pics until a post was made in this forum in response to the Ban, and it seemed that that pic was aimed squarely at this board and it's moderators. As such it got deleted.

There *are* differences in how we moderate. We interpret the guidelines independently because there is no other way. There are just too many posts and users for all of us to know what all others are doing. We are just volunteers, with lives of our own to live. We are not perfect.

Again... the finger pic thing may have been the start, but Cheap chose how to end it all by himself by having a temper tantrum.... what if a new user, or someone that could be great for this site came into that thread and read Cheaps post... it was quite the colored message. Had he chosen to say .. Hey... how come the disparity, I would have been brought in on the discussion, we likely would have removed the finger pics in the trip report and all would have been as it was.... that isn;t what happened... Cheap blew it way out of proportion and made a mountain out of a molehill that as a result has cost me, and a few other moderators quite a bit of time that we don't really have.

Regardless of how it got to where it got to, there was a incident that demanded the user be banned... if ANYONE were to post a message with the fword repeatedly used, they'd likely face the same end. Cheap unfortunately had a "record" of previous infractions, and it made his case even worse.

I only know cheap from a few posts on the board, and I don;t follow this forum at all.... he was one of a few thousand users, and if any other user did the same thing, I would react the same way again. We can't judge from what the user base does "out there", we can only judge from what happens in here.

Cheap himself said he had no desire to talk to anyone here about it, so it was a dead issue for the Mods... this discussion hopefully outlines why and how the decision was made.

If any of you went to your Boss' and said this place reeks and started cussing up a storm about an issue, I'd bet you'd expect to not have your job. That's because that is not how you affect change there or here. You do it by bringing the issue to the Boss in an adult manner and hope that they can see your way..... hopefully we can move on. Can we?

[MickMaguire]

I think enuff has been said here - everybody seems to want to move on so closing the thread.

If you reallly want to add to it pm me and I'll open it again.