Things like this can take years to become a hit. I'm going to write a bunch more books, my 2nd and 3rd are already coming along nicely.

I do have some marketing tricks I'm going to use to get a lot of attention, fast, for my novel.

City of Singles launch party on Valentine's Day. Clever. :D

Like...


"VANCOUVER AUTHOR RUNS NAKED THROUGH STREETS AFTER BOOK SIGNING - BOOK SALES RISE

let the sign up list begin...?

lol he got banned

lol why was he banned haha... wtf

My guess is that it was because he was using every thread he posted in to spam about his book and book release, basically trying to advertise for free.

What I don't get is why that guy in the local girl missing in LA thread got banned and Hondaracer got banned for basically just stating their view/opinions that maybe a mod didn't like, seems touch sensitive no?

i've been saying for ages, RS needs some board to review mods actions.

they conduct business with no reprimands.

not to shit on anyone's feelings but it's basically like the LAPD. No code of conduct, code of honor, and no reprimands. There are plenty of bans that are not fully warranted or could be solved with much less punishment. But they don't care enough, or want to "waste" enough effort or time to do the job right. Even though that is their job when they signed up for it.

RS is not just some highschool forum anymore. It's a real business making money on traffic flow. Business cannot be conducted based on how you feel.


If the bans are temporary (reasonable), i can understand, but forever, is the same as executing someone on the street with no trial. especially a 2001 account where you know for 11.9999 of the 12 years he was relatively ok, and just one slip up and gone forever.

I will look into the hondaracer banning but you're almost talking like RS is a public service and that we have to report everything to our members.There are reprimands but they happen behind closed doors. In fact, a few mods have been let go b/c of they got too ban happy. Most bans are temporary though it may not seem that way.

btw, its often more than a few slips. We may not ban right away but our mods often give members several chances and private warnings. You know this as well as anyone as you've been banned yourself a few times and yet we let you back in didn't we?

anyone down to go book signing still an hour left lol

every ban has to have a reason unless it's blatantly obvious, and even then it has to be entered in records.

I am still waiting for a reasoning as it was absent from hondaracer's file. (yes every user has one and it is updated everytime something is done)

this is how it stands:

when the reason for Hondaracer's banning gets amended, and agreed by the mod group, the ban will stick.

if the reason is missing and not amended within 48 hrs, the ban will be reversed.

If you disagree with a ban, feel free to email the mod or the admins. We will review.

that has always been the case, didn't you get the memo??

Yeah i've been let back in a few times but this was years back (rules were different, you could get away with a lot worse shit and still not get banned due to favouritism, or get banned without a thought due to being unfavoured), and there were huge threads of complaints and pages and pages of written complaints and attacks back and forth to get to THIS stage.

it wasn't like this before.

and if people didn't say anything they'd stay banned. that's what i don't like.
people shouldn't have to fight back for an unfair ban or a ban that could be turned temporary (but they didn't know, so the perma sticks).

that and the public doesn't know, so if we don't know, we get worried. and people will worry if they step out of line they'll be gone forever as well.

it's fear. and it puts a divide between the mods and users... aka cop haters are born.


no rs isnt a public service, it's a private one, in which you make money from us.

you don't have to report everything, but it is obvious that some information that can be let out to let users feel more satisfied, and be at a better/equal level of understanding of everything.

you keep everything behind closed doors, and the same mistakes will keep being made.


people aren't psychic, if punishment is handed out to one user, no one else knows why or how, the same mistake is bound to be made.



that's good to know.

and no. what memo? i'm not a mod. as a mod it is your job to make sure we see the memo.
if it was just internally discussed how would anyone know? i bet 99% of users don't know this. and of the 1% that do know, 90% of them are mods.

in my mind all i see is someone gets banned and that's it.






people make threads and then some mod randomly cuts in and throws in some last words then also assumes the conclusion of the topic and closes the thread down automatically giving them the last word (like really? why should ANY thread be CLOSED down man... what if people REALLY want to talk about it? why not just throw it into fightclub and people that REALLY want to talk about it can talk about it all they want... right?)

and what's even worse is lately, other mods are too lazy to check that the thread is actually closed and keep posting, sometimes multiple times, basically (whether or not it is intentional) parading their take on the discussion, when no one else can even fucking reply.

there's a bunch of small things that could be improved with minimal effort if someone just took the time and thought about it and wrote the rules down. the users and mods would be in a much better relationship and there wouldn't be all this ego tripping mods vs groups of users.


but like i said, the only replies i ever get are something along the lines of "we aren't here to serve you"
or we arent a public service, or whatever. etc.
shit son, you guys volunteered for that position. i'm sure there are 100's of users that would happily do the same AND do the administrative work that comes with it.


I mean, yes this 48 hour thing and history update thing is a huge leap from vs 10 or even 5 years ago.

but Im still pushed to think there would be some cases where nothing is entered 48 hours in, and the user still stays banned (maybe he was an unknown user, newb or just a lurker).
or there is just a quick agreement amongst the mods (who are all on the same team to begin with), and they'll just enter some quick update stating some reason and all the mods agree and they just ban the guy and throw the key out.

what i'm getting at is, there's still a lot of subjective discrimination. there's no real impartial judge.
I know it's asking for a lot, and wishful thinking. but it's true. you see it happen so often.
mod a bans user x. mod a states reason. other mods hate user x too. they all agree. done. key thrown out.


an example is the guy that got banned in the girl missing in LA.
thanks to the "thanks/fail" feature, you can see many people agree with the fact that the user was banned on unjust means (or appear to be unjust to the users because we can't see anything else).

and there are 0 fails. you can already get a feel of user sentiment there. shouldn't it be automatically looked into and then a mod should reply letting the users know why it was justified?

or it could just heat up to be another mod vs user flame war.


I just want you guys to know the user end perspective, and how things could flow more smoothly... with not that much more effort.
the general user population would probably appreciate it and respect mods a lot more.

just a thought man.

I dont know want this thread to turn into a users vs mods thing but your concerns have been heard. I will see what we can do to open up the lines of communication between users and mods. For now, if members are that curious as to why a member got banned or if they're curious as to whether the material they are posting is ok, post in members supoort.

Fuck. Yes.

Ulic's not alone. Clearly, look at the 'Thanks'.

First, Bcrdukes. Second, RWB. Third, LA Chick. Fourth, Money Motherfucker.

In a matter of a few days, four threads have devolved to Mod vs. User talks.

I've given my opinion before, and it's not always well-received.... but, like Ulic, I've only been expressing the thoughts of most RS users.

A major rift is opening between Mods and Users, and its easily fixable.

Open a new forum/thread;
Update it when moderation decisions are made;
Allow Users to voice an opinion;
Give consideration to that opinion;
Update with final decision, which doesn't necessarily need to be in line with the Users opinions.
Repeat each time a ban/points/mass post deletions/etc. occur.
Allow ongoing posts from Users and be open to hearing opinions, questions, concerns.

A dialogue on bans, points, post "pruning," and the like, does not need to be kept secret. It's not like we're asking RS to post its financial records, we just want to be able to voice an opinion on what happens in OUR little community. I know, "RS is not a democracy"... but, Dictatorships aren't exactly popular, and everyone here has the choice to find another way to entertain themselves if they dislike the atmosphere.

VCC is on life-support and Glove's new BChondas site is thriving, because of VERY similar issues arising and going ignored. I see internal memos for one of the large internet forum companies, and again, they've had VERY similar issues arise, they've gone ignored, and they felt major repercussions in turn.

It's not a major, complicated issue.

I don't see why it needs to be made into one.

There are a lot of very intelligent, successful people here on RS, allowing them to voice opinions would only be beneficial.

Just my opinion, I'm not out to ruffle feathers.

We're talking about completely different scenarios with each user though. If you guys want to talk about it, I would recommend opening a new thread in the support forum. This particular thread resulted in a ban that you can't argue against (it wasn't the first case of spam by this user).

I'll close this thread, because honestly I don't think it deserves any more free publicity. This isn't to be confrontational, I just think a dedicated thread in the support forum is a better place to discuss these issues.