Shamefull abuse of power

[sicofante]

I didn't know this resolution center existed, so I have been reading a few of the recent threads here and I must confess I'm really apalled. I used to worship these forums for their display of common sense and good judgement by almost everyone. Moreover, I think these forums were what made me switch to Ubuntu myself and many of my family, friends and customers. Now I'm getting the very uncomfortable impression that we're getting to a Stanford's experiment's state of affairs: give any ordinary person power to punish others and s/he will sooner or later abuse its power. All that means I have little hope in this so called "resolution center" but here's my case anyway:

P_quarles, a guy who seems to be quite popular around this resolution center (I've read his name no less than three times in a slight combing of this forum), decided he would close a thread because the issue had been discussed already. Here was my complaint:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1022842&page=2

That was really nice and gentle from you... (not)

You could have pointed to some of those many discussions and debate you mention. You could have exposed the reasons of the current policy. You could have even let people talk about it and show some ideas.

But instead of all that you decided to abuse your super-powers to shut everyone up. Rude is the minimum adjective I can think of.

Shame on you.

He stood by his decision disdainfully, arguing the matter had been discussed before many times (???) so I insisted:

You might have moved the thread to the recurring dicussions.

You could have pointed to those threads and debates you mention instead of asking people to search them for themselves.

You could have explained yourself, leave the thread open and expect your peers in the forum to understand and leave the discussion, but that would have mean to show too much respect for them, huh?

You just decided abusing your power to shut other peoples mouth was a better way.

You were unnecessarily rude and you should apologize, not just to me but to everyone in that thread.

Shame on you, I insist, while you keep your childish manners instead of being a respectful gentleman.

I wonder who decides to put people like you in charge of anything.

And I just got a reply from KiwiNZ asking me to come here.

The argument "it has been discussed to death" has little logic behind it. Many people enter these forums each day and no one can expect them to revise five years of threads to see if they can start a thread about something or not. As a matter of fact, I had never seen the issue on the mentioned thread discussed before, and I've been in these forums for more than two years now. On top of that P_quarles decision was made in a rude manner.

I honestly hope this is not the beginning of a trend. I see too much "mod supports mod" stuff in this resolution center, something that inevitably feeds the feeling a mod can do whatever they wish (check Stanford again...). And finally, I wonder, as I already wrote, who and how decides to put people like P_quarles in charge of other people.

[matthew]

And finally, I wonder, as I already wrote, who and how decides to put people like P_quarles in charge of other people.

This is not a positive way to get the results you seek.

p_quarles is human. So am I, as are you.

Sometimes we may misunderstand what others are saying to us. Other times, we are communicating clearly and others misunderstand us.

If we begin our conversation with the assumption that each of us has a positive intent and goal, communication is much easier. When we start out defensive, or worse, offensive, it is very difficult to communicate and reach a mutual understanding.

I say this to you, sicofante, as I know p_quarles has the best of intentions in his actions as a staff member in these forums. I will also remind the staff of the same thing.

Entering with guns blazing and tossing around accusations is no way to achieve unity. That is true whether it is staff doing it or another forum member, or in real life.

Let's all work on presuming the best about people until they prove us wrong definitively.

[sicofante]

I absolutely agree on this, and if I must apologise I'll be the first. But the fact will remain that Mr. P_quarles triggers his gun too easily and with little to no respect to others. Will the thread be reopened and the policy about closing threads arbitrarily (or at mod's will, which is more or less the same) be revised? That's the real point.

Again: my apologies if I came about this too heavily, but the first act of violence was the slapping in the face to people that were having a conversation. I was only replying to that bullying attitude.

[matthew]

I read through the thread in question and I agree with closing it. Starting out by calling the actions of others "stupid" is not a useful way to begin a conversation. The OP received some useful input from forum members as well as some understandably defensive ones. The thread was set to disintegrate.

I fully support the actions of p_quarles in this matter. What he did was reasonable and was done in a polite manner. I just reread his post closing the thread in question, and there is nothing offensive there. Plus, he is right, this has been discussed many times and threads on the topic may be found easily with a search.

For the record, to save you from searching, I'll again state our opinion.

I'm afraid we can't make a policy about whether or not old, but resurrected threads will be closed as this decision must be made on a case by case basis. Some threads that old are hopelessly out of date and a new discussion should be started. Others might easily be allowed to continue. Sorry to disappoint, but there really is no way to state in advance what must happen.

[sicofante]

I read through the thread in question and I agree with closing it. Starting out by calling the actions of others "stupid" is not a useful way to begin a conversation.

I'm sorry but some policies can't be called anything but "stupid". It's no like "stupid" is THE insult of the century, it's just that there's no other way to call something so illogical as the policy that was about to be discussed in that thread. Besides, the thread wasn't closed on the use of the word "stupid" (which could have been easily corrected if it was so grave), but on the reasoning that the subject "had been discussed before" and THAT makes no sense as I have explained already and constitutes the bullying aspect of the decision by P_quarles.

The OP received some useful input from forum members as well as some understandably defensive ones.

That's what a thread is: a conversation with input from different forum members. There's nothing that goes from there to closing a thread.

The thread was set to disintegrate.

I might not completely get what you mean here (English is not my mother language) but if you're judging the OP's (and other participants) intentions it's just unacceptable and incompatible with any minimum concept of justice. You can't judge intentions but actions, so you can't close a thread based on what the "thread's intentions" are.

I fully support the actions of p_quarles in this matter. What he did was reasonable and was done in a polite manner. I just reread his post closing the thread in question, and there is nothing offensive there.

I have already described the offensive nature of this action when explaining half a dozen things he could have done that he didn't, besides the fact that shutting everyone else's mouth with an illogical argument ("this has been discussed many times") is a very offensive attitude by any standard.

Plus, he is right, this has been discussed many times and threads on the topic may be found easily with a search.

So does this mean that any matter that has been discussed many times can't be discussed anymore? Are all those threads still open to state one's opinion or have they been closed because the subject had been already discussed or because they are just a few months old? Can't you see the vicious circle and the absurdity of the policy?

For the record, to save you from searching, I'll again state our opinion.

I'm afraid we can't make a policy about whether or not old, but resurrected threads will be closed as this decision must be made on a case by case basis. Some threads that old are hopelessly out of date and a new discussion should be started. Others might easily be allowed to continue. Sorry to disappoint, but there really is no way to state in advance what must happen.

This, I'm sorry, has little to do with the matter of the thread P_quarles decided to close arbitrarily. Threads are being closed JUST BECAUSE they're "old" and the meaning of "old" is left to the whim of each individual moderator. If this wasn't absurd enough, you're de facto prohibiting any opinion on the matter by saying "this has been discussed already" and immediately closing any discussion about it.

I'm very sorry I must stand by my first impression: these forums are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with far too many moderators doing far too many interventions. You guys are suffocating them by giving too many people just too much power. That lends to making arbitrary decisions and to bullying. When this happens to a country we call it a "police state" and nobody thinks it's right. A quick read of this very subforum is eloquent.

[KiwiNZ]

I agree with Matthew and the decisions made .

When you joined these forums you were made aware that this is a moderated forum. You agreed to abide by the rules of this forum.

The staff will make decisions supported by the Code of Conduct for the best interest of ALL members and for the owners of this forum. There times that decisions will be made that may not suit the individual but benefit the greater membership and goals of the forum.

You need to take this into account.

The staff do not bully and that assertion by you is offensive to staff , which I remind you are giving of their time voluntarily. I will ask you to temper your language when referring to staff.

[sicofante]

I'd love to see some more reasonings and less appealing to authority. I still haven't seen addressed the absurdity of the decision taken by P_quarles or the policy behind it. I would expect the authority of the forum staff supported on reason and logical grounds, yet you still can't go beyond the use of particular words you don't like, the offense as the only argument and mod peers supporting each other without providing further explanations.

What I'm denouncing here is three-fold:

1) Closing threads is an act of violence equating to shutting other people's mouth, so it should be done carefully and for really good reasons only. I hope you agree on this as some basic attitude of respect to others. P_quarles closing of the mentioned thread doesn't respond to any logic or at least that logic hasn't been exposed here. I've shown how absurd the reason alleged by P_quarles is ("the subject has been discussed many times before so it can't be discussed any further") and nobody here has yet explained the supposed logic behind it. The fact that both you and Matthew agree with the decision doesn't lighten up a bit the obscure and absurd reasoning behind that decision nor makes it any more legitimate. On the contrary, unconditional support without reasoning adds to the suspicion that you guys support each other blindly and this resolution centre serves no real purpose.

2) Closing threads BECAUSE they're old makes no sense (in other words, it's stupid, as the title of the closed thread expressed in those other words). There has been no argument against this and I can understand that because there's no way to explain it with logic in your hands. I have just re-created a one year old thread about an Evolution feature. It was closed for no reason other than being old and I had to redo it. Now these forums have two exact twin threads talking about the same exact matter because I couldn't reply to that old thread. Was the issue outdated? By no means. Was it a bandwidth hog? Certainly not (it was just one or two posts long). Was it promoting some sort of "informational overflow"? Well, you won't find the subject discussed elsewhere in the forums... There was NO reason to close the thread but the ONLY fact that it was "old", whatever that means in this context.

3) The lack of explicit rules and logic leaves decision making to individuals and that rapidly leads to arbitrariness as has been shown here. The Ubuntu Forums are increasingly showing arbitrary decision making by its staff. Arbitrary decision making means abuse of power and a "police state"-like feeling for the forum members. If you take this as an insult instead of reflect about the problem, you're probably part of the problem.

I don't expect you guys to publicly expose P_quarles; I just expect you to support your peers with some reasoning instead of calls to their detractor's manners.

I was expecting some substantial explanation to the issues exposed in this thread. I'm appalled by the fact that I'm just getting condescending recommendations to use another language instead.

[matthew]

From the Forum CoC:

You agree that the web-master, administrators and moderators of this forum have the right to remove, edit, move or close any post, topic or thread at any time they see fit following the guidelines outlined below.

Note the use of the word "guidelines." These are not hard and fast rules. The Forums CoC gives direction to staff and to forum members to assist in mutual understanding of what is reasonable to expect and what sorts of behavior is considered appropriate. Once that foundation is established, we give our staff the liberty to use their discretion.

Nothing wrong was done here, not by p_quarles nor by anyone else.

This will likely offend you further rather than give you satisfaction, but the rules you agreed to when you signed up for your account are pretty clear and have not been violated. You are complaining based on a personal preference, not based on what the Forum CoC actually says. If you genuinely think that we are a bunch of fascists, you are welcome to go elsewhere...which kind of ruins the fascist label, as history tells us they were pretty much unwilling to let their people leave.

So, here are direct answers to each part of your last post.

1. You have not established that any threads were closed in a way which violates the Forum CoC, which, again, you agreed to when you signed up. Whether or not you believe the thread closings to be "an act of violence equating to shutting other people's mouth [sic]" is immaterial. The real question is whether anything violated the established rules for the forum. We find this did not occur.

2. Closing threads for any reason, including because they are old, falls within the authority delegated to staff. Whether you find the argument stupid or clever, it is one that falls within the limits of what is allowed by the Forum CoC. You have not shown otherwise.

3. The "lack of explicit rules" argument is fallacious. There are some very clear guidelines in the Forum CoC. They are not hard and fast rules, so maybe that is where your complaint comes from. The ambiguity is intentional because sometimes we have people try to argue that their spam/porn/illegal activity/etc. is not explicitly disallowed and should therefore be left. We retain, according to the Forum CoC, the right to remove, edit, move, or close any post for any reason using the guidelines in the Forum CoC, which does not anticipate every need, but gives a reasonable foundation for when and why we might. Could that be abused? Yes. We do not believe that it has been abused in this case.

[sicofante]

It's not just "my" opinion or personal preference. I backed my statements with arguments. You haven't. If all you can do is repeating staff is allowed to make arbitrary decisions without further explanation, no matter how illogical the reasons, and so the CoC states, etc., etc., etc. I think this thread (and probably this so called "resolution center" is pointless.

PS: I didnt' call anyone "fascist" neither described your behaviour as such.

[matthew]

It's not just "my" opinion or personal preference. I backed my statements with arguments. You haven't. If all you can do is repeating staff is allowed to make arbitrary decisions without further explanation, no matter how illogical the reasons, and so the CoC states, etc., etc., etc.

You backed your statements with arguments based on things other than the Forum CoC. Those arguments have no weight here. If you want the decision of a staff member to be overturned you should show that there has been a violation of the Forum CoC. We do not see one. Any other argument is superfluous and clearly demonstrates your opinion and personal preference carry more weight in your statements than the true authority in these forums...which, again, you chose to agree to use as that authority when you signed up for your account.

I think this thread (and probably this so called "resolution center" is pointless.

I agree. You have said nothing to convince me that the Forum CoC, the document that governs activity on these forums, has been violated.

PS: I didnt' call anyone "fascist" neither described your behaviour as such.

Sorry. I put words in your mouth. I substituted "fascist" for "police state" as used in post 5. The rest of the comment stands as written.