Latest developments - 12/28/2013

Updates as of 12/28/2013:

#1. First, in the interest of fairness, another mod (whose opinion I respect) indicated that other site mods were consulted on the suspension and agreed to it. Puts things into a somewhat different perspective. I still think it was a gross overkill, but as I said, I respect his opinions in general.

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#2. Interestingly, my suspension - suddenly - was ended as of yesterday (1 week instead of 30 days). No official explanation.

Could be because several people indicated in public (comments and chat) that they disagreed with the idea that I was "rude".

Could be because my chat with the second mod showed him that there was more than one side to the story.

Could be simply because the mods decided that I was so public with this suspension and would rather avoid the Barbara Streisend effect and generate more sympathy for me (or simply distract people).

Could be because there are other users on the site not happy with the moderation for other reasons (I know there are) and the mods were concerned that the optics looked bad for them and the site.

Could be a combination. Or some other reason.

Heck, I can even be vain and hope that it was because the second mod got a sense I was ready to take my marbles and go play on other sites - and no matter what my serial downvoter (see update #3) thinks, my contributions to the sites content are worth something.

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#3 Lo and behold, my anonymous "friend" appeared again. I will blog about this serial downvoter later.

Today, as is typical, I got two downvotes following the usual pattern:

• Both happened at the same time 
• One to a new question I posted yesterday. 
• leaving aside that someone downvotes many if not all questions I post as soon as I post them, not worrysome by itself. I will do some stats later and blog about this.
• Second downvote was on an answer that was 2 weeks old. ...
• ... with no updates on that post in the last 2 weeks
• ... on a post that was 100% unrelated to the first downvote (different tag)
• ... on a post where ONLY my answer was downvoted and not 3 others. 
• ... on an answer that was not too bad (20/0 upvotes so far) as per people's subjective opinion
• ... and also objectively a good answer because it was the only one that had a reference to specific book in the universe.
• Yet it was the only one of 3 downvoted.

The likeliest way they would have seen that second post would be to search out my recent posts to find something to DV.

 Theoretically, they could have bumped into my answer while randomly browsing. But again, this was downvoted at exactly same time as my recent question - in a totally different tag and 2 weeks old. So that's not likely.

Other examples of how that mod treated me "fairly"

• A chat comment after I posted a question raising my suspicion that someone was serially downvoting me:
• "If he wasn't framing it as 'why am I being downvoted AT ALL?!?!', then it would look less paranoid. But it seems he only really cares about not losing any rep ever."
• Note that this was in response to a meta post showing clear patterns of serial downvotes (several downvotes in the space of minutes on distinct questions of mine).

• On that same Meta question, he first tried repeatedly to shout me down that I am wrong - and then when forced to admit that the data clearly shows that someone was downvoting me as a user (and not just my posts for poor quality) said this:
•  @DVK Filtering out all the upvotes you get, and listing a bunch of downvotes is not a pattern. You're just asking "does anyone get downvotes?" The answer is of course, "yes." 
• Can you get more condescending than that as a mod talking to a user worried about serial downvotes? 
• Half of your update's questions aren't random. They're some of your lowest-voted questions. If a low-rep user were to sort your questions by votes and go to the last page, I would bet those 3 would be sitting right there. – [MOD] Sep 8 '12 at 15:51
• Oh, so now we are admitting that someone downvoted posts because they are mine?
• [My response, trying to show why his attitude is wrong] Listen to yourself. You just described someone deliberately seeking questions from a specific user to downvote. And you don't see ANY problem with that? Or with the fact that you treated me like a whiny person only caring about no downvotes. – DVK Sep 8 '12 at 17:21
• @DVK All I did was point out an actual pattern. You haven't bothered to do that. You also said I don't have any particular desire to ask SE to investigate it. so no I don't see any problem with this.
• Great. A mod sees no problem with either a particular user being serially downvoted, OR with rudely insinuating I was just caring about "not losing any rep" on chat when referring to my post.
  

• When I had a disagreement with another user (who STARTED by being rude - including by posting a meta post calling a question of mine "useless"), took entirely his side, publically chastised me for "rudeness" (despite some other users agreeing that my wording wasn't rude in below comments, AND ignoring his rudeness 100%), and probably used that incident as an excuse to suspend me as well.

• He closed at least 2 of my questions unilaterally (mod-binding vote before 4 other people VTCed) that were later, after Meta discussion, decided to be invalid closures.

Actual suspension message, including the comment that triggered it.

Here's the actual message from the mod (name redacted)

Hello,

I'm writing in reference to your Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange account:

http://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/976/dvk

On this post you made a (now-deleted) comment:

@Beofett - the reason I'm so set on this is I have seen many cases where some ignorant bastard comes screaming "you can't answer this" only to have a real expert show up a day later and produce a perfect answer. Unfortunately, this site happens to have enough of a critical mass of ignoramuses with enough rep to trigger too many false positives like that.

There's a relevant page from the help center that reads:

Be Nice. Treat others with the same respect you'd want them to treat you. We're all here to learn together. Be tolerant of others who may not know everything you know. Bring your sense of humor.

This is the 3rd time you've been told to not call people names. Your account has been temporarily suspended for 30 days. Looking through your history I can see that you obviously have a lot of knowledge to share, we just need you to find a more constructive way to share it.

Regards,
####### redacted #######
Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange moderator

SFF moderation - because they don't care when people aren't causing ACTUAL harm to the site.

So, this is how moderation on SciFi StackExchange works:

• When someone serially downvotes different top contributors of the site -  moderators at best don't care and at worst, insult people who raise the issue. Despite being shown the clear evidence that it's deliberate and serial and related.

 

• When someone trashes good questions (including from newer users) by posting comments like "this can't be answered" without knowing what they are talking about - moderators don't care about that.

BUT, when I finally have enough of this destructive behavior, and post a comment on a meta question (NOT on a main site), without naming names - I get suspended for whole 30 days by the same moderator who doesn't seem to care, because in 3 years on the site "this is a third time I was told by him not to be rude".
For reference, that same moderator was very hostile to me previously.

Oh, and the awful wording I used on a meta comment that was worth 30 days of suspension: "ignorant bastards" and "ignoramuses" - again, not applied to a specific user but to exhibited pattern of behavior (trashing a question as bad for SFF because it "can't be answered" despite not knowing the canon well enough to even remotely know that it can).

So, in case people wonder what awful thing I did to deserve 30 days suspension from our diligent, wonderful moderators who couln't be bothered stopping actual destructive behavior on the site - you don't have to wonder anymore.

Next time you start considering providing your labor free to help SFF StackExchange, think whether it's worth your time. Because they will screw you over in favor of people who actually harm the site.

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UPDATE: There were new important developments since the suspension (including me being unsuspended early AND my serial downvoter appearing again) - see http://sffmoderation.blogspot.com/2013/12/latest-developments-12282013.html