Bad Moderation In Other Magic Forums

[xfxf]

Hi guys,

I wanted to hear yor take on this thing I've encountered in another Magic forum and general acceptable behaviour in Magic community.

When I logged in to my account I saw that my account was banned with the reason being:

"Banned for being nlaz123 (ripper)"

I figured since I use web based proxies to access forums during office hours there could have been an IP sharing issue with this other user "nlaz123" who happens to be a ripper appereantly. I created an appeal thread and tried to discuss my case. One of the mods replied "I don't see any other messages from you" and that was it. I tried explaining my situation with 50 views and no replies on the appeal thread, then I tried to contact one of the mods over Skype and finally created an alias account (which I have not used to interact with the forum in any way) just to send PMs to the mods requesting them to take the time to reply to my ban appeal.

Today I saw that this alias user is banned as well (no reason given) without so much as a reply to any of my messages or posts. I'm quite confused with such behaviour. I understand that ripper stands for someone who rips-off other people in the forums (English is not my native language and I heard this phrase for the first time). But I haven't traded anything on the forums nor sold anything. Why would a user get banned and then stonewalled all of a sudden for no reason? I think it's just plain bad moderation but what do you guys think? Any opinions?

Thanks!

[Julian23]

Why would a user get banned and then stonewalled all of a sudden for no reason? I think it's just plain bad moderation but what do you guys think?Thanks!

No, it's sharing the same IP with a ripper. When you use a proxy to access the internet, you're running certain risks and this is one of them. I understand your situation, being at work etc., but there's not a lot the moderators of that other forum can do about it.

I guess threads like this are one of the reasons why The Source doesn't allow for trading/selling in the first place.

[Sims]

No, it's sharing the same IP with a ripper. When you use a proxy to access the internet, you're running certain risks and this is one of them. I understand your situation, being at work etc., but there's not a lot the moderators of that other forum can do about it.

I guess threads like this are one of the reasons why The Source doesn't allow for trading/selling in the first place.

This about sums it up. When you run through proxies this is a risk that you take. Unfortunately without a change of IP (different proxy, perhaps) you might be able to get back into the forums but you'd also have to not allow yourself to stay who you are because they'll just ban you again thinking you're the same person.

This isn't really the reason the Source doesn't allow trades/sales on the site. The major reason is that the site becomes liable for losses if people get ripped off because it hosted the transaction, as far as I am aware, and that isn't something Zilla or the Modstaff really want to deal with. Side effects like this are just a minor nuisance compared to legal liabilities.

[Julian23]

Yeah, that's what I meant; was referring to the general problem of ripping people off.

[xfxf]

Thanks for the replies guys, I feel more at peace now :) I still think that the mods over there could have at least read my messages and then double check my IP entries, since then I use my real IP and a simple nslookup would have revealed that I'm coming from a legitimate corporate IP outside the US and not likely related to the original ripper.

I agree with you and the non-trade policy being applied here as I now see that it can create lots of sticky situations.