Stats 14 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 64% (+2) Forum Posts : 1,453 (+5)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26740 (+37) Shows : 1 Pending : 43 (+18) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26907 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 13 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,448 (+9)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26703 (+35) Shows : 1 Pending : 25 (+11) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26852 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 12 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,439 (+5)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26668 (+16) Shows : 1 Pending : 14 (+8) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26806 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows (+2) 2 Shows
Stats 11 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,434 (+5)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26652 (+28) Shows : 1 Pending : 6 (-14) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26782 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 10 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,429 (+5)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26624 (+35) Shows : 1 Pending : 20 (+3) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26768 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows (+2) 2 Shows
Stats 9 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,424 (+3)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26589 (+40) Shows : 1 Pending : 17 (+7) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26730 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 8 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,421 (+14)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26549 (+42) Shows : 1 Pending : 10 (-9) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26683 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 7 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,407 (+1)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26507 (+15) Shows : 1 Pending : 19 (+6) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26650 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 6 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,406 (+19)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26492 (+10) Shows : 1 Pending : 13 (+2) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26629 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 5 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,387 (+9)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26482 (+18) Shows : 1 Pending : 11 (+3) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26617 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 4 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,378 (+9)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26464 (+63) Shows : 1 Pending : 8 (+2) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26596 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 3 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,369 (+12)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26401 (+78) Shows : 1 Pending : 6 (-15) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26531 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 2 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,357 (+11)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26323 (+44) Shows : 1 Pending : 21 (+10) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26468 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 1 July 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,346 (+2)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26279 (+25) Shows : 1 Pending : 11 (-2) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26414 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 30 June 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,344 (+2)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26254 (+28) Shows : 1 Pending : 13 (-9) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26391 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 29 June 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,342 (-)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26226 (+8) Shows : 1 Pending : 22 (+2) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26372 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Stats 28 June 2006
Rank : Prison Warden Level : 54 Percentage : 62% (-) Forum Posts : 1,342 (+5)
Submissions Reviews Accepted : 26218 (+20) Shows : 1 Pending : 20 (+2) Episodes : 2 Denied : 124 People : 0 Total : 26362 Total : 3
Edited Guides Trusted User 157 Shows 2 Shows
Of all the topics that have arisen over the past couple of weeks, the one I want to talk about today is censorship. Regular visitors to this column know me well enough. I am motivated by the desire to make the best contribution that I can to these pages. If I have two over-riding character flaws in the real world, these are an over-developed sense of fair play and an intolerance of dishonesty and incompetence. These inevitably spill over into my contributions to the site. There were times, in the early days of this site, when I was flabbergasted by the site's technical and communications failings, and I was commonly to be found criticising the site.
Those were the bad old days. Personnel changed, bugs were fixed, new functionality was added, and communications improved.
I'm not a huge fan of forums in general. You have to sort through a lot of chaff to get to the grain. They are full of ill-considered and intemperate posts. People ask pointless questions without bothering to read the information that is already there. The worst thing about being editor of all these show guides is having to police the guide forums: I have never had any interest in this kind of work. I do keep an eye on the main forums to find out about the latest happenings, and chip in with my tuppenceworth: procedural guidance, technical background, and the occasionally pithy comment.
I discovered, some months ago, when clicking on various tabs, that I had once been moderated for trolling. Someone had asked, in the forums, why it is always a a small minority that make it hard for the vast majority. I had responded
You mean the TV.com staff? Sorry! :D
Well, I thought it was funny! Some months later, I accumulated a cluster of moderations for "off-topic posting." In a thread entitled Some complaints with recent changes to the site...., someone had referred to the site as TVTome, someone had replied that this was TV.com, not TVTome, and I had posted
Unfortunately.
Apparently, contrasting corporate TV.com with user-friendly TVTome was no longer allowed, so I replaced the above comment with
Hurrah! TV.com is great!
That was deleted too, without explanation. In the Level 50+ Users thread (remember that?), at a time when the site was falling apart, I posted
You could apply for a job at TV.com. They seem a bit short-staffed at the moment!
This was deleted.
Someone suggested that the site being particularly buggy was sometimes a sign that they were about to launch a new feature. I suggested that it was often buggy when no new feature was being planned. This was deleted for being off-topic… in the Technical Support forum!
I am not making these up! I challenged most of these, and was told in each case that someone had complained, hence the moderation. I ask you! I would give you details of other moderations, but these appear to have been disappeared from my moderation history.
Now, in fairness, I haven't been moderated in ages. Partly because I now fight the urge to post. If I see an opening for a helpful response or, even more, a witty one, I think about it long and hard before submitting. When, as last week, I am attacked in the forums, I just bend over and take it. But one moderation the other week takes the complete biscuit.
There was a slight issue with levelling. missribs had pinned and updated an earlier post in which she said that the levels run correctly every day; if they don't run every day, they don't run for anyone, and everyone gets sorted at the next run. The levels didn't run on 28 June. Some people got an increase on 29 June, but this didn't reflect the amount due. I posted
According to the pinned thread, levelling is working fine. Either everyone gets a level increase, or levelling fails and noone does, but then we all get corrected at the next opportunity. That means that either
those who have claimed to have received a level increase have not, or
those who have claimed not to have received an increase did.
The alternative, that missribs is mistaken, is too horrible to contemplate, and I shall report anyone who dares suggest that it might be so!
Now, I knew it wasn't true. My lower level IDs got increases when this one didn't. I was moderated for "Moderator Discretion" – no explanation given. I challenged this and was told that I was moderated for use of threatening language. Let me restate: I was moderated for use of threatening language. Now, threatening language is not constitutionally defined, although in considering proposed State laws that have tried to proscribe the use of threatening language, the Supreme Court has referred to the "everyday meaning" of the phrase when considering the potential conflict with your constitutional rights (apparently. I'm British). I have no problem with the everyday meaning, which is similar to the British common-law definition of threatening language.
According to the moderator in question, saying that if someone does something, I will do something else, is a threat. (If someone doesn't prepare a pot of coffee soon, I will do it myself?) According to the moderator (someone who, until that point, I had deeply respected and with whom I have enjoyed civil, even friendly, exchanges) words that contain a threat-promise as defined by this moderator are, by definition, threatening language. Oh, and yes, he claims that someone did indeed complain about my post.
I did absolutely nothing wrong, and resent the right of the moderators to construct reasons for censorship, without offering an effective right of reply or recourse to arbitration. Moderation is important, but the old "great power, great responsibility" thing must apply here. The privileges of a moderator should not be abused.