Don't like spam? Be careful...

Yesterday I was banned from another bike forum. Why? Because apparently, I had REPORTED a spammer, and the moderator thought I WAS the spammer. This is what being banned looks like:

You have been banned for the following reason:
spammer

Date the ban will be lifted: Never

The moderator didn't bother to notice that I had been a member for 2 years. The moderator didn't care that I was a paid member. All the moderator did was click a button TWICE without thinking, even though all moderator functions ask "are you sure?".

When you are banned you discover that you can't send a message to anyone to ask WHY, WHAT, and HOW can you restore your good name and access.

So, what's the point of this story? Simple. Don't bother flagging spam, no matter how offensive. Don't worry about children looking at disgusting stuff on the computer. There's no way I can contact anyone on the other forum, but in the meantime my user name is emblazoned with the scarlet letters BANNED.

Just warning all of you even though I believe the moderators on this forum pay more attention than the moderators on the other forum, you need to be careful with what you do.

By the way, I am a moderator on a genealogy forum, so I know what it's like. I know that if I saw a member who posts almost daily was tagged as a spammer I would be sending a question via pm to that member, at least to see if his or her computer had gotten infected with a virus. It's one thing to shut down a spammer who has never posted before, but that's not true in this case.

Any one have a similar experience, and how did you go about solving it?

East Hill

well, do you know anyone else on that forum?
if you do write to them.
if you don't, get on someone else's computer(library works) and rejoin with another name
and immediately write to the moderator.

Actually I happen to have a couple of e-mail addresses (because you can't use the pm function when you've been banned!), but I haven't heard back from the one person to whom I wrote. I will give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he hasn't gotten the e-mail yet. But what happens if no one wants to help?

I realize that I can (and will) set up another account on a different machine to contact a moderator, but I just can't get over how appalling it is that someone would wipe out my good name WITHOUT bothering to LOOK at what they just did.

East Hill

hey, you live 10 miles from me :)

good luck. stuff happens. I would definitely track down the moderator.

There should be a link to contact site support or the administrator. I moderate on another forum and people who are banned or locked out for whatever reason can contact us that way.

On Team E, you can report spam without any fear of retribution. It just goes away, and they certainly don't disable your account! Yay Team E!!! :)

Sorry this happened to you, and hope you can get it taken care of. Sounds like the moderator was probably in a hurry and just not paying attention. Good luck!

Emily

Emily_in_NC--I think that that is exactly what happened. The moderator got in a hurry, but still, to ruin someone's reputation, even on a forum site, is reprehensible. I think that possibly TE is small enough, and we are friendly enough, that the mods would stop to ask a question. I haven't been that long on this site, and haven't posted that much, but even so, I would think that a mod would say, hmmm, East Hill has never given us any trouble, why would she start now?...

Dianyla--Incredibly enough, there is NO WAY to contact the moderators/forum owner. I too, am a moderator (on a UK genealogy site), and I believe that if we ever had occasion to boot someone off (we haven't ever had to do so!!!), there is a way for that person to contact us.

mimitabby-Where exactly are you? I am just about a quarter of a mile away from Kentridge HS. I look with envy at all of you planning for rides, but I work graveyard and it's almost impossible for me to join up with you, especially as I am down in the south end, and all of you like riding on the BG trail.

As of the moment (07:13 on Saturday) I still haven't gotten back any response from two of the members who I would have thought had good feelings toward me. Oh well, I am probably much better off at TE. Although, perhaps we need to start our own Classic and Vintage subforum (that's my specialty!).

Thanks for all the words of encouragement,

East Hill

East Village, who needs that forum anyway? Our mods are the best, not to mention TE gals (and occaisional guys) themselves.

Welcome to TE or as it is sometimes called "heaven for women cyclists" :D

Have you surfed on over to the "getting to know you" thread? We also have a regional area.

If you want to have some rides in the south end, just hop on the Northwest Rides thread and post up some ride times and places you are doing! That's all I did. And since I live in the north end, well, whaddaya know I posted rides I was doing up here.

Folks who can make it will contact you and then ride with you. I do a lot of rides by myself, because I never plan far enough ahead to give anyone the chance to meet up with me. (check out all the No Notice rides I posted!)

Betcha dollars to donuts there are a lot of TE'rs near you and MimiTabby who would come out of the woodwork for a south end ride!

(sorry for the drift/thread hijack)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by East Hill

Yesterday I was banned from another bike forum. Why? Because apparently, I had REPORTED a spammer, and the moderator thought I WAS the spammer. This is what being banned looks like:

You have been banned for the following reason:
spammer

Date the ban will be lifted: Never

The moderator didn't bother to notice that I had been a member for 2 years. The moderator didn't care that I was a paid member. All the moderator did was click a button TWICE without thinking, even though all moderator functions ask "are you sure?".

When you are banned you discover that you can't send a message to anyone to ask WHY, WHAT, and HOW can you restore your good name and access.

So, what's the point of this story? Simple. Don't bother flagging spam, no matter how offensive. Don't worry about children looking at disgusting stuff on the computer. There's no way I can contact anyone on the other forum, but in the meantime my user name is emblazoned with the scarlet letters BANNED.

Just warning all of you even though I believe the moderators on this forum pay more attention than the moderators on the other forum, you need to be careful with what you do.

By the way, I am a moderator on a genealogy forum, so I know what it's like. I know that if I saw a member who posts almost daily was tagged as a spammer I would be sending a question via pm to that member, at least to see if his or her computer had gotten infected with a virus. It's one thing to shut down a spammer who has never posted before, but that's not true in this case.

Any one have a similar experience, and how did you go about solving it?

East Hill

---

wow! which forum? and do you know who the moderator was? can you have someone else write, on your behalf, to find out why and explain your case?

Trek420--Mostly I've just lurked here (I joined up in July of this year, but had been reading at least for a year before joining) and enjoyed 'heaven for women cyclists'. It's definitely a different feel than other bike forums where there seems to be just WAY too much testosterone. I mean, who cares if you are wearing clothes (unisex, mind you) that have the zippers on 'the wrong side'. We've all dealt with that for years, because I know that all of us have worn at least one piece of so-called men's clothing in our life, if only because that's what's at the thrifts, eh?

KnottedYet--That's a good thought about posting in the PNW forum. I think the only reason I haven't done so is that I am so accustomed to riding by myself due to my work hours, plus sometimes Mr. East Hill comes with me. I'm not very fast either:o But I do love my bikes. By the way, your avatar is just gorgeous, it reminds me of my Nishiki Pro.

caligurl--I hate to say it, but it's BF. I don't know who the moderator is who banned me. I gave up hoping that the two members I contacted would assist (I'm going to be charitable and believe that my e-mails didn't get through the spam filters), but I set up another account and contacted 55/Rad. He is looking into the matter. I know that there are five new moderators and my guess would be that it was one of the new mods.

Anyway, I think I will have to go over to Introductions and properly introduce myself instead of whinging on.

East Hill

Well, thanks to all of you who supported me, I have managed to be un-banned from the other forum.

But I think I need to start posting more here:D .

Cheers,

East Hill

Hey East Hill, I live on the South End of Beacon Hill in Seattle. I like the green river trail and the interurban trail too.
I like to get up early so maybe some time (not now, really!) when the weather improves and the days are longer we could meet in the morning.
and i am happy to hear you got un-banned, but how did you do it?

Hey mimitabby, that would be great! It certainly would not be today (raining like cats and dogs), but I'll pm you later and see what we can come up with.

I have now been un-banned, but in order to restore myself I had to clear all the cookies identifying me as East Hill (I have the same user name) and register under a different name. I contacted one of the mods, who looked into it for me. The mod reported back that I had been banned by mistake by one of five brand new moderators. That moderator contacted me via the alternate username and apologized. I never did hear back from either of the two forum members whose e-mail addresses I had. Only caligurl offered any assistance! Sad...I don't think any of you on this forum would have hesitated to contact me to find out what had happened and offer assistance.

East Hill

East Hill;

On behalf of the moderators at BikeForums.net, I apologize for the manner in which your situation was handled. I'm glad to hear that it was resolved and that your membership was restored. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may of caused you.

BF is a huge community - the largest cycling related forum on the net. As such, it's quite the challenge for the moderators to keep up with every issue and situation that arises - I promise you we are doing our best and strive to improve every day.

95% of everything we deal with as moderators involves eliminating spam and dealing with the offender. 99% of those times, the spam comes from a first time poster who has just registered. And with several dozen offenses occurring each and every day, the action of banning the offenders becomes somewhat mechanical. This process requires several steps to complete and unfortunately, once in awhile, we mistakenly ban the reporter rather than the offender. This is what happened in your case - apparently a misplaced keystroke. I promise you there was no intent to cause harm to you in any way - we value our contributing members very highly. It was merely an honest mistake.

There are many fine cycling forums for you to choose - including this one. I only hope that you will continue to make BF part of your rotation.

Again with our apologies - all the best to you.

Jerry Grant
55/Rad
Bikeforums.net Moderator

well, that took a lot of class!
(the apology!!!)

rad's a good guy!

I agree. We have to understand that most of the moderators on all these forums are volunteers, just trying to help out the community. We are all human and sometimes mistakes happen. Lets thank our moderators, not just for apologizing when appropriate, but for all the work they do on our behalf. That also includes the folks that serve on boards of our bike clubs, as ride starters and leaders, etc. So often on a club ride someone will criticize something about the route, instead of thanking those folks that took the trouble to put a route together for them to follow in the first place, often pre-riding it to check for hazards, etc. So, on this eve of thanksgiving, lets thank all the unsung heroes that make our community work (and especially Susan for creating this wonderful website!)!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree, moderators are very important and for the most part, unsung heroes. I suspect that many of us have functioned, or do function as moderators on other forums. I also would suspect that virtually all of us have acted as volunteers for various drudgy bits that no one else wanted to do, but which had to be done. Bake/candy sales anyone:D ?

The problem at the other forum has been straightened out, many thanks to 55/Rad! I certainly didn't enjoy being the test case, but I know that when upgrades occur on websites sometimes very unexpected things occur.

I remember when one of my other favourite (non-cycling) websites went through some upgrades. Many on that site are OAPs, and not a few still have trouble remembering to tick the box indicating that they wish to be notified of responses by e-mail. Er, and that would include me, even though I am not quite to OAP status.

So, three cheers for all those long suffering moderators/administrators/site owners out there, and even for those not in the US, let us give thanks that someone is out there to help us indulge in our favourite hobby no matter what it is!

East Hill