Incorrectly Marked 'Infraction'

[Asher01]

I am only posting here because the site Administrator seems unwilling to further respond to my polite messages.

About a month ago, I gave some advice to somebody who asked a question that nobody else seemed willing to answer.
The next time I logged in I got a notice that I had been given an Infraction Warning and had a message saying that I gave "Grossly irresponsible advise or response" to a certain thread.

I checked the link to the alleged thread and found that I had never posted in said thread... so I checked my mail for a quote of what my "Grossly irresponsible advise or response" was and tracked down the correct thread I posted what the matching quote was to.

I showed this to WA (The Site Admin) and also pointed out that if my advice was irresponsible that he should of explained why and given a better suggestion for not just the OP's benefit but also for mine...

WA responded to me with an apology, explaining that he thought that because my response wasn't very lengthy he just skimmed it and assumed it was a "drive by post to bump up post counts" ... maybe he may also of assumed that seeing that in less than a week I had made 14 posts.... some of which are questions for help, some are responses to other peoples request... some that have either been thanked in the thread, in a private message and one via the "Thank Button".

He then responded to the thread with a link to an external site that may have answered the OP's question with an HTML snippet... one that incorporated my, arguably amateur, suggestion.

I then requested that seeing as it was now apparent that I not only wasn't a "drive by spammer" if I could have the wrongly tagged 'Infraction' removed from my profile.
No response was given back.

I then again sent another mail suggesting that as I always thrive to give as polite and helpful responses as I possibly can in whatever Web Community I post, that it was unfair to keep a public 'Infraction' tag on my profile when it has already been established that it was wrongly placed that it would only be fair to have it removed.
Still no response.

I now post here, to ask why WA seems to give the impression to me that he doesn't seem to care about a member of the forum... is it just because I don't have 5,000 posts with 1,000 thanks? If I did would he of taken more consideration? Maybe it's a case of "plenty of fish in the sea" ?

It's a shame as I would be willing to contribute to a community of helpful webcoders in an equal willingness to learn from them as well. However I would be reluctant to do so if through my efforts I was discouraged to do so via quick triggered moderation.

Sorry for the lengthy post, it would look very silly and noobish if I just posted something like "Infraction unfair! Please play nice!".

Thanks to any with the patience to read.
Asher

[Rowsdower!]

I can't speak to any of the above except to say that there isn't a public listing of infractions that I know of. Had you not posted this thread I would have never known that you had been given one.

All things considered please bear in mind that this forum is a hobby for WA and for many who post answers here. I'm personally thankful that WA and other people take the time to moderate this forum as well as they do, because it would be a real eyesore without it. Controlling the VAST amount of spam posted on this site means using a pretty big hammer to beat it all down and that certainly opens up the potential for errors.

Yes, mistakes can happen. But it's really not a big deal to have a temporary infraction on your record. It will expire and you will not be banned over it. It's definitely not worth making a public spectacle over and flaming the site admin to try to get a resolution.

That's just silly. Get back out there and contribute to the forum and you'll forget about it in no time.

That's my 2-cents-worth.

[WA]

Hi Asher01:
I probably should have tried and responded to your PM, but please understand that due to the number of daily issues that pile up (both on the forums and outside it), it means I sometimes will only respond to a message that demands a active response from me. In this case I didn't for two reasons:

1) The infraction given to you, as Rowsdower correctly suspected, isn't visible to any member except moderators, removing the primary reason why you wish it to be reversed. It's a 100% private record in other words.

2) The infraction given to you was a warning, not an actual infraction. Warnings can be thought of as the lazy's moderator's way (or admin in this case) of sending a member a quick heads up on a concern before it becomes an issue. It doesn't nearly carry as much weight as an actual infraction. Like a pm sent to you, it should be thought of as a one way and one time quick reminder to you. Conceptually no one thinks of a pm as something that should be reversed once sent; in a way that's the same for a warning as well.

3) Due to the above reasons, plus the fact that these records are important for moderators to refer to when making a decision on a member in the future, I felt it should stay. And because of this (no further active action warranted on my part), I chose to simply communicate those things simply with a non response. Not the best way to handle it I know, but as mentioned, it's the only realistic way sometimes for me to handle all the issues that demand tangible actions on my part on a daily basis.

[Asher01]

I was unaware infraction tags weren't publicly visible, otherwise I may not of posted this thread. A lot of web communities I've been a member/moderator of do have public tags to mark spammers/scammers/previously banned ect ect.

I apologize if anybody believes that my aim was to 'flame' or 'troll' these forums.
Please understand I only posted out of frustration due to my uncorrected belief that my profile was unfairly, permanently marked, possibly creating a biased opinion.

If a moderator feels it'd be best to delete this thread I wouldn't mind.

Apologies,
Asher

[Fumigator]

Yeah... don't sweat it... I got two infractions in one day for the same post once long ago, and it was fairly upsetting, because I felt it was quite unfair... since then, I've become accustomed to the moderator that gave me the infractions and I realize he has a famous reputation for his "infract everything, let god sort em out" attitude. It's not that he's a jerk, but he's just a bit heavy with the infraction hammer. Now that I know of his heavy hand, I don't worry about the infractions (even though they STILL show up to me on my private settings page!)

I hope you stick around and contribute to the forum; it's people like you that keep give this community value.

[webdev1958]

Yeah... don't sweat it... I got two infractions in one day for the same post once long ago, and it was fairly upsetting, because I felt it was quite unfair... since then, I've become accustomed to the moderator that gave me the infractions and I realize he has a famous reputation for his "infract everything, let god sort em out" attitude. It's not that he's a jerk, but he's just a bit heavy with the infraction hammer. Now that I know of his heavy hand, I don't worry about the infractions

yeah, I agree - don't sweat on it Asher.

I don't know if you post/lurk on other forums, but if you do you'll find that most of them will have 1 or 2 moderators that let their "power" go to their head and it's easy just to let them play their games.

Overall, the real moderators are pretty good. It's the "wannabe" moderators you need to watch out for

Unless you do something really silly continously, the infractions expire after a few weeks and so they really have no effect at all once you have a clean slate again.

btw - I think I still have 1 infraction hanging over my head atm ...better go check before I say anymore...hehehe

[oracleguy]

Alright since this thread has clearly reached its conclusion, I am going to close it.