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Abuse of moderators

Satal

Satal

Be the change you want to see
Staff member
Admin
V.I.P Member
I'm disappointed to have to make this post but I want to be clear with everyone.
Abuse towards moderators will never be tolerated on AutismForums.

Unfortunately, today we have had to permanently ban a member who was being highly abusive towards one of the moderators in a conversation with the whole moderator team. This is despite the moderator trying to de-escalate, understand the situation and help this user.

The moderators of this site work incredibly hard trying to keep AutismForums the best possible place for everyone not only to have fun but also get help and support. There is a fine line that the moderators try to balance in allowing everyone as much freedom on this site while also preventing inappropriate content/behaviour and chaos. Not everyone will agree with every decision but that doesn't mean it is acceptable to be abusive towards them.
 
I don`t know what exactly was going on. But if you guys felt the need to permanently ban this member it must not have been pretty.
The moderators I have seen take their roles very seriously. And I feel are never unfair. Even if they do not share someones point of view.
Hope you won`t be coming across anything like this anytime soon.
 
I'm so sorry this happened to all of you. I'm not sure what happened but I want to say I respect this whole team and all that you do to keep this site going. It's sad to hear someone would be so mean to you.

You are all wonderful and I appreciate all you do for us and this site!
 
Sometimes we have disconnects in communication on both this forum and as a result of being on the autism spectrum.

While at times we may seem harsh in how we deal with certain infractions, it is also very important to remember that we as individuals are all In the same boat, so often signals get crossed.

Once in a while we will have a member that takes a slight correction on a personal level and then runs away with it in an ungoverned fashion.
No points, only a slight warning until it gets escalated on their behalf.

Unfortunately sometimes moving objects strike something that they feel they can move only to find that they can't.
In most cases, an adult approach is taken and the party moves along and all is forgotten.

Since the beginning of my tenure here, we have always used the policy of forgiving long before being forgotten.

All of you need to remember that any time you have an issue with moderation to bring it to either me or @Satal so we can get it sorted out.

Hopefully we can then come to a reasonable resolve with a better understanding of what went wrong
 
Yeah, I once got a temp ban here for flaming a mod on the open forum after I had too much to drink - and I admit it, I totally deserved that.

I really don’t want to know what happened here - especially if whoever got banned is who I think it was.
 
Kisa the tea said:
I'm so sorry this happened to all of you. I'm not sure what happened but I want to say I respect this whole team and all that you do to keep this site going. It's sad to hear someone would be so mean to you.

You are all wonderful and I appreciate all you do for us and this site!
Click to expand...
This website is heaven compared to some other places. :cool:
 
Metalhead said:
Yeah, I once got a temp ban here for flaming a mod on the open forum after I had too much to drink - and I admit it, I totally deserved that.
Click to expand...
Those on the spectrum sometimes have emotional meltdowns.
It happens.
Our EQ isn't great.

I have no idea what caused a permanent ban.
Perhaps it was a repeat offender.
Not my business. :cool:
 
I can say that our moderators are fair. I was fortunate not to be banned when I went very abusive to a member who was crying crocodile tears when his wife caught him in an affair that he was attempting to blame on his autism.
 
Sorry to hear that it happened. No one ever deserves that kind of treatment, nor should anyone have to put up with it.
 
I"m sorry to hear this happened. It's highly immature when people diss moderators whose unpaid job it is to protect everyone. I don't know what happened, but I send my best and my thanks to you all.

Don't let the turkeys get you down.
 
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

A good communication is key for the other person to understand what is going on and accept an authority intervention.

If we take an autitst child to the dentist without a good communication sesion, it can become a hell for the child who may not understand why is it necessary to go there.

Even if the rules are posted for everyone to read, what is an infraction may be clear for mods and not clear for the user. I have been there myself and it took us a good 5 to six posts (and half a ton of self control) untill I was able to understand what was going on.

I am not going to demonice the user just because they was banned. I am also sure that mods have good intentions, but we are all at the spectrum and we all tend to assume others do have access to our information when its not the case.

www.frontiersin.org

Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder Can Attribute False Beliefs in a Spontaneous-Response Preferential-Looking Task

An established body of literature indicates that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulty understanding figurative language due to a deficit in theory of mind, or the ability to consider the beliefs of other people. Children with ASD tend to similarly fail traditional theory...
www.frontiersin.org www.frontiersin.org

So for mods it may be so crystal clear why they took action that there is no need to explain it to the user. And for the user it may be so crystal clear why they was abused that they feel legit to abuse the abuser without explaining why they felt abused.

I dont think the answer to this issue is just to warn all the user base "Hey we are banning you if you ever disrespect a mod".

An user who feels abused is probably already leaving the forum, so why would they respect a mod to avoid being banned?


To menace/warn the user base is not a good approach.

As @Nitro have said, there is a communication problem. It may be beyond solution or not. My personal view as an user is that there is margin to improve mod-user communication.

I will recomend "non-violent communication" as a lecture on the topic in case someone is interested, because this not only happen to us at this forum but at our family, friend and work interactions.

My 2 cents.
 
Nitro said:
Hopefully we can then come to a reasonable resolve with a better understanding of what went wrong
Click to expand...

This level of transparency is very rare in today's world. The mod & admin team definitely get my respect. I think it's a miracle that a community like this can exist in our oftentimes cold, unappreciative world.

Most communities rule with an iron fist (and rightfully so, since they're allowed to do whatever they want on their own platform), and this community seems to defy all of that by actually considering and remembering the human being on the other end of the line. At the very least, the mods and admins deserve the same in return -- to be treated like humans, even if the user disagrees with their ruling.

Disagreements happen, but from what I can tell, this place has a very high tolerance and lenient attitude. So, anybody trying to tear something like this down / apart kind of deserves what they got.
 
I can't speak for what happened on either end of this, but transparency is usually a wonderful tool to engage with the community; would you rather they be like everybody else and sweep internal issues under the rug? Because honestly, that's the alternative -- just keeping people in the dark and pretending like everything is hunky-dory.

I personally respect your opinion, but I'm very curious as to why less transparency would be a good idea. I see a lot of people advocating for this type of behavior in today's world and then getting really upset when their wishes are granted, because sometimes the honest-and-open approach is a good learning tool for us all.
 
AngelWitch said:
I personally respect your opinion, but I'm very curious as to why less transparency would be a good idea.
Click to expand...
I cant understand why you have concluded that I advocate for less transparency. Its not the case.

I am suggesting better communication, not less transparency.
 
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