The recent bans on PianoWorld

MBiG

Hello all, Really a very good idea. Opening this forum in parallel with PW, thank you very much. On the subject of the ban.

First of all I would like to say that I am very sorry about all this. Especially the fact that the thread was closed because of my OT.

I would like to apologise again to everyone in the forum and especially to you, Tyr.

Regarding the incident itself, I can only say that apart from the posts as they are to be read in the thread, no other posts were made. So no direct attack or denigration of a member.

I was banned without warning.

My ban lasts until 10/15.

How long Mac and Pete have been banned I can't say of course.

As soon as my ban is over I will immediately contact the admin and ask for the thread to be unlocked.

If I have to give up my account at PW for this, or if a small compensation for the administrative process would be necessary, this is also fine with me.

I absolutely agree with my ban because of OT, but not so much with the fact that the thread was closed immediately.

I am against colective punishment. I also think that Mac and Pete were punished too harshly.

I apologise again so much, Tyr.

Feel free to post this in the thread at PW as well. As long as it helps to clarify the situation.

Many thanks and greetings, MBiG

QuasiUnaFantasia

Quasi checking in …

Great job, CyberGene! Given how easily people may be banned from PW, it's good to have a backup-plan for reaching out.

A few years ago there was some sabre-rattling from Frank, and in response a reddit-group was set up by ABF'ers for the same purpose: https://www.reddit.com/r/PianoAdultBeginners. Luckily, it has so far not been needed much.

Hi MBiG, I am so sorry you were given a ban. In my opnion it is unreasonable in the exstreme for this ban to have been given since you had already pledged to stay on topic forthwith.

I contacted the moderator to have the thread re-opened, and he was VERY unfriendly, claiming the thread had been destroyed (partly because of my posts), and there was "no way" he was going to re-open it. He also said that "time outs" and "bans" had been given. I much suspect that MacMacMac and Pete14 were given outright bans.

I, for my part, am also sorry about the closure of the thread, and my part in this, but unlike so many others in PW, who have taken the moderator into defence, I firmly believe that the thread was destroyed only by the one closing it. Not by anyone else.

CyberGene

@MBiG

I think you're too hard on yourself. As has been discussed on that PW thread, the bans were way too harsh and I don't think your little off-topic deserved a ban or the topic being closed. Maybe there were other posts that were deleted (by Mac and Pete) but yours was so innocent I really think you should not feel guilty at all. And I believe they will eventually unlock the thread.

As an off topic (oh, well, I'm a mod here and I don't need to say that I'm starting an off topic but the old habits die hard…), I've been installing different extensions to this forum software (Flarum.org) and I just installed an extension that can split/move posts into new/other threads. If PW was updated to a modern forum software, it would be much easier for mods to just split some off topic into a new thread for people to vent and keep the big and important topic intact.

Tyr

Don't worry MBiG, the PW admins are freaking out every now and then. I offered some VSTs in the past that i don't use and even as a private person it was removed because of "no advertising" without having an option to do this "safely".

I don't like the PW Moderation in general.

David B

Tyr I don't like the PW Moderation in general.

That's interesting. I really don't know anything about the moderators in the Digital Piano Section because I only see them when they lock threads or ban people. I was a moderator in a Beretta Forum (Gun forum) for years and I was heavily involved in most of the discussions that took place on it. People knew me very well. I was involved in lots of long debates and discussions. The only thing I didn't like about serving as a moderator was enforcing the owner's rules which I tried not to do much of. 😀 I mostly just moved threads around and put them in the appropriate sections, helped people with their accounts, and intermediated when there was personal disputes. After 5 years on piano world, I don't have one clue what the moderators are like.

God Bless,

David

arc

David B

Hi David! You are bringing an important point to the discussion. The fact is the the PW moderators do not contribute at all to the organization and optimization of the forum's contents. They also do not engage in discussions. The mods are mostly silent except except when they lock threads and ban users. I remember asking a mod a while ago to merge two threads together and got a rude reply saying that if the threads are not organized is because the users do not follow the rules. The worse is that the PW owners want to make a profit out of the forum. Maybe one day they will understand that PW is what it is not because of the mods but because of its community - including the OT posts.

MacMacMac

Hi guys. I found you. When I read about this place I should have guessed that a software guy would be the one to set it up. 🙂

To clear up some items:

It was suggested that posts in the PW thread in question were deleted for sexist comments. Yes, two posts were deleted, one mine and one Pete14's. But neither had anything remotely sexist. Not at all.
My now-deleted post was a eye-roll on the off-topic aspects of that thread, with a note saying "Isn't this where Pete comes in and takes us on a new tangent?" And he did. The mod chided me for egging Pete on. The result was that Pete was perma-banned and I was temp-banned.

I really regret that Pete was perma-banned. For me that's the worst part of all this. If any of you have any influence and are willing to urge the powers to allow him to return, please do so if you're so inclined.

The mod was correct that my ill-considered post was inducement to Pete. But I'm also bothered by the hyper-sensitivity to off-topic posts. (I guess CG is of like mind considering he was once temp-banned for going off-topic.)

But given that the bans involved posts that contained no ill words … Nothing vile, crude, or vulgar. Nothing derogatory or threatening. Nothing argumentative, combative, or insulting … I'm troubled that off-topic gets the boot whilst insulting arguments do not. So I don't think I'll be back. Eleven years is quite enough, eh?

Side note: Having lived for a decade with the archaic BBS that is PW, it's refreshing to see this one. I don't know what is the underlying BBS system here … but it's clearly modern and superior to what runs underneath PW.

CyberGene

MacMacMac

Welcome, Mac, glad to see you. And as I supposed, the bans were indeed unnecessary. I'm sorry for Pete. I admit that in the past I've been rather annoyed by his constant sarcasm, however I started appreciating his humor so much that I always expect his posts 🙂 Hopefully he will register here.

MacMacMac Side note: Having lived for a decade with the archaic BBS that is PW, it's refreshing to see this one. I don't know what is the underlying BBS system here … but it's clearly modern and superior to what runs underneath PW.

Believe it or not, I'm a total newbie with everything related to web technologies and web programming. But it's been so streamlined and easy now! I just looked for open-source forum solutions that work great both on desktop and mobile and Flarum.org came up. It's a very customizable solution with many people writing extensions for it, you just install them. For instance I installed many extensions: WYSIWYG editor, automatic video/image inline (i.e. you paste a YouTube video link and it becomes an embedded video within the post), likes and reactions, split/move posts, etc. There's even a plugin that would allow for you to paste a picture from your clipboard while writing a post and it will automatically upload it to Imgur and then create a proper image tag with the address, etc (haven't yet installed it though, will se if people need it, so that the forum isn't too heavy).

MacMacMac

CyberGene If that image handling capability can do what you claim, then it beats anything I've seen before. All the clumsy parts would be gone. Just put an image into your post as though you were putting it into a Word document? Nice.

Side note: My only real web development experience was a project to migrate mainframe user-screens (supply chain, manufacturing, order processing) to Unix under Oracle Manufacturing software. Back then (1998) there was no such thing as a web app. You had to write code for everything. I even had to invent my own login system. 🙁

Things have changed dramatically, eh? Just plug in a whole BBS system and shove in some addons. That's a shock to us old-timers.

I wonder … where are you hosting this BBS?

Also … do you intend to open this to anyone? Or is it by invitation?

David B

Wow! I didn't know Pete14 was permanently banned. That's harsh.

Drew-r

MacMacMac

Macmacmac, i’m here already so obviously for now here is p open to anybody

CyberGene

MacMacMac If that image handling capability can do what you claim, then it beats anything I've seen before. All the clumsy parts would be gone. Just put an image into your post as though you were putting it into a Word document? Nice.

Well, installed it and it is working now 🙂 See the below picture. I made a screenshot on my computer, it was in the clipboard and then I just pasted it here and it was automatically uploaded to Imgur (I created a special account on Imgur for this to work, so all the pictures we upload on the forum will be posted there in that account) and an automatic tag appeared in the post to embed the picture. Nice, eh!

CyberGene

MacMacMac I wonder … where are you hosting this BBS?

Also … do you intend to open this to anyone? Or is it by invitation?

It's a hosting company I discovered today: https://www.a2hosting.com, I chose a server in Michigan, so it should be fast for you US guys 😉

Anybody can register but I'm not sure how people can discover about that forum. I posted a link to the forum on PW but it's a thin ice and I could get banned for that. Since my intention is not to steal people, I believe they should be OK with that. I will have to check if this forum is automatically indexed by Google and other search engines or I need to do something though. But in any case feel free to invite other people.

Drew-r

😉

QuasiUnaFantasia

Apparently the NV5-thread has been re-opened on PW. All the recent OT posts have been removed.

CyberGene

So, people can either paste pictures directly in the posts (from clipboard) and they will automatically appear, or they can press the picture button below (the second one after the reply, next to an eye) and select a picture from their computer to upload.

Not sure if you noticed it, but you can select some text from a post and a "quote" button will appear next to the section, so that you insert a quote to only this text in a reply 🙂 No need for manual editing anymore.

BTW, I installed a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor which is enabled by pressing the eye button below, it would allow you to see how the post would look with all formatting applied, etc instead of using tags.

Irmin

I'm from South Africa. Speed so far seems decent. Not sure how a long thread with many images would perform. Maybe will find out soon…

MacMacMac

The topic is PW bans. But I asked about web hosting and CG replied!

That's off topic! You're both banned! 🙂

theodorn

Great job, CyberGene, of course I joined! You're obviously a doer, not just a talker. We've been talking about an alternative to PW, given their mod policy has raised some questions, but you're the one who did something about it.

I will probably not leave Piano World, but it'll interesting to see how this thing plays out. If we get a lot of members, new or from PW, I might very well call this forum my home, when it comes to piano related discussions.

If things turn out that way, I might very well stop using PW altogether - now I contradicted myself, what a great way to start on a new forum board. 😁

TomLC

Well, this forum loads in much faster than PW. And it is a secure web site. The mods may have reopened the NV5 thread partially in response to this opening up.