I'm on TPU since 2005 and in the past couple of years I noticed the moderation became extreme.
Like in real life discussion, it would be nice sometimes to make a joke, or even a tiny profanity, or even non-specific general insult. Some sense of humor.
But here the moderation over the years became worse even than government officials. Here you automatically get a warning even for bread crumbs.
God forbid if one makes a sexist joke, or post a funny GIF in response to a comment. Oh!!! "Only link or image posted".
@W1zzard
Maybe its time to do changes to the mod team.
Thank you for the feedback and your perspective.
Let's be clear, you crossed a line and earned points. We don't hand them out like candy, but if you feel that way, then I hope you invested in a good toothbrush.
Like your warning, this topic will fade over time, folks will move onto more important things like enjoying TPU as the great tech site and forum that it is, some might even leave TPU over it, but most will stay, some lurkers may even join after reading this topic. I hope like your warning might yet do for you, that some good comes of this topic for many members, because I know there is good coming from this topic within the moderation team.
We are a strong team of dedicated members to TPU that do this moderation thing for free while aiming to do our best at it, and you've done a fine job of showing the community that we're all in lock-step in support of each other with a focus on making TPU the best it can be and meet W1z's expectations of us, which may or may not align with your perception.
We strive to constantly improve, we aren't perfect, we make mistakes, we aren't emotionless robots, we try to learn and grow as we move forward in this community/moderation relationship, and sometimes it seems we fall out of alignment. You starting this topic might just be an example of that misalignment. Its okay, it happens. I hope we can someday re-align, but clearly the TPU you see and TPU I see and moderate are different. Of course I'm biased as Pro-TPU though, otherwise why would I be here posting as a super-admin? W1z have long ago booted me if I were anything but.
To try and plead your case publicly though,...sigh... I mean, I hope you feel a little better for it, but do realize you're explicitly breaking the rules here for so you can host a public fit to "toss out the evil moderatorz". I guess for someone that's been a member for so long, I expected better of you as you did us it seems. So, it seems you're not the only one disappointed in what you stirred up.
That being said, this topic really ended up being a great discussion overall, and I want to thank every member for taking time to leave comments, feedbacks, challenges, complaints, etc., including you Regeneration. Sometimes a good vent session can be extremely useful all around.
To be clear, we don't have to be like reddit, 4chan, YouTube comments, Discord, or any of that which may be more supportive of sexist or hateful or distasteful shit posting... that's clearly part of what makes TPU unique in the 2020's it seems. Some don't appreciate it, many do.
Maybe you're right, and there's time to do changes, but maybe its not JUST moderation that changes, maybe some of you need to change your perspective and try to be better yourselves, maybe its a mix of both staff/mod and community changes? Maybe its not us that need to leave? While I'd hate to see someone leave over something like this, if you're not a fit for TPU, and we're not a fit for you, then don't fight it if you're unwilling to be better, but don't persist in making TPU worse for your own personal entertainment or gain. This is a place to help folks, build them up, and have a good time doing it. We allow what I consider is a fair amount of BS and joking here, but if you cross the line and get on our radar, expect points. If you need a dirtier, more inappropriate, and offensive community, then by all means go find one, there's tens of thousands of options out there.
Otherwise, we should all continually strive to improve, do better, be better and all row in the same direction of making TPU the best damn community on the Internet. Resistance is futile, clearly, you've been coming back since 2005, and I hope you'll stick around.
The mod team doesn't have to issue a warning/lock thread/ban for every silly remark, stupid GIF, or troll post. That's what the LQ is for - as you suggested. You can just delete posts without further action. You don’t have to giveaway points for every tiny infraction.
Oh if we only did any of that to a fraction of the scope you're claiming we are, we'd probably see a lot more hate here, lol. People come up with some wild claims and stories about us and horrible we are, these are pretty relaxed TBH. Thank you.
Maybe I'm more familiar to these public challenge topics talking about how much stuff we miss and how big of failures we are in that respect. Are we getting that good now? We're overbearing, omnipresent, AND horrible? Maybe we've been upgraded...
Well gotta say there are too many ways to moderate in TPU, mods can do these:
1.Edit posts
2.Delete posts
3.LQing posts
4.Reply Ban
5.Give Infraction points
For the sake of consistency in moderating, I think that 1.Editting and 2.Deleting posts should not be used at all.
So what about the spam posts, porn/racist/sexist/offtopic/extremelyoffensive posts, malicious links, etc. that occur? Those all should just persist? On a tech forum? Make it make sense please, I believe we will have to reach an impasse on this.
You know how much garbage would still exist here that is wholly not appropriate if we never edited or deleted anything? Just so you can see the original flow of a topic no matter how inappropriate? Not so sure the trade-off is really worth it TBH.
Some things don't fit here and need to be removed. Sorry if that bothers you.
I haven't seen one derailed thread got cleaned, rather they are all locked.
Editing and Deleting posts are never fair, as they can hide evidences of users wrong-doing (or not). Let say some mods can either edit your post or just straght up give out infractions depending on their moods.
I never really viewed myself as evil, horrible, and super moody...interesting perspective and claims of us you make. I'm sorry you question our integrity so effortlessly, but not so sure this is a one-sided issue. We don't have hidden agendas, tin-foil hat conspiracies against TPU members or any of that, I assure you.
Don't just take my word for it, if there's ever a challenge of that, please contact super mods and/or even W1z directly in DM. We can see what was deleted, edited, changed, etc. W1z can see everything. Oftentimes if something is deleted, we also try to notify the poster of such. It might not be on your radar since it wasn't your post, but that really isn't your business then, it is the poster's.
Again, I want to thank everyone for taking time to engage in this topic and provide their thoughts, feedback, opinions, etc. I also ask that everyone please take time to read the forum rules and guidelines (link in sig). Don't do what Regen did here, please DM us if you have a dispute, we are open to constructive conversations, and if you make a good case for an infraction, it will be reviewed.
Heck, DM us if you just want to have a conversation, we much prefer to be around as members and not have to moderate topics or toss out points (contrary to some claims made prior), its much more fun to be a member here with you all. But, if you cross a line, and break the rules we're expected to uphold, we will act once its on our radar. If you see something, don't engage, report it and move on, get involved and you get on our radar too.
At the end of the day, contact W1z as the site admin, he ultimately holds us accountable for how we represent TPU in the community. Fortunately since we do this for free, he can't dock our pay! But we love what we do here, its a tough, thankless, underappreciated role...but seeing the bigger picture and aiming for the greater good of TPU still makes it worth it. This entire community is worth it, haters included.
); I don't post much, but read a fair bit. In the cases where I see threads closed, more often than not, I'm somewhat pleasantly surprised that a) someone is even there to moderate, b) that someone cares to moderate something rather than just letting it happen and dealing with the fallout later and c) that at least from what I can see, people don't go opening a new thread, carrying on their fighting from before while now also talking shit about the moderators. All things I've seen plenty of times on other forums and in "civilized" cords 
) with hopelessly complex backstories that cause us to (re)act in different ways to different things.
