DanGWanG on probation...

[metalliqaz]

nice knowin' ya

[fohat.digs]

I think that, perhaps, you have to work, or try, to get banned.

Certainly Ripster was relatively normal, if arrogant, for a long while, then spiraled out of orbit pretty quickly.

Not paying attention, I didn't see unacceptable behavior from these last bans, but there must be a reason.

Too bad, when my kids were in kindergarten, one of the most important marks was "plays well with others"

[Internetlad]

demik?

mods pls

[longweight]

huh

[mkawa]

dangwang and demik have both been given short probations, emphasis on short. my understanding is that they've both been talked to as to the whats and the whys apparently this didn't happen. there's really nothing to see here.

[daerid]

That's the problem. "There's nothing to see here", and "everybody just mind your own business".

Maybe an explanation as to why it went down the way it did would settle the issue. But as long as we're keeping it all hush-hush, people are going to get riled up at the censorship.

[keymaster]

dangwang and demik have both been given short probations, emphasis on short. my understanding is that they've both been talked to as to the whats and the whys. there's really nothing to see here.

You guys should think about locking threads after they've been discussed to death. The mod team has made their statements as well, so if anyone needs to know what has been discussed can just look over the thread WITHOUT being able to reignite the issue.

[mkawa]

i don't feel like there's much that's hush-hush about this. both of these users are prominent in the community and serve somewhat as role models for new users. as many have pointed out in this thread, both have been needlessly abrasive recently. mod team felt they could benefit from a short probation.

i think this thread has been _relatively_ civil so far. unfortunately our forum software doesn't give out information like "user X is on short-term probation" (see: SA forums for an example of a phpbb that does this quite well), so there was some initial confusion on what was going on. further, these are the first non-trivial bans or probations since we rebooted, so it's understandable that people are going to react a little strongly at first. anyway, i see no reason to lock the thread. if mod team does see a good reason to, it will.

the bottom line is that we're still finding our way as a community, and we will ultimately be a moderated community, in which the staff actively tries to keep things civil and accepting. what i mean by "there's nothing to see here" isn't "don't talk about this", but that this action was fairly minor in the grand scheme of things, and probably not something that's worth getting too worked up about, even if you do disagree with this or that principle..

eta: apparently mod team did not get to talk to dangwang (demik unknown) before the ban.

[KangarooZombies]

From what i've seen Dan is a fairly tame person with a HUGE role in this community. I would think that mods would at least message him before assigning a ban. I feel like this ban was probably premature at its best, and could potentially run off one of our favorite members from posting here anymore. He's one of the reasons i joined this forum in the first place, seeing him go is  a huge disappointment and from what I've seen, I'm not the only one that feels this way. I can see now that censorship is very important to GH and if thats how they want to run the community, thats fine, but having to study each post before clicking the post button to make sure it dosent offend anybody is defeating the purpose of an open forum in my opinion. For this reason, its not only the ban on Dan that bothers me, but the future of the community constantly watching their backs when they post...

That being said, none of this was ment to offend any one of you or the mods. Its just one mans opinion.

Hoping this post dosent get me a ban of my own,
KangarooZombies

[reaper]

Hoping this post dosent get me a ban of my own,
KangarooZombies

Nope, it won't get you ban but it'll get you a visit from reaper to give you a few free keycaps personally (if you're in LA). 

[sth]

Hoping this post dosent get me a ban of my own,
KangarooZombies

Nope, it won't get you ban but it'll get you a visit from reaper to give you a few free keycaps personally (if you're in LA). 

Or if you're in the bay area I could proxy

[KangarooZombies]

lol I love you guys ^.^

Edit: Also, unfortunatley, im a bit north of LA. I do visit LA almost every summer though

[daerid]

In the beginning, God said [etc...]

J/k

That was a good explanation, clears a lot of things up. I think the main problem is like you said, those kind of actions are completely opaque, black-and-white. Maybe some way of indicating the severity of the action taken, or requiring some sort of public reason that gets posted when an action like this is taken on a community member. But that's a discussion for the Site Feedback forum.

[KuhnTang]

Sorry to hear about this.  Although I didn't have too much contact with the man, the few occasions that I did, he was very helpful and patient with me.  I'm relatively new here, only a few months, but even in that time I see him EVERYWHERE, helping people.  I don't see how banning him can help GH.  If there are pillars of this community, he is defiantly one of them. 

[jdcarpe]

Even pillars of the community get frustrated from time to time, and may say something that they shouldn't have, or in a certain way. Criticizing the mod team over and over in public, and tempting a ban by baiting, will almost certainly get you a cooling-off period.

I respect both Dan and demik, and have had conversations and transactions with both of them. They knew the possible consequences of what they were doing, and are now dealing with those consequences. We can hope to be supportive of them and try to ease their frustrations when they return.

[KangarooZombies]

Even pillars of the community get frustrated from time to time, and may say something that they shouldn't have, or in a certain way. Criticizing the mod team over and over in public, and tempting a ban by baiting, will almost certainly get you a cooling-off period.

I respect both Dan and demik, and have had conversations and transactions with both of them. They knew the possible consequences of what they were doing, and are now dealing with those consequences. We can hope to be supportive of them and try to ease their frustrations when they return.

Dan has already expressed his hesitation to return to GeekHack on the DT forums.

Edit: I accidentally a word. 

[egotrippin]

I'm a new member and I don't know much about Dan or the history of this forum but it was stumbling across http://dangwang.wordpress.com/ that turned me on to geekhack in the first place. 

[jeroplane]

Celebrity or contributions should not make any member less or more susceptible to being banned. I think all the arguments in support of Dan for this reason are invalid. As for his actions, he has been directly calling out the mods and generally stirring things up for some time, basically begging for a ban. And I'm sure he knows this. And again, we don't know what goes on in PMs. I would actually agree with some of Dan's views and I think he adds a lot to this forum in many ways such as knowledge and images, but actions are actions.

But in the end, we haven't lost anyone at this point. I am sure we will see Dan back soon with more keyboard porn for all of us.

I didn't know they could read our PMs?

so they're "not private"?

Hmm.........

You're making an assumption that is wrong.  We cannot read your PMs unless you are sending them to us.

That seems a little silly, shouldn't admins have access to everyone's pm's ?? Especially with the growing size of the marketplace...

In most forums, moderators do not have access to PMs unless they are reported. They are called private messages for a reason. And here, access to PMs is not required in the case of the marketplace. The general idea here, as stated in the guidelines, is that the moderators will not moderate and do not take responsibility for things relating to any transactions; caveat emptor.

[dirge]

Sure in phpbb you've got access to private messages.  Guess it must be the same for SMF.

Doubt anyone would be sad enough to go and read through peoples messages mind.  Would be boring as hell.

anyway back on topic.. "FREE HAT! FREE HAT!"

[mkawa]

moderators do not have access to private messages unless they're reported.

also, i reviewed the ban records for dangwang and demik and they were not entered properly, so first off, if you are not dangwang or demik and received a notice that you are banned on some of your clients but not others, that is fixed now. second, the bans both appeared to be permabans to the users (but are very definitely not). that is now fixed.

[deepthawt]

anyway back on topic.. "FREE HAT! FREE HAT!"

WANT
 

and i want it to have a crest, that says GeekHack
otherwise the distraction isn't going to sooth my forum feelings.
 

[IPT]

I have really no dog in this fight, but honestly does Dan really think he's suppose to be leading the revolution here against GH?
i mean seriously if you step back from your personal bias as being friends with him and see the way he's acting, how can you not think he's hostile?


Apparently Dan believes GH is his responsibility to mold into what he believes is the only clear way it should be run.

honestly give me a break, if this is his attitude i say good riddance.

[deepthawt]

Heavy handed authoritarian actions are probably more destructive and offensive than someone whining.

push-back

There is the chilling effect of seeping oppression and censorship is a brutal denial without accountability when there is no forum.

[longweight]

Rollin with them or me?  )  We aren't 15.

[jdcarpe]

Rollin with them or me?  )  We aren't 15.

Yeah I agree with you on that one.

[Alessandro]

Rollin with them or me?  )  We aren't 15.

I'm not sure how you mean that, but some of us are.

[SmallFry]

I agree. I am indeed of that same age (close.) Don't single out my age group, I can form a discussion, build a keyboard, handle money etc. I am just as much of a member here as anyone, and certainly mature enough to have a decent conversation. -_-

[baldgye]

I guess your name makes more sense though

[longweight]

It was a figure of speech not an attack on all 15 year olds!

[jdcarpe]

I understood it to mean "children." In the manner of a "typical" 15-y.o.'s behavior. You two are definitely not typical. You both act with more maturity than some of the "older" members here.

[Alessandro]

I was kidding long.

Anyone else think that this thread has run its course now? There are plenty of other good discussion threads running now and we should take full advantage of them.

[SmallFry]

Honestly, I don't know why everyone is so upset with how Dan is acting. Many people are upset with how GH has been going (not myself) but Dan becomes vocal, and people become upset. I've tried to stay out of this thread, but Dan is just speaking, albeit abrasive, but speaking his mind. I think he has had mounting anger for a long while. For example, I've been having a very "off week" and I got very angry in my English class today. I pent up my anger, and when it goes, it goes.

[jdcarpe]

And if you got "banned" from class or school for your actions (detention or probation), I'm sure you could understand why, but maybe not until you could reflect upon the situation in a calmer state. Depending on the severity of your actions and whether it was a repeated action or whatnot.

[SmallFry]

Exactly. So, perhaps, when the situation calms down, things will be more clear. All this drama makes me sick. We just need to get along, not fight... :/
This site is about keyboards, not capitalism or commercialism, not about the Terms of Service, not about whether we should threadcrap or not. This site is for keyboards.
I am here in a community to help others, enjoy myself and maybe buy a few things here or there (or trade for them ). When you live in a real life community, do you get told not to make money or what you should do with what is yours? Do you get told not to walk in the market and have ambient conversations with your friends? Just food for thought, please don't pick me apart and answer my questions. They are rhetorical.

[rknize]

The moderators discussed the issue with Dan for a long time over many days.  No one is quite sure why he suddenly decided to go on this war path of GH moderation theory.  While there is nothing wrong with discussion such topics, his language made it clear that he needed a little break.  We are, of course, paying attention to the discussion over moderation in the classifieds section.  The current policies are mostly carried over from the previous incarnation of the site and those policies reflected iMav's desires at the time.

Since the reboot of the site, moderation has been fairly light compared to how it was and the staff is still finding its way.  SMF does things a little differently than some are used to and bans have been rare.  Thus, the snafu in the ban type.

[Alessandro]

Exactly. So, perhaps, when the situation calms down, things will be more clear. All this drama makes me sick. We just need to get along, not fight... :/
This site is about keyboards, not capitalism or commercialism, not about the Terms of Service, not about whether we should threadcrap or not. This site is for keyboards.
I am here in a community to help others, enjoy myself and maybe buy a few things here or there (or trade for them ). When you live in a real life community, do you get told not to make money or what you should do with what is yours? Do you get told not to walk in the market and have ambient conversations with your friends? Just food for thought, please don't pick me apart and answer my questions. They are rhetorical.

Well said.

[IPT]

i disagreed with his opinion on how GH/Classified is run, but that whole "you're with me or your against me" attitude is just childish.
His attitude at DT personally makes me not want to deal with him on GH.  I just view it as disruptive behavior.  You say we're on a keyboard forum to talk about keyboards.  Whats with this attacking attitude.

Not to mention i personally find it hypocritical (not towards dan himself) but of other members that claim people are out to make a buck on the classified, then turn around and sell their stuff at high price, attaching with it some reason (legitimate or not) and its viewed as a'ok.

Honestly from dan's rage about threadcrapping, i'd say like i posted in his original discussion thread:  No posting in the thread unless you have a question pertaining to the items for sale/trade/etc.  No "you overcharge blah blah" or "great seller, good luck" nonsense.
Just put it up for sale, bump every 24 hours.

Oh and get rid of auctions and im sure you'll get rid of 99% of the drama on these threads.
people might not like that idea, but there's a reason sites like OCN, hardforums, EVGA Forums, etc don't allow auction style threads.
You want to put an auction up, put it on ebay and calculate the ebay cut.

[baldgye]

If you've ever been a part of a forum that (you felt) had problems, and voicing those opinions got him know where it's pretty understandable to become frustrated with it.

He clearly cares about GH and this hobby else he wouldn't have made a fuss (yup) in the first place. His ranting as some might see it is only a positive because its for the benefit of others and possibly of this forum.

[IPT]

If you've ever been a part of a forum that (you felt) had problems, and voicing those opinions got him know where it's pretty understandable to become frustrated with it.

He clearly cares about GH and this hobby else he wouldn't have made a fuss (yup) in the first place. His ranting as some might see it is only a positive because its for the benefit of others and possibly of this forum.

Sure he's allowed to be upset, but look at the way he delivered his message.
Again this forum is not his personal property, you have to respect the forum owners at least a little bit no?
Or do you think its fine to make a big stink publicly and slander the forum?
Do you propose this type of action to demonstrate stuff you feel there are problems on?
 
How do you think this action will translate in other situations?
I think my boss is a douchebag, but i doubt i'm able to walk around bad mouthing the way he runs the company publicly and not expect any ramifications to occur.

Look at how he's responding to Tsangan on DT, he sounds like a spoiled brat right now.
Then again DT's always had hostilities towards GH from what I can tell, you're just getting the cheerleading on DT for this.

Anyway, im not even one of the super active people on GH, nor am i an "OG" member.
I found out about mech keyboards from OCN and reaper managing the OCN club originally.
Wandered over to GH to look at all the cool novelty keycaps and different key sets/boards/etc.
I don't feel im entitles to declare how i think GH should be run, i have voiced my opinions on some matters such as when Demik lost his passion on keyboards and was threadcrapping left/right on everyone's posts a few months ago (remember the ragnarock dramas? or his perception on people not knowing how to do auctions/selling CC/etc then turning around and making $$ off his own stuff?).

[baldgye]

I can't speak for Dan's actions, how he has worked to try and work with or against the mods and vice-versa becasue I don't know.

But (IMO) respect isn't something you're given, its something you earn.

[Internetlad]

It's a forum with rules.

He broke the rules.

If you don't like the GeekHack rules, don't use GeekHack.

If you need to use GeekHack (like Dan, who does business here) then you should probably keep your opinions to yourself (or at least out of the public forum) and follow the rules.

Let's face it, he probably smoked a bowl (citation needed, but it IS Dan) and posted some stuff that he shouldn't have. He got banned, and got butthurt and now is throwing a little fit over on DT about it. It's not exactly the most professional behaviour I've seen from somebody who (at least in part) owes their livelihood to a particular site which they are now smearing.

Ripster was always abrasive, but as far as I know he never made money off GH.

At the end of the day, it's a forum about keyboards. Nobody will live or die from being banned for a week from GH.

For everybody making a straw man argument about "freedom" and how the mods are being "oppressive" if I was pissing on the sidewalk and a cop caught me for it, are they suddenly oppressing my right to piss freely? There's a reason why there's a law against pissing on the sidewalks. If everybody started pissing on the sidewalks, then nobody would want to be near the sidewalks, because the sidewalks are covered in piss.

Don't cover our sidewalks in piss, people. It's not sanitary.

[Alessandro]

On a totally unrelated note, can someone please tell Webwit I think his turd keycap is epic and I want it.

[r3dx]

I really have no interest in all the drama involving Dan but I am kind of curious about all the hate on DT towards GH. It's not that hard to find a thread on there without someone trashing GH but ironically we hardly ever talk about them, or it may just the threads I choose to look at. Anyways like projectD I found GH through OCN so I'm still fresh here so I'm pretty oblivious to what is going on and I don't frequent DT.

[jcrouse]

On a totally unrelated note, can someone please tell Webwit I think his turd keycap is epic and I want it.

He gets all the good stuff.

[Internetlad]

On a totally unrelated note, can someone please tell Webwit I think his turd keycap is epic and I want it.

I really have no interest in all the drama involving Dan but I am kind of curious about all the hate on DT towards GH. It's not that hard to find a thread on there without someone trashing GH but ironically we hardly ever talk about them, or it may just the threads I choose to look at. Anyways like projectD I found GH through OCN so I'm still fresh here so I'm pretty oblivious to what is going on and I don't frequent DT.

DT was founded by 2 disgruntled Ex-GH members who weren't happy with the way GH is being run/where it was going. Basically DT was founded as the anti-GH.

So it's sort of an "us vs. them" mindset at DT.

[Alessandro]

I'm serious, I ****ing want it!

[Lanx]

#1 It has already been established that it isn't permanent and Dan wasn't the only one.
#2 Although I'm sure jimmies have been rustled, really they shouldn't be.  You can't openly be adversarial to the mods and expect nothing to happen.

Remember that movie Bruce Almighty?  Bruce dies and asks God why, and he says "You can't kneel down in the middle of a highway and expect to live, son."

Same thing.

did any body else say this quote with morgan freeman's voice in their head?

btw stop over-reacting, a ban is a ban lots of ppl have gotten banned, it's to teach you a lesson, i got banned, i got taught my lesson, do not comment about ripster spamming the forums or you'll be banned, and i got banned, lesson learned, put ripster on ignore.

[dirge]

DT was founded by 2 disgruntled Ex-GH members who weren't happy with the way GH is being run/where it was going. Basically DT was founded as the anti-GH.

So it's sort of an "us vs. them" mindset at DT.

maybe day one that could be true but a forum can't behave like that for long.  new members won't know the past or care.  The only thing that matters is the fact that people visiting both sites are looking for information on the same topic.

they don't give a crap about the past.

so saying there is an us and them.  just doesn't sound like you've thinked things through bud.

[reverkiller]

This is a really odd coincidence, but I'm going to have to side against Dan on this one. Not because I believe that we shouldn't have threadcrapping or a free form market (I actually think threadcrapping helps keep people honest!). However, there are rules. I am by no means authoritarian, but I understand the concept of rules. If you have a problem, acting like a toddler and throwing a hissy fit is not the way to solve it. That said, I greatly respect Dan and much like other people in this thread have said, he was a reason I even cared about keyboards in the first place. I'd love to see him come back and contribute to the community. However, if he can't be mature about it, as people in the past have been (cough ripster cough), he should found his own forum. I'd gladly join!

TL;DR Dan's ideas were right and is a valuable member of the community, but with D+ presentation at best. 6/10, would not bang.

[davkol]

to be fair, again i have no beef with DangWang, but honestly if the owners of GH want to run their forums strictly they can.
His threadcrap welcome classified thread is straight up trolling and sticking it to the admins/mods of GH.

He felt passionate regarding threadcrapping and his perceived injustices with the way classified is run, but to just say "f it" and do that is just immaturity imo.

Anyway, in the end GH is a private forum, you aren't given free speech to do whatever you want.  OCN runs their forums in a similar way, people sometime thing OCN mods/admins are too anal, but they do limit the amount of crap that is visible on the forums.  It comes down to what GH wants to represent their forum as.
We are all just users, we use the forum, but we really have no "power" to what the forum owners want to do.

GeekHack reserves the right to remove/ban any user, at any time, and for any reason.  A temporary ban of 7 days will follow two warnings for the same type of infraction. Moreover, GeekHack takes no responsibility for the content of any of the messages posted on our Forums or of the authenticity of its authors.  We reserve the right to edit and/or delete any posting for any reason and without prior notification or explanation to the author.  Moderators and Administrators frequently review forum messages for those that are in violation of the rules. Any messages found to be in violation may be deleted without warning or explanation.   And also please refrain from starting a thread or posting about any banned member as it isn't allowed.

Hiding behind static rules is meaningless when your goal is to build a community and you punnish those who's whole goal is to help provide a good one...

--I don't really know much about this community, but perma-bans and bans like this are what basically destoryed a couple of communites I was in before joining here.

you can argue then ripster's ban was unwarranted either. did he not contribute majority of the wiki info?  Or provide a good amount of resources and information?

I don't know much about Ripster so I don't know... but in the previous forums I've been a member of mod's have treated the biggest contributors the same as spam bots, break the rules get banned... and slowly it just pushed all the good content and posts they where making to other sites and forums... its a bad system that dsnt work.. and the whole our site our rules is fine, but it ****s in the face of making a good community...

but thats just me, and I've yet to meet a mod who agree's

I'm a mod at few completely different community sites, and I entirely agree with you on this point. However, Ripster was hell of an annoying guy, and he still is — in his subreddits. When this sort of guy goes hyperactive not exactly in a good way, it's a disaster, and it's almost impossible to do anything about it except something like permaban. That's clearly not the case here.